Religious biography are called

Islamic civilization from an early period gave importance to various biographical genres, for example, the life (sira) of the Prophet, works establishing priority in joining the Muslim community, and lives of saints, but rarely, until the modern period, autobiographies.

Particularly important is the relationship between early biography and the hadith collections.

The ˓ilm al-rijal, or "science of the men," was a branch of Islamic historiography verifying the reliability (ta dil) of hadith transmitters according to criteria such as their direct acquaintance with the Prophet and their veracity and virtues.

The qualities (fada˒il) and special merits (khasa˒is) of important persons constitute a subsection of most hadith collections and reveal early Muslim concepts of charisma, character, or religious authority. Another hadith topic that blossomed into a genre of biographical literature is asceticism (zuhd).

Compilations on this subject provide in