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Kiraman Katibin

personal recording angels in Islamic tradition

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2025
Entity authorityQ6414792 ↗
Source-derived summary

In Islamic tradition the kiraman katibin (Arabic: كراماً كاتبين, ‘noble writers’) are believed to be angels tasked with recording a person's actions. They are mentioned in the Quran and their function is expanded upon by hadith. One angel is said to be tasked with writing down good deeds and the second to write down evil deeds.

Description

A pair of angels are tasked to record the deeds of a person. The work of the noble writers is to write down and record every action of a person each day. One angel figuratively seated on the right side and records all good deeds, while the other seated on the left side and records all bad deeds.

In the Quran, the angels are mentioned in Surah 6:61; 13:11; 50:17-18 and 82:10-12. Details about them are mostly found in the commentary on 13:11. Tafsir and hadith agree that these angels record the actions of humans. A hadith transmitted from Ibn Abbas recorded by al-Tabari was quoted by Al-Suyuti, that the kiraman katibin are never absent accompanying a person except on 3 occasions: when the person take a defecation, Najis state, and during bath.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Kiraman Katibin” as personal recording angels in Islamic tradition. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current 190-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Kiraman, Katibin and personal can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as personal recording angels in Islamic tradition. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6414792. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kiraman Katibin”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kiraman Katibin primary sources, Kiraman Katibin archive and Kiraman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kiraman Katibin”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kiraman Katibin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.