ss of information, and constitute the top of the pyramid of
encyclopaedical and biographical works, after which nothing worthy of
mention has been written on these subjects. The basis of this pyramid
had been already laid by An-Nadim, the author of the 'Fihrist,' who
flourished A.D. 987, and by Ibn Khallikan, who died A.D. 1282.

During this century (A.D. 1592-1689) of the most sanguinary wars,
revolutions and dethronements, the condition of Arab literature in the
Ottoman Empire was neither progressive nor satisfactory. Nevertheless,
the study of the sciences, and especially the linguistic and juridical
branches of them, were fostered not only in Constantinople, but also
in Syria and Egypt, in consequence of the institution of the body of
Ulema, established by Muhammad II., the Conqueror (A.D. 1451-1481),
and improved by Sulaiman I., the Law-giver (A.D. 1520-1566), which
sheltered the cultivation of science from the storms of war within the
inviolable precincts of religion.

Mention may be made of Muhammad-Al-Amin, the learned philologist and
lawyer of Damascus, who was born in that town about the middle of the
eleventh and died the beginning of the twelfth century of the Hijrah,
and produced a dozen respectable works, the principal of which bears
the title of 'The Biographies of the Celebrated Men of the Eleventh
Century,' A.H. He gives an account of a couple of hundred scholars,
who represented in Egypt and in Syria the last rays of the setting sun
of Arabian literature.

Next to Muhammad-Al-Amin another author of about a dozen works is to
be noticed, namely, Ahmad-Al Makkari, whose principal work was a
history of the Muhammadan dynasties in Spain, which was translated
from the copies in the library of the British Museum, and illustrated
with critical notes on Spanish history, geography and antiquities, by
Pascual de Gayangos, and printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of
Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1840-43. Makkari also wrote a
history of Fez and Morocco, as well as an account of Damascus. He
died at Cairo A.D. 1631.

Besides some historians, grammarians, philologists and poets, the
eleventh century of the Hijrah (A.D. 1592-1689) produced in Syria and
Egypt even astronomers and physicians, who distinguished themselves as
scholars. Of writers of light literature Khafaji may be named as the
chief. He composed a Diwan of ardent love poems, with two anthologies,
containing specimens of verses from a couple o