LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 75 



tired, and appointed another to hear liim ; and when 

 informed that the narrator liad actually repeated 

 2900 odes from authors before the time of Moham- 

 med, he ordered him a present of 100,000 drachms 

 ('2291^. 135. 4d). An equal sum was paid him by the 

 Emir Yussuf, governor of Irak, who was exceed- 

 ingly puzzled on account of a stanza which had 

 occurred to his mind, and of which he did not know 

 the author. Hamad not only told him the name 

 of the poet, but repeated the entire composition 

 from which tlie verse was taken. 



History, so much neglected by the ancient Arabs, 

 Avas cultivated with great assiduity by the Mos- 

 lems ; and there is extant an immense number of 

 works in this department, comprising annals, chron- 

 icles, and memoirs ; besides descriptions of particu- 

 lar kingdoms, provinces, and towns. A catalogue 

 of the authors' names would fill a volume ; and we 

 can only notice a few of the more celebrated. The 

 works of Abulfarage, a Christian physician of Ma- 

 latia, in Lesser Armenia, who flourished in the thir- 

 teenth century, and of Abulfeda, a writer of high 

 repute both in the East and the West, we have 

 already noticed. Ibn Katib, another eminent histo- 

 rian of the fourteenth century, was descended of a 

 noble family, and vizier to Mohammed, caliph of 

 Granada. He v/as deeply versed in every branch 

 of science, but chiefly remarkable for the extent and 

 accuracy of his historical knowledge. He wrote 

 treatises on forty-one different subjects, some of 

 them consisting of many volumes ; and there is 

 scarcely a topic in elegant or scientific literature 

 that he left untouched. His Chronology of the 

 Caliphs and Kings of Spain and Africa has the lofty 

 appellation of the " Silken Vest embroidered with 

 the Needle." A treatise on the Choice of Sentences 

 he designates "Pure Gold." His Lives of Eminent 

 Spanish Arabs, celebrated for their learning and 

 piety, are perhaps not inaptly termed "Fragrant 



