The Muktib Narrators: Examining Islamic Biographical Data To Describe a Cultural Movement

The history of education in early Islamic culture has been of ambiguity to some extant. Especially, the stages of elementary education are a more complex and unknown. Very little of the historical accounts have been remained about educational text books, curricula, teaching methods and strategies, and the social status and class of teachers of that stages at the epoch. Teachers of such low stages of education, known as Muktibs usually were ordinary people, not prominent scholars or politicians to be of importance from the viewpoints of pre-modern historiographers. So, later hostoriographers have not ever been focused on data collection about their lives and affairs. How ever, some of these Muktibs may have had a role in narrating Islamic traditions (Hadiths). It is probable to recover data about them from Islamic biographical literature – known as rijal books – which includes accounts on Hadith narrators. This study aims at examining textual criticism on rijal accounts in ordre to cast a light on the history of Islamic education and its staff at the earliest period.