thereby at the soundest possible text of the book, placing that reading in the main text and recording the remaining variants in the footnotes, while disregarding some non-substantive variants found in manuscripts shown to be weak. As far as possible, agreement with the source works used for cross-referencing was also taken into consideration: if the reading of any manuscript agreed with such a source, it was adopted, while the remaining variants were placed in the footnotes. Nor was the reading of the base text invariably retained; another reading was adopted when it was sounder.
2 — Preparation and Vocalization of the Text:
Ibn Jarīr’s style is elevated, embodying the eloquence of the Arabic language and the rhetorical refinement of the early centuries. His discussion of an issue may be interrupted by a lengthy digression—so lengthy that the reader may lose sight of the original point, and punctuation itself may be inadequate to make the structure clear. The footnotes therefore occasionally indicate where the digression begins and ends.
The text of the book was prepared as follows:
A — Quranic verses were reproduced from the King Fahd Complex edition of the Quran printed in the Uthmānic script.
B — Those portions of the text requiring vocalization were vocalized in a manner that clarifies the meaning and makes it easier for the reader to understand.
C — Personal names and place-names were vocalized wherever possible.
3 — References were provided for the Quranic verses that Ibn Jarīr cites as evidence in interpreting the verse under discussion.
4 — Hadiths and Reports:
The hadiths and reports were traced, wherever possible, to their locations in the hadith collections, and their chains of transmission were assessed as sound or weak. A chain was judged weak only when its weak narrator transmitted it without corroboration. If the weak narrator was corroborated, there was no need to mention his weakness, since it had been remedied either through another chain in al-Tabarī’s own work or through an external source, such as Ibn Abī Hātim.