The History of the Saracens explained

The History of the Saracens
Author:Simon Ockley
Country:Kingdom of Great Britain
Language:English
Subject:Caliphs
Islamic Empire[1]
Release Date:1708 vol. I
1718 vol. II [2]
Media Type:Hardback

The History of the Saracen Empires is a book written by Simon Ockley of Cambridge University and first published in the early 18th century.[3] The book has been reprinted many times, including at London in 1894.[4] It was published in two volumes that appeared a decade apart.

The author

Simon Ockley, vicar of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, devoted himself from an early age to the study of eastern languages and customs and was appointed Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1711. The first volume of his work generally known as The History of the Saracens, appeared in 1708 as Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens, the second in 1718, with an introduction dated from Cambridge Castle, where he was then imprisoned for debt. Edward Gibbon, who admired and used his work, speaks of his fate as "unworthy of the man and of his country."

Contents

Ockley's History extends from the death of Mahomet in 632, to that of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 705; the work was left unfinished due to the author's death in 1720. The Life of Mohammed prefixed to the third edition of his History, which was issued for the benefit of his destitute daughter in 1757, is by Roger Long.

Reputation and influence of the work

Ockley based his work on an Arabic manuscript in the Bodleian Library which later scholars have pronounced less trustworthy than he imagined it to be.[5] Stanley Lane-Poole in the Dictionary of National Biography wrote that:

citing the opinion of William Robertson Smith in the article on Ockley from the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. The author in question is now known as pseudo-Waqidi.[6] Lane-Poole notes that the History

Alfred Rayney Waller described the author's work:

The 1720 play The Siege of Damascus by John Hughes drew inspiration from the first volume of the work.

External links

Notes and References

  1. "Full Record Library of Congress.
  2. Simon Ockley. The History of the Saracens 6th Edition. London: Henry G. Bohn. 1857
  3. The full title is "The History of the Saracens; Comprising the lives of Mohammed and his successors, to the death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph. With an account of their most remarkable battles, sieges, revolts, &c. Collected from authentic sources, especially Arabic mss."
  4. Web site: What Non-Muslims Say About 'IMAM ALI (A.S). https://web.archive.org/web/20060219144548/http://www.al-shia.com/html/eng/articles/mahdi/almahdi/04.htm. usurped. February 19, 2006.
  5. Book: Ward, A. W. . A.R. Waller . W.P. Trent . J. Erskine . S.P. Sherman . C. Van Doren . The Cambridge history of English and American literature: An encyclopedia in eighteen volumes . G.P. Putnam’s Sons . 1907–21 . New York, New York .
  6. [Robert Graham Irwin]