Note 6 — PREFACE.

For an interesting account of Literary Society in Baghdad see Renan’s “Islam and Science”; also the Biography to the Letters of Abu’l-Ala. Prof. Margoliouth, though not unfair in his judgment of the poet, is unnecessarily captious at times. He would seem partial to the suffrage of orthodox Mohammedans with regard to Abu’l-Ala’s unorthodox religious views. But they have a reason, these ulama, for endeavoring to keep a genius like Abu’l-Ala within the pale of belief. Which reason, let us hope, has no claim on Prof. Margoliouth. And in his attempt to depreciate Abu’l-Ala as a disinterested and independent scholar and poet, he does not escape the inconsistency which often follows in the wake of cavil. Read this, for instance: