Excerpt from Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose This book, containing versions from about fifty authors, may be of use to some who are interested in the two great literatures of Islam - Arabic and Persian. Theology, law, philosophy, science and medicine are scarcely touched, but the reader will learn something of Islamic history and religion, morals and manners, culture and character; something, too, of the heathen Arabs to whom Mohammed was sent. I have not, however, selected with a view to instruction. All the poetry, and the chief part of the prose, has been chosen for its merit as literature; and my choice was guided by the belief that translators do best in translating what they have enjoyed. If the present collection appeals in the first place to lovers of poetry and belles-lettres, it has gained in solidity and range of interest by including passages from famous biographers and historians like Ibn Hisham, Mas'udi, Tabari, and Ibn Khaldun, The extracts, which are mostly short and seldom run beyond the five pages allowed by such a good judge as Mr A. R. Waller, cover a period of a thousand years from the beginning of the 6th to the end of the I sth centurya.d. The arrangement is chronological, and in order to preserve the connexion of Persian with Arabian literary history Persian writers (distinguished by asterisks) keep their place in the series instead of being grouped apart. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.