IBN KATHIR

in full 'imad Ad-din Isma'il Ibn 'umar Ibn Kathir born c. 1300, , Bursa, Byzantine Empire died February 1373, Damascus Muslim theologian and historian who became one of the leading intellectual figures of 14th-century Syria. Ibn Kathir was educated in Damascus and upon completion of his studies obtained his first official appointment in 1341, when he joined an inquisitorial commission formed to determine certain questions of heresy. Thereafter he received various semi-official appointments, culminating in June/July 1366 with a professorial position at the Great Mosque of Damascus. As a scholar, Ibn Kathir is best remembered for his 14-volume history of Islam, al-Bidayah wa an-nihayah (The Beginning and the End), a work that utilized nearly all the available sources and formed the basis of a number of writings by later historians. Ibn Kathir was also a noted student of Hadith (the transmitted chain of sayings traced back to the Prophet Muhammad); his Kitab al-jami' is an alphabetical listing of the Companions of the Prophet and the sayings that each transmitted, thus reconstructing the chain of authority for each hadith.