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.
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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.
The opening as it stood in 2010
Tafsir al-Qur'an al-Azim , popularly Tafsir ibn Kathir , is a classic Sunni Islam tafsir ( commentary of the Qur'an ) by Ibn Kathir . It is considered to be a summary of the earlier tafsir by al-Tabari , Tafsir al-Tabari . It is especially popular because it uses hadith to explain each verse and chapter of the Qur'an.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 370469546.
The opening as it stood in 2020 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Redirect to: Ibn Kathir#Tafsir From other capitalisation : This is a redirect from a title with another method of capitalisation.It leads to the title in accordance with the Wikipedia naming conventions for capitalisation , or it leads to a title that is associated in some way with the conventional capitalisation of this redirect title.This may help writing, searching and international language issues.If this redirect is an incorrect capitalisation, then should be used instead , and pages that use this link should be updated to link directly to the target.Miscapitalisations can be tagged in any namespace .Use this rcat to tag only mainspace redirects; when other capitalisations are in other namespaces, use instead .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 856531630.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 6 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Quran exegesis book by Ibn Kathir Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm better known as Tafsir Ibn Kathir is the tafsir by Ibn Kathir (died 774 AH).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 salafist muslims.
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1166590373.
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.
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
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.