He created Adam—peace be upon him—the narratives of the prophets, and everything of like nature down to the era of the Children of Israel and the days of pagan ignorance, until prophethood reaches its culmination in the time of our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.”(1)
In our new edition this entire section has been arranged in two parts as follows:
- Part One (The Beginning and the Stories of the Prophets)
• Volume One (1): The inception of creation; “Allah is the Creator of all things”; the manner in which the Throne and the Footstool were created; the Preserved Tablet; the creation of the heavens and the earth; the creation of the angels; the creation of the jinn and the story of Satan; the creation of Adam; the stories of Idrīs, Noah, Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Israel (Jacob), Joseph, Job, Dhul-Kifl, the People of the Well, the People of Yā-Sīn, and Jonah.
• Volume Two (2): The story of Moses, Joshua, al-Khidr and Elijah, Ezekiel, Elisha, Samuel, David, Solomon, Zechariah and John, and Jesus.
– Accounts of earlier nations: Dhul-Qarnayn; Gog and Magog.
– Reports concerning the Arabs: the story of Sabaʾ; the story of Rabīʿah.
[2 — The Prophetic Biography]
In this second section of al-Bidāyah wa’l-Nihāyah Ibn Kathīr’s strength becomes manifest; his pen flows as though drawing from an ocean. A specialist in the sīrah, he authored it in both its extended and its abridged forms.
His sources for the biography are: first, the Qur’an; second, the Sunnah; third, the classical works on sīrah and maghāzī; and fourth, the books dealing with prophetic proofs and traits (dalāʾil and shamāʾil).
The keen insight of the brilliant exegete permeates every chapter, matched by the discerning eye of the hadith expert as he weighs the reports, applying the practical disciplines of hadith to both text and chain, transmission and comprehension.
Nor do the events of the sīrah prevent him from digressing into juristic discussions and laying down sound legal principles.