Concerning the prose writers of the period we can make only a few general observations, inasmuch as their works have almost entirely perished.[470] In this branch of literature the same secular, non-Muḥammadan spirit prevailed which has been mentioned as characteristic of the poets who flourished under the Umayyad dynasty, and of the dynasty itself. Historical studies were encouraged and promoted by the court of Damascus. We have referred elsewhere to ‘Abíd b. Sharya, a native of Yemen, whose business it was to dress up the old legends and purvey them in a readable form to the public. Another Yemenite of Persian descent, Wahb b. Munabbih, is responsible for a great deal of the fabulous lore belonging to the domain of _Awá’il_ (Origins) which Moslem chroniclers commonly prefix to their historical works. There seems to have been an eager demand for narratives of the Early Wars of Islam (_maghází_). It is related that the Caliph ‘Abdu ’l-Malik, seeing one of these books in the hands of his son, ordered it to be burnt, and enjoined him to study the Koran instead. This anecdote shows on the part of ‘Abdu ’l-Malik a pious feeling with which he is seldom credited,[471] but it shows also that histories of a legendary and popular character preceded those which were based, like the _Maghází_ of Músá b. ‘Uqba († 758 A.D.) and Ibn Isḥáq's _Biography of the Prophet_, upon religious tradition. No work of the former class has been preserved. The strong theological influence which asserted itself in the second century of the Hijra was unfavourable to the development of an Arabian prose literature on national lines. In the meantime, however, learned doctors of divinity began to collect and write down the _Ḥadíths_. We have a solitary relic of this sort in the _Kitábu ’l-Zuhd_ (Book of Asceticism) by Asad b. Músá († 749 A.D.). The most renowned traditionist of the Umayyad age is Muḥammad b. Muslim b. Shiháb al-Zuhrí († 742 A.D.), who distinguished himself by accepting judicial office under the tyrants; an act of complaisance to which his more stiff-necked and conscientious brethren declined to stoop. [Sidenote: The non-Arabian Moslems.]