Текст книги "Literary History of the Arabs "

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Abu ‘Abdalláh Muḥammad b. ‘Abdús al-Jahshiyárí (õ942-943 a.d.), the author of the 'Book of Viziers,' began to compile a book in which he selected one thousand stories of the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks, and other peoples, every piece being independent and unconnected with the rest. He gathered the story-tellers round him and took from them the best of what they knew and were able to tell, and he chose out of the fable and story-books whatever pleased him. He was a skilful craftsman, so he put together from this material 480 nights, each night an entire story of fifty pages, more or less, but death surprised him before he completed the thousand tales as he had intended."

Evidently, then, the Hazár Afsánwas the kernel of the 'Arabian Nights,' and it is probable that this Persian archetype included the most finely imaginative tales in the existing collection, e.g., the 'Fisherman and the Genie,' 'Camaralzamán and Different sources of the collection. Budúr,' and the 'Enchanted Horse.' As time went on, the original stock received large additions which may be divided into two principal groups, both Semitic in character: the one belonging to Baghdád and consisting mainly of humorous anecdotes and love romances in which the famous Caliph 'Haroun Alraschid' frequently comes on the scene; the other having its centre in Cairo, and marked by a roguish, ironical pleasantry as well as by the mechanic supernaturalism which is perfectly illustrated in 'Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.' But, apart from these three sources, the 'Arabian Nights' has in the course of centuries accumulated and absorbed an immense number of Oriental folk-tales of every description, equally various in origin and style. The oldest translation by Galland (Paris, 1704-1717) is a charming paraphrase, which in some respects is more true to the spirit of the original than are the scholarly renderings of Lane and Burton.

The 'Romance of ‘Antar' ( Síratu ‘Antar) is traditionally ascribed to the great philologist, Aṣma‘í,846 who flourished in the reign of Hárún al-Rashíd, but this must be considered as an invention of the professional reciters The 'Romance of ‘Antar.' who sit in front of Oriental cafés and entertain the public with their lively declamations.847 According to Brockelmann, the work in its present form apparently dates from the time of the Crusades.848 Its hero is the celebrated heathen poet and warrior, ‘Antara b. Shaddád, of whom we have already given an account as author of one of the seven Mu‘allaqát. Though the Romance exhibits all the anachronisms and exaggerations of popular legend, it does nevertheless portray the unchanging features of Bedouin life with admirable fidelity and picturesqueness. Von Hammer, whose notice in the Mines de l'Orient(1802) was the means of introducing the Síratu ‘Antarto European readers, justly remarks that it cannot be translated in full owing to its portentous length. It exists in two recensions called respectively the Arabian ( Ḥijáziyya) and the Syrian ( Shámiyya), the latter being very much curtailed.849

While the decadent state of Arabic literature during all these centuries was immediately caused by unfavourable social and political conditions, the real source of the malady lay deeper, and must, I think, be referred to the spiritual paralysis which had long been creeping over Orthodoxy and mysticism. Islam and which manifested itself by the complete victory of the Ash‘arites or Scholastic Theologians about 1200 a.d. Philosophy and Rationalism were henceforth as good as dead. Two parties remained in possession of the field—the orthodox and the mystics. The former were naturally intolerant of anything approaching to free-thought, and in their principle of ijmá‘, i.e., the consensus of public opinion (which was practically controlled by themselves), they found a potent weapon against heresy. How ruthlessly they sometimes used it we may see from the following passage in the Yawáqítof Sha‘rání. After giving instances of the persecution to which the Ṣúfís of old—Báyazíd, Dhú ’l-Nún, and others—were subjected by their implacable enemies, the ‘Ulamá, he goes on to speak of what had happened more recently850:—

