1865.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 101 



these early conquests for the elucidation and illustration of the march 

 of Islam in its progress westward, and the period at which this history 

 was supposed to be written, I am surprised that it did not sooner 

 attract some attention. But it seems to have remained unnoticed 

 until Professor D. B. Haneberg of Munich in 1860 compared it with 

 the pseudo- Waqidy, in a memoire entitled " Erorterungen uber Pseudo- 

 Wakidi's Geschiclvte der Eroberung Syriens" and Monsieur J. de Goeje 

 in 1864, or just ten years after the publication of my text, devoted 

 one number, (No. 2) of his " Memoires D'Histoire et de Geographie 

 Orientates" to a review of this work. The object of Herrn Haneberg 

 was, by comparison with Abu Ismail's history, to prove the authen- 

 ticity of some portions of the false Waqidy. The object of Monsieur 

 Goeje was, by comparing the narrations of Abu Ismail with those of 

 Bcladzori and other early authors of the period, and from internal 

 evidence furnished by the work, to prove that Abu Ismail himself 

 was a delusion and a myth, and that his book was no better than 

 the false Waqidy, — *a fabrication by some pious writer to incite the 

 Moslims to Jihad, or the holy war which has deceived many learned 

 Moslims, as well as Messrs. Sprenger and Haneberg. This opinion of 

 M. Goeje originated in his finding in the Oriental Library of the 

 Academie of Ley den, the same, or a similar work ascribed to another 

 person, incorporated in the history of an author who died in the year 

 A. H. 584 ; and the misgivings which arose in his mind on the first 

 discovery and perusal of this work were confirmed by a closer exami- 

 nation of it. On a perusal of M. Goeje's memoire in July last, his 

 arguments, however ingenious, did not appear to me fully convincing ; 

 but I am, by no means prejudiced in favour of Abu Ismail, nor any 

 other author whose misfortune it may have been to be introduced to 

 the public under my auspices. I would therefore very gladly join 

 M. Goeje in defining the proper position of this book, should I, 

 after a careful balancing of the evidence in favour of, and against, the 

 position taken up by him, be convinced that either from ignorance or 

 inattention, I have given it too prominent a place amongst the works 

 of the first period of the history of the Moslim conquests. For this 

 purpose, I wrote to my esteemed friend Dr. Aloys Sprenger to procure 

 for me the Leyden copy of the work which M. Goeje consulted, or, 

 at least, extracts from it, containing such fuller information regard 



