Introduction

The ṭabaqāt genre has been one of the most productive genres of the Islamic literary tradition. Compiled on the basis of chronological principles of organisation and using generic criteria for selection, these works take the form of collections of biographies. ¹ Ṭabaqāt writings invariably depict the past of a particular tradition of religious affiliation or scholarship, the chronological parameters of which conventionally stretch from an authoritative starting-point to the generation (ṭabaqa) immediately preceding the assumed author. What is perhaps most remarkable about this genre is that generation after generation of successors in each particular tradition have compiled their own ṭabaqāt works, thereby producing a constant supply of versions of the same period of history, only extended by a generation each time.