APPENDIX 513 as that of Ibu lahak. It is not extant in its original form, but its matter was in- corporated in a Life of Mohammad by his able secretary Ibn Sad (Katib al-Wakidi, ob. 845) — a very careful composition, arranged in the form of separate traditions, each traced up to its source. But another work of Wakidi, the Historj' of the Wars of the Prophet (Kitab al-Maghazi), is extant (accessible in an abbreviated German version by "VVellhausen, 1882), and has considerable interest as contain- ing a large number of doubtless genuine treaties. The author states that he transcribed them from the original documents.-'^ Like Ibn Hisham, Wakidi wrote under the caliphate of Mamiin (a. d. 813-833) at Bagdad, and necessarily lent himself to the perversion of tradition in Abbasid interests. Al-TabarT (see below) included the history of Mohammad in the great work which earned for him the compliment of being called by Gibbon ' ' the Livy of the Arabians ". The original Arabic of this part of the Annals was recovered by Sprenger at Luckuow. It consists mainly of extracts fiom Ibn Ishak and Wakidi, and herein lies its importance for us : both as (1) enabling us to control the compilations of Ibn Hisham and Ibn Sad and (2) proving that Ibn Ishak and Wakidi contained all the authentic material of value for the Life of the Prophet, that was at the disposal of Tabari. The part of the work (about a third) which is occupied by other material consists of miscellaneous traditions, which throw little new light on the biography. [For a full discussion of the sources see Muir, Life of Mahomet ; easay at the end of edition 2^introduction at the beginning of edition 3. For the life of the prophet : Weil, Mohammed der Prophet, 1840 ; Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre Mohammads, 18.51 ; Wellhausen's sketch in the Encyclopedia Britannica (sub nomine). For his spirit and teaching : Stanley Lane-Poole, The Speeches and Table-talk of the Prophet Mohammad, 1882.] IJ. For the Saracen Conquests. The most important authority for the history of the Saracen conquests is Abu-Jafar Mohammad ibn Jarir, born in a.d. 839 at Amul in Tabaristan and hence called al-Tabari. He died at Bagdad in a.d. 923. It is only the immense scale of his chronicle that warrants the comparison with Livy. Tabari had no historical faculty, no idea of criticizing or sifting his sources ; he merely puts side by side the statements of earlier writers without reconciling their discrep- ancies or attempting to educe the truth. Though this mode of procedure lowers our opinion of the chronicler, it has obvious advantages for a modern investigator, as it enables him to see the nature of the now lost materials which were used by Tabari. Later writers like al-Makin, Abii-1-Fida, Ibn al-AthIr, found it very convenient to draw from the compilation of Tabari, instead of dealing directly with the numerous sources from which Tabari drew ; just as later Greek chrono- graphers used to work on such a compilation as that of George Monachus. Our gratitude to Tabari for preserving lost material is seriously modified by the con- sideration that it was largely to his work that the loss of that material in its original form is due. His work was so convenient and popular that the public ceased to want the older books and consequently they ceased to be multiplied. The Annals of Tabari were carried down to his own time, into the tenth cen- tury, but his notices for the last seventy years are very brief. The whole work has not yet been translated. We have already made the acquaintance of the part of it bearing on Persian historj- in the translation of Ncildeke (1879). A portion of the history of the Saracen conquests has been edited and translated by Kose- garten (1831). For the history of the caliphate from 670 to 775, Weil had the original work of Tabari before him (in Ms. ), in writing his Geschichte der Chalifen. A complete Arabic edition of Tabari is being published by Prof, de Goeje (1879- 97) and is nearly completed. iil The other works of Wakidi, which are numerous, are lost, including the Kitab al-Ridda, which related the backslidings of the Arabs on Mohammad's death, the war with Musailima , &c. VOL. V. 33
