Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari (1879-1952), one of the great scholars of the 20th century, authored numerous works on a wide variety of scholarly subjects. The esteemed reader who peruses the prefaces he wrote for various books will immediately realize that the author of these prefaces is a true "Imam," given his strong proofs, clear evidence, and the views he cites from the most reliable scholars. In this work you hold, 58 prefaces have been compiled. There are 21 prefaces on the sciences of creed (akaid), theology (kalam), sects, and philosophy; 13 prefaces on hadith and the sciences of hadith; 11 prefaces on jurisprudence (fiqh), legal rulings, and the principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh); 9 prefaces on the sciences of history, the prophetic biography (siyar), and biography; and 4 prefaces on the sciences of Sufism, ethics, and exhortation (maw'iza). The prefaces written for each science have been arranged in chronological order. Imam Kawthari's prefaces are written in an extremely concise and scholarly language. In this translation, an effort has been made to preserve this language; unknown words and terminology have been explained in the footnotes with citations from sources, and obscure passages have been clarified. The scholars mentioned by name by the master have been identified, and their dates of death have been recorded. Those he alluded to without explicitly naming have also been indicated.