A literary history of Persia

EVOLUTION OF MUSLIM SCIENCES 271necessary to find out, by questioning his "Companions"(Ashdb\ or those who had associated with them and" "followed them (Tawabi tubbfr or1, t&bi'-un),what theProphet had said and how he had acted under different circumstances;whence arose the science of Tradition (Hadith).To test the validity of these traditions it was necessary toknow not merely the content (main) of each, but also itshnady i.e.,the chain of persons through whom it had beenhanded down ere it was finally reduced to writing ;and totest this isndd a knowledge of the dates, characters, and circumstancesof these persons was requisite, which again led inanother way to the study of Biography and Chronology. Nordid the history of the Arabs alone suffice ;it was necessary toknow something of the history of their neighbours, especiallythe Persians, Greeks, Himyarites, ./Ethiopians, &c., in ordertograsp the significance of many allusions in the Qur'dn andwas essentialin the old poems. A knowledge of Geographyfor the same purpose, and also for more practical reasonsconnected with the rapid expansion of the MuhammadanEmpire.During the first century after the flight hardly any bookswere written ; all this knowledge continued to be handeddown orally, and the Qur'an remained almost the only prosework (andit is chiefly written in rhymed prose) in Arabic.Such as desiredto study Arabic philology, poetry, and legendhad to go into the Desert amongst the Bedouin tribes topursue their researches ;such as sought a knowledge ofTradition and the religious sciences had to seek it at Madina.Knowledge could only be obtained by travelling,and thistravelling " in search of knowledge " (fl talab'i l-^ilni], renderednecessary at first by the circumstances of the case, graduallybecame a fashion, and finally almost a craze, favoured andforth tojustified by such traditions as: "Whosoever goethseek for learning is in the Way of God until he returnshome the ; Angels blithely spread their wings over him, and