The History of the Saracens – Simon Ockley (1847)

S$86.00

The History of the Saracens – Simon Ockley (1847)

S$86.00

Title: The History of the Saracens, Comprising the Lives of Mohammed and His Successors, to the Death of Abdalmelik, the Eleventh Caliph
Author: Simon Ockley
Publisher: Henry G. Bohn, London, 1847. Fourth edition, revised.
Condition: Hardcover, decorative boards. Fair. Book needs to be handled gently, with significant wear. Blank pages and title page threatening to detach. Rest of the book is unaffected.

About the book (from Wikipedia):

The History of the Saracen Empires is a book written by Simon Ockley of Cambridge University and first published in the early 18th century. The book has been reprinted many times including at London in 1894. It was published in two volumes that appeared a decade apart.

Simon Ockley, vicar of Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, devoted himself from an early age to the study of eastern languages and customs and was appointed Sir Thomas Adams Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1711. The first volume of his work generally known as The History of the Saracens, appeared in 1708 as Conquest of Syria, Persia, and Egypt by the Saracens, the second in 1718, with an introduction dated from Cambridge Castle, where he was then imprisoned for debt. Edward Gibbon, who admired and used his work, speaks of his fate as “unworthy of the man and of his country.” His History extends from the death of Mahomet, 632, to that of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, 705; the work was cut short by the author’s death in 1720. The Life of Mohammed prefixed to the third edition of his History, which was issued for the benefit of his destitute daughter in 1757, is by Roger Long.