ARABIC LITERATURE
EARLY HISTORY AND SCIENCE
Amongthe early chronicles of the Arabs, as we have already stated, by far the most celebrated is the many-volumed work of Masoudi, called, the "Book of Golden Meadows." It is a collection of interesting and sometimes scandalous anecdotes about anything and everything in the past, but chiefly about the earlier caliphs. These, with true Eastern subtlety, Masoudi criticises where criticism will be safe, in order that he may praise with a convincing air where he thinks praise will be especially pleasing to the powerful of his own day. In other words, the author is an accomplished courtier as well as a witty and entertaining writer. His book begins, as do all Arab books, with the formula, "In the name of the most merciful God," followed by the usual preface praising Mohammed and the author's own work, and explaining its origin. Then follow, chronologically arranged, the anecdotes of which we quote some that refer to the best-known caliphs.
Masoudi himself was of the genuine Arab blood, a man of prominence descended from one of the comrades of Mohammed. He was born at Bagdad, but was, like many of his countrymen, a wanderer. After visiting all lands, he finally selected Egypt as his dwelling-place, and there died, probably inA.D.957. Al Bukhari and other earlier travelers had collected all the tales of the Prophet, so Masoudi devoted himself to gathering other legends. From the vast bulk of these he made a thirty-volume historical work, most of which has disappeared. He then selected from this thematerial for a briefer work, and then, by a third process of distillation, gathered the best of his anecdotes into the "Golden Meadows."
Of the more careful historians and genuine scientists who followed, Avicenna, from whose philosophical work we give an extract here, must assuredly be ranked the first.