The Duc de Luynes copy

Caussin de Perceval, A[rmand] P[ierre]. Essai sur l'histoire des Arabes avant l'islamisme, pendant l'époque de Mahomet, et jusqu'à la réduction de toutes les tribus sous la loi musulmane.

€ 4,500.00

First edition: an appealing copy of Perceval's early history of the Arab tribes. The first two volumes describe the period from the end of Jahiliyyah to the Hegira of 622 (Julian calendar). The third volume then accounts for the period after the Hegira through to the early Muslim conquests.

A remarkable achievement for the time, the "Essai" was celebrated as "a trustworthy guide through a tangled mass of tradition" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed. [1911] V, 558). While still lacking in historical criticism, the work "was long and widely received by virtue of the sheer mass of its content, and was reprinted without changes as late as 1902" (cf. Fück). Later scholarship reflects that Caussin de Perceval, eager to form a fluid history, too readily mixed fact and fiction in his weaving together of 7th and 8th century Arabic sources. One 20th century reviewer states that his approach did not necessarily lead to an accurate historical account, but rather "the retrospective self view of seventh and eighth-century Arabs" (International Journal of Middle East Studies 3.1 [1972], p. 75).