In any case, the publisher is to be thanked for having taken the initiative to release this precious book and make it available, for the first time, to those thirsty for knowledge. May Allah reward him with the best recompense for the service he rendered to learning and its people.

Afterwards, subsequent printings of the book were issued on the basis of that same edition, and all of the defects we have mentioned—indeed even more—crept into every one of them, because their editors never consulted the autograph manuscript. It is truly astonishing that scholars would undertake to edit, correct, vocalise, document, and introduce a work while relying solely on the circulating printings, which contain far more errors, corruptions, and omissions than the first impression, when securing access to the original would have been easier than the toil of collating the various editions in the hope of reaching an accurate text! A photographic copy of al-Kawākib is now held in many research centres and Islamic universities, so it should have been the primary reference whenever the book was reprinted.

• This edition:
Preparation of the present edition was based on the sole surviving manuscript described earlier. By collating the first printing with that source I corrected many of its errors and corruptions, restored omissions—some exceeding a full line—and removed the material that had been added to the original. The text has thus been restored to perfect conformity with the autograph, with neither addition nor omission. I also excised the “Exegesis of the Opening of Sūrat al-ʿAnkabūt” by Shaykh al-Islām (1), because, as I have already explained, it is not part of al-Fawāʾid.