Although the proper history of Arabian literature begins from the time of Muhammad, it is necessary to cast a glance upon the age that preceded him, in order to obtain a glimpse of pre-Islamitic wisdom. The sage Lokman, whose name the thirty-first chapter of the Koran bears, is considered, according to that book, to have been the first man of his nation who practised and taught wisdom in all his deeds and words. He was believed to have been a contemporary of David and Solomon; his sayings and his fables still exist, but there is not much really known about him, as the following extracts will show: 'Lokman, a philosopher mentioned in the Koran, is said to have been born about the time of David. One tradition represents him as a descendant of the Arab tribe of Ad, who, on account of his piety and wisdom, was saved when the rest of his family perished by Divine wrath. According to another story he was an Ethiopian slave, noted alike for bodily deformity and a gift for composing fables and apologues. This account of Lokman, resembling so closely the traditional history of AEsop, has led to an opinion that they were the same individual, but this is now generally supposed not to be the case. The various reports agree in ascribing to Lokman extraordinary longevity. His extant fables bear evident marks of modern alteration, both in their diction and their incidents. They were first published with a Latin translation of the Arabic by Erpenius (Leyden, 1615). Galland produced a French translation of the fables of Lokman and Bidpay at Paris in 1724, and there are other editions by De Sacey, 1816, Caussin de Perceval, 1818, Freytag, 1823, and Rodiger, 1830.' Burton, in a footnote to page 118, of Volume X. of his 'Arabian Nights,' however, says that 'There are three distinct Lokmans. The first, or eldest Lokman, entitled Al-Hakim (the Sage), and the hero of the Koranic chapter which bears his name, was son of Ba'ura, of the children of Azar, sister's son to Job, or son of Job's maternal aunt; he witnessed David's miracles of mail-making, and when the tribe of Ad was destroyed he became king of the country. The second Lokman, also called the Sage, was a slave and Abyssinian negro, sold by the Israelites during the reign of David or Solomon, and who left a volume of proverbs and exempla, not fables or apologues, some of which still dwell in the public memory. The youngest Lokman, of the Vultures, was a prince of the tribe of Ad, who lived 3,500 years, the age of seven vultures.' This accounts for the different ideas as regards the tradition of one Lokman in the preceding paragraph. Before the era of the Prophet poetry had attained some degree of excellence. At the annual festival of Okatz the poets met and made public recitations, and competed for prizes. Of prose literature there was none, and the irregular, half-rhythmical, half-rhyming sentences of the Koran were the first attempts in the direction of prose.