The Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Ibn Kathir - Volume 2 of 4

INTRODUCTION
xxiii
Finally, the true value of this particular work probably resides outside the
context of the foregoing academic debate, for as Gadamer explains in Truth and
Methodt9 "The meaning of a literary work is never exhausted by the intentions
of its author; as the work passes from one cultural or historical context to
another, new meanings may be culled from it which were perhaps never anticipated
by its author or contemporary a~dience."~'
Muneer Fareed
Reviewer of Volumes II-IV
29. H. G. Gadamer, Truth ondMethod(London, 1975).
30. This is in fact an interpretation of Gadamer's thoughts as espoused by T. Eagleton in his
study, Lzrerary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 71.