“…We have also recorded their virtues and noble traits, followed this with the biography of al-Fārūq, and set out everything each of them transmitted from the Prophet ﷺ in ḥadīth, together with the reports, legal rulings, and fatwas related from them. The whole came to three volumes; to Allah belong all praise and favor.”
Al-Nadwī notes (1) that Ibn Kathīr’s treatment of the two Shaykhs actually comprises two separate works in three volumes:
- A book on the life of Abū Bakr together with his Musnad, in one volume.
- A book on the life of ʿUmar and his Musnad, in two volumes—the first devoted to his biography, the second to his Musnad; the Musnad has already been discussed under item (10).
4 – Aḥādīth al-Uṣūl
Ibn Kathīr refers to this work in his Tafsīr (1/555) when commenting on the verse, “and follows a way other than that of the believers” (al-Nisāʾ 4:115). He says, “Numerous ḥadīths have been related on this matter; we have cited a good number of them in the book Aḥādīth al-Uṣūl.”
5 – A Commentary on al-Bukhārī
Ibn Kathīr began a commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī but did not complete it, a fact on which all his biographers agree. Ḥājjī Khalīfah mentions it in Kashf al-Ẓunūn (1/550), al-Baghdādī in Hadiyat al-ʿĀrifīn (1/251), Ibn al-ʿImād in Shadharāt al-Dhahab (8/399), and al-Dāwadī in Ṭabaqāt al-Mufassirīn (1/111)—all of whom state that he commented on only a portion of al-Bukhārī. Ibn Ḥajar says in al-Durrar al-Kāminah (1/399) that he “began a commentary on al-Bukhārī.”
Ibn Kathīr himself declares in al-Bidāya wa-l-Nihāya (11/250), in the entry for Imām Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī (d. 256 AH): “the author of the Ṣaḥīḥ, for whom we have provided a lengthy biography at the beginning of our commentary on his Ṣaḥīḥ.” He further states there (3/189), when discussing the ḥadīth of the beginning of revelation: “We have dealt with this at length at the start of our commentary on al-Bukhārī, in the book ‘The Beginning of Revelation,’ both in terms of its chain of transmission and its wording; to Allah belong all praise and favor.” In his Tafsīr (3/454) he likewise refers the reader to “the opening of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.”
Dr. Masʿūd al-Nadwī wonders how far Ibn Kathīr progressed in the commentary and concludes that certainty is impossible, though some indications suggest he reached at least:
– The first chapter: “How did the revelation begin?”
– The first book: “The Book of Faith.”
6 – al-Aḥkām al-Ṣaghīr, or Aḥkām al-Tanbīh
Ibn Kathīr, in Ikhtiṣār ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth (p. 191), says: “We have dealt with this in the large and the small Aḥkām.” Ibn al-ʿImād records in Shadharāt (8/397): “In his youth he authored the book al-Aḥkām arranged according to the chapters of al-Tanbīh.”