Secondly:
The book’s methodology:
Anyone who follows al-Bidāyah wa’l-Nihāyah from the author’s introduction to the conclusion in volume seventeen will find no single, uniform method to which Ibn Kathīr consistently adhered—save in one matter: the treatment of the Isrāʾīliyyāt. His excuse for not setting out clear methodological parameters lies in the sheer size of the work, the diversity of its subjects, the abundance of its sources, and the long epochs and successive centuries it spans.
– In the first section (The Beginning of Creation and the Stories of the Prophets) his approach was to gather reports from the works of Qur’anic exegesis and ḥadīth, then select what accords with his refined critical expertise in ḥadīth terminology and biographical evaluation, while discarding anything—whether from the Isrāʾīliyyāt or otherwise—that conflicts with the Qur’an and the Sunnah, or that is weak and far-fetched.
– In the second section (The Prophetic Biography and the Rightly Guided Caliphs) he relied on the earliest transmitters of sīrah and on what was recorded by Ibn Isḥāq, al-Ṭabarī, and others; yet his own critical persona remained evident. He scrutinized the chains of transmission, assessed the narrators—commending or criticizing them—and did not overlook the matn (1) whenever signs of oddity or objection appeared.
– The third section (General Islamic History) fills ten volumes and draws on a wide range of books and sources; it is therefore unsurprising that we encounter multiple approaches, differences in style, and variations in brevity and expansiveness, as well as in the ordering of material.
– In the fourth section (The Hereafter and its Conditions) he once again amasses ḥadīth narrations, subjects them to critique and verification, selects what is sound or fair, and points out what is weak. Here the personality of Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr stands out first as a muḥaddith, then as an exegete, and as a scholar thoroughly conversant with the earlier works of tafsīr and ḥadīth.
After a close examination of these sections and their themes, we may deduce the following methodological points, together with their examples:
- Isrāʾīliyyāt: This is the only stipulation he imposed and the sole methodological rule he set for himself (2). He clarified it in the introduction and throughout the first and second volumes of the book, and he adhered to it to a considerable degree, for he said in the introduction: