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Case file

Tafsir Ibn Kathir

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “classic sunni islam tafsir”. Today it says “a 14th century qur'anic exegesis”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Redirect to: Ibn Kathir#”. It now reads “Qur'anic exegesis book by Ibn Kathir”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2025 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2025

Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim ( Arabic : تفسير القرءان العظيم‎ , romanized : Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm ), commonly known as Tafsir Ibn Kathir ( Arabic : تفسير ابن كثير , romanized : Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr ), is the Qur'anic exegesis ( tafsir ) by Ibn Kathir . It is one of the most famous Islamic books concerned with the science of interpretation of the Quran . It also includes jurisprudential rulings, and takes care of the hadiths and is famous for being almost devoid of Israʼiliyyat . It is the most followed tafsir by Salafists .

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 1293777556.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “classic sunni islam tafsir”. Today it says “a 14th century qur'anic exegesis”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “Redirect to: Ibn Kathir#”. It now reads “Qur'anic exegesis book by Ibn Kathir”. Read the current article and compare.
201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2010, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

classic sunni islam tafsir

Now

a 14th century qur'anic exegesis

Sections that no longer exist

Present on October 6, 2023, absent today, with no near-matching heading in the current article and the article shorter overall, so this is not a renamed heading or a topic absorbed into a fuller treatment. 1 section of 400 characters or more gone since October 6 2023, with the article 11 characters shorter.

  • The status of interpretation and the interest of scholars in it
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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