This third volume continues the history of Arabic literature up to the outbreak of the Second World War, which will probably also signal the beginning of a new chapter for it. In view of the economic uncertainties of the Autumn of 1939, the publisher asked me to limit this volume’s last two chapters, which did not seem to be of great importance anyway, to their bibliographical sections alone.
I have included as much detail in the indices as possible. At the request of the publisher, there is an Index of Names and a separate Index of Works. Since these are often cited in various places, it is always good to follow an imaginative searching strategy.
In the Addenda I have once again included everything available at the time of writing. This material has also been included in the indices.
Apart from the gentlemen mentioned in the foreword to Supplement II and who also contributed greatly to the aforementioned addenda, I likewise owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues Messrs Heffening and Spitaler, to all the authors from Egