If we were asked to select a single figure who should exhibit as completely as possible in his own person the literary Jalálu ’l-Dín al-Suyúṭí (1445-1505 a.d.). tendencies of the Alexandrian age of Arabic civilisation, our choice would assuredly fall on Jalálu ’l-Dín al-Suyúṭí, who was born at Suyúṭ (Usyúṭ) in Upper Egypt in 1445 a.d. His family came originally from Persia, but, like Dhahabí, Ibn Taghríbirdí, and many celebrated writers of this time, he had, through his mother, an admixture of Turkish blood. At the age of five years and seven months, when his father died, the precocious boy had already reached the Súratu ’l-Taḥrím(Súra of Forbidding), which is the sixty-sixth chapter of the Koran, and he knew the whole volume by heart before he was eight years old. He prosecuted his studies under the most renowned masters in every branch of Moslem learning, and on finishing his education held one Professorship after another at Cairo until 1501, when he was deprived of his post in consequence of malversation of the bursary monies in his charge. He died four years later in the islet of Rawḍa on the Nile, whither he had retired under the pretence of devoting the rest of his life to God. We possess the titles of more than five hundred separate works which he composed. This number would be incredible but for the fact that many of them are brief pamphlets displaying the author's curious erudition on all sorts of abstruse subjects— e.g., whether the Prophet wore trousers, whether his turban had a point, and whether his parents are in Hell or Paradise. Suyúṭí's indefatigable pen travelled over an immense field of knowledge—Koran, Tradition, Law, Philosophy and History, Philology and Rhetoric. Like some of the old Alexandrian scholars, he seems to have taken pride in a reputation for polygraphy, and his enemies declared that he made free with other men's books, which he used to alter slightly and then give out as his own. Suyúṭí, on his part, laid before the Shaykhu ’l-Islám a formal accusation of plagiarism against Qasṭallání, an eminent contemporary divine. We are told that his vanity and arrogance involved him in frequent quarrels, and that he was 'cut' by his learned brethren. Be this as it may, he saw what the public wanted. His compendious and readable handbooks were famed throughout the Moslem world, as he himself boasts, from India to Morocco, and did much to popularise the scientific culture of the day. It will be enough to mention here the Itqánon Koranic exegesis; the Tafsíru ’l-Jalálayn, or 'Commentary on the Koran by the two Jaláls,' which was begun by Jalálu ’l-Dín al-Maḥallí and finished by his namesake, Suyúṭí; the Muzhir( Mizhar), a treatise on philology; the Ḥusnu ’l-Muḥáḍara, a history of Old and New Cairo; and the Ta’ríkhu ’l-Khulafá, or 'History of the Caliphs.'

To dwell longer on the literature of this period would only be to emphasise its scholastic and unoriginal character. A passing mention, however, is due to the encyclopædists Nuwayrí (õ 1332), author of the Niháyatu ’l-Arab, and Ibnu ’l-Wardí (õ 1349). Ṣafadí (õ 1363) compiled a gigantic biographical dictionary, the Wáfí bi ’l-Wafayát, in twenty-six volumes, and the learned traditionist, Ibn Ḥajar of Ascalon Other scholars of the period. (õ 1449), has left a large number of writings, among which it will be sufficient to name the Iṣába fí tamyíz al-Ṣaḥába, or Lives of the Companions of the Prophet.843 We shall conclude this part of our subject by enumerating a few celebrated works which may be described in modern terms as standard text-books for the Schools and Universities of Islam. Amidst the host of manuals of Theology and Jurisprudence, with their endless array of abridgments, commentaries, and supercommentaries, possibly the best known to European students are those by Abu ’l-Barakát al-Nasafí (õ 1310), ‘Aḍudu ’l-Dín al-Íjí (õ 1355), Sídí Khalíl al-Jundí (õ 1365), Taftázání (õ 1389), Sharíf al-Jurjání (õ 1413), and Muḥammad b. Yúsuf al-Sanúsí (õ 1486). For Philology and Lexicography we have the Alfiyya, a versified grammar by Ibn Málik of Jaen (õ 1273); the Ájurrúmiyyaon the rudiments of grammar, an exceedingly popular compendium by Ṣanhájí (õ 1323); and two famous Arabic dictionaries, the Lisánu ’l-‘Arabby Jamálu ’l-Dín Ibn Mukarram (õ 1311), and the Qámúsby Fírúzábádí (õ 1414). Nor, although he was a Turk, should we leave unnoticed the great bibliographer Ḥájjí Khalífa (õ 1658), whose Kashfu ’l-Ẓunúncontains the titles, arranged alphabetically, of all the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish books of which the existence was known to him.

The Mameluke period gave final shape to the Alf Layla wa-Layla, or 'Thousand and One Nights,' a work which is far more popular in Europe than the Koran or any other masterpiece of Arabic literature. The modern title, 'Arabian Nights,' tells only a part of the truth. Mas‘údí (õ 956 a.d.) mentions an old Persian book, the Hazár Afsána('Thousand Tales') which "is generally called the Thousand and One Nights; it is the story of the King and his Vizier, and of the The 'Thousand and One Nights.' Vizier's daughter and her slave-girl: Shírázád and Dínázád."844 The author of the Fihrist, writing in 988 a.d., begins his chapter "concerning the Story-Tellers and the Fabulists and the names of the books which they composed" with the following passage (p. 304):—

"The first who composed fables and made books of them and put them by in treasuries and sometimes introduced animals as speaking Persian origin of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' them were the Ancient Persians. Afterwards the Parthian kings, who form the third dynasty of the kings of Persia, showed the utmost zeal in this matter. Then in the days of the Sásánian kings such books became numerous and abundant, and the Arabs translated them into the Arabic tongue, and they soon reached the hands of philologists and rhetoricians, who corrected and embellished them and composed other books in the same style. Now the first book ever made on this subject was the Book of the Thousand Tales ( Hazár Afsán), on the following occasion: A certain king of Persia used to marry a woman for one night and kill her the next morning. And he wedded a wise and clever princess, called Shahrázád, who began to tell him stories and brought the tale at daybreak to a point that induced the king to spare her life and ask her on the second night to finish her tale. So she continued until a thousand nights had passed, and she was blessed with a son by him.... And the king had a stewardess ( qahramána) named Dínárzád, who was in league with the queen. It is also said that this book was composed for Ḥumání, the daughter of Bahman, and there are various traditions concerning it. The truth, if God will, is that Alexander (the Great) was the first who heard stories by night, and The Hazár Afsán. he had people to make him laugh and divert him with tales; although he did not seek amusement therein, but only to store and preserve them (in his memory). The kings who came after him used the 'Thousand Tales' ( Hazár Afsán) for this purpose. It covers a space of one thousand nights, but contains less than two hundred stories, because the telling of a single story often takes several nights. I have seen the complete work more than once, and it is indeed a vulgar, insipid book ( kitáb ^unghathth ^unbáridu ’l-hadíth).845

Abu ‘Abdalláh Muḥammad b. ‘Abdús al-Jahshiyárí (õ942-943 a.d.), the author of the 'Book of Viziers,' began to compile a book in which he selected one thousand stories of the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks, and other peoples, every piece being independent and unconnected with the rest. He gathered the story-tellers round him and took from them the best of what they knew and were able to tell, and he chose out of the fable and story-books whatever pleased him. He was a skilful craftsman, so he put together from this material 480 nights, each night an entire story of fifty pages, more or less, but death surprised him before he completed the thousand tales as he had intended."