"They brought the Imám Abú Bakr al-Nábulusí, notwithstanding his merit and profound learning and rectitude in religion, from the Persecution of heretics. Maghrib to Egypt and testified that he was a heretic ( zindíq). The Sultan gave orders that he should be suspended by his feet and flayed alive. While the sentence was being carried out, he began to recite the Koran with such an attentive and humble demeanour that he moved the hearts of the people, and they were near making a riot. And likewise they caused Nasímí to be flayed at Aleppo.851 When he silenced them by his arguments, they devised a plan for his destruction, thus: They wrote the Súratu ’l-Ikhláṣ852 on a piece of paper and bribed a cobbler of shoes, saying to him, 'It contains only love and pleasantness, so place it inside the sole of the shoe.' Then they took that shoe and sent it from a far distance as a gift to the Shaykh (Nasímí), who put it on, for he knew not. His adversaries went to the governor of Aleppo and said: 'We have sure information that Nasímí has written, Say, God is One, and has placed the writing in the sole of his shoe. If you do not believe us, send for him and see!' The governor did as they wished. On the production of the paper, the Shaykh resigned himself to the will of God and made no answer to the charge, knowing well that he would be killed on that pretext. I was told by one who studied under his disciples that all the time when he was being flayed Nasímí was reciting muwashshaḥsin praise of the Unity of God, until he composed five hundred verses, and that he was looking at his executioners and smiling. And likewise they brought Shaykh Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Shádhilí853 from the West to Egypt and bore witness that he was a heretic, but God delivered him from their plots. And they accused Shaykh ‘Izzu ’l-Dín b. ‘Abd al-Salám854 of infidelity and sat in judgment over him on account of some expressions in his ‘Aqída(Articles of Faith) and urged the Sultan to punish him; afterwards, however, he was restored to favour. They denounced Shaykh Táju ’l-Dín al-Subkí855 on the same charge, asserting that he held it lawful to drink wine and that he wore at night the badge ( ghiyár) of the unbelievers and the zone ( zunnár)856; and they brought him, manacled and in chains, from Syria to Egypt."

This picture is too highly coloured. It must be admitted for the credit of the ‘Ulamá, that they seldom resorted to violence. Islam was happily spared the horrors of an organised Inquisition. On the other hand, their authority was now so firmly established that all progress towards moral and intellectual liberty had apparently ceased, or at any rate only betrayed itself in spasmodic outbursts. Ṣúfiism in some degree represented such a movement, but the mystics shared the triumph of Scholasticism and contributed to the reaction which ensued. No longer an oppressed minority struggling for toleration, they found themselves side by side with reverend doctors on a platform broad enough to accommodate all parties, and they saw their own popular heroes turned into Saints of the orthodox Church. The compromise did not always work smoothly—in fact, there was continual friction—but on the whole it seems to have borne the strain wonderfully well. If pious souls were shocked by the lawlessness of the Dervishes, and if bigots would fain have burned the books of Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí and Ibnu ’l-Fáriḍ, the divines in general showed a disposition to suspend judgment in matters touching holy men and to regard them as standing above human criticism.

As typical representatives of the religious life of this period we may take two men belonging to widely opposite camps—Taqiyyu ’l-Dín Ibn Taymiyya and ‘Abdu ’l-Wahháb al-Sha‘rání.

