and as equally adapted to portray the fiercer passions of the mind. The variety of its inflections, the regularity of its syntax, and the harmony of its prosody are not less striking, and they furnish in themselves a sufficient proof of the high degree of culture which the language of the Arabic nation had already attained (1). The superior merit of this early literature was ever afterwards acknowledged by the Arabs themselves; it furnished them not only with models but ideas for their poetical productions; and its influence has always continued perceptible in the kasida (2), which still contains the same thoughts, the same allusions as of old, and drags its slow length along in monotonous dignity.

A great change came over the spirit of Arabic literature on the appearance of the Koran, an extraordinary compound of falsehood and truth, which moulded a people of shepherds and robbers into a nation and launched them forth to the conquest of the world. It is considered by Moslims as the word of God, —his eternal, uncreated word, - revealed to mankind in the language of Paradise, to remain a standing miracle by its admirable style. This opinion deterred nearly every attempt at imitation (3); the book stood apart in the majesty of its supposed excellence, but the study of its contents, combined with that of the Traditions relative to its author, gave rise to almost all the branches of Arabian learning. The mode by which this was effected shall be here briefly explained, but it is requisite to make some previous observations on the Traditions.

The sayings of Muhammad were considered by his followers as the result of divine inspiration, and they therefore treasured them up in their memory with the same care which they had taken in learning by heart the chapters

(1) This is in some degree attributable to the annual meetings of the poets at the fair of Okđz, but the poems of Amro 'l-Kais are a proof that the language had acquired its regularity and flexibility from some other source, as he never attended these assemblies. His was the dialect of the Himyarite Arabs, and it was most probably at the court of his ancestors, the kings of the tribe of Kinda, that it received its polish. (2) See Introduction, page XXXIV.

(3) Ibn al-Mukaffa, al-Mutanabbi, Abû 'l-Alà al-Maarri, and a few others who like them did not hold very orthodox opinions, essayed in some of their writings to surpass the style of the Koran, but their attempt was naturally considered as a failure. Were we to examine the Koran by the rules of rhetoric and criticism as they are taught in Moslim schools, we should be obliged to acknowledge that it is the perfection of thought and expression; an inevitable result, as the Moslims drew their principles of rhetoric from that very book.

of the Koran. They recorded also his behaviour under particular circumstances, the acts of his daily life, even the most trifling, and they related them to the rising generation as examples of conduct for every Moslim (1). It may be easily imagined that the mass of these Traditions increased rapidly : the different accounts of the same event, the same thoughts expressed in other terms, and even fabricated statements were received with equal avidity by the followers of Islamism, and soon became so numerous that no single man could recollect them all. It was therefore necessary to put them down in writing, and the first essay of this kind was made by Ibn Shihâb az-Zuhri during the reign of the khalif Omar Ibn Abd al-Azîz (2). Other doctors in different cities of the Moslim empire, and between the years 140 and 150 of the Hijra, classed the Traditions according to the subjects which they served to illustrate (3), and towards the beginning of the third century, al-Bukhâri undertook to reduce their number by selecting those only which were supported by the best authority. In discriminating between the true and the false, he was guided by the character of the persons through whom they had passed down, and he rejected those which could not be traced up through an unbroken series of Traditionists, all men of unimpeached veracity and acknowledged piety. His example was followed by other doctors, and the united contents of the six Sahihs, or genuine collections, form to the present day one of the four columns which support the edifice of Moslim law. These Traditions serve to explain points of doctrine not set forth with sufficient clearness in the Koran, and they are therefore considered as the indispensable supplement to that book. Their style is concise and elliptic, but pure and elegant; abounding with idiomatic expressions peculiar to the Arabs of the desert, and not to be perfectly understood without a commentary. The perusal of these documents is however most instructive, and the European scholar who makes it his task to study them will acquire not

(1) The distinction between the Hadith (sayings) and the Sunan (doings) is not attended to by doctors of the Moslim law; both are equally authoritative.

(2) The author of the Muhadirat al-Awdil mentions this fact on the authority of as-Soyûti, most probably from the Awail, one of the numerous treatises by that writer.

(3) Of this further notice will be taken; see page XXIV.

only a profound knowledge of pure Arabic, but a deep insight into the manners and character of every Moslim people..

The necessity of distinguishing the genuine Traditions from the false gave rise to new branches of literature. A just appreciation of the credit to which each Traditionist was entitled could only be formed from a knowledge of his moral character, and this could be best estimated from an examination of his life. Hence the numerous biographical works arranged in chronological order and containing short accounts of the principal Traditionists and doctors of the law, with the indication of their tutors and their pupils, the places of their birth and residence, the race from which they sprung, and the year of their death. This again led Moslim critics to the study of genealogy and geography.

The use of writing existed in Arabia before the promulgation of Islamism, but grammar was not known as an art till the difficulty of reciting the Koran correctly induced the khalif Ali to make it an object of his attention. He imposed on Abû 'l-Aswad ad-Duwali the task of drawing up such instructions as would enable the Moslims to read their sacred book and speak their language without making gross faults (1).

