Ask an English-speaking Muslim to name one work of Qur’anic commentary and the answer is almost always the same. Al-Hafiz ‘Imad ad-Din Isma‘il ibn ‘Umar ibn Kathir (الحافظ ابن كثير, 701–774 AH / 1301–1373 CE) was orphaned as a small child in a village outside Busra, was raised in Damascus by an elder brother, studied under al-Mizzi, adh-Dhahabi and Ibn Taymiyyah, went blind at the end of his life, and asked to be buried beside his teacher. What he left behind — a tafsir, a fourteen-volume history, and a shelf of works on hadith — is read more widely today than in his own lifetime.
Name, Lineage and Birth
He is Abul-Fida’ ‘Imad ad-Din Isma‘il ibn ‘Umar ibn Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi ad-Dimashqi ash-Shafi‘i — from Busra in origin, and Damascene in his training, his learning and his residence.
He was born in 701 AH (1301 CE) in Mijdal, a village on the outskirts of Busra in the Hawran, southern Syria. His father, ‘Umar ibn Kathir, was the Friday khatib of the village and died while Ibn Kathir was a small child. He was raised by his elder brother, Shaykh Kamal ad-Din ‘Abd al-Wahhab, who taught him and then brought him to Damascus in 706 AH, when he was about five. He never really left it again.
His Teachers
Damascus in the early eighth century AH held an extraordinary concentration of scholarship, and Ibn Kathir studied with most of it.
- Burhan ad-Din Ibrahim ibn ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Fazari, known as Ibn al-Firkah (d. 729 AH) — Shafi‘i fiqh
- Jamal ad-Din Yusuf al-Mizzi (d. 742 AH) — the great scholar of narrator criticism and author of Tahdhib al-Kamal. Ibn Kathir stayed with him longest, and married his daughter
- Shams ad-Din adh-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH) — the historian and hadith master
- Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) — whose influence on his student’s creed and method is visible on nearly every page he wrote
- Among his hadith teachers: ‘Isa ibn al-Mut‘im, Ahmad ibn Abi Talib (Ibn ash-Shahnah), Ibn al-Hajjar, Baha’ ad-Din al-Qasim ibn ‘Asakir, Ibn ash-Shirazi and ‘Afif ad-Din Ishaq ibn Yahya al-Amidi, shaykh of the Zahiriyyah
Two dates in that list are worth pausing on. Al-Mizzi died in 742 AH — some printings, including our own author page, give 724 AH, which cannot be right, since Ibn Kathir studied with him for years and married into his household.
His own teacher adh-Dhahabi described him in Al-Mu‘jam al-Mukhtass as an imam, a jurist, a skilled scholar of hadith and a noted scholar of tafsir who produced beneficial books.
Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani wrote in Ad-Durar al-Kaminah that he worked on hadith in both its texts and its chains, that his memory was excellent, and that his books circulated in his own lifetime and continued to benefit people after his death.
His student Ibn Hajji said that he had the best memory for hadith texts of anyone he knew, and the most knowledge of the narrators and their reliability — and that he never met him without gaining something.
Collected in the biography by Shaykh ‘Abdul-Qadir al-Arna’ut.
Standing With Ibn Taymiyyah
Ibn Kathir’s attachment to Ibn Taymiyyah was not academic. He defended his teacher’s positions publicly at a time when doing so carried a cost, and he was troubled for it — questioned over the issue of divorce pronounced in a single sitting, on which he held his teacher’s view against the prevailing one.
This matters for the reader, because it explains what kind of book the Tafsir is. Ibn Kathir was upon the creed of the Salaf: he affirmed the Divine Attributes as they came in the Book and the Sunnah, without distortion, denial, asking how, or likening them to creation. Where Imam An-Nawawi and Ibn Hajar — both immense scholars, both deserving our love and du‘a — interpreted some of the Attributes figuratively and had to be corrected on it by later imams, Ibn Kathir needs no such caution. What he wrote on ‘aqidah can be read as it stands.
