Biographies of scholars

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Tarajim and tabaqat: what they are for

A work of tarajim gives the life of a scholar: his full name, his teachers, his students, his works, his dates, and the specialists' judgement on his reliability. The tabaqat do the same while arranging by generation or by school. These are not books of edification but working instruments: you open them to place a name, check a date, or retrace a chain of teaching.

The reference works

Siyar a'lam an-nubala by Adh-Dhahabi: the central work of the genre, in many volumes, covering the early centuries. It is the standard here.
Tadhkirat al-huffaz by the same author: centred on the hadith specialists, shorter.
The tabaqat by school: Tabaqat al-Hanabila, and the equivalents for the other legal schools.
The dictionaries of names and dates, useful for resolving a homonym in a chain of transmission.
The monographs devoted to a single scholar, with a study of his works and his method.

This shelf and the others: the division

Here, the scholars of the generations after the companions. For the first generation, that is Lives of the companions. For the accounts of conduct of the first three generations read with an edifying aim, that is The salaf. And if you simply want to browse our catalogue by author rather than read their biography, that is Authors.

What to check

The volume count, since Siyar a'lam an-nubala circulates as a complete set and as selections. The editor, decisive on a work of that scale. The presence of name indexes, without which a twenty-volume biographical dictionary is unusable. And the period covered. These points are on each product page.

Related shelves

For the transmitters and the criticism of their reliability, Hadith. For the historical setting of these lives, History of the caliphs and of Islam. For the works these scholars wrote on creed, Works of the salaf. Overview: History.

Order and shipping

Real stock displayed, dispatch within 24 to 48 working hours, delivery to France, Europe and the rest of the world. Tell us the scholar or the period you are after and we will point to the work that covers it.

What is a work of tarajim actually for?

To place a name. You are reading a chain of transmission or a quotation and come across a scholar you do not know: the work gives you his dates, his teachers, his students, his works and the specialists' judgement on his reliability. It is a working instrument, not a book for continuous reading.

Does Siyar a'lam an-nubala exist in fewer volumes?

Yes, as selections and abridgements, which do not cover the same periods or the same figures depending on who made the selection. The complete set remains the reference if you use it to look things up. We state the volume count, the editor and the period covered on each product page.

How does this differ from the site's Authors section?

The Authors section is for browsing our catalogue by author: you click a name and see the books by that author we carry. This shelf sells works that recount the lives of the scholars. One is a navigation filter, the other a literary genre.