Thirdly
Style
The literary manner adopted by the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr in his work al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah sets it apart from other books. He deliberately chooses clear, plain, and engaging wording, steering clear of rhetorical ornamentation, verbal arabesques, and every trace of affectation or excessive concern for elegance of form, while at the same time ensuring sound meaning and accurate phrasing. This preference for an uncomplicated, academic style that conveys historical material in the clearest words and simplest expressions testifies to the author’s sure taste and the success with which he realized it. It also reveals his literary culture and his abundant linguistic wealth—traits that occasionally surface in al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah and appear unmistakably in his other works, such as his Tafsīr.
Ibn al-ʿImād observes: “He has a good command of Arabic and even composes poetry.” (1)
Al-Sharabāṣī states: “Ideas and meanings occupy him so fully that he has no time for contrived style or forced structures.” (2)
Despite the obvious diversity of the book’s parts and sections—reflecting the variety of sources, places, and periods we noted under “Methodology”—one can still detect scenes, stances, and emotions closely tied to the author’s style and personality. The saying holds true: style is the man himself.
1 – Avoidance of forced rhymed prose (sajʿ)
When Ibn Kathīr does employ sajʿ and sets phrases in parallel, he does not prolong it. The clearest example is the opening sermon of al-Bidāyah wa-l-Nihāyah, where he says:
“Praise be to Allah, the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, who is aware of all things: the First—nothing preceded Him; the Last—nothing will follow Him; the Manifest—nothing is above Him; the Hidden—nothing is beneath Him; the Eternal of old who has never ceased and will never cease. He knows the creeping of the black ant upon the solid rock in the pitch-black night …” (3)
Concerning the heresy that claims the Qur’an was created, he declares:
“This is a bald, heinous, blind, and deaf innovation, unsupported by either Qur’an or Sunnah, by sound reason or by any explicit transmission. Indeed, the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and sound reason are all opposed to it.” (4)
And when Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī set out for the lands of Syria in 570 AH, he writes: “That was when its ruler had died …”