The Queen of Night, an Old Folk-lore Tale 262 The Earliest Turkish Poem (A.D. 1332) 272 Book of Alexander the Great (A.D. 1412) 273 The Loves of Shirin (A.D. 1426) 275 The Book of Mohammed (A.D. 1449) 277 Poems by Turkish Sultans 280 Turkish Poetesses 290 The Great Turkish Poets 292 IX.—THE TRAVELS OF SIDI ALI REIS 327 The "Mirror of Countries" (A.D. 1556) 332 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARABIC LITERATURE 397 ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME VI FACING PAGE The Slave Girl of Abu Zayd _Frontispiece_ The Death of Abu Mustem 42 The Song of Abu Al Salam 210 The Queen of Night 264 The Ancient Church of St. Sophia 320 SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF THE MEDIEVAL ARABS, MOORS, AND TURKS INTRODUCTION HOW THE TEACHING OF MOHAMMED SPREAD INTO MANY LANDS AND CREATED MANY LITERATURES The wide-spread Arabic empire and religion originated with Mohammed and was founded on his book, the Koran. That tremendously important work, with the primitive Arabic literature of even earlier date, formed the theme of our preceding volume. We have now to trace the Arabic literature and thought which, with the expanding of the Mohammedan empire, spread over a large part of the Eastern world. Geographically that empire reached from its Arabian center eastward through Babylonia and Persia into India, westward through all North Africa into Spain, southward through Egypt into the wilds of Central Africa, and northward through Asia Minor to all the Turkish possessions. Through much of this vast region, Arabic became the common speech, and books were written in its tongue. Even in our own day, Arabic continues as the language of a considerable part of Turkey in Asia, of Egypt, and of all North Africa.