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Boos NozIaEs

185

of skill in manipulatingconsonants. This will be realizedwhen we

find: "Only so much is certain that Kengi = Sungir = Shumer =
Girsu = Shirpurla." Whatwill philologiststhinkof this transformation? Whatcan we not proveif suchmethodsareallowable? On p. 239
of Winckler's"mostcarelessand illogical
we find a severearraignment
argument"regardingDungiof Ur; the conclusionswhichboth scholars
reacharedue in large part to the lack of the necessarydata to prove
treatmentof the
of Thureau-Dangin's
theirpremises. Thereproduction
namesof the months(inRA., IV, 83, 84)is scarcelyrelevantto the theme.
and
The appendis,in whichwe find somefacsimiles,transliterations,
translationsof the inscriptionsin the E. A. H. collection,is a welcome
though small, contributionto cuneiformliterature. It gives the book
one featureof valueto scholarsfamiliarwith the othermaterialof this
earlyperiod. Thoughlargelyin the natureof contractor recordtablets,
they give us historicaldata of value,both in the old and in the new
Babylonianperiods. Severalof the formerdate from the reigns of
Bur-Sin,Ur-Ba'u,and Dungi.
Radau has used prodigiousindustryand broughttogether a wast
amountof material all except the E. A. H. collectionalreadypublishedin other works and has classifiedit accordingto the periodsto
whichhe wouldattributeit. The bookhas its value in that it is a kind
or register of early Babyloniantests. Scholars will, of course, use
theirown judgmentregardinghis chronologicalscheme. One thing is
apparentthroughoutthe work,viz., that he, like other "Sumerian"
adherents,is having increasingdifficultyin explainingthe very early
presenceand powerof the Semitesin Babylonia.
It is not surprisingif amongthe hundredsof referencesthereshould
be some errors. We have noted the following,in additionto those
alreadynamed: p. 15, secondline, D4c., 31, 3, shouldbe RA., II, p. 82;
ninth line frombottom,RA., III, should be IV; p. 16, ninth line from
bottom,70 should be 71; p. 27, l. 14, RA., IV, should be III; p. 28,
l. 10, same error; p. 81, l. 4 from bottom,F3 should be F2; p 91,
l. 3 frombottom,281 should be 288; p. 191,l. 11 frombottom,should
read Cyl. B, etc. Then, "Clereq,""le Clereq,"occurringscores of
times, should always be "de Clereq;" and "De Sarzec" should be
"de Sarzec;" whiletitles of bookswouldalwaysappearmoreconspicuous and in better form if they were printedin italics. The author's
English sometimessuSersfromlack of familiaritywith ouridioms.
IRAM. PRICE.
OF(zEICAGO.
IJNIvERsITY
T:EXE
BROCKELMANN'SlIISTORY OF ARABIC Ll'l EXATURE.l
This is not a historyof Arabicliterature,but it is an excellent contributiontowardsuch a history. Dr.Brockelmannis a worthysuccessor
of the lamentedWustenfeldand has takenup his self-sacrificinglabors
Von(:arl Brockelmann. I. Band. Weimar:
LITTERATUR.
DERARABISC}IEN
1GEXCHICETE
Verlag von Emit Felber, 1898. wii+528 pp.

