Ibn Kathir

A Damascus scholar of tafsir, hadith and history, he explained the Quran by the Quran and the Sunnah and wrote a history from creation to his own day.

ʿImad al-Din Ismaʿil ibn ʿUmar ibn Kathir was born around 701 AH (some say 700) in a village near Busra in southern Syria, where his father was the preacher. After his father’s death, he moved with his elder brother to Damascus in 707 AH, and there he grew up and studied.

He learned from the great scholars of Damascus: hadith with al-Mizzi, whose daughter he married, history with al-Birzali and al-Dhahabi, and many sciences with Ibn Taymiyyah, to whom he was deeply attached. He became a Shafiʿi jurist, hadith scholar, historian and preacher, and taught in several of the city’s schools.

His Tafsir al-Quran al-ʿAzim — known everywhere as Tafsir Ibn Kathir — explains the Quran first by the Quran itself, then by the hadith, then by the sayings of the Companions and the early generations, and it is among the most read commentaries in the world. His history, al-Bidayah wa’l-Nihayah, runs from creation through the lives of the prophets and the Seerah to his own time; its opening sections are often published as Qisas al-Anbiyaʾ. He also wrote on the sciences of hadith (Ikhtisar ʿUlum al-Hadith) and compiled Jamiʿ al-Masanid.

He lost his sight towards the end of his life. He died in Damascus in Shaʿban 774 AH and was buried in the Sufiyyah cemetery, next to his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah.