A literary history of Persia

390 THE STATE OF MUSLIM LITERATUREon Oriental scholarship) to the first volume of his great Historyof Ottoman Poetry (London Luzac & : Co., 1900). Nearlytwenty years ago we spent several weeks together in London,studying Persian and Turkish, and cultivating the society ofvarious educated and intelligent Muslims, chiefly Persians, whohappened at that time to be resident in the metropolis. Of thesethe late Mfrza Muhammad Baqir of Bawanat in Fars, whosepersonality I attempted to depict in the Introductory Chapterof my Tear amongst the Persians (London : A. and C. Black,1893), was beyond question the most talented and original.From that time till his death Gibb and I were in frequentcommunication, and the hours which I was able from time totime to spend with him in his study in London were amongstthe happiest and most profitable of life.my Within the lastfew months it has been my sad duty to examine his books,manuscripts, and papers, to catalogue the rare and preciousvolumes which he had so sedulously sought out from the East,and to set in order the unpublished portions of the great workto which his life was devoted. High as was the opinion I hadalready formed of the first volume of his book, which alone hasyet been published, I should never have realised the labour ithad cost him, or the extent of his reading, his fine scholarshipand his critical judgment, had I not obtained the insight intohis work which this examination gave me ;and I should behappy to think that I could ever produce half so fine a work onPersian poetry as he has done on Turkish. The Prolegomenaat least of this great book should be read by every student ofMuhammadan Literature.