The death of al-Hafiz Ibn Kathir
The hafiz ʿImad al-Din Ismaʿil ibn Kathir — author of "Tafsir al-Qur'an al-ʿAzim" and "al-Bidaya wa'l-Nihaya," student of Ibn Taymiyya and al-Mizzi, and one of the pillars of tafsir and history in the Ummah's heritage — died in Damascus.
Ibn Kathir was born in a village of the district of Busra al-Sham around 701 AH and moved as a child to Damascus, where he attached himself to its senior scholars, married the daughter of the hafiz al-Mizzi, was influenced by his teacher Ibn Taymiyya and supported him in some of his trials.
He wrote his famous tafsir, reckoned the most authentic and famous of the tafsirs by transmission, explaining the Qur'an by the Qur'an, then the Sunnah, then the sayings of the early generations. His "al-Bidaya wa'l-Nihaya" is an encyclopaedia of Islamic history from the beginning of creation to his own age, and he summarized the sciences of hadith in "Ikhtisar ʿUlum al-Hadith."
His sight failed late in life from much writing by night, and he said: "I remained at it — meaning the compilation of al-Tahdhib — until my sight went." He died in Damascus in Shaʿban 774 AH and was buried, by his own bequest, beside his teacher Ibn Taymiyya in the cemetery of the Sufis.
Note — differing reports on the date: He died in Shaʿban 774 AH by the agreement of his biographers; the 26th of it is mentioned in some sources without certainty.