Produced by Fritz Ohrenschall, Turgut Dincer, Sania Ali Mirza and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ------------------------------------------------------------- Transcriber's note: This e-text includes characters that require UTF-8 (Unicode) file encoding: ⌣, ḥ, Ṣ, Ṭ, Ḥ, ẖ, Ẓ If any of these characters do not display properly--in particular, if the dots do not appear under the letters make sure your text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change the default font. Depending on available fonts, some tables may not line up vertically. As a last resort, use the Latin-1 version of the file instead. Spelling of the Arabic names is different in the body of the text, in the References and in the Index, these have been left as shown in the original text. Bold numbers in the Index are enclosed between "+" signs. ------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: LITIGANTS BEFORE A JUDGE From an Arabic manuscript in the British Museum (Or. 1200; No. 1007 in Rieu's _Arabic Supplement_), dated A.H. 654 = A.D. 1256, which contains the _Maqámȧt_ of Ḥarìrì illustrated by 81 miniatures in colours. This one represents a scene in the 8th Maqáma: Abú Zayd and his son appearing before the Cadi of Ma‘arratu ’l-Nu’mán. The figure on the left is Ḥárith b. Hammám, whom Ḥarìrì puts forward as the relater of Abú Zayd's adventures.] A LITERARY HISTORY OF THE ARABS BY REYNOLD A. NICHOLSON CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1966 PUBLISHED BY THE SYNDICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London, N.W. 1 American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York N.Y. 10022, West African Office: P.O. Box 33, Ibadan, Nigeria First edition (T. Fisher Unwin) 1907, reprinted 1914, 1923 Reprinted (Cambridge University Press) 1930, 1941, 1953, 1962, 1966 _First printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Cambridge Reprinted by offset-litho by Latimer Trend & Co. Ltd, Whitstable_ To PROFESSOR A. A. BEVAN In grateful recollection of many kindnesses PREFACE