as far as Khurasan, where a young non-Arab claimed to have memorised portions of it and travelled to Damascus to seek the author’s permission to narrate it. (1)
• The leading scholars bore witness to the excellence and precision of his writings, as well as to their wide circulation among the people. Al-Dhahabī said, “He has beneficial works.” (2) Al-ʿAynī confirms this, stating, “He produced numerous, useful books.” (3) Ibn Ḥajar remarks, “He authored many compositions on exegesis, history, and legal rulings,” and adds, “His writings spread throughout the lands during his lifetime, and people benefited from them after his death.” (4) Ibn Ḥabīb observes, “He listened, collected, authored; he delighted the ears with his fatwas and adorned them. He taught and enriched others; the pages of his legal opinions flew to distant lands. He became renowned for accuracy and refinement, and leadership in the sciences of history, ḥadīth, and tafsīr rested with him.” (5)
• All the prerequisites for fruitful authorship thus converged in Ibn Kathīr, and he became one of the foremost scholars to compose on beloved and diverse subjects. His style is spontaneous and unforced, guided by the Qur’an and the Sunnah, transcending the bounds of time so that it addresses successive generations and appears in later ages as though written especially for them.
What divine success accompanied him as he gathered the material for his books! What sincerity attended him as he shaped his words and sentences! And what pure breath flowed across his pages, winning him acceptance with Allah and with His creation!
A. Printed and Manuscript Works
- Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm
He composed it in ten volumes around 742 AH (6), yet he continued revising it until the end of his life, and he referred to it frequently in al-Bidāyah wa’l-Nihāyah.
It was first published at the expense of King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—may Allah have mercy on him—edited by Shaykh Rashīd Riḍā, together with al-Baghawī’s Tafsīr, in nine volumes at the Manār Press between 1343 and 1347 AH. Appended to it was the work Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, discovered at the end of the Meccan manuscript. It was re-issued independently of al-Baghawī in 1384 AH in four large-format volumes drawn from the Manār edition, with marginal notes by ʿAbd al-Wahhāb