62 THE NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS iv. ab. i.

I In the name of God. . . .

Praise be to God ... (a long exordium in praise of God and of Muhammad follows) .

II The servant of his glorious God, el Sayyid Ahmad ibn el Wali

el Sheikh Isma'il now speaks. Since the study of the pedigrees of men is one of which the knowledge is useless and ignorance is harm-

less, and since by expending one's energies on such study one shortens one's days, I paid no attention to it, nor did I feel any tendency to do so, until at last I even became confused as to the exact deter-

mination of my relationship to such of my own and my father's generation as were alive. In addition, this confusion existed to such an extent among several of the family that some of them began to vie with others in the length of their pedigrees and to boast of their original ancestors.

III Accordingly, the Imam of the age, the Leader of the Way, the restorer of lawful and true knowledge, the master of his time, my

lord and father, el Wali Isma'il, by whose agency God granted me to taste the sweetness of the Faith, ordered me to make a genealogical record showing every one of the ancestors from whom were variously descended those that were yet alive, and to point out all the seed of our ancestor el feki Bishara el Gharbawi and to carry back their pedigrees to him, and his pedigree also to el Malik Nasir son of Salah son of Musa el Kebir, who was known as Masu and in whose person are

united all the branches of Ga'al el Dufar now existing, and [he bade me] to mention also how this ancestor was descended from

Serrar son of Kerdam, the ancestor of all the Ga'aliyyun and to carry back his pedigree to el Sayyid el 'Abbas the uncle of the Prophet, to whom be the blessings of God and salutation, and through el 'Abbas to 'Adnan, and so to arrange all in verse that thereby all our family and suchlike might attain the uttermost of their desire.

IV Then I sought for the books of pedigrees that contain all the

tribes of Ga'al el Dufar and suchlike among the Arabs, and by the strength and might of God I was able to obtain numerous manu-

scripts, including one copied by my maternal grandfather the learned and esteemed and profound sage el Hag Muhammad ibn Bishara

from a manuscript which he discovered in God's country, Mekka the noble, in the year of his pilgrimage, written by the hand of el Sherif Surur.

V [I also obtained] a copy made — also in the Holy Land — by the

learned expert and pious saint el Sheikh Muhammad ibn 'fsa ibn

'Abd el Baki from a manuscript which he found in possession of the Sheikh el Kamil, the learned genealogist known as "el Moghrabi";