The Arabic histories are of various kinds, universal, local, occasional, and personal; most of the great cities of the Islamic empires have their local historians.
And we have special chronicles of many an event of special importance or interest, as well as special biographies of distinguished individuals.
Thus, it is not surprising that we should possess a biography of Saladin, a chronicle of his dynasty, and a special chronicle of the reconquest of Jerusalem.
Indeed, there is reason for thinking that when Baghdad was a great capital the death of a distinguished man was followed by the publication of his biography nearly as regularly as is the case in this country.
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The introduction of the Index dates from the invention of printing; before the content of the page was fixed no such institution could exist.
Some sort of substitute for this was found in the composition of dictionaries, i.e. works after the fourth century often in alphabetical order in which all that was known about groups of persons was put together.
It has been remarked that the student of Islamic literature is confronted with more personal names than meet him anywhere else, probably because of the practice.
To which allusion has already been made, of maintaining in the case of an assertion of any sort the chain of intermediaries between the author and the last reporter.
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Hence, the Islamic student has on his shelves a whole series of biographical dictionaries; sometimes they are national biographies, sometimes confined to persons who acquired celebrity in some department or where connected with some particular place.
The arrangement is at times alphabetical, at others chronological. The Dictionary of National Biography belonging to the eighth century of Islam occupies twenty- five volumes and has never been printed.
The popular dictionary of the subject belongs to the century before, and in translation occupies four quartos. Somewhat earlier is an eight-volume dictionary of savants, exclusive, however, of poets.
The grammarians, physicians, and other classes of men have also found compilers of dictionaries of their biographies; and yet more care has been spent on dictionaries of traditionalists.
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Because of the importance of the matter which these persons had the honour of transmitting to posterity, and the desirability of knowing how they conducted their lives.
A dictionary of these in twelve volumes has recently been printed, but there is many more existing in MS.