So much for what has preceded. The author’s own discourse then opens with the heading, “A Lofty Principle,” with no basmala, word of praise, or formal introduction before it. This suggests that he had not yet finished compiling, arranging, and prefacing the work. For that reason it is not mentioned in the sources that list his writings, and had Ibn ʿUrwah not inserted it into his compendium it would have perished with other lost portions of Ibn al-Qayyim’s legacy.

Previous editions of the book
The first printing appeared at the Manīriyyah Press in Cairo in 1344 AH, under the supervision of Shaykh Muḥammad Munīr al-Dimashqī (may Allah have mercy on him), who explicitly stated that he relied on the Kawākib manuscript. Commendable though his effort was in reading and presenting the text, that edition is riddled with errors and corruptions: words and entire lines have fallen out in many places, and extraneous material was inserted without notice and without real need.

Moreover, it contains an additional passage by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—his commentary on the opening of Sūrat al-ʿAnkabūt (pp. 207–212)—without any indication that it lies outside Ibn al-Qayyim’s book. In reality this passage is unrelated to al-Fawāʾid; it occurs elsewhere in al-Kawākib al-Darārī (fols. 205a–207a) of the same manuscript. Out of his zeal to publish the works of Shaykh al-Islām and other early scholars within the Manīriyyah Epistle Series, the editor copied that treatise and printed it as an appendix to al-Fawāʾid for safekeeping and benefit, yet without distinguishing it from the main text. The result was that readers and researchers were led to suppose it formed an integral part of the book.

I have no wish to enumerate the errors, corruptions, omissions, and insertions found in that first edition. Whoever wishes to see them for himself may compare it with the edition now in his hands—or with the manuscript itself—and gauge the extent of the differences.