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(Pre-Islamic Literature) by H usainReview by: D. S. M.Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 4 (Oct., 1927), pp. 902-904Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25221283 .

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902 NOTICES OF BOOKS

a European language. Dr. Wensinck has long been engagedon a concordance to the authoritative collections, and hishandbook is apparently a by-product of the preparations forthat work. It does for the tradition what Dr. W. Stanton'ssubject-index does for the Kur'an, and is proportionally morebulky; for, though in these collections the same traditionsare constantly repeated, the number of volumes which thecompiler had to peruse is considerable. There can be no doubtthat he has accomplished a task of very great utility, for whichhis fellow-students will be duly grateful. And he appears tohave had no predecessors either in the East or theWest. WhenArabic authors cite tradition it is sometimes possible toverify the citations in Ibn al-Athir's dictionary of tradition,called Nihayah ; but this valuable work does not refer to thecollection in which the tradition is recorded. This is, however,a matter of some importance, since?among other reasons?the collections are not of equal authority, and the order

wherein Moslem critics range them is on the whole rightif for the notion of credibility we substitute that of antiquity.Dr. Wensinck is to be congratulated on having produced anindispensable work. \ D. S. M.

^UU-I c^VI (Pre-Islamic Literature). By Dr. Ta HaHusain, Professor of Arabic Literature in theUniversity of Cairo. Cairo : Committee forAuthorship,Publication, and Translation. 1927.

This is an enlarged edition of Professor Ta Ha Husain'swork on Pre-Islamic Poetry, which appeared last year andformed the subject of many articles and letters in the Cairene

Press. Indeed, it is asserted that the earlier work was withdrawn from circulation owing to certain passages wherein theauthority of the Qur'an was thought to be impugned. Its

main thesis is very nearly identical with that of the reviewer'spaper " On the Origins of Arabic Poetry ", which appeared

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about the same time in this Journal, the writers having arrivedquite independently at similar results. That thesis is that theauthenticity of the collections of verse supposed to be the workof pre-Islamic poets is so doubtful that it is unsafe to use anyof it as evidence either linguistically or historically. TheCairene Professor argues with justice that the uniformity ofdialect which these poems display implies that the language ofthe Qur'an was spread over Arabia at a time when we know onthe evidence of numerous inscriptions that other dialects(we might even say languages) were in use. He has with considerable skill enucleated the motives which led to fabricationof poems in Islamic times and their attribution to pre-Islamicbards. Indeed, he regards these bards as very largely mythical.He is not prepared to say whether ImruVl-Qais (w^io headsthe list) had or had not any existence. v

The latter part of his book is constructive, and endeavoursto show that there were near the commencement of Islam" schools " of poetry, e.g. one started by Aus b. Hajar, andcontinued by Zuhair, al-Hutay'ah, Ka'b b. Zuhair, Jamil,and Kuthayyir. The value of this theory is somewhat discounted by its author's admission that many of tho versesascribed to these persons are spurious ; by the observationthat the only anecdote about Aus that is recorded is a sillyfable ; and the fact that the authorities from whom we learnthe connexion between these persons are antiquaries separatedfrom the latter by long distances of space and time.

Hence the destructive portion of Professor Ta Ha Husain'swork is by far the stronger, and itmarks a stage in the pursuitof these studies in Arabic-speaking countries. It is the factthat intensely literary as were the communities which usedthe Himyari script?Glaser calls them a schreibseliges Volk?their monuments show no trace of verse, even where weshould naturally expect it, as in funereal inscriptions ; andthat the tradition assigns to Arabian communities whom theQur'an declares illiterate whole masses of verse involving analphabetical artifice. Serious difficulties are involved in the

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supposition that these collections (or parts of them) werepreserved in writing and in the supposition that they werepreserved orally ; yet even more serious difficulties confrontthe theory that Arabic verse is itself a post-Islamic invention.

Hence we are very much in the dark. Before, however, anypositive conclusions of value can be attained, it is necessarythat erroneous opinions should be cleared away ; and in thisdirection the Professor has accomplished much that is ofvalue.

D. S. M.

Es-Saqa'iq en-No'manijje von TaskoprOzade mitzusaetzen und anmerkungen aus dem arabischenuebersetzt. Von 0. Rescher. Konstantinopel-Galata :Buch- und Steindruckerei Phoenix, 1927.

Dr. Rescher is a most industrious translator of Arabictexts, but most of his works have been privately printed ina few copies, and so have been accessible to few students.

Fortunately his latest work appears without the statementals Manuskript gedruckt, and probably can be purchased bythose who wish to possess it. The original, which is a collectionof biographies of learned and saintly personages, who flourishedin the Ottoman Empire from its foundation to the time ofSulaiman the Great, was printed on the margin of the Caireneedition of Ibn Khallikan (a.h. 1299, etc.), with a list ofbiographies; Dr. Rescher's translation follows this text,which he has occasionally corrected from MSS. He has addeda few notes, and a useful Index. The work is of great valuefor the history of the development of the later Orders of

Dervishes, and sheds some light on literary and even politicalhistory besides. The German orthography appears ratherquaint owing to the want of suitable types, but on the wholethe printing does credit to the Constantinopolitan (or shall wesay Kamalieh ?) firm.

D. S. M.