The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

—
vi
PREFACE
life and every phase of his character is illustrated by myriads'
of traditions of all degrees of credibility—authoritative,
uncertain, fabulous—each tradition separate and independent,
generally short and complete in itself At his
death the curtain drops at once upon the lifelike scene.
Tradition collapses and the little that remains is curt and
meagre. Of the chief " Companions," indeed, from their
connection with the Prophet, we have sufficient notice,
and special prominence is given to the lives of the first
four Caliphs. But tradition, instead of being, as before,
a congeries of separate statements, now assumes the form
of connected narrative, and eventually the style of ordinary
annals ; and though there is now and then an exception,
as in the minute and profuse description of such battles as
Cadesiya, the Camel, and Siffin, the story as a rule becomes
bald and jejune. These annals also are strictly divided
by the year, the chapter for each year containing everything
belonging to it, and as a rule nothing else. The continuity
of subjects extending often over a long series of years is
thus broken up, and some inconvenience and difficulty
experienced in forming a connected narrative. But upon
the whole, the materials are amply sufficient for the
historian's purpose. . . .
" The reader will bear in mind that the Moslem year, as
purely lunar, is eleven days shorter than the solar, and
consequently loses about three years in every cycle of a
hundred. The lunar month has also this peculiarity, that
while, like the Jewish, the date indicates the age of the
moon, the month itself gives no indication of the season of
the year. The dates have usually been given throughout
according to both the Moslem and the Christian notation.
" The Mussulman months, being unfamiliar to the English
reader, have been indicated, as I
trust in a more intelligible
notation, by Roman numerals in the margin thus :
Moharram .