Biographies were the bread and butter of medieval Islamic scholarship, including tabaqa>t and siyar works (generational and individual biographies), as well as other more "clinical" sources, such as tasmiya texts and genealogies. By the end of the third century AH, many branches of Islamic historiography (from literature to law to h}adi>th to history had their own biographical traditions. Far from being relegated to a category of scholarship irredeemably beneath the study of h}adi>th, the biographical genre multiplied and subdivided beyond the more clinical assessments of trustworthiness and reliability to include various types of anecdotal, narrative compilations. In addition to their activity in preserving sequential narratives for the life of the Prophet and his Companions, akhba>riyyu>n put together dictionaries and chronological or thematic compilations on "poets, singers, Qur'a>n-readers and jurisprudents [in compilations that are] are at least as old as the ones on h}adi>th scholars." In the formative and post-formative period, biographies of prominent Umayyads were essential for the assumption and confirmation of political and social power in the medieval Islamic world. If, in the developing biography of Muh}ammad, his "personality took more legendary and apologetic shape" so too did the biographies of Umayyads like 'Umar II (d.720) (who was known for his piety) and the general Maslama ibn 'Abd al-Malik (d. 738) (renowned for the opposite) assume overtly political dimensions. This paper will compare biographical traditions related to these contemporaries to explore the political uses of traditional literature in shaping memory and power in the early medieval world.