PROGRESS OF ISLAMIC SCIENCE 515 



expect from the means and the easy opportunities offering themselves 

 to explorers just there. I think chiefly of India here. Much prepar- 

 atory work is done for Egypt, where the learned statesman already 

 mentioned has furnished most valuable materials in his topographical 

 description of the country. Also for Palestine and Syria a consid- 

 erable amount of careful work has been done in this respect by the 

 cooperators of the Exploration Funds. And extremely useful are 

 the contributions being continually presented of late by the Algerian 

 school, 1 following the guidance of Rene Basset, in this chapter of 

 individual formations in Maghrebine Islam, on the relationship of 

 the special worship of saints in this quarter of Islam to the old 

 traditions of its population. 



VI 



In our flying review of the progress of Islamic science, we 

 could not, within the space we can justly claim for it here, possibly 

 discuss all the questions whose examination marks the progress 

 which this science has taken in the later times. Especially we must 

 regret that we could not devote a special chapter to that ample 

 increase which the knowledge of Muhammadan sects has gained 

 lately. In this respect we should have to mention here among many 

 others in the first place the exhaustive researches of Edward G. 

 Browne on the Babi movement in Persia. 2 



It could not be our intention to exhaust the task set before us in 

 all its details and to enter into all the starting-points which would 

 present themselves to us in exposing our theme. We can point out 

 only the most prominent points of view from which this progress has 

 been carried out. 



What I intended to show you and that of which I desired to con- 

 vince you is chiefly this: that the undeniable intrinsic progress of 

 Islamic studies has manifested itself in the following ways in the last 

 decades : 



(1) The deeper knowledge of ancient Islam and of its constitutive 

 factors; 



(2) the methodical treatment of the documents reflecting the 

 development of Islam; 



(3) the truer insight into the character of the institutions and 

 laws of Islam; 



1 We will point out here in this order of studies the remarkable essay of Doutte", 

 Notes stir I' I slam maghribin. Les Marabouts (Paris, 1900), and other contribu- 

 tions of this scholar. 



2 A Traveller's Narrative written to illustrate the episode of the Bab (two vols.), 

 Cambridge, 1891; The Tdrikh-i-jadid, or New History of . . . the Bab: Cambridge, 

 1893, and many contributions of the same scholar on Babi history and literature 

 in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Cf . also the valuable publications of 

 the Russian scholar A. H. Toumansky on the religious books of the sect. 



