Manāqib and ṭabaqāt · 264–1304 AH

Hanafi Biographical Atlas

Sixty-eight works on the life of Abū Ḥanīfa and on the jurists of his school: where each was written, what it drew on, and whether it survives.

Where the works were written

Pick a century to see its works; earlier ones stay on the map, faded. Select a dot to open the work. On a narrow screen, scroll the map sideways.

ManāqibṬabaqātHollow: lost

Works are counted in the century of their author's death, following the book's own grouping.

Century AH	Years	Works	Manāqib	Ṭabaqāt	What marks it
3rd	200–300	2	2	0	The first two written biographies of Abū Ḥanīfa appear, in Bukhara and Nishapur, while oral transmission still dominates.
4th	300–400	9	9	0	Documentation (tadwīn) peaks, centred on Baghdad, with Egypt, Bukhara, Khurasan and Mecca contributing.
5th	400–500	3	2	1	A slowdown on the Baghdad–Khurasan axis, but al-Ṣaymarī writes the first Ḥanafī ṭabaqāt.
6th	500–600	6	5	1	Writing revives as the school's centre moves to Transoxiana and Khwarazm.
7th	600–700	0	0	0	No known works. The Mongol invasions devastate Transoxiana, Khwarazm, Khurasan and Iraq.
8th	700–800	9	4	5	The tradition restarts in Mamluk Syria and Egypt, and al-Qurashī writes al-Jawāhir al-Muḍiyya.
9th	800–902	13	4	9	Ṭabaqāt compilations multiply on the Egypt–Syria axis, and about half the authors are not Ḥanafīs.
10th	903–1000	15	9	6	The most productive century, as Ottoman scholars join in after the conquest of Syria and Egypt.
11th	1001–1100	5	3	2	Decline begins, and three of the five works come from Cairo.
12th	1100–1202	4	3	1	All four works are by Ottoman authors, and the three manāqib among them are in Turkish.
13th	1203–1304	2	0	2	Both works are by al-Laknawī, the first from the Indian subcontinent.

See which works each one quotes, abridges or continues, and how much of the later tradition rests on al-Ṣaymarī and al-Qurashī.

Search all 68 works in Latin or Arabic script and filter by genre, region and survival. Every work has its own page.

The source, the method and its limits, and the full dataset to download.