1. See Ignaz Goldziher, Muslim Studies, trans. C. R. Barber and S. M. Stern, 2 vols. (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967), 1:168, 170; Werner Caskel, amharat an-nasab: Das genealogische Werk des Hišam ibn Muḥammad al-Kalbī (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), 1:35; and, for a discussion of this form in its modern living context, Andrew Shryock, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). [BACK]

2. However, for arguments to accept akhbār accounts as autobiography, see Hilary Kilpatrick, “Autobiography and Classical Arabic Literature,” Journal of Arabic Literature 22 (1991): 1–20, and Jamal J. Elias, “The Ḥadīth Traditions of ‘Ā’isha as Prototypes of Self-Narrative,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 215–33. [BACK]

3. See Wolfhart Heinrichs, “Prosimetrical Genres in Classical Arabic Literature,” and Dwight F. Reynolds, “Prosimetrum in 19th- and 20th-Century Arabic Literature,” in Prosimetrum: Crosscultural Perspectives on Narrative in Prose and Verse, ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1998), 249–75, 277–94. [BACK]

4. On lists and narratives, see Stefan Leder, Das Korpus al-Haiִtam b. ‘Adī (st. 207/822). Herkunft, Überlieferung, Gestalt früher Texte der ahbār Literatur (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991), 197 ff. [BACK]

5. See Martin Hinds, Studies in Early Islamic History, ed. Jere Bacharach, Lawrence I. Conrad, and Patricia Crone, Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 4 (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1996), 188–98. [BACK]

6. On ḥadīth and biography, see Otto Loth, “Ursprung und Bedeutung der Ṭabaqāt,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 23 (1869): 593–614; on the development of the historiographical genres, see Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). [BACK]

7. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Ahwānī, “Kutub barāmij al-‘ulamā’ fī al-Andalus,” Majallat ma‘had al-makhṭūṭāt al-‘arabiyya 1 (May 1955): 91–120. [BACK]

8. Fihrist and fahrasa are originally Persian. In Arabic, fihrist means “index” or “listing.” Within a tarjama, however, it took on the special sense of a bibliography of works written by the author. The development specific to Islamic Spain and North Africa was that the term was applied to an entire biography or autobiography rather than to one of the constituent parts. See Charles Pellat, “Fahrasa,” EI² 2:743–44; ‘Abd al-Ḥayy al-Kattānī, Fihris al-fahāris wa-mu‘jam al-ma‘ājim wa-al-mashyakhāt wa-al-musalsalāt, 3 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī; 2d ed., 1982–86). [BACK]

9. Charles Pellat, “Manāḳib,” EI² 6:349–57. [BACK]

10. Bravmann argues persuasively from a variety of early texts that the term sīra, in the early Islamic period, was essentially a synonym of the term sunna and referred to the specific personal “practice” of a figure, particularly the Prophet Muhammad; see M. M. Bravmann, The Spiritual Background of Early Islam: Studies on Ancient Arab Concepts (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), 123–39. [BACK]

11. The term sīra also refers to at least two other concepts in early Arabic literature. The first is the legal sense of “the conduct of state” or “international law” as in the works titled Kitāb al-Siyar by al-Shaybānī (d. ca. 805) and by al-Awzā’ī (d. 770) preserved in the recension of al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 820). The second is the sense of a “doctrinal position” or “stance,” a usage found from the early eighth century onward that is retained in the Omani Ibāḍī use of the term in reference to a “doctrinal treatise” (see Patricia Crone and Friedrich W. Zimmermann, The Epistle of Sālim B. Dhakwān [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999]). [BACK]

12. For a historical overview of this genre, see Dwight F. Reynolds, Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 5–9; see also, Peter Heath, The Thirsty Sword: Sīrat ‘Antar and the Arabic Popular Epic (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1996). [BACK]

13. On the biographical compendiums, see Wadād al-Qādī, “Biographical Dictionaries: Inner Structures and Cultural Significance,” in The Book in the Islamic World: The Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed. George N. Atiyeh (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995), 93–122; Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 204–10; Paul Auchterlonie, Arabic Biographical Dictionaries: A Summary Guide and Bibliography (Durham: Middle East Libraries Committee, 1987); Ibrāhīm Hafsi, “Recherches sur le genre Ṭabaqāt dans la littérature arabe,” Arabica 23(1976): 227–65; 24 (1977): 1– 41, 150–86; Malik Abiad, “Origine et développement des dictionnaires biographiques arabes,” Bulletin d'Études Orientales 31 (1979): 7–15; H. A. R. Gibb, “Islamic Biographical Literature,” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 54–58; and for a sociopolitical interpretation of the use of biographical compendiums, Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); and Michael Cooperson, The Heirs of the Prophet in the Age of al-Ma’mūn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). [BACK]

14. Ruth Roded, Women in the Islamic Biographical Dictionaries: From Ibn Sa‘d to Who's Who (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1994). [BACK]

15. See Michael Cooperson, “Ibn Ḥanbal and Bishr al-Ḥāfī: A Case Study in Biographical Traditions,” Studia Islamica 86, no. 2 (1997): 71–101. [BACK]