Ibn Taymiyya was born at Ḥarrán in 1263 a.d. A few years later his father, fleeing before the Mongols, brought him Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328 a.d.). to Damascus, where in due course he received an excellent education. It is said that he never forgot anything which he had once learned, and his knowledge of theology and law was so extensive as almost to justify the saying, "A tradition that Ibn Taymiyya does not recognise is no tradition." Himself a Ḥanbalite of the deepest dye—holding, in other words, that the Koran must be interpreted according to its letter and not by the light of reason—he devoted his life with rare courage to the work of religious reform. His aim, in short, was to restore the primitive monotheism taught by the Prophet and to purge Islam of the heresies and corruptions which threatened to destroy it. One may imagine what a hornet's nest he was attacking. Mystics, philosophers, and scholastic theologians, all fell alike under the lash of his denunciation. Bowing to no authority, but drawing his arguments from the traditions and practice of the early Church, he expressed his convictions in the most forcible terms, without regard to consequences. Although several times thrown into prison, he could not be muzzled for long. The climax was reached when he lifted up his voice against the superstitions of the popular faith—saint-worship, pilgrimage to holy shrines, vows, offerings, and invocations. These things, which the zealous puritan condemned as sheer idolatry, were part of a venerable cult that was hallowed by ancient custom, and had engrafted itself in luxuriant overgrowth upon Islam. The mass of Moslems believed, and still believe implicitly in the saints, accept their miracles, adore their relics, visit their tombs, and pray for their intercession. Ibn Taymiyya even declared that it was wrong to implore the aid of the Prophet or to make a pilgrimage to his sepulchre. It was a vain protest. He ended his days in captivity at Damascus. The vast crowds who attended his funeral—we are told that there were present 200,000 men and 15,000 women—bore witness to the profound respect which was universally felt for the intrepid reformer. Oddly enough, he was buried in the Cemetery of the Ṣúfís, whose doctrines he had so bitterly opposed, and the multitude revered his memory—as a saint! The principles which inspired Ibn Taymiyya did not fall to the ground, although their immediate effect was confined to a very small circle. We shall see them reappearing victoriously in the Wahhábite movement of the eighteenth century.

Notwithstanding the brilliant effort of Ghazálí to harmonise dogmatic theology with mysticism, it soon became clear that the two parties were in essence irreconcilable. The orthodox clergy who held fast by the authority of the Koran and the> Traditions saw a grave danger to themselves in the esoteric revelation which the mystics claimed to possess; while the latter, though externally conforming to the law of Islam, looked down with contempt on the idea that true knowledge of God could be derived from theology, or from any source except the inner light of heavenly inspiration. Hence the antithesis of faqíh(theologian) and faqír(dervish), the one class forming a powerful official hierarchy in close alliance with the Government, whereas the Ṣúfís found their chief support among the people at large, and especially among the poor. We need not dwell further on the natural antagonism which has always existed between these rival corporations, and which is a marked feature in the modern history of Islam. It will be more instructive to spend a few moments with the last great Muḥammadan theosophist, ‘Abdu ’l-Wahháb Sha‘rání õ 1565 a.d.). al-Sha‘rání, a man who, with all his weaknesses, was an original thinker, and exerted an influence strongly felt to this day, as is shown by the steady demand for his books. He was born about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Concerning his outward life we have little information beyond the facts that he was a weaver by trade and resided in Cairo. At this time Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire. Sha‘rání contrasts the miserable lot of the peasantry under the new régimewith their comparative prosperity under the Mamelukes. So terrible were the exactions of the tax-gatherers that the fellah was forced to sell the whole produce of his land, and sometimes even the ox which ploughed it, in order to save himself and his family from imprisonment; and every lucrative business was crushed by confiscation. It is not to be supposed, however, that Sha‘rání gave serious attention to such sublunary matters. He lived in a world of visions and wonderful experiences. He conversed with angels and prophets, like his more famous predecessor, Muḥyi ’l-Dín Ibnu ’l-‘Arabí, whose Meccan Revelationshe studied and epitomised. His autobiography entitled Laṭá’ifu ’l-Minan displays the hierophant in full dress. It is a record of the singular spiritual gifts and virtues with which he was endowed, and would rank as a masterpiece of shameless self-laudation, did not the author repeatedly assure us that all his extraordinary qualities are Divine blessings and are gratefully set forth by their recipient ad majorem Dei gloriam. We should be treating Sha‘rání very unfairly if we judged him by this work alone. The arrogant miracle-monger was one of the most learned men of his day, and could beat the scholastic theologians with their own weapons. Indeed, he regarded theology ( fiqh) as the first step towards Ṣúfiism, and endeavoured to show that in reality they are different aspects of the same science. He also sought to harmonise the four great schools of law, whose disagreement was consecrated by the well-known saying ascribed to the Prophet: "The variance of my people is an act of Divine mercy" ( ikhtiláfu ummatí raḥmat ^un). Like the Arabian Ṣúfís generally, Sha‘rání kept his mysticism within narrow bounds, and declared himself an adherent of the moderate section which follows Junayd of Baghdád (õ 909-910 a.d.). For all his extravagant pretensions and childish belief in the supernatural, he never lost touch with the Muḥammadan Church.

