A few words may be devoted to the great Mu'tazilite commentator and philologist Abu'l-Qásim Maḥmúd b. 'Umar az-Zamakh­sharí. az-Zamakhsharí, who was born at Khwárazm (the modern Khiva) in A.D. 1074, and died near the same place in A.D. 1143. He lived for some time at Mecca, whence he is often entitled Járu'lláh (“God's neighbour”). Though a strong opponent of the Shu'úbiyya, who held the Persians to be superior to the Arabs, he composed an Arabic-Persian lexicon for the use of his countrymen, which was published at Leipzig by Wetzstein in A.D. 1844. The Kashsháf, his great com­mentary on the Qur'án; the Mufaṣṣal, a very notable work on Arabic grammar; his geographical dictionary, entitled Kitábu'l-Amkina wa'l-Jibál wa'l-Miyáh; and his “Collars of Gold” (Aṭwáqu'dh-Dhahab), all written in Arabic, are his most important and celebrated works.

Of Abu'l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. Abi'l-Qásim b. 'Abdu'l-Karím b. Abí Bakr Aḥmad of Shahristán in Khurásán little ash-Shahristání. need be said save that he was born in A.D. 1086; visited Baghdád, where he resided for three years, in A.D. 1116-17; died in his native city in A.D. 1153; and, besides two or three less celebrated works, composed about A.D. 1127 his admirable Book of Sects, of which the Arabic text was published by Cureton in A.D. 1846, and a German translation with notes by Dr. Theodor Haarbrücker in A.D. 1850. For long this has been the only accessible Arabic work dealing with this important subject, but now at last the earlier, fuller, and almost homonymous work of the Andalusian Dhá-hirite theologian Ibn Ḥazm (b. A.D. 994, d. 1064) has been published at Cairo (A.H. 1317-21 = A.D. 1899-1903). For a copy of this fine edition of a most important book of reference hitherto absolutely inaccessible to all save a favoured few, I am indebted to my lamented friend and master, the late Grand Muftí of Egypt, Shaykh Muḥammad 'Abduh, the greatest man, the most able teacher, and the profoundest thinker produced by Islám in our days.