16. Although no definitive “first” for the genre has been identified, ‘Abd al-Dāyim, al-Tarjama al-dhātiyya, attributes the earliest use of the term tarjama in reference to a biographical notice to Yāqūt (d. 1229) in his Mu‘jam al-udabā’. [BACK]

17. Al-Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ, Madhāhib al-ḥukkām fī nawāzil al-aḥkām, ed. Muḥammad ibn Sharīfa (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1990), 30. [BACK]

19. A published example is that of Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1200): Mashyakhat Ibn al-Jawzī, ed. M. Maḥfūִz (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1980). An excellent survey of the rich but widely scattered medieval “teacher lists” is found in Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 33 n. 50. [BACK]

20. See Pellat, “Fahrasa,” EI². [BACK]

21. The best recent overview of the subject is J. F. P. Hopkins, “Geographical and Navigational Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Religion, Learning, and Science in the ‘Abbāsid Period, ed. M. J. L. Young, J. D. Latham, and R. B. Serjeant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 301–27. The standard Arabic secondary sources on the subject are Aḥmad Abū Sa‘d, Adab al-riḥlāt (Cairo: n.p., 1961) and Shawqī Ḍayf, al-Riḥlāt [ = Funūn al-adab al-‘arabī: al-fann al-qaṣaṣī IV] (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1969). [BACK]

22. See, for example, Ṣayd al-khāṭir (The Mind Trap) (Amman: Maktabat Dār al-Fikr, 1987) by ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī, which closely resembles Pascal's Pensées. [BACK]

23. Anīs al-Maqdisī, Taṭawwur al-asālīb al-nathriyya fī al-adab al-‘arabī (Beirut: Sarkis Press, 1935); Zaki Mubarak, La prose arabe au IVe siècle de l'Hégire (Xe siècle) (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1931); Zakī Mubārak, al-Nathr al-‘arabī fī l-qarn al-rābi‘ (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1966). [BACK]

24. Nearly all of the surveyed autobiographers up to the nineteenth century were also poets; indeed, knowledge of, and the ability to compose, poetry were considered an essential element of basic education. Many of these authors included selections from their poetry as portions (even the major portion) of their autobiography. It was also common to include samples of, or refer to, a person's poetic output in the Arabic biographical tradition. [BACK]

25. See, for example, the recent study on the dreambook of Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Zawāwī al-Bijā’ī, which includes accounts of 109 separate dreams and visions of the Prophet Muhammad: Jonathan G. Katz, Dreams, Sufism, and Sainthood: The Visionary Career of Muhammad al-Zawāwī (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996); also J. Katz, “Visionary Experience, Autobiography, and Sainthood in North African Islam,” Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 1 (December 1992): 85–118. [BACK]

26. See, for example, the Rasā’il of the Moroccan Sufi shaykh al-‘Arabī al-Darqāwī (d. 1823) portions of which are available in French, translated by Titus Burckhardt, “Le Sheikh al-‘Arabī Ad-Darqāwī. Extraits de ses lettres,” Études Traditionnelles 394 (March–April 1966): 60–80; “Le Sheikh Ad-Darqāwī: Nouveaux extraits de ses lettres,” Études Traditionnelles 402–3 (July–October 1967): 192–210; and in English, Studies in Comparative Religion 16, nos. 1–2 (Winter–Spring 1984): 108– 10. See also Pellat, “Manāḳib,” EI². [BACK]

27. For a demonstration of how classical Arabic biography may be usefully read by modern historians, see R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 187–208. [BACK]

28. See Nuha N. N. Khoury, “The Autobiography of Ibn al-‘Adīm as Told to Yāqūt al-Rūmī,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 289–311. [BACK]

29. Franz Rosenthal, “Die arabische Autobiographie,” Studia Arabica 1 (1937): 5–7, 10; Saleh al-Ghamdi, “Autobiography in Classical Arabic Literature: An Ignored Genre” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1989), 42–51. Von Grunebaum, however, argued that foreign influences were minimal and that the major impulse for the rise of Arabic autobiography lay within the indigenous Arabic literary tradition. See Gustave von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam: A Study in Cultural Orientation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 261 ff. [BACK]

30. For Arabic versions of the life of Galen, see Max Meyerhof, “Autobiographische Bruchstücke Galens auz arabischen Quellen,” Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 22 (1929): 72–86. For the life of Burzōē, see François de Blois, Burzōy's Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalīlah wa Dimnah (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1990). [BACK]

31. For synopses of the remaining versions, see Blois, Burzōy's Voyage, 40–43. [BACK]

32. Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (Cairo: al-Maktab al-fannī, 1961). [BACK]

33. For extracts in English translation, see Arthur J. Brock, Greek Medecine, being extracts illlustrative of medical writers from Hippocrates to Galen (London: Dent and Sons, 1929), 174–81; full translations into French are found in Paul Moraux, Galien de Pergame: souvenirs d'un médecin (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1985). [BACK]

34. The autobiographies of al-Tirmidhī and al-Simnānī appear in translation in this volume. [BACK]