the last was born in 1061 A.H. But it is now proved beyond all doubt
that many of these writers were Persians who employed the Arabic
language and that the art of Arab annalists had its root in the archives
of the Sasanians. We owe this discovery to Goldziher and Von Kremmer in
the first instance, and to Brockelmann, Browne, Blochet and Huart who
have done ample justice to the Iranian element in Arab culture. One of
the best of these histories is by Tabari. Noeldeke translated in 1879,
the portion relating to the Sasanians into German, and added footnotes
to his translation, which are a mine of information on pre-Moslem
Persia. The introduction which he wrote to his translation is equally
valuable especially for the light it throws on the sources of Firdausi.
The following is a translation of that German introduction by Noeldeke.

Tabari was a most prolific author and is reported to have written daily
forty sheets for forty years. He was of pure Iranian descent G.K.N.]

[Sidenote: Tabari's method.]

Abu Jafar Muhammed bin Jarir born in the winter of 839 at Amul not far
from the Caspian Sea in the Persian Province of Tabaristan, hence called
Tabari, and who died in Baghdad on the 17th February 923, wrote many,
partly very large, works in the Arabic language, among them an extremely
voluminous chronicle, which reaches from the creation down to nearly the
close of his life. Tabari, mainly occupied with theological tradition,
was no man of original research or of historical acumen even in the
sense applied to a few other Persian scholars in those centuries. His
annals are a compilation, a mass of rich material put together with
extraordinary industry. He does not work into unity the various versions
in his divergent sources, but simply brings them up in order one after
another. But it is just this circumstance which considerably enhances in