The sense of the Koran was felt to be obscure in many places, and this was justly attributed to two causes: indirect allusions to circumstances of which no further notice was taken, and the use of many words and phrases borrowed from the tribes of the Desert. The allusions were explained by the companions of Muhammad, and these explanations, handed down by tradition, are still preserved in the commentaries on the Koran; but the meaning of its obscure expressions could only be obtained from a comparison of the passages in which they are found with similar passages preserved in the early monuments of the Arabic language. It was this reason which induced Ibn Abbâs, soon after the death of his cousin Muhammad, to encourage the study of poetry, and from that time it became an indispensable branch of education. But the poems of the ancient Arabs were usually made on some particular occasion, and to understand them well it was necessary to know the motive which led the author to compose them; and

(1) See the life of Abu 'l-Aswad in this volume, page 662.

as it generally happened that he was not only a poet, but a warrior, they often contained allusions to the battle-days wherein he himself had fought. This led the Moslim scholar to study the history of the old Arabic tribes, and here again he could not see his way without the help of genealogy.

The duty of pilgrimage contributed to turn their attention to geography. The believers who dwelt in distant lands required to know the towns and countries through which they had to pass before arriving at Mekka: lists and itineraries were drawn up for this purpose, and hence all their geographical works received the general title of Masâlik wa Mamâlik (Roads and Realms). Every mosque in the Moslim empire must be turned towards Mekka, and the founder had therefore to ascertain previously the latitude and longitude of the place where the edifice was to be erected. This required some knowledge of astronomy, a science of foreign growth, but which had been encouraged from the earliest period of Islamism, since some knowledge of it was requisite to ascertain the hours of prayer, which could only be determined by means of the altitude of the sun. In the latitude of Mekka the daily variation of the hours, caused by the sun's movement in the ecliptic, was so slight, that it produced very little change in the times of prayer throughout the year; but in higher latitudes the difference became perceptible, and it was only by tables or almanacs that the muwazzin was enabled to know the precise moment at which he should call the faithful to public worship (1). The Moslim Lent begins on the first appearance of the new moon in the month of Ramadân. The sunnite doctors require that the moon should be seen before the fast can commence; but in Egypt, under the Fatimides, and in the countries where the shiite doctrines prevailed, the day of the new moon was fixed beforehand by calculations to which lunar tables served as a basis, and these tables were gradually improved by the assiduity of astronomers, encouraged in their labours by the patronage of government.

In their arithmetical calculations the Arabs employed certain letters of the alphabet with a numerical value, but they afterwards adopted the Indian

(1) The works serving to point out the precise hours of prayer were called Mawakit and their authors were entitled Muwakkit ; the muwazzins of mosques were sometimes muwakkits.

ciphers (1). The arithmetic of fractions was cultivated by them very early; the Koran, in fixing the shares of inheritance to which the nearer and the more distant heirs are entitled, rendered it indispensable (2). The first principles of algebra seem to have been known to them even in the lifetime of Muhammad (3).

General history was not at first considered by Moslims as a lawful science, and many doctors were led by religious scruples to condemn its study. But the history of literary men, that is, of doctors of the law, poets, philologers, and grammarians, received their approval, inasmuch as the writings of such persons were connected with those branches of learning, the germs of which had expanded under the influence of the Koran and the Traditions. All the great cities had their literary history, into which the patriotism of the author, anxious to exalt the glory of his native place, sometimes introduced the lives of great princes, generals, vizirs, and other public officers (4). It was only when pious Moslims had been led to believe that political history was instructive and edifying, since it marks the ways of God towards man, that writings of this cast obtained at length a hesitating approval.

The documents relative to Muhammadan history were transmitted during the first centuries by oral tradition from one hâfiz to another, and these persons made it an object of their particular care not to alter, in the least degree,

(1) In their astronomical works they employ both systems of notation, but in the tables they generally make use of letters, as by their means they can express all numbers below two thousand.

(2) The art of reckoning fractions was known to Zaid Ibn Thâbit, one of Muhammad's companions, and he applied it, with the approbation of his master, to the division of inheritances. The imâm as-Shaft improved on Zaid's principles, and his system was taken by the author of the Sirajiya as the basis of his work. (3) Though the history of algebra was not the immediate object of my studies, I met in Arabic writers some particular circumstances relative to it which have fixed my attention and led me to the conclusion which I here announce; but more extensive researches must be made before I can furnish the complete proofs of my

assertion.

(4) Some of these histories with their continuations formed collections of from eighty to one hundred large volumes, a few of which are yet to be found in European libraries. The Bibliothèque du Roi possesses a folio volume closely written and containing a very small part of the Khatib's History of Baghdad-a portion only of the letter ain. Another large volume on the History of Aleppo contains only a small part of the first letter of the alphabet. The extent of some of these collections may be best appreciated from Hajji Khalifa's account of them in his Bibliographical Dictionary; see the articles Tarikh Baghdad, Tarikh Haleb, Tawarikh Dimesch, etc.