In giving to the world, at the cost of much time and labour, this, the first volume of a complete translation of the Maḳâmât of Al Ḥarîri, it is necessary that I should say a few words on the objects of the work, and the principles on which it has been executed. The in­estimable value of the Arabic language is admitted by every scholar and by every practical Oriental linguist. It is the most perfect and elaborate speech of the family to which it belongs; its copiousness, its varied and deli­cate inflexion, the learned and abtruse grammar that has been built upon it, give it the highest importance in the scientific study of language. It is, moreover, the sacred and classic tongue of all the Moḥammedan peoples, and the study of it is the key to a knowledge of the thoughts, habits, and tendencies of this great section of the human race. A vast and comprehensive literature rewards the pains of any one who persever­ingly applies himself to it. Furthermore, it is indis­pensable to a real knowledge of other languages which have great historical or political importance. For the full understanding of its sisters, the Hebrew and the Syriac, and its vassals, the Persian and the Turkish, the language of the Arabian Peninsula must be studied. These latter modern tongues, especially, can only be known inadequately and superficially by one who is not well grounded in Arabic. The great epic poet of the Persians does, indeed, use the pure speech of Iran; but succeeding ages brought in a flood of Arabic words and idioms, until the literary Persian assumed the composite diction which now confuses our Indian learners. The literary Turkish is even more largely commingled. It borrowed both directly from the Arabs and indirectly through the Persians. Without a know­ledge of Arabic it is difficult to read intelligently the Odes of Baki, and still more the historical and official writings of the modern Osmanlis. For though the polyglot dictionaries of the East may give the student a vague knowlege of individual Arabic words as they appear in other languages, yet, without a grammatical knowledge, as for instance, of the structure of the verb, and the mechanism of what are called the broken plurals, even the vocabulary must be misty to his eyes; while of the references and allusions to Arabic litera­ture, and the perpetual iktibâs or quotation of the Koran, he must remain wholly ignorant.

The difficulty of the Arabic language has, however, confined the thorough study of it to very few, to the detriment of all Oriental learning. It is with the desire to smooth the path of the student that I have undertaken to translate and annotate the work of the most learned and eloquent of the Arabic authors. A translation may have two objects; it may be either intended to display the translator’s felicity of diction, as when scholars produce English versions of Anacreon or Horace for the amusement of those who are well acquainted with the originals, a pursuit for which I cannot say that I have any high esteem; or it may be intended to facilitate the study of a difficult original, while it gives the translator’s countrymen generally some acquaintance with a foreign author who deserves to be known by them, though they cannot hope to learn his language. The latter has been the object proposed in the present translation. It is a literal prose render­ing of the Maḳâmât, intended primarily to help the student in Arabic, and with this view I have always guarded myself from being seduced into paraphrase by the desire of elegance. The text of the author has been rendered throughout as closely as is consistent with intelligibility; but the translation will, I believe, have lost nothing thereby, for readers of true taste will prefer that the idiom of the original, strange and uncouth as it sometimes may be, should pierce through the version, rather than that Ḥarîri’s diction should be, as it were, melted down and remoulded into the current English of the nineteenth century.

In this version there is no attempt to imitate the plays on words, or the rhyme of the original. Such a resemblance in form could only be attained by the abandonment of all accuracy, and the sacrifice of the chief object for which the translation has been under­taken. But the parallelistic rhythm of the original has been sufficiently preserved, and on the whole the reader will be able to gain from this version a fair idea of the form in which Ḥarîri cast his thoughts. If I have adopted at times a somewhat antiquated diction it has been naturally suggested by the work itself. One of the earliest students of the Assemblies, the learned and critical Albert Schultens, perceived the essential cha­racter of Ḥarîri’s style. He says, “Hæ faces quicquid tenebrarum stilus Haririi grandisonus ac mille floribus figurisque variegatus offundebat discussere, laborem quem in eo, a capite ad calcem, describendo impen-debam compensante summâ animi voluptate; eo quod hôc in scriptore reperirem id quod spe atque cogitatione præceperam, eminentem et expressam imaginem priscæ illius grandiloquentiæ Orientalis, quâ liber Jobi exaratus est, quæque in Psalmis, in Proverbiis, in reliquo cor­pore Bibliorum, poetico præsertim, ac prophetico, tam magnificè tamque insignitè se exerit.”

The notes have been primarily designed for the student, but care has been taken that the allusions in the text shall be sufficiently explained for the general reader. The legends of the heroic warriors of the Ig­norance, <Greek>, their proverbial utterances, their genealogies, their feuds, their Days or battles, their usages and habits of life, are illustrated from many sources, and references are given which will further aid the student. As this pagan antiquity was one of the chief studies of the learned, and its influence largely pervades the Assemblies, some knowledge of it is necessary to a reader of Ḥarîri. In the grammatical notes I have throughout followed the system of the Arabs, being convinced of the futility of the efforts which have been made by European scholars to remould the Arabic grammar on the principles of the Latin; to say nothing of the necessity that the student should understand the grammatical and rhetorical terms of the native writers, without a knowledge of which their commentaries and explanations are unintelligible. In some of the notes, as those to the Twenty-fourth Assem­bly, rather abstruse questions are discussed, but they will have no exceeding difficulty to any one who has taken the right road in learning the language.

In writing Arabic names and words with European letters I have desired to combine sufficient accuracy with such a representation of the word as shall not be pedantic or uncouth. The Arabic scholar will soon perceive the system that has been adopted. Fetḥah is represented by a or e, and ḍammah by o or u, kesreh being represented by i. The long syllables are indi­cated by â, î, û. In non-Arabic names I have generally followed the popular spelling, as it is to be found in European books; some well-known names also, as Basra, Kufa, Medina, Mecca, are written in the same manner. Following high authority I have paid no attention to the i‘râb in composite Arabic names. Notwithstanding all the care that has been bestowed on the proofs, it will be found that the subscribed points and other signs by which the Arabic letters are indicated in English type have been occasionally omitted or misplaced. These in­accuracies are, however, few and trifling.

The present volume contains a long Introduction, which dispenses with the necessity of saying more in this place; it contains also the opening Address of Ḥarîri, and the first twenty-six Assemblies. With the second volume there will be published an Index to the entire work.