And we are the people of an era who have been given helplessness and negligence many times over what their predecessors were given of seriousness and capability!

So my brother was kind enough to examine the chains of transmission of Abū Jaʿfar—which are very numerous—and speak about some of their narrators where critical editing required that, then extract all the hadiths of the Messenger of God (peace and blessings of God be upon him) contained therein. If he found free time after that, he would examine my work, review it, and make corrections to it. So I thanked him for this favor with which he favored me—and how many favors he has done for me whose reward I cannot repay; with God is their reward and the reward for every good deed. It suffices as a good deed that he guided my steps when I was young, and supported me when I grew older.

I took upon myself the correction of the text of the book, its vocalization, its collation against what was in our hands of its manuscripts and printed editions, and its cross-examination with the books of Tafsir that quoted from him. I annotated it, clarified what was obscure in its phrasing, and explained its poetic textual evidences. I exerted my utmost effort in its punctuation and sectioning. Whatever excellence is found in that is from God, and whatever slip is in it is from me and my own helplessness, and there is no power nor strength except through God.

Complete manuscript copies of Tabari's Tafsir are hardly to be found; what exists of them in the National Library are single volumes of the first volume and the sixteenth volume, and among them is a single manuscript that was in twenty-five volumes, from which the second and third volumes were lost, and it is old with an unknown date. Despite its condition, it is almost the most correct of the manuscripts. It is preserved in the Library under the number: 100 Tafsir.