ABSTRACT
Stories regarding the lives of the prophets were being written without interruption until the modern times, and this indicates the great diffusion of the traditions and legends on the Biblical characters. The success of the genre has been a constant feature and this is attested by the considerable number of manuscripts of the stories of the prophets, mostly by anonymous authors, spread throughout all of the libraries in the world, whether written in Arabic or in the other languages of the Muslim world. The structure was already codified, providing a definition of the types of materials which it was possible to include, ranging from the most meagre exegetical observations to the popular narrations that abounded with fantastic particulars. In this way, the major works of the earlier period constituted a model of unquestionable reference and at the same time provided the principal sources to quote and upon which to rely. That which has been described here, it must be remembered, is valid for all of medieval Muslim literature, in which references to the models of the “classic” period are always constant. If originality is not one of their principal characteristics — and it is in any case a principle that should not lead to drastic judgements — the works dedicated to the prophets from the start of the 11th century AD were numerous. Among these, and above all to the extent that it is of interest in this brief discussion, it is useful to distinguish between those written in Arabic and those in Persian and Turkish, and within the Arabic ones to distinguish further between the Sunnī and Shīʿite works. There is lastly one other subdivision of no less importance, that between the works attributed to definite authors and those which are not: many of the medieval manuscripts that contain collections of traditions about the prophets are anonymous and often incomplete unicums.
