reciters, jurists, judges, poets, rulers, bureaucrats,
and physicians. In the 13th century, Ibn Khallikan
(d. 1282) compiled the first comprehensive dic-
tionary of prominent people from all walks of life
who lived after the first generations of Muslims.
Its 800 articles were organized alphabetically.
Some dictionaries were organized according to
tribe; others limited themselves to telling about
the famous men of a single city or region, such as
Nishapur (in i
ran
), b
aghdad
, d
amascUs
, c
airo
,
Yemen, or a
ndalUsia
(Islamic Spain). Dictionary-
like biographical entries were also embedded in
historical chronicles and literary works. An entry
could range in length from a few lines to many
pages. One of average length typically provided
information about the subject’s family lineage,
names and titles,
edUcation
, places lived in and
visited, writings, areas of expertise, employment
history, birth, and death. Because these books
were compiled by educated elites for their peers,
they neglected to include information about
the common people. Biographies about famous
women were also included in these dictionar-
ies—Ibn Saad’s dictionary has entries for 600
women—but seldom if ever were a famous man’s
female relatives mentioned, unless they were also
famous.
Muslim hagiographies focused on praisewor-
thy characteristics (manaqib), miracles, and teach-
ings of Sufi saints—the “friends (awliya) of God.”
These accounts were first compiled in Arabic dic-
tionaries at the end of the 10th century, just as the
Sufi brotherhoods were beginning to play a more
visible role in Islamic society. The first Sufi bio-
graphical dictionary was that of the al-Sulami of
Nishapur (d. 1021). It originally contained 1,000
biographies, but only 105 of these accounts sur-
vive in a very abbreviated version called Classes of
the Sufis (Tabaqat al-sufiyya). The largest surviv-
ing collection of Sufi biographies is the Adornment
of the Saints (
Hilyat al-awliya) by Abu Nuaym
al-Isfahani (d. 1038), which has 649 entries.
Beginning in 13th century, Sufi biographical dic-
tionaries were also written in Persian, as exempli-
fied by Farid al-Din Attar’s (d. 1220) entertaining
Memorial of the Saints (Tadhkirat al-awliya) and,
later, in India, Dara Shikoh’s (d. 1659) Ship of
the Saints (
Safinat al-awliya). Similar works were
compiled in Turkish after the 16th century.
The introduction of mechanized print tech-
nology in the 19th century and computers in the
20th century has given new life to the Islamic bio-
graphical tradition. Printed editions of medieval
biographical dictionaries are widely available, as
are biographies of Muhammad, the first caliphs,
and other revered Muslims of the past. Some of
these have been translated from their original Ara-
bic or Persian language into modern Urdu, Indo-
nesian, English, and other languages. Moreover,
new biographies that reflect modern points of
view are being produced in great numbers. These
works often show the influence of western styles
of writing, but their purpose is to reinterpret the
accomplishments of prominent Muslims in light
of contemporary interests and concerns in the
wider Muslim community: the search for authen-
ticity, refutation of Western o
rientalism
, religion
and nationalism, religious and political reform,
and the status of
Women
. a
li
s
hariati
(d. 1977),
for example, wrote about the lives of early Shii
holy figures to inspire Iranians in the decade prior
to the i
ranian
r
evolUtion
oF
1978–79. Several
books have been written about important women
in Islamic history in order to counter Western
and traditional Muslim stereotypes of women as
historically inconsequential and lacking social
or cultural agency. Among the leading Muslim
women biographical writers are the Egyptian
Aysha Abd al-Rahman (also known as Bint al-
Shati, d. 1998) and the Moroccan F
atima
m
ernissi
(b. 1940). Another important recent development
is the publication of biographies in newspapers
and magazines and, most recently, the placement
of them on compact disks and the internet for
even wider circulation.
See also a
rabic
langUage
and
literatUre
;
aUtobiography
; d
ara
s
hikoh
; p
ersian
langUage
and
literatUre
; s
UFism
;
Ulama
;
w
ali
.
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