As for the book’s treatment of the works of the heart, the causes of sins and acts of disobedience and their consequences, praiseworthy and blameworthy character traits, counsels and exhortations, moral lessons, subtle insights, allusions, softening reflections, and ascetic themes, these occupy a prominent place throughout its pages.

In short, the work is replete with benefits and has rightly been entitled al-Fawāʾid (The Benefits). It differs in both subject matter and method from Badāʾiʿ al-Fawāʾid. As we have seen, al-Fawāʾid consists mostly of reflections and personal thoughts, instructive lessons and admonitions, refined insights and heart-softening pieces, with comparatively few citations from other sources. Badāʾiʿ, on the other hand, contains technical discussions drawn from various disciplines, treated with rigorous analysis and lengthier argumentation; it quotes profusely from earlier scholars and their works, adding commentary of its own. Only one passage is identical in the two books: both quote Ibn al-Jawzī’s al-Mudhish without attribution. (1)

• Establishing the book’s title and its ascription to the author:
This work was first printed at the al-Munīriyyah Press in Cairo in 1344 AH under the supervision of Shaykh Muḥammad Munīr al-Dimashqī, and the publisher issued it under the title Kitāb al-Fawāʾid. The early biographers of Ibn al-Qayyim made no mention of it and did not list any composition of his by this name in their sources. The book only gained fame after it was printed, after which modern biographers began to cite it.

The sole extant manuscript is preserved within Ibn ʿUrwah al-Ḥanbalī’s (d. … AH) work al-Kawākib al-Darārī fī Tartīb Musnad al-Imām Aḥmad ʿalā Abwāb al-Bukhārī.