90 LITERATURE OP THE ARABS. 



Masoudi of the Caliphs of Asia. These Arabian 

 Plutarchs descended even to the brute creation. 

 Such was the passion for every species of composi- 

 tion, and the desire to leave no subject untouched, 

 that Ibn Zaid of Cordova, and Abul Mondar of 

 Valencia, wrote a Genealogical History of celebrated 

 Horses ; as did Alasueco and Abdolmalec that of 

 Camels which had risen to distinction. This last- 

 mentioned author and eminent antiquary rendered 

 to his countrymen the same literary service that 

 Bayle and Moreri conferred on Europeans, by 

 giving them a copious historical dictionary. The 

 Arabs possessed encyclopaedias, gazetteers, and other 

 similar compilations on critical and biographical sub- 

 jects. They were familiar, in short, with all those 

 inventions which curtail labour, dispense with the 

 necessity of research, and afford facilities to indo- 

 lence or curiosity. The Dictionary of the Sciences, 

 by Mohammed Abu Abdallah of Granada, was an 

 elaborate work, consisting of eleven parts, of which 

 a fragment of the seventh and the four last are still 

 extant. A similar compilation was made by the 

 renowned Farabi, who spoke seventy- two languages, 

 and wrote on every science then known. 



With numismatics the Saracens were well ac- 

 quainted. Namari and Makrizi wrote histories of 

 Arabian money ; the latter also produced a treatise 

 on the legal weights and measures. Azaker wrote 

 commentaries on the first inventors of the arts ; and 

 Gazali, in his learned work on Arabian antiquities, 

 treated in a profound manner of the studies and dis- 

 coveries of his countrymen. 



Of geography they had, so far as their limited 

 means went, a tolerably accurate knowledge. The li- 