In the thirteenth century Ibn Taymiyya had tried to eradicate the abuses which obscured the simple creed of Islam. He failed, but his work was carried on by others and was crowned, after a long interval, by the Wahhábite Reformation.857

Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahháb,858 from whom its name is Arabia. In his youth he visited the principal cities of the Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahháb and his successors. East, "as is much the practice with his countrymen even now,"859 and what he observed in the course of his travels convinced him that Islam was thoroughly corrupt. Fired by the example of Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings he copied with his own hand,860 Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahháb determined to re-establish the pure religion of Muḥammad in its primitive form. Accordingly he returned home and retired with his family to Ḍira‘iyya at the time when Muḥammad b. Sa‘úd was the chief personage of the town. This man became his first convert and soon after married his daughter. But it was not until the end of the eighteenth century that the Wahhábís, under ‘Abdu ’l-‘Azíz, son of Muḥammad b. Sa‘úd, gained their first great successes. In 1801 they sacked Imám-Ḥusayn,861 a town in the vicinity of Baghdád, massacred five thousand persons, and destroyed the cupola of Ḥusayn's tomb; the veneration paid by all Shí‘ites to that shrine being, as Burckhardt says, a sufficient cause to attract the Wahhábí fury against it. Two years later they made themselves masters of the whole Ḥijáz, including Mecca and Medína. On the death of ‘Abdu ’l-‘Azíz, who was assassinated in the same year, his eldest son, Sa‘úd, continued the work of conquest and brought the greater part of Arabia under Wahhábite rule. At last, in 1811, Turkey despatched a fleet and army to recover the Holy Cities. This task was accomplished by Muḥammad ‘Alí, the Pasha of Egypt (1812-13), and after five years' hard fighting the war ended in favour of the Turks, who in 1818 inflicted a severe defeat on the Wahhábís and took their capital, Ḍira‘iyya, by storm. The sect, however, still maintains its power in Central Arabia, and in recent times has acquired political importance.

The Wahhábís were regarded by the Turks as infidels and authors of a new religion. It was natural that they should The Wahhábite Reformation. appear in this light, for they interrupted the pilgrim-caravans, demolished the domes and ornamented tombs of the most venerable Saints (not excepting that of the Prophet himself), and broke to pieces the Black Stone in the Ka‘ba. All this they did not as innovators, but as reformers. They resembled the Carmathians only in their acts. Burckhardt says very truly: "Not a single new precept was to be found in the Wahaby code. Abd el Waháb took as his sole guide the Koran and the Sunne (or the laws formed upon the traditions of Mohammed); and the only difference between his sect and the orthodox Turks, however improperly so termed, is, that the Wahabys rigidly follow the same laws which the others neglect, or have ceased altogether to observe."862 "The Wahhábites," says Dozy, "attacked the idolatrous worship of Mahomet; although he was in their eyes a Prophet sent to declare the will of God, he was no less a man like others, and his mortal shell, far from having mounted to heaven, rested in the tomb at Medína. Saint-worship they combated just as strongly. They proclaimed that all men are equal before God; that even the most virtuous and devout cannot intercede with Him; and that, consequently, it is a sin to invoke the Saints and to adore their relics."863 In the same puritan spirit they forbade the smoking of tobacco, the wearing of gaudy robes, and praying over the rosary. "It has been stated that they likewise prohibited the drinking of coffee; this, however, is not the fact: they have always used it to an immoderate degree."864

