A Literary History of the Arabs

by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson

[394] Ṭabarí, ii, 36, ll. 7, 8, 11-16.

[395] Ḥamása, 44.

[396] Ibn Khallikán, ed. by Wüstenfeld, No. 555, p. 55, l. 4 seq.; De Slane's translation, vol. ii, p. 523.

[397] Dozy, Essai sur l'histoire de l'Islamisme (French translation by Victor Chauvin), p. 219 sqq.

[398] Wellhausen thinks that the dogmatics of the Shí‘ites are derived from Jewish rather than from Persian sources. See his account of the Saba’ites in his most instructive paper, to which I have already referred, Die religiös-politischen Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam (Abh. der König. Ges. der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 1901), p. 89 sqq.

[399] Ṭabarí, i, 2942, 2.

[400] "Verily, He who hath ordained the Koran for thee (i.e., for Muḥammad) will bring thee back to a place of return" (i.e., to Mecca). The ambiguity of the word meaning 'place of return' (ma‘ád) gave some colour to Ibn Sabá's contention that it alluded to the return of Muḥammad at the end of the world. The descent of Jesus on earth is reckoned by Moslems among the greater signs which will precede the Resurrection.

[401] This is a Jewish idea. ‘Alí stands in the same relation to Muḥammad as Aaron to Moses.

[402] Ṭabarí, loc. cit.

[403] Shahrastání, ed. by Cureton, p. 132, l. 15.