Meanwhile the Past affords an ample and splendid field of study.
"Man lam ya‘i ’l-ta’ríkha fí ṣadrihí Lam yadri ḥulwa ’l-‘ayshi min murrihi Wa-man wa‘á akhbára man qad maḍá Aḍáfa a‘máran ilá ‘umrihí."
"He in whose heart no History is enscrolled Cannot discern in life's alloy the gold. But he that keeps the records of the Dead Adds to his life new lives a hundredfold."
APPENDIX
[a]P. xxii,] l. 2. Arabic begins to appear in North Arabian inscriptions in the third century a.d. Perhaps the oldest yet discovered is one, of which the probable date is 268 a.d., published by Jaussen and Savignac (Mission archéologique en l'Arabie, vol. i, p. 172). Though it is written in Aramaic characters, nearly all the words are Arabic, as may be seen from the transcription given by Professor Horovitz in Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, Deccan), April 1929, vol. iii, No. 2, p. 169, note 2.
[P. 4] foll. Concerning the Sabaeans and the South Arabic inscriptions a great deal of valuable information will be found in the article Saba’ by J. Tkatsch in the Encyclopædia of Islam. The writer points out the special importance of the epigraphic discoveries of E. Glaser, who, in the course of four journeys (1882-94), collected over 2000 inscriptions. See also D. Nielsen, Handbuch der altarabischen Altertumskunde, vol. i (Copenhagen and Paris, 1927).
[P. 13], note 2. Excerpts from the Shamsu ’l-‘Ulúm relating to South Arabia have been edited by Dr ‘Azímu’ddín Aḥmad (E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, vol. xxiv).
[P. 26] foll. For contemporary and later Christian accounts of the martyrdom of the Christians of Najrán, see the fragmentary Book of the Himyarites (Syriac text and English translation), ed. by A. Moberg in 1924, and cf. Tor Andrae, Der Ursprung des Islams und das Christentum (Uppsala, 1926), pp. 10-13.