(Arab., pl. faḍāʾil ) an excellence or excellent quality, a high degree in (or of) excellence. The plural faḍāʾil indicates a definite category of literature, related to but distinct from the so-called “disputes for precedence”. Faḍāʾil literature exposes the excellences of things, individuals, groups, places, regions and such for the purpose of a laudatio . The polemical comparison or dialogue, characteristic of the “disputes for precedence”, is lacking.

Faḍāʾil literature, the opposite to which is mat̲h̲ālib literature, may be divided into various branches:

Ḳurʾān. Faḍāʾil li…