In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
Biographical Sketch of the Author (1)
He is the ḥadith master, historian, and Qur’an exegete, ʿImād al-Dīn Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathīr ibn Ḍawʾ ibn Kathīr al-Qurashī al-Busrawī, later al-Dimashqī. He was born in (Mujaydal Village), one of the districts of Busra, in (701 AH). His father served there as the khaṭīb. After his father’s death he moved, together with his brother Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, to Damascus in (707 AH). From his earliest years he was immersed in the pursuit of knowledge. He began studying under his brother and then under the leading scholars of Damascus. He memorised the Qur’an at the age of (10), mastered the various canonical readings, and excelled in tafsīr. He studied fiqh with the foremost Damascene authorities, among them Burhān al-Dīn al-Fazārī and Kamāl al-Dīn ibn Qāḍī Shuhba.
He later married the daughter of the ḥadith master Abū al-Ḥajjāj Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn al-Zakī al-Mizzī, studied under him, and benefited greatly from him. Al-Mizzī was one of the leading authorities on al-jarḥ wa’l-taʿdīl (hadith criticism) and the author of (Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fī Asmāʾ al-Rijāl). Ibn Kathīr also kept company with Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, studying with him and drawing benefit from him, as he did with the other eminent scholars of his time. He distinguished himself in fiqh, tafsīr, ḥadith, the study of chains of transmission, hidden defects, narrator evaluation, and history. After the death of al-Subkī he was appointed shaykh of Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyyah al-Jawāniyyah. Endowed with a prodigious memory and pleasant wit, he was praised by the leading imams, and the mantle of authority in history, ḥadith, and tafsīr ultimately settled upon him. A large company of students of knowledge in his era benefited from him.
His written legacy is extensive. Among his works are Ahkām al-Tanbīh in Shāfiʿī jurisprudence; al-Ijtihād fī Ṭalab al-Jihād; his abridgement of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth; Jāmiʿ al-Masānīd; Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah; al-Takmīl fī Maʿrifat al-Thiqāt wa’l-Ḍuʿafāʾ wa’l-Majāhīl; al-Fuṣūl fī Ikhtiṣār Sīrat al-Rasūl (peace and blessings be upon him); and his Tafsīr, which ranks among his finest compositions.