Ibn Kathir was born around 1300 CE near Bosra in Syria and moved as a child to Damascus, then one of the great scholarly capitals of the Mamluk world. He studied with the leading traditionists of the city, married into the family of the hadith master al-Mizzi, and attached himself to the circle of Ibn Taymiyya, whose influence marks his method though not always his conclusions. He held teaching posts in the city's madrasas, lost his sight near the end of his life, and died in Damascus in 1373 CE, buried, by his own wish, beside his teacher.
The tafsir is one wing of a larger scholarly edifice. His universal history, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, the Beginning and the End, runs from creation to his own days and remains a standard reference; he also wrote on hadith sciences, law and the signs of the end times. The commentary itself was respected but not pre-eminent for centuries, one strong work on a crowded shelf. Its modern career changed that: from the late nineteenth century onward, printed editions multiplied, reform movements drawn to its scripture-first method promoted it, and popular abridgements carried it into dozens of languages, until it became for many Muslims the default companion to the Quran, a position no medieval reader would have predicted for it.