our eyes the value of the work; for in this way the older reports
themselves are preserved more faithfully than if the chronicler had
laboured to reconcile them one with the other.

[Sidenote: Abounds in extracts from Arab and Iranian predecessors, but
does not mention his sources.]

The principal value of Tabari's compilation consists in the extremely
exhaustive presentation of the history of Islam from the first
appearance of the Prophet; no other Arabic work in this respect can
compare with his. The pre-Islamic history comprises, may be, a twentieth
portion of the whole work and gives a very groat deal of what we would
rather be without. Of the highest moment, however, is the tolerably
detailed section on the history of the Sasanides and their times
embodied in it, and whose German translation forms the text of our book.
This section goes back partly to good Arabic records and mostly, at
least mediately, to very important ancient Persian sources. But the
stories from the mythological and historical traditions which appear
scattered in Tabari in proceeding sections have a cognate origin. If the
criticism of the sources is here very much facilitated on the one hand,
because these orientals where they excerpt love to adhere, as far as
possible, to the letter of their models or sources, it is on the other,
rendered difficult because Tabari does not mention his immediate
authorities. Only in reports of theological interest, to which the whole
of the history of the growth of Islam belongs, he proceeds to indicate
his sources with precision; otherwise he cites at the best an old
authority come down to him only obliquely, and in most cases none at
all. Throughout the Persian history he never names an authority, barring
Hisham, whom he quotes here and there and who was an acknowledged
authority in another province of tradition.