PREFACE. JX 



suit the more recent surveys of Chesney, Head, 

 and Owen. 



In the earUer chapters of the work, which refer 

 to the dark and legendary times prior to the Mo- 

 hammedan era, the author has endeavoured to give 

 as clear and succinct an account of the primitive in- 

 habitants, government, customs, and ancient com- 

 merce of the country, as the peculiar nature of his 

 materials would admit. All historians and chro- 

 nologists who have studied this obscure era have 

 found themselves so bewildered with fable and tra- 

 dition, or involved in such inextricable confusion 

 from the want of authentic records, that they have 

 been compelled either to rest satisfied with probable 

 conjecture, or to abandon the subject in despair. 

 That the author has succeeded in verifying doubts 

 or reconciling anachronisms which perplexed the 

 ablest Arabian antiquaries — Pococke, Reiske, and 

 De Sacy — it would be presumption in him to assert. 

 He has employed every means irThis power, how- 

 ever, to discover the truth. For this purpose the 

 oriental writers, Abulfeda, Tabiri, Masoudi, Hamza, 

 Nuvairi, Abulfarage, and others who record the 

 transactions of these remote ages, have been care- 

 fully perused ; nor have those incidental notices and 

 allwsions been overlooked which occur in the pages 

 of the Greek and Roman classics. 



The life and religion of Mohammed form a 

 curious and important episode in Arabian history; 

 as giving rise to one of the most wonderful revo- 

 lutions that the world has ever beheld. In treating 

 of these, it has been the object of the present WTiter 