The Wahhábite movement has been compared with the Protestant Reformation in Europe; but while the latter was followed by the English and French Revolutions, the former has not yet produced any great political results. It has borne fruit in a general religious revival throughout the world of Islam and particularly in the mysterious Sanúsiyya The Sanúsís in Africa.Brotherhood, whose influence is supreme in Tripoli, the Sahara, and the whole North African Hinterland, and whose members are reckoned by millions. Muḥammad b. ‘Alí b. Sanúsí, the founder of this vast and formidable organisation, was born at Algiers in 1791, lived for many years at Mecca, and died at Jaghbúb in the Libyan desert, midway between Egypt and Tripoli, in 1859. Concerning the real aims of the Sanúsís I must refer the reader to an interesting paper by the Rev. E. Sell ( Essays on Islam, p. 127 sqq.). There is no doubt that they are utterly opposed to all Western and modern civilisation, and seek to regenerate Islam by establishing an independent theocratic State on the model of that which the Prophet and his successors called into being at Medína in the seventh century after Christ.

Since Napoleon showed the way by his expedition to Egypt in 1798, the Moslems in that country, as likewise in Syria and North Islam and modern civilisation. Africa, have come more and more under European influence.865 The above-mentioned Muḥammad ‘Alí, who founded the Khedivial dynasty, and his successors were fully alive to the practical benefits which might be obtained from the superior culture of the West, and although their policy in this respect was marked by greater zeal than discretion, they did not exert themselves altogether in vain. The introduction of the printing-press in 1821 was an epoch-making measure. If, on the one hand, the publication of many classical works, which had well-nigh fallen into oblivion, rekindled the enthusiasm of the Arabs for their national literature, the cause of progress—I use the word without prejudice—has been furthered by the numerous political, literary, and scientific journals which are now regularly issued in every country where Arabic is spoken.866 Besides these ephemeral sheets, books of all sorts, old and new, have been multiplied by the native and European presses of Cairo, Búláq, and Beyrout. The science and culture of Europe have been rendered accessible in translations and adaptations of which the complete list would form a volume in itself. Thus, an Arab may read in his own language the tragedies of Racine, the comedies of Molière,867 the fables of La Fontaine, 'Paul and Virginia,' the 'Talisman,' 'Monte Cristo' (not to mention scores of minor romances), and even the Iliad of Homer.868 Parallel to this imitative activity, we see a vigorous and growing movement away from the literary models of the past. "Neo-Arabic literature is only to a limited extent the heir of the old 'classical' Arabic literature, and even shows a tendency to repudiate its inheritance entirely. Its leaders are for the most part men who have drunk from other springs and look at the world with different eyes. Yet the past still plays a part in their intellectual background, and there is a section amongst them upon whom that past retains a hold scarcely shaken by newer influences. For many decades the partisans of the 'old' and the 'new' have engaged in a struggle for the soul of the Arabic world, a struggle in which the victory of one side over the other is even yet not assured. The protagonists are (to classify them roughly for practical purposes) the European-educated classes of Egyptians and Syrians on the one hand, and those in Egypt and the less advanced Arabic lands whose education has followed traditional lines on the other. Whatever the ultimate result may be, there can be no question that the conflict has torn the Arabic world from its ancient moorings, and that the contemporary literature of Egypt and Syria breathes in its more recent developments a spirit foreign to the old traditions."869

Hitherto Western culture has only touched the surface of Islam. Whether it will eventually strike deeper and penetrate the inmost barriers of that scholastic discipline and literary tradition which are so firmly rooted in the affections of the Moslem peoples, or whether it will always remain an exotic and highly-prized accomplishment of the enlightened and emancipated few, but an object of scorn and detestation to Muḥammadans in general—these are questions that may not be fully solved for centuries to come.

Meanwhile the Past affords an ample and splendid field of study.

