202 Alfred von Kremers edition of Waqidy. [No. 3. 



daughters, and said to them : I am dying, but I should like to hear 

 in my last moments how you express your grief on my death. Each 

 of them repeated improviso an elegy which Ibn IsMq has preserved. 



This scene and the manner in which it is treated mark the pecu- 

 liarity of what I call the Epos of the Arabs. Their poets delight 

 to view an important or touching occurrence from all its sides, and 

 in order to make this kind of moralizing less tedious, they put the 

 expression of their sentiments into the mouths of persons, who 

 were most concerned in it. Thus in the story of Barraq and Layla, 

 the chiefs of the tribe, successively give their opinion to Lokayz on 

 his intention of selling his daughter to a man of another tribe. 

 And in the book of Job the story is subordinate to the speeches 

 which contain the different views which people entertain on the 

 changes of fortune. Similar remnants of the early poetical and 

 legendary biography of the prophet are frequent in Ibn IsMq, 

 and, if we only know what view to take of them, they are of 

 great interest. 



It would be a matter of great interest to ascertain the names of 

 these poetical historians. Before attempting to identify them, it 

 appears to be expedient to bring to the notice of the reader, some 

 of the men who in the first century propagated the history of the 

 prophet, true or false. 



If we compare the oldest accounts we possess as those of Ibn 

 IsMq, d. 151 ; of Abu IsMq 'Amr b. 'Abd Allah, d. 127 (quoted 

 by Ibn IZibban and Bokhary), of Ibn Aby Shay bah, d. 235; of Ibn 

 'Oqbah, d. 141 (quoted by Ibn Sayyid alnas), we find a very great 

 resemblance in the division of the subject and even in the expres- 

 sion. If we follow up the authorities which these writers quote 

 we find the further we go back the closer the various accounts 

 approach, so that they appear to be different texts of the same 

 original with trifling, but sometimes important and evidently inten- 

 tional alterations, and also with some additions and omissions, I 

 might quote numerous examples to prove this assertion, but they 

 would take up several pages, and I therefore content myself with 

 referring for an instance to my notes in this Journal, Vol. 21 p. 576 

 on Bahyrah's journey to Makkah. 



The natural inference from these premises, seems to be that in 