186

HEBRAICA

with youthfulenergy. Thusthe nearestparallelto this bookis probably

Wustenfeld'sGeschichteschreiber;the diferencesin plan arenot essential. The attemptswhicharemade herearldtherein the presentwork
at a historyof literatureproper,consistingof generalsketchesof periods,
andsuggestionsof influence,of development,
andof tendency,arefartoo
slight to merit much attention. They might well have been omitted,
and have somewhatthe appearanceof purple scraps saved from the
wreckageof the moreambitiousworkwhichthe authorhadonceplanned.
This appliesaboveall to the few pagesgiven to a characterization
of the
old poetry. Whatis saidis trueand good-always exceptedthe remark,
on p. 15 that only a small partof that poetryexpressesthe subjective
sensationsof the poet,a mostsingularmisjudgmentof what'subjective"
means- but this wasnot its place,as therewasno opportunityto develop
the subject adequately. Similarly,the little sketch of the origins of
Suflism is most able and interesting,but it is also most irritating.
Everythinghad to be put so shortlyas to be one-sided. The Karamat
of the $ufls, for example,may resemblethe wondersof the Indian
Yogls, but they resembleequally the wondersof Europeansaints as
rehearsedin such a thesaurusas the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de
Voragine. The same may be said of all the other introductoryparagraphsscatteredthroughthe book.
But, apartfromthis, all the criticismwhichcan be broughtforward
is one of details; and that, fromthe natureof the case,maybe endless.
EveryArabistmust have dozens,and again dozens,of suggestionsfor
additionsand correctionswhich he would like to make. I shall give
latera few whichseemto me worthmention.
The plan of the bookis simpleand excellent. The literarJr
developmerltis dividedirltoperiodsas follows: BookI, Arabicliteratureproper
from the earliestbeginningsto the fall of the Umayyads: A. To the
appearanceof Iuhammad; B. Muhammadand his time; C. The
Umayyadperiod. BookII, Muslimliteraturein Arabic:A. The golden
periodunderthe 'Abbasids,A. D. 750-ctrca 1000; B. The silverperiod
to the destructionof Baghdad,A. D. 1258; C. Under the Mongolstill
the conquestof Egypt by the OttomanTurksin 1517; D. To the preseIlt
day. The volume which we now have estends to the destructionof
Baghdad. In the firstperiodby far the greateststresslies uponpoetry;
each poet has a biographicaland descriptiveparagraph,followedby
bibliographicalnotes indicatingwherefurtherinformationon him and
his worksmay be found. Only those are consideredwhose poems,in
partat least, havecomedownto us; and the principalmanuscriptsare
referredto where there is no Europeanedition. This is the method
throughoutthe whole ":Elistory,"
and these bibliographicalclues form
the realbackboneof the bookand justifyits existence.
The second perioddeals with MuslimliteraturewritteIlin Arabic.
The distinctionmadeis to the point and clearlydrawn;in time it may
help us to an escapefrom the much muddle-headedcurrenttalk about
an Arabianphilosophyand an Arabiansciencein which the Arabshad

BOOE NOTICES

187

little or no part. Each section i8 divided into eighteen chapters,and

some chaptershaveas manyas ten subdivisionsa
in partof subject,but
mostlygeographical. Ttis unnecessaryhere to state these divisionsin
detail. The schemeis generallygood; but the diffioultyof telling under
whichdivisiona particularauthormustbe sought is so greatthat most
copiousindices will be a necessity. It was a characteristicof Arabic
writersto claim all knowledgefor their portionand to write de omnz
scibfas; Dr. Brockelmannacknowledges
the troublethat this has made
for him. Thus, in one of the chapterson philosophy(pp. 45S69),
philosophersproper(faMsifcl), logicians,and scholastictheologiansare
hopelessly mised together. Yet the distinction between kalcim and
falsafa is one to be ngidly held; manttQbelongedto everyone.
I nowcometo some suggestionson pointsof detail. The treatment
of the whole Jafr and Jamitcl literatureis very inadequate. I have
found mere referencesto it on pp. 9A,220,note,and M4. In this connection the paper by Casanovaon the Skhwan as-eafa in JA. for
January-February,
1898called for notice. A relationshipis thereestablishedbetweenthe Ikhwan, these pseudo-'Alidbooks,and the Assassins.
See, further,my "Life of al-Ghanali"in the Journal of the American
Oriental Society, Vol. 2a2S,
pp. 113eq. Onp. 76 a referencewould have
been in place to Torrey'spaper on al-'Abbasb. al-Ahnafin the same
journal Vol. IVI, pp. 43 sqq. 0n p. 77 add to the editionsof Abu
Nuwas that printedat (Dairoin 1898; it is edited by IskandarAsaf and
MahmudWasif. Pp. 179 and 520,the Risalat ctzsh-Shafl't,printedat
Cairoill 1312,is certainlythe Risala ft sul al-qh. It is not an ordered
treatiseon that subjectof the laterkind,but is exactlysuch an account
of methodsof reconcilingQur'an, Sunna, Ijma', and Ijtihad, and of the
natureof 'Ilm and AjZa, that Goldziher'saccountin Muh. St., Vol. II,
p. 83,wouldlead us to expect. P. 113,l. 17,it wouldhavebeen betterto
read "TihAmaS"for "derTihAma;' the namein Arabichas no article.
P. 195,the morecorrectformof the nameis Matarldl. On p. 156 reference shouldhavebeell madeto the edition,printedat Hyderabadin four
partsand morethan 1,400pages (A. H. 1309?),of adh-Dhahabl'sTadhkirs6tal-huffaz. On p. 197,at the headof the sectionon mysticism,the
Nafahat of Jaml should have been cited and, at least, the Rwala of
al-Qushayriandthe tabaqat al-ksbrd of ash-Sha'ranl.It maybe worth
noticing that the (::airoeditionof the last appearsto be incomplete;it
springsfromAbu 'AbdAllah Mu}lammad
ar-Rasibl,whodied in 367,to
'Abd al-Qadiral-Jlll (or al-Jllanl),who died in 561. On p. 199 the
accountof al-Hallaj is very inadequate,consideringhis historicaland
religiousimportance.Ttmaybe supplementedwith the followingreferences: Schreinerin ZDMS., Vol.LII, pp. 468 sqq.; Pihrist, pp. 190sqq.;
al-Mastudlin Tanbth, p. 387; al-Berunlin Athar, p. 211i 'Arib,pp. 86
eqq. Under the rubrics astronomy,astrology,mathematicsI find no
mentionof Masha'allah. Ee may not be of muchinterestto a German,
but he has his place in English literature;for C:haucer's
Astrolabe is
reallya translation,throughLatin,of a bookby him. He lived,according

