418 General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. [No. 125. 



panied with notes by M. Pascual de Gayangos, an erudite Spaniard. 9 

 Ahmed-al-Makkari-al-Telamsani is a Mogrebin author. Born about 

 the end of the 16th century, he died at Damascus in the year 1631. 

 After having composeda very detailed biography of the celebrated and 

 learned vizier of Granada, Mohammed-Ibn-al-Khatib, he added to it in 

 the form of an introduction, a General History of the Arabs in Spain, from 

 the conquest to their final expulsion. The importance of this work has 

 not escaped those authors who have occupied themselves with this part 

 of the history of the Arabs, and Cardonne, Conde, as well as Shakespear, 

 Reinaud, Lembke, and Fauriel, have made an extensive use of it in their 

 works. It was of course designed for the study of Spanish orientalists ; 

 the more so, as Makkari is among the small number of authors who 

 embrace the whole duration of the dominion of the Arabs in Spain. The 

 first volume of M. de Gayangos' translation, which is a very consider- 

 able work, is now in your hands, and must be received with gratitude 

 by all the persons who devote themselves to the history of the Arabs. 

 The notes, which by the bye are of very unequal merit, are very numerous 

 with regard to Spain, and contain extracts from a great number of 

 Arabian historians. M. de Gayangos does not exactly give a translation 

 of the original work ; he transfers some chapters to introduce a more 

 logical order into the narrative ; he omits the life of the Vizier, of which 

 he, however, retains extracts for illustrations ; he excludes the fifth 

 chapter, containing the lives of the Spanish Musulmans who travelled to 

 the East, and also the 7th, which gives extracts of the poetry of the 

 Arabs in Spain. It is difficult to judge according to a general principle 

 about this system of translating Oriental works ; it is certain, they often 

 contain passages of little interest for the European reader, and relate 

 the facts not in a very natural order ; moreover, there is a rage among 

 the Arabian writers, especially at the decline of their literature to quote 

 verses, which is often very annoying for the translator, and of little 

 benefit for the reader, and we may easily understand a doubt of the 

 propriety of translating the whole, yet mature reflection will convince 

 us, I think, that the system of complete translations involves into less 

 difficulties, than that of incomplete ones. By this last method indeed, 

 a work is produced much more agreeably to the general reader ; those, 



9. History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, from the text of Al-Makkari, 

 translated by Pasc. de Gayangos. London, 1840, in 4to. vol. i. 



