romantic
tradition sprang up side by side with the historical, and had a
literature of its own, the beginnings of which must be placed as early
as the 2nd century of the Flight. The oldest specimens still extant are
the fables about the conquest of Spain ascribed to Ibn Habib (d. 852),
and those about the conquest of Egypt and the West by Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam
(d. 871). In these truth and falsehood are mingled. But most of the
extant literature of this kind is, in its present form, much more
recent; e.g. the _Story of the Death of Hosain_ by the pseudo-Abu
Mikhnaf (translated by Wustenfeld); the _Conquest of Syria_ by Abu
Isma'il al-Basri (edited by Nassau Lees, Calcutta, 1854, and discussed
by de Goeje, 1864); the pseudo-Waqidi (see Hamaker, _De Expugnatione
Memphidis et Alexandriae_, Leiden, 1835); the pseudo-Ibn Qutaiba (see
Dozy, _Recherches_); the book ascribed to A'sam Kufi, &c. Further
inquiry into the origin of these works is called for, but some of them
were plainly directed to stirring up fresh zeal against the Christians.
In the 6th century of the Flight some of these books had gained so much
authority that they were used as sources, and thus many untruths crept
into accepted history. (M. J. de G.; G. W. T.)

_Geography._--The writing of geographical books naturally began with
the description of the Moslem world, and that for practical purposes.
Ibn Khordadhbeh, in the middle of the 9th century, wrote a _Book of
Roads and Provinces_ to give an account of the highways, the
posting-stations and the revenues of the provinces. In the same
century Ya'qubi wrote his _Book of Countries_, describing specially
the great cities of the empire. A similar work describing the
provinces in some detail was that of Qudama or Kodama (d. 922).
Hamdani (q.v.) was led to write his great geography of Arabia by his
love for the ancient history of his land. Muqaddasi (Mokaddasi) at the
end of the 10th century was one of the early travellers whose works
were founded on their own observation. The study of Ptolemy's
geography led to a wider outlook, and the writing of works on
geography (q.v.) in general. A third class of Arabian geographical
works were those written to explain the names of places which occur in
the older poets. Such books were written by Bakri (q.v.) and Yaqut
(q.v.)[9]

_Grammar and Lexicography._--Arab tradition ascribes the first
grammatical treatment of the language to Abu-l-Asw