" Man lam ya‘i ’l-ta’ríkha fí ṣadrihí Lam yadri ḥulwa ’l-‘ayshi min murrihi Wa-man wa‘á akhbára man qad maḍá Aḍáfa a‘már ^anilá ‘umrihí." "He in whose heart no History is enscrolled Cannot discern in life's alloy the gold. But he that keeps the records of the Dead Adds to his life new lives a hundredfold."

APPENDIX

P. xxii, l. 2. Arabic begins to appear in North Arabian inscriptions in the third century a.d. Perhaps the oldest yet discovered is one, of which the probable date is 268 a.d., published by Jaussen and Savignac ( Mission archéologique en l'Arabie, vol. i, p. 172). Though it is written in Aramaic characters, nearly all the words are Arabic, as may be seen from the transcription given by Professor Horovitz in Islamic Culture(Hyderabad, Deccan), April 1929, vol. iii, No. 2, p. 169, note 2.

P. 4 foll. Concerning the Sabaeans and the South Arabic inscriptions a great deal of valuable information will be found in the article Saba’by J. Tkatsch in the Encyclopædia of Islam. The writer points out the special importance of the epigraphic discoveries of E. Glaser, who, in the course of four journeys (1882-94), collected over 2000 inscriptions. See also D. Nielsen, Handbuch der altarabischen Altertumskunde, vol. i (Copenhagen and Paris, 1927).

P. 13, note 2. Excerpts from the Shamsu ’l-‘Ulúmrelating to South Arabia have been edited by Dr ‘Azímu’ddín Aḥmad (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. xxiv).

P. 26 foll. For contemporary and later Christian accounts of the martyrdom of the Christians of Najrán, see the fragmentary Book of the Himyarites(Syriac text and English translation), ed. by A. Moberg in 1924, and cf. Tor Andrae, Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum(Uppsala, 1926), pp. 10-13.

P. 31. The collection of Arabic proverbs, entitled Kitábu ’l-Fákhir, by Mufaḍḍal b. Salama of Kúfa, is now available in the excellent edition of Mr C. A. Storey (Leyden, 1915).

P. 32, note 1. An edition of the Agháníwith critical notes is in course of publication at Cairo.

P. 52, l. 9 foll. The battle mentioned here cannot be the battle of ‘Ayn Ubágh, which took place between Ḥárith, the son of Ḥárith b. Jabala, and Mundhir IV of Ḥíra about 583 a.d. (Guidi, L'Arabie antéislamique, p. 27).

P. 127, l. 16. The ode Bánat Su‘ád is rendered into English in my Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose, pp. 19-23.

P. 133. As regards the authenticity of the Pre-islamic poems which have come down to us, the observations of one of the greatest authorities on the subject, the late Sir Charles J. Lyall, seem to me to be eminently judicious (Introduction to the Mufaḍḍalīyāt, vol. ii, pp. xvi-xxvi). He concludes that "upon the whole, the impression which a close study of these ancient relics gives is that we must take them, generally speaking, as the production of the men whose names they bear." All that can be urged against this view has been said with his usual learning by Professor Margoliouth ( The Origins of Arabic Poetry, J.R.A.S., 1925, p. 417 foll.).

P. 145, l. 2. The oldest extant commentary on the Koran is that of Bukhárí in ch. 65 of the Ṣaḥíḥ, ed. Krehl, vol. iii, pp. 193-390.

P. 146, note 2. Recent investigators (Caetani and Lammens) are far more sceptical. Cf. Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism, p. 22 foll.

P. 152, note 5. As suggested by Mr Richard Bell ( The Origin of Islam in its Christian environment, p. 88), the word rujzis in all likelihood identical with the Syriac rugza, wrath, so that this verse of the Koran means, "Flee from the wrath to come."

P. 170, l. 2 foll. This is one of the passages I should have liked to omit. Even in its present form, it maintains a standpoint which I have long regarded as mistaken.

