HISTORICAL TALES AND ANECDOTES
OF THE
TIMES OF THE EARLY KHALÎFAHS.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
PRAISE is to God[1] who caused to descend upon the most noble of prophets and apostles the
- ↑ The true sense of "el-Hámdu l'Illâh" is, that "all praise is (due) to God" as of necessity and right, since He created all things, including the power of appreciating what is praiseworthy—that is, the faculty by which praise is recognized to be due. So that nothing can be conceived of which the praise is not due of right to God.
The correct idea is conveyed as nearly as our language will admit of by the translators of our Bible, who render עֹז לֵאלֹהִים Power unto God, by "Power belongeth unto God;" and so of salvation, righteousness, etc., the belongeth being introduced by way of explanation in italics.
el-Farrâ, a celebrated grammarian who lived during the reign of el-Mamûn, the seventh Khalîfah of the Benu-'Abbâs, dynasty, and died at the age of sixty-three, A.H. 207 (A.D. 822–3), when dictating a complete commentary on a treatise on the Kurân whichע he had written, employed no less than a hundred leaves upon the words "el-Hámd" alone.
