Tabaqat

Development

Tabaqat literature originated sometime within the late eighth and ninth centuries. Another account also cited that the Tabaqat format became popular during the period of early hadith transmitter critics, emerging amid the effort to identify, classify, and evaluate transmitters in the discipline known as ilm al-rijāl. The Tabaqat literature were written as tools to assist the muhaddiths in their efforts to classify hadith transmitters and to determine the quality of particular isnads. The isnad as a system for authenticating the memory of prophetic period required righteous, honest, and competent transmitters in every generation. Biographical entries in the Tabaqat literature typically offer evaluations of the personal, religious and intellectual quality of their subjects.