He was also methodical about it. His Tafsir follows the principle he sets out in his own introduction: explain the Qur’an first by the Qur’an, then by the authentic Sunnah, then by the statements of the Companions, then the Tabi‘un — and he is openly critical of the Isra’iliyyat, the borrowed Jewish and Christian material that had crept into earlier commentaries, even where he cites some of it to identify and reject it.
His Works
| Work | Field & Note |
|---|---|
| Tafsir al-Qur’an al-‘Azim | The Tafsir Ibn Kathir. The foremost commentary of the tafsir bil-ma’thur school — explanation by transmitted evidence rather than opinion. Reprinted, abridged and translated more than any other tafsir in history. |
| Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah | His history in fourteen volumes: creation, the Prophets, the Sirah, and Islamic history down to his own era. It closes with Al-Fitan wal-Malahim on the signs of the Last Hour. |
| As-Sirah an-Nabawiyyah | The biography of the Prophet ﷺ, drawn from Al-Bidayah and also printed separately. |
| At-Takmil fi Ma‘rifat ath-Thiqat wad-Du‘afa’ wal-Majahil | On narrator criticism, drawn from his two teachers’ works — al-Mizzi’s Tahdhib al-Kamal and adh-Dhahabi’s Mizan al-I‘tidal — with his own additions on al-jarh wat-ta‘dil. |
| Jami‘ al-Masanid was-Sunan | Also titled Al-Hady was-Sunan: the narrations of Ahmad, al-Bazzar, Abu Ya‘la and Ibn Abi Shaybah combined with the Six Books, arranged by chapter of fiqh. |
| Ikhtisar ‘Ulum al-Hadith | His condensation of Ibn as-Salah’s Muqaddimah. Shaykh Ahmad Shakir published it with his own commentary as Al-Ba‘ith al-Hathith, still a standard teaching text. |
| Tabaqat ash-Shafi‘iyyah | The generations of Shafi‘i scholars, including a section on the virtues of Imam ash-Shafi‘i. |
| Al-Ijtihad fi Talab al-Jihad & unfinished works | A treatise written when the Crusader threat to the Syrian coast was live. He also began a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari and a large book of ahkam, completing neither — the latter reached the rites of Hajj. |
His Death
Ibn Hajar records that he lost his sight towards the end of his life. He died in Sha‘ban 774 AH (February 1373 CE) in Damascus, and was buried — at his own request — in the cemetery of the Sufiyyah, beside the grave of his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah.
An orphan from a Hawran village, raised by a brother, blind at the end, buried next to the man who taught him. And seven centuries later his tafsir sits on more Muslim bookshelves than any other. The Prophet ﷺ said:
“When a man dies, his deeds come to an end except for three: an ongoing charity, knowledge that is benefited from, or a righteous child who supplicates for him.”
Sahih Muslim 1631
May Allah have mercy on Al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir, on his teachers, and on Shaykh ‘Abdul-Qadir al-Arna’ut who wrote his life for us.
Books by Ibn Kathir at Dar-us-Salam
- Tafsir Ibn Kathir (10 Vol. Set)
The abridged English edition, prepared by a board of scholars under Shaykh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri over roughly two years, with the unauthentic narrations removed. Around 6,600 pages. The single most useful purchase an English-speaking Muslim can make for understanding the Qur’an. - Stories of the Prophets
The accounts of the Prophets from Adam to ‘Isa (peace be upon them), compiled from Ibn Kathir’s own Tafsir and Al-Bidayah, free of fabricated narrations. - The Book of the End: Great Trials & Tribulations
Al-Fitan wal-Malahim from Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah — the signs of the Hour and the events preceding the Day of Judgement, 748 pages, with gradings marked. - Arabic: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (4 Vol. Set)
The original Arabic text, unabridged, in a durable four-volume hardcover edition for Arabic readers and students. - Arabic: Al-Misbah al-Munir fi Tahdhib Tafsir Ibn Kathir
The scholarly Arabic abridgement of the Tafsir — the same edition that underlies the English translation above. - Arabic: Tahdhib Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah (5 Vol. Set)
A refined abridgement of his great history, retaining the hadith-based method in a more accessible five-volume form.
