There exist in Arabic literature very few romances of the length of ‘Antar.’  Though the Arab delights to hear and to recount tales, his tales are generally short and pithy.  It is in this shorter form that he delights to inculcate principles of morality and norms of character.  He is most adroit at repartee and at pungent replies.  He has a way of stating principles which delights while it instructs.  The anecdote is at home in the East:  many a favor is gained, many a punishment averted, by a quick answer and a felicitously turned expression.  Such anecdotes exist as popular traditions in very large numbers; and he receives much consideration whose mind is well stocked with them.  Collections of anecdotes have been put to writing from time to time.  Those dealing with the early history of the caliphate are among the best prose that the Arabs have produced.  For pure prose was never greatly cultivated.  The literature dealing with their own history, or with the geography and culture of the nations with which they came in contact, is very large, and as a record of facts is most important.  Ibn Hisham (died 767), Wakidi (died 822), Tabari (838-923), Masudi (died 957), Ibn Athir (died 1233), Ibn Khaldun (died 1406), Makrisi (died 1442), Suyuti (died 1505), and Makkari (died 1631), are only a few of those who have given us large and comprehensive histories.  Al-Biruni (died 1038), writer, mathematician, and traveler, has left us an account of the India of his day which has earned for him the title “Herodotus of India,” though for careful observation and faithful presentation he stands far above the writer with whose name he is adorned.  But nearly all of these historical writers are mere chronologists, dry and wearisome to the general reader.  It is only in the Preface, or ‘Exordium,’ often the most elaborate part of the whole book viewed from a rhetorical standpoint, that they attempt to rise above mere incidents and strive after literary form.  Besides the regard in which anecdotes are held, it is considered a mark of education to insert in one’s speech as often as possible a familiar saying, a proverb, a bon mot.  These are largely used in the moral addresses (Khutbah) made in the mosque or elsewhere, addresses which take on also the form of rhymed prose.  A famous collection of such sayings is attributed to ’Ali, the fourth successor of Muhammad.  In these the whole power of the Arab for subtle distinctions in matters of wordly wisdom, and the truly religious feeling of the East, are clearly manifested.

The propensity of the Arab mind for the tale and the anecdote has had a wider influence in shaping the religious and legal development, of Muhammadanism than would appear at first sight.  The ‘Qur’an’ might well suffice as a directive code for a small body of men whose daily life was simple, and whose organization was of the crudest kind.  But even Muhammad in his own later days was called on to supplement the written word by the spoken, to interpret such