Section ii. Account of the School-men of the Shí'ites, whether Imámís, Zaydís, or other of the Extremists (Ghulát) and Isma'ílís, and the names of their books.

Section iii. On the School-men of the Predestinarians and the Ḥashwiyya, and the names of their books.

Section iv. Account of the School-men of the Khárijites, their classes, and the names of their books.

Section v. Account of the wandering mendicants, recluses, devotees, and Ṣúfís, who taught a scholastic philosophy based on their fancies and reveries, and the names of their books.

Sixth Discourse, in eight sections, on Jurisprudence, and the Jurisconsults and Traditionists.

Section i. Account of Málik and his disciples, and the names of their books.

Section ii. Account of Abú Ḥanífa an-Nu'mán and his disciples, and the names of their books.

Section iii. Account of the Imám ash-Sháfi'í and his disciples, and the names of their books.

Section iv. Account of Dá'úd b. 'Alí . . b. Khalaf al-Iṣfahání and his disciples, and the names of their books.

Section v. Account of the Shí'ite Jurisconsults, and the names of their books.

Section vi. Account of the Jurisconsults who were at the same time Traditionists and transmitters of Tradition, and the names of their books.

Section vii. Account of Abú Ja'far aṭ-Ṭabarí, and his disciples, and the names of their books.

Section viii. Account of the Khárijite Jurisconsults, and the names of their books.

Seventh Discourse, in three sections, on Philosophy and the Ancient Sciences.

Section i. Account of the Materialist Philosophers and the Logicians, and the names of their books and the versions and commentaries of these, alike such as still exist, and such as are mentioned but are no longer extant, and such as were extant but are now lost.

Section ii. Account of the Mathematicians, Geometricians, Arithmeticians, Musicians, Accountants, and Astrono­mers, and the makers of [scientific] instruments, and the Mechanics and Engineers.

Section iii. On the origins of Medicine, with accounts of the physicians amongst the Ancients and the Moderns, and the names of their books, with their versions and commentaries.

Eighth Discourse, in three sections, on Legends, Fables, Charms, Magic, and Conjuring.

Section i. Account of the Story-tellers, Saga-men and Artists, and the names of the books composed on Legends and Fables.

Section ii. Account of the Charm-mongers, Conjurors and Magicians, and the names of their books.

Section iii. On books composed on divers other topics, whereof the authors and compilers are unknown.

Ninth Discourse, in two sections, on Sects and Creeds.

Section i. Describing the Sects of the Ḥarránian Chaldæans, called in our time Sabæans, and the Sects of Dualists, whether Manichæans, Bardesanians, Khurramís, Mar-cionites, Mazdakites, and others, and the names of their books.

Section ii. Describing sundry strange and curious sects, such as those of India and China, and others of other like peoples.

Tenth Discourse, containing accounts of the Alchemists and seekers after the Philosopher's Stone amongst the Ancient and Modern Philosophers, and the names of their books.

Besides these three books there is another and earlier work, the Kitábu'l-Ma'árif of Ibn Qutayba († circ. A.D. 889), of which the text was published at Göttingen by the indefa­tigable Wüstenfeld in 1850, which gives us a good idea of the historical and biographical knowledge deemed necessary for all who had any pretensions to be fairly well read. In this book the author treats of the following subjects: the Creation (pp. 6-10); Sacred History, giving a brief account of the Patriarchs and Prophets (including not only those mentioned in the Old Testament, but others, such as Húd and Ṣáliḥ, mentioned in the Qur'án), and Christ (pp. 10-27); Profane History, including the chronology and racial divisions of man­kind, the names of the true believers amongst the Arabs before the Mission of the Prophet, the Genealogies of the Arabs (pp. 28-56); the Genealogy and Kinsfolk of the Prophet, including his wives, children, clients, and horses, the history of his Mission, wars, triumph, and death (pp. 56-83); the History of the Four Orthodox Caliphs (pp. 83-106), of 'Alí's sons, of Zubayr, Ṭalḥa, 'Abdu'r-Rahmán b. 'Awf, Sa'd b. Abí Waqqáṣ and other eminent Muslims of early times, concluding with a brief list of “the Hypocrites” (pp. 106-174); History of the Umayyads, and of the 'Abbásid Caliphs down to al-Mu'tamid, in whose time the author wrote (pp. 175-200); biographies of famous statesmen, officers, and governors of the Muham­madan Empire, and of notable rebels (pp. 201-215); biographies of the Tábi'ún or successors of the “Companions” of the Prophet (pp. 216-248); biographies of the chief doctors and teachers of Islám, of the founders of its principal schools of thought, of the traditionists, “readers” of the Qur'án, genealogists and historians, grammarians and transmitters of verse, &c., of the principal mosques, of the early conquests of the Muslims and other matters concerning them, and of the chief outbreaks of plague and pestilence (pp. 248-293); account of the great “Days” (i.e., the famous battles) of the Arabs, of those amongst them whose names became a proverb, of their religions before the time of Islám, of the chief sects in Islám, and of the manner in which certain peoples (e.g., the Kurds and Jews) came by their names (pp. 293-304); and histories of the Kings of Yaman, Syria (Ghassánids), Ḥíra, and Persia, from the time of Jamshíd to the end of the Sásánian dynasty (pp. 304-330).

