This paper considers the question of biography in relation to a 1958 history of the ?Abr? tribe of interior Oman, which was authored by a member of that tribe who was also one of Oman’s leading Ib??? scholars. Whether cast as an early example of modern tribal history or as a late artifact of Arabian oral tradition, it is worth considering how the biographies of key figures in the history of the tribe and Oman more generally are rendered in the manuscript in or out of conformity with Western scholarly conventions. When cast against suppositions about the nature of valid historical knowledge, some unresolved questions emerge from the ?Abr? study: for instance, why does the author insist on unanimity of opinion concerning the facts of the tribe’s most remote history, yet temper any hope for certainty concerning the tribe’s modern history? Shouldn’t the opposite be true? In addition, broader questions about this text emerge in light of the panel’s purpose: for instance, is the celebration of individual tribal personalities a function of modernity and the politics of modern states, or is there precedent for such depiction and treatment in works such as the ?Abr? manuscript? What, according to the ?Abr? manuscript, does the individual tribal person amount to as a historiographical matter, if he is not wedded to some form of religious charisma? And lastly, is biography in the precolonial Muslim world synonymous with what we might call hagiography, and if so, what place does that leave in prose for the tribal hero?