P. 184, l. 4 foll. Professor Snouck Hurgronje ( Mohammedanism, p. 44) asks, "Was Mohammed conscious of the universality of his mission?" and decides that he was not. I now agree that "in the beginning he conceived his work as merely the Arabian part of a universal task"—in which case dhikr ^unli ’l-‘álamín in the passage quoted will mean "a warning to all the people (of Mecca or Arabia)." But similar expressions in Súras of the Medina period carry, I think, a wider significance. The conception of Islam as a world-religion is implied in Mohammed's later belief—he only came to it gradually—that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupt and that the Koran alone represents the original Faith which had been preached in turn by all the prophets before him. And having arrived at that conviction, he was not the man to leave others to act upon it.

P. 223, l. 9. In an article which appeared in the Rivista degli studi orientali, 1916, p. 429 foll., Professor C. A. Nallino has shown that this account of the origin of the name "Mu‘tazilite" is erroneous. The word, as Mas‘údí says ( Murúju ’l-Dhahab, vol. vi, p. 22, and vol. vii, p. 234), is derived from i‘tizál, i.e.the doctrine that anyone who commits a capital sin has thereby withdrawn himself ( i‘tazala) from the true believers and taken a position (described as fisq, impiety) midway between them and the infidels. According to the Murjites, such a person was still a true believer, while their opponents, the Wa‘ídites, and also the Khárijites, held him to be an unbeliever.

P. 225, l. 1. The Ḥadíth, "No monkery ( rahbániyya) in Islam," probably dates from the third century of the Hijra. According to the usual interpretation of Koran, LVII, 27, the rahbániyyapractised by Christian ascetics is condemned as an innovation not authorised by divine ordinance; but Professor Massignon ( Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, p. 123 foll.) shows that by some of the early Moslem commentators and also by the Ṣúfís of the third century a.h. this verse of the Koran was taken as justifying and commending those Christians who devoted themselves to the ascetic life, except in so far as they had neglected to fulfil its obligations.

P. 225, l. 6 from foot. For the life and doctrines of Ḥasan of Baṣra, see Massignon, op. cit., p. 152 foll.

P. 228 foll. It can now be stated with certainty that the name "Ṣúfí" originated in Kúfa in the second century a.h. and was at first confined to the mystics of ‘Iráq. Hence the earliest development of Ṣúfiism, properly so called, took place in a hotbed of Shí‘ite and Hellenistic (Christian and Gnostic) ideas.

P. 233, l. 4 from foot. In Rābi‘a the Mystic(Cambridge, 1928) Miss Margaret Smith has given a scholarly and sympathetic account of the life, legend, and teaching of this celebrated woman-saint. The statement that she died and was buried at Jerusalem is incorrect. Moslem writers have confused her with an earlier saint of the same name, Rábi‘a bint Ismá‘íl (õ 135).

P. 313 foll. The text and translation of 332 extracts from the Luzúmiyyát will be found in ch. ii of my Studies in Islamic Poetry, pp. 43-289.

P. 318, l. 12. Since there is no warrant for the antithesis of "knaves" and "fools," these verses are more faithfully rendered ( op. cit., p. 167):

They all err—Moslems, Christians, Jews, and Magians; Two make Humanity's universal sect: One man intelligent without religion, And one religious without intellect.

P. 318, l. 7 from foot. Al-Fuṣúl wa ’l-Gháyát. No copy of this work was known before 1919, when the discovery of the first part of it was announced ( J.R.A.S., 1919, p. 449).

P. 318, note 2. An edition of the Risálatu ’l-Ghufránby Shaykh Ibráhím al-Yáziji was published at Cairo in 1907.

P. 319, l. 6. The epistle of ‘Alí b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalabí (Ibnu ’l-Qáriḥ), to which the Risálatu ’l-Ghufránis the reply, has been published in Rasá’ilu ’l-Bulaghá, ed. Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alí (Cairo, 1913).