In short, these headings, which he inserted throughout the book on his own initiative, not only violate scholarly integrity but also reveal the extent of this (astute) man’s knowledge and the material and moral loss suffered by the book’s publishers. His aforementioned annotations have altered the book’s character: with these headings and annotations, it has become another book, no longer the book of the hadith master Ibn Kathīr!

If only this (astute) man’s tampering with the book had stopped there! He went further, deleting many passages and hadiths that did not appeal to his great intellect! He explicitly acknowledged this in his introductory remarks, saying (p. 5):

“In fact, we were compelled to omit some of the reports the author included in his book, because they contained meanings that neither accord with reason nor are consistent with religion”!

Anyone reading his annotations will find notices on many pages of the book stating that he has omitted whatever he pleased, without reproducing the omitted text so that readers could know what it was, as scholarly integrity requires—and that is assuming omission were permissible in the first place! One example is his statement (2/ 285):

“We have omitted passages here that would make modesty itself blush …”!

The most astonishing thing I saw him do was delete four entire pages in the second volume, leaving them blank! These are pages (89, 99, 101 and 102)!

By Allah, I have seen many kinds of pretenders to knowledge in our time, but I have never seen anyone match this (astute) man in audacity, ignorance and conceit! If he were not so, then tell me