It will be seen from what has been said above how wide a range of knowledge is required to enable the student of Muhammadan literature fully to understand and appreciate all the allusions which he will meet with even in the poets, especially those who lived in the palmy days of the Caliphate. And apart from this general knowledge, and a thorough under­standing of the language (whether Persian or Arabic) which constitutes the vehicle of utterance, he must, in order to derive the fullest pleasure from the poetry of these nations, possess a considerable amount of technical knowledge, not only of Prosody and Grammar, but of the various branches of Rhetoric ('Ilmu'l-Ma'ání wa'l-Bayán, “the Science of Ideas and their Expression”) and Euphuism ('Ilmu'l-Badáyi'), so that he may at once recognise and appreciate the various tropes, similes, metaphors, inuendos, hyperboles, antitheses, quotations, ætiologies, amphibologies, homonomies, anagrams, and the like, which he will come across at every turn, especially in the qaṣídas, or panegyrics, to which most of the older Persian poets devoted so large a portion of their energies and talents, for the reason that they were for the most part Court poets, and wrote not for the general public but for their patrons, on whose liberality they depended for their livelihood. This is why many of those poets, such as 'Unṣurí, Farrukhí, Kháqání, Anwarí, Dhahír of Fáryáb, and the like, whom the Persians reckon amongst their greatest, could never, no matter with what skill they might be translated, appeal to the European reader, whose sympathies will rather be won by the epic, lyric, didactic, mystic, satiric or pessimist poets, such as Firdawsí, Ḥáfidh, Sa'dí, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, 'Aṭṭár, Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, 'Ubayd-i-Zákání, and 'Umar Khayyám, each of whom, in a different way, appeals to some ground common to all mankind.

In spite of the excellent works on the Prosody and Rhetoric of the Persians by Gladwin, Rückert, Blochmann, and other scholars, I might perhaps have thought it desirable to speak at greater length on these subjects had it not been for the masterly Prolegomena prefixed by my lamented friend Mr. E. J. W. Gibb (whose death on December 5, 1901, after a short illness, at the early age of forty-four, has inflicted an incalculable loss on Oriental scholarship) to the first volume of his great History of Ottoman Poetry (London: Luzac & Co., 1900). Nearly twenty years ago we spent several weeks together in London, studying Persian and Turkish, and cultivating the society of various educated and intelligent Muslims, chiefly Persians, who happened at that time to be resident in the metropolis. Of these the late Mírza Muḥammad Báqir of Bawánát in Fárs, whose personality I attempted to depict in the Introductory Chapter of my Year amongst the Persians (London: A. and C. Black, 1893), was beyond question the most talented and original. From that time till his death Gibb and I were in frequent communication, and the hours which I was able from time to time to spend with him in his study in London were amongst the happiest and most profitable of my life. Within the last few months it has been my sad duty to examine his books, manuscripts, and papers, to catalogue the rare and precious volumes which he had so sedulously sought out from the East, and to set in order the unpublished portions of the great work to which his life was devoted. High as was the opinion I had already formed of the first volume of his book, which alone has yet been published, I should never have realised the labour it had cost him, or the extent of his reading, his fine scholarship and his critical judgment, had I not obtained the insight into his work which this examination gave me; and I should be happy to think that I could ever produce half so fine a work on Persian poetry as he has done on Turkish. The Prolegomena at least of this great book should be read by every student of Muhammadan Literature.