188

EEBRAICA

to Casiri, Vol. I, pp. 434 sq., under al-Mansur and al-Ma'mun; see,
further, the Bodleian Catalogue, indes, sub Mashaal la Fihrist, p. 273;
ZDMG., Vol. LIII, pp. 434 sqq., 600, and Vol. VIII, p. 380; Biographie
universelle?sub Macha Allah; Wustenfeld's igbersetzungenaxab. Werke
ins Lat., pp. 34 sq. Anothermost interesting figure,who has a bare notice
on p. 294, is Abu Hayyan at-Tawhldl. That he died in 400 sve do not
know; we know that he was alive in that year. He is mixed up perplesingly with the IAhwanas-safa and with $uflism of a pantheistic type.
See Ibn Khall. (de Slanes translation), Vol. I, p. 50; Vol. III, p. 264;
UKh. 3831; Wustenfeld, Geschichtsschr.,p. 54; Fihrist, Vol. II, p. 121;
Ahmad Zakl, Mawsutat al-'ulum (Bulaq, 1308), pp. 12, 72sqq.; ZDfflI[G.,
Vol. LII, p. 558; {Life of al-Ghazzall,''cited above, p. 113. Two of his
Risalas were printed at Constantinople, A. H. 1301. The wording
of p. 273, l. 4, suggests, what is of course absurd, that the question of
God's istiwa was first propounded by al-Ghazzall. P. 307, the ' Umda
of Ibn Rashlq has been printed at Tunis. P. 35D,the chapter of athThatlabl's Qisas containing the history of Job has been translated in
this JOURNAL,
VO1.:SIV,PP.145-61. P. 389, the Waraqat of the Imam
al-haramayn was printed at Cairo in 1306, along with the sharh of
al-Mahalli and the super-commentaryof Ahmad b. Qasim al-'Ubadl;
Ibn Qasim explains that his work is estracted from his larger commentary on the same two books. In the paragraph on Ibn Tumart
(pp. 4D0sqq.) sufficient stress is not laid on the pantheistic nuance in
his views. Nor are the materials for his life cited with sufficient detail;
Ibn Athlr has a ';Life'' sub anno 514; see, too, the Qartas, pp. 110
and 116; Ibn Khald., Proleg., Vol. I, p. 53, in de Slane's translation.
On al-Ghazzall (pp. 419-526) I would refer to my " Life" already
alluded to; it is, I believe, much more full and trustworthythan that
by Gosche, who had not access to the necessary sources, and who has
frequently led Dr. Brockelmann astray. The biography in Ibn Khallikan is almost worthless. It may be said generally that Ibn Khallikan
is of little value as a critical historian. His interests were not those
of a student, but of a dilettante in literature. On the form of the rwisba
Ghazzall I trust to be able to enter at length elsewhere. Here I will
only say that as-Sam'am, though he knew the spelling with one z, did
not approveof it, for he could find no trace of a villvge Ghazala; see the
Sayyid Murtad.a's introduction to his commentaryon the Ibya, Vol. I,
p. 18. Further, the passage in Ibn Khallikan on which Dr. Brockelmann apparently relies is an addition in the autograph manuscript and
has apparently been inserted in the wrong place. Next, the Sirr al'alamayn has been lithographed at Bombay, but, in its present form at
least, cannot be by al-Ghazzall. At the beginning al-Ghazzall is made
to say. "And the first who transcribedit [the Sirr] and read it with me
in the Nizamlya Madrasa secretly in the second period after my return
from journeying was a man from the land of al-Maghribwho was called
Muhammadibn Tumarth (sic) of the people of Salamlya and by means
of it I perceived in him the signs of royal power.' Nest, the Tatrtf

