3 – The Third Section
(History of Islam)

• Volume Seven (7)
Year 11 AH – the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs – the caliphate of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī – year 40 AH

• Volume Eight (8)
The caliphate of Muʿāwiyah – from year 41 AH to year 65 AH – with the biography of Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam

• Volume Nine (9)
The caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān – obituaries from year 65 AH to year 100 AH

• Volume Ten (10)
The year 101 AH begins; obituaries for the year 200 AH

• Volume Eleven (11)
The year 201 AH begins; obituaries for the year 300 AH

• Volume Twelve (12)
The year 301 AH begins; obituaries for the year 400 AH

• Volume Thirteen (13)
The year 401 AH begins; obituaries for the year 500 AH

• Volume Fourteen (14)
The year 501 AH begins; obituaries for the year 600 AH

• Volume Fifteen (15)
The year 601 AH begins; obituaries for the year 700 AH

• Volume Sixteen (16)
The year 701 AH begins; obituaries for the year 768 AH

It has become common among certain researchers to claim that Ibn Kathīr’s History stops at the year 738 AH, on the strength of a note he placed under that year which reads:

“On Wednesday, the twentieth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, 751 AH, I finished selecting from his History.”

Yet this statement refers to his excerpting from the History of his teacher ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Birzālī, which itself ends at that date. Indeed, Ibn Kathīr’s principal source for the period 665–738 AH was precisely what he extracted from that work—the supplement al-Birzālī appended to Abū Shāmah’s History and entitled al-Muqtafī li-Tārīkh Abī Shāmah.

The incontrovertible fact is that Ibn Kathīr continued to record events and obituary notices in his own History right up to the month of his death.