The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Hijaz: Five Prosopographical Case Studies. By ASAD Q. AHMED. Prosopographica et Genealogica, vol. 14. Oxford: LINACRE COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 2011. Pp. xi + 339. 50 [pounds sterling] (paper).

Prosopography takes us far beyond the trodden paths in the study of early Islamic history and historiography. In-depth research focusing on one of Muhammad's Companions, on a family, or on a tribe always leads to new insights. Prosopography has recently become even more practicable due to technological advances that make it possible to collect large amounts of literary evidence on every possible aspect of the Islamic past that is covered by the literature, and collecting this evidence is no longer a time-consuming process. Let us take, for example, Muhammad's Companion 'Abd Allah Ibn Mas'ud, a man of humble origin who became prominent in the spheres of politics, economy, and religion. When he died, he was the owner of several large estates and had families in three different places. A search for Ibn Mas'ud in the free and user-friendly al-Maktaha al-shdmila electronic database produced over seven thousand pages in which his name...