Sixth: His Writings
[Prefatory Remarks]

Ibn Kathīr—may Allah have mercy on him—led a varied and integrated scholarly life. It began with the learning atmosphere of his own family and culminated in his advanced teaching career in fair Damascus, a city graced by great shaykhs and eminent authors. Closely surrounding him were his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah, his father-in-law Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī, his shaykh al-Dhahabī, and his companion Ibn al-Qayyim; every one of them wrote, authored, and delighted listeners with what they dictated and composed.

When the doors of teaching opened wide before Ibn Kathīr, the senior professorship he attained naturally called for compilation and authorship. It was therefore expected that the pen of this ḥadīth-master, exegete, historian, and jurist would produce numerous works—diverse in subject, distinguished in style, profound in substance—ranging from brief treatises to expansive encyclopedic volumes.

It is truly striking that Ibn Kathīr began writing early. This is shown by his composing the book “al-Aḥkām ʿalā Abwāb al-Tanbīh” while still young,(1) a work examined by his teacher Burhān al-Dīn al-Fazārī, who admired and praised it. Further evidence appears in the arrival of ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿah—another of his teachers—in Damascus in 725 AH; he summoned Ibn Kathīr and benefited from him in tracing the ḥadīths of al-Rāfiʿī,(2) attesting to Ibn Kathīr’s precocious expertise in ḥadīth science and his early skill in ḥadīth verification.

This passion for authorship continued beyond the age of seventy, and his eyesight failed while he was completing his large ḥadīth collection. He told his student Ibn al-Jazarī:

“I have kept writing in ‘Jāmiʿ al-Masānīd’ at night, while the lamp flickers, until my sight went with it.”(3)

His books spread during his lifetime. Copies of his “Ikhtiṣār ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth” were read aloud to him, his “al-Sīrah al-Nabawiyyah” was publicly recited in the Umayyad Mosque beneath the Dome of the Eagle,(4) and his “Jāmiʿ al-Masānīd” reached