68 THE NATIVE MANUSCRIPTS IV. ab. xlvii.

{H a- e follow 41 Imes of doggerel, eked out with laudatory adjectives and religious remarks and giving the writer's pedigree up to 'Adndn.

Then, after 4 lines of prose, occurs the following, i.e. para, xlvii, etc.)

XLVII Chapter II, explaining the duty of studying the profitable part of genealogical records, and showing what part of them is unprofitable, with an appendix thereto.

XLVIII The study of pedigrees is in part profitable and in part unprofitable. The study of so much as is profitable is obligatory by law upon every Muslim.

XLIX Thus Sidi el Imam 'Omar ibn el Khattab, God bless him, said "Ye know from your pedigrees how ye are connected."

L And the Sheikh Tatai says "It is your duty to know from your pedigrees how ye are connected, because of the exhortation ye have

received to [keep the record of] your blood-relationships."

LI El ShadhaU also says "That which has no other claim to be obligatory than his {sc. 'Omar's) [sole] authority is yet obligatory."

LII The above is intended to apply to [the study of the pedigrees of] people between whom [and yourself] there is some relationship ; and indeed el Imam Abu el Hasan acquiesced in the obligations of such

study in the same manner, saying that this applied to blood-relation-

ship, [i.e.] to the case of people between whom [and yourself] there

is some relationship, and not to [the case of] a man who claims honour by marriage [only].

LI 1 1 El 'Adawi also said "Ye know that [the keeping of the record of] your blood-relationships is obligatory"; so he is equally to be credited.

LIV And, look you ! Is it not obvious that a man should know from his pedigree the total number of his ancestors in Islam rather than restrict his knowledge to three forefathers [only] ?

LV That which is unprofitable in the [study of] pedigrees is the knowledge of the pedigrees of others, that is of those to whom one is unrelated, because the authoritative dictum does not apply to such, and the following saying of the Prophet, upon whom be the blessings

of God, about one who was learned in pedigrees bears this out "A knowledge of them is useless and ignorance harmless."

LVI El Tatai says " Such knowledge of pedigrees as 'so and so was son of so and so of the children of so and so, and the children of so and so are connected with the children of so and so by having so and

so as a common ancestor' is a [type of] learning that is unprofitable both in this world and the next, and ignorance of it does no harm to him that is ignorant of it, nor does he commit any sin by neglecting

it."