Uthman ibn Affan
Ibn Kathīr opens the third caliphate with a house in Medina where six men sit for three days, and one of them, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAwf, gives up his own claim so that he can ask the whole city whom it wants. He finds no two people who disagree. What follows is twelve years less twelve days: the first Muslim fleet and the Battle of the Masts, Cyprus, Ifrīqiya and the landing in al-Andalus, Armenia and Khurāsān, and the last Chosroes strangled in a miller's hut over four dirhams. Then the deed the book calls his greatest, one codex of the Qurʾān for every province, and the grievances that gathered against him — the governors, the grants, the forged letter with his seal — until six hundred men came to Medina in the guise of pilgrims. Forty days of siege, water denied, the Companions ordered to sheathe their swords, and a Friday in Dhū al-Ḥijja when he was killed with the Qurʾān open before him and the first drop of blood fell on "God will suffice you against them." Eighty-eight chapters, with the dead of each year — al-ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAwf, Abū Dharr — the elegies, ʿAlī's oath that he neither killed nor commanded, and the merits the Prophet named: the one before whom the angels are shy.
Imam Ibn Kathīr
Monumental history Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah, the world's most widely read Qurʾanic commentary, and the classical Stories of the Prophets.
al-Maktaba al-Shāmila
The Arabic text we work from matches al-Maktaba al-Shāmila verbatim — the most comprehensive digital library of classical Arabic-Islamic scholarship, used by academic researchers and traditional ʿulamāʾ alike. The original Arabic will be published in BookKit (launching in a future release).
The author is deceased well before 1924, placing the original work firmly in the public domain worldwide. The translation that follows is an original editorial work of Joyful Muslims.
Joyful Muslims editorial team
Translated in-house from the Arabic manuscript. Each chapter passes through at least two reviewers — one focused on accuracy against the Arabic, one on English readability. Where the two are in tension, accuracy wins.
The full, unabridged English translation will be published alongside the Arabic in BookKit, launching in a future release. The audiobook adaptation — same translation, adjusted for listening — is what plays in the app today.
Narrated with care
The narration observes Islamic textual traditions — the pronunciation of Arabic names, the correct honorifics (ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam, raḍiya Allāhu ʿanh), and the weight each passage should carry. Every word is aligned to the source text so readers in the app can follow along word by word.
Joyful Muslims
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