522 MOHAMMEDISM 



Nor is the problem here so hard; for an Arabist may easily be a 

 student of philosophy as well. Yet the demand is absolute that the 

 worker there should have the most complete knowledge of Aristotle 

 and Plotinus. 



Again another field which awaits workers is that of folk-lore and 

 the story. The names can be counted easily on one hand of those 

 folk-lorists who are Orientalists as well. Only within the last few years 

 have the folk-tales of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa been touched. 

 On the Muslim side the problem of the Mediterranean people is as yet 

 almost unconsidered. One phase of it, the history of so fundamental 

 a collection as The Thousand and One Nights, with its many folk- 

 tales, is still in great darkness. One chapter could undoubtedly be 

 illumined by the folk-lorists of Spain; a Spanish period in its history 

 or a Spanish version is a large possibility. On the other side, what light, 

 it has still to be asked, can Oriental learning throw on so unique 

 a survival in Europe as Aucassin et Nicolette f What real parallels 

 do the romances of chivalry show to the stories of the knights of the 

 desert, and do these make necessary a connection of origin? This, 

 it will be seen, opens the far wider question of the intercourse gen- 

 erally between Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages, one on 

 which I must enter immediately. Only, on this narrower matter of 

 folk-lore, the necessity of cooperation is most pressing, and its 

 possibility is also greatest. Each can bring to the great heap what he 

 has gathered in his own field ; the assorting will prove simple enough. 

 Gradually, too, each will learn what his comrade needs and be able 

 to put and answer the questions which tell. And in this contact, I 

 cannot refrain from mentioning the Bibliographie arabe of Professor 

 Chauvin of Liege; what is being done in it for folk-lore can surely 

 be done, though in different ways, for other fields. 



Again may be mentioned, if only as an outstanding specimen of 

 similar questions which lie scattered through Muslim history, the 

 problem of the origin of the Fatimid dynasty. Did that dynasty 

 really draw its blood from Ali and Fatima, the daughter of the 

 Prophet, or was their claim the most gigantic fraud in history? 

 Further, the question spreads wider and goes deeper than any mere 

 squabble of genealogists, whether that dynasty was of prophetic 

 descent or not, what were the objects, the means, the ideals of the 

 leaders of the movement? Was it a vulgar conspiracy to attain 

 a throne, actuated by hatred of Islam and the Arab domination? 

 Or was it a conspiracy of philosophers and philanthropists to bring 

 about, by fostering science and independent thought and by gradual 

 weakening and overthrow of popular religion and superstition, a 

 millennial age in the earth? Were its leaders soldiers of fortune, or 

 were they high priests of science gathering under their guidance and 

 control all the free investigators and thinkers of the time? Was it as 



