P. 31. The collection of Arabic proverbs, entitled Kitábu ’l-Fákhir, by Mufaḍḍal b. Salama of Kúfa, is now available in the excellent edition of Mr C. A. Storey (Leyden, 1915).
[P. 32], note 1. An edition of the Aghání with critical notes is in course of publication at Cairo.
[P. 52], l. 9 foll. The battle mentioned here cannot be the battle of ‘Ayn Ubágh, which took place between Ḥárith, the son of Ḥárith b. Jabala, and Mundhir IV of Ḥíra about 583 a.d. (Guidi, L'Arabie antéislamique, p. 27).
[P. 127], l. 16. The ode Bánat Su‘ád is rendered into English in my Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose, pp. 19-23.
[P. 133]. As regards the authenticity of the Pre-islamic poems which have come down to us, the observations of one of the greatest authorities on the subject, the late Sir Charles J. Lyall, seem to me to be eminently judicious (Introduction to the Mufaḍḍalīyāt, vol. ii, pp. xvi-xxvi). He concludes that "upon the whole, the impression which a close study of these ancient relics gives is that we must take them, generally speaking, as the production of the men whose names they bear." All that can be urged against this view has been said with his usual learning by Professor Margoliouth (The Origins of Arabic Poetry, J.R.A.S., 1925, p. 417 foll.).
[P. 145], l. 2. The oldest extant commentary on the Koran is that of Bukhárí in ch. 65 of the Ṣaḥíḥ, ed. Krehl, vol. iii, pp. 193-390.
[P. 146], note 2. Recent investigators (Caetani and Lammens) are far more sceptical. Cf. Snouck Hurgronje, Mohammedanism, p. 22 foll.
[P. 152], note 5. As suggested by Mr Richard Bell (The Origin of Islam in its Christian environment, p. 88), the word rujz is in all likelihood identical with the Syriac rugza, wrath, so that this verse of the Koran means, "Flee from the wrath to come."
[P. 170], l. 2 foll. This is one of the passages I should have liked to omit. Even in its present form, it maintains a standpoint which I have long regarded as mistaken.
[P. 184], l. 4 foll. Professor Snouck Hurgronje (Mohammedanism, p. 44) asks, "Was Mohammed conscious of the universality of his mission?" and decides that he was not. I now agree that "in the beginning he conceived his work as merely the Arabian part of a universal task"—in which case dhikrun li ’l-‘álamín in the passage quoted will mean "a warning to all the people (of Mecca or Arabia)." But similar expressions in Súras of the Medina period carry, I think, a wider significance. The conception of Islam as a world-religion is implied in Mohammed's later belief—he only came to it gradually—that the Jewish and Christian scriptures are corrupt and that the Koran alone represents the original Faith which had been preached in turn by all the prophets before him. And having arrived at that conviction, he was not the man to leave others to act upon it.