of discovering and utilising these ancient works is shared by G. Weil, Caussin de Perceval, F. Wüstenfeld, A. Sprenger, and Sir William Muir; and the Lives of Mohammed by the last two of these writers[1] are likely to be regarded as classical so long as there are students of Oriental history in Europe; notwithstanding the fact that Muir's Life is written with a confessedly Christian bias, and that Sprenger's is defaced by some slipshod scholarship and untrustworthy archæology.[2]
Since these works were composed, knowledge of Mohammed and his time has been increased by the publication of many Arabic texts, and the labours of European scholars on Mohammedan antiquities.[3] The works of I. Goldziher, J. Wellhausen, and Th. Nöldeke have elucidated much that was obscure, and facilitated the understanding of Arabian history both before and after the Prophet. And from the following Arabic works, most of which have been published since Sprenger and Muir wrote, many fresh details of interest and even of importance occasionally have been furnished.
- The Musnad, or collection of traditions of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, who died in 241 A.H., (855 A.D.: Cairo,
- ↑ Muir's, London, 1857-1861; Sprenger's (2d ed.), Berlin, 1869.
- ↑ Wellhausen's judgment of it (Wakidi, pp. 24-26) is absolutely fair and sound.
- ↑ The most important Lives of Mohammed which have appeared in Europe are those by L. Krehl (Leipzig, 1884), H. Grimme (Münster, 1892-1895), F. Buhl (Copenhagen, 1903). The new editions of Grimme's work and of Wollaston's Half-hours with Mohammed, and the magnificent work of Prince Caetani were published too late for the present writer to utilise.