BOOB NOTICES

189

al-ahya of Ibn 'Aydarus is printed on the margin of the Sayyid MurtadA'scommentary(edition of Cairo, 1311),Vol. I, pp. 1 40, and the Imla
of al-Ghazzall on pp. 41-252. The text of the Imla is in great disorder.
Finally, the book edited by Malter cannot possibly be by al-Ghazzall;
the contents and arrangement are enough. On Abu Hafs an-Nasaf
(pp. 427 sq.) there is a paper with a translation of his 'Aqtda in this
JOURNAL,
ATO1.
XII, PP. 73 sqq., and ATol.XIII, pp. 140sq. On p. ,
No.
112, r. al-ghauth is explained as though Ghauth at-atzarn were the name
of a particular mystic; it is rather the title of a high official in the Suf
hierarchy, like Qutb. On p. 4U1 there is another curious mistake. On
l. 18 awliya is explained as {'the friends of the Prophet;" it is, of course,
the friends of God. On Ibn Sllla (pp. 4U2-8) we can now add Carra de
Vaus's Avicenne and his curiously pessimistic or agnostic poem on the
nafs in JA., 9 Vol. XIV, pp. 157 sq. On p. 460 it would have been
worth while to draw attention to the many translations of Ibn Tufayl's
Hay b. Yaqzan; it is one of the few Arabic books that have secured an
absolutely independent footing in European literature. On Averroes
(pp. 461 sq.) reference should have been made to Tzitze de Boer's Widerspruche der Philosophie, a very valuable contribution to our knowledge
of a man who is an intellectual puzzle because he chose to be one. No. 15,
on p. 462, Kitab falsafat al-qadz al-fadil (so rightly), printed at Cairoin
1313, is simply a reprint of the tractates published by M. J. Milller in
1859. This is shown by the text, which contains Milller's conjectural
emendations, even where they are unnecessary. Finally in the article on
Idrlsl, the geographer, no notice is taken of the Roman edition of 1592,
the Paris translation of 1619,Jaubert's translation of 1836,or the estracts
by Dozy-de Goeje, Amari-Schiaparelli,and Gildemeister. The reference
which Dr. Brockelmann makes to a Swedish pamphlet will help a comparatively small number of his readers.
It is obvious that such annotation as this might proceed indefinitely;
but that possibility does not detract in the least from the value of the
book. The subject is such that absolute completeness and accuracy are
unattainable. We have here, it is true, no history in any exact sense,
but we have a thesaurus, a KeF,X7Atov
(s ast, of Arabic literary biography
and bibliography. Every Arabist must be grateful to Dr. Brockelmann
for his self-denying and patient labors. I only regret that the space
allotted to me has not permitted me to treat his book at greater length.
DUNCAN
B. MACDONALD.
HARTFORD,CONN.

TH:E MOEAMMEDAN ORIENT.1

These may be regarded as the first numbers of a kind of supplement
to the Ortentalische Litteratur-Zeitung, which is to consist of notes
and articles by Professor Hartmann dealing with the movements of
1 DER ISLAMISCS:E
ORIENT. Berichte und Forschungen. Von Martin Hartmann.
I, II, III. Berlin: Wolf Pewer Verlag, 1889, 1900. 40 and 102 pp.

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