Digital Analysis of Arabic Biographical Collections

Within the framework of my doctoral research I have been exploring the ways of in-depth computer-assisted analysis of biographical records in Arabic historical sources. The number of available records, ranging from short notices with little more than a name and dates of life to detailed biographies, reaches hundreds of thousands. They are included in an array of chronicles and biographical dictionaries; the biggest collection of such kind, the Taʾrīḫ al-Islām of al-Ḏahabī (d. 1347), includes over 30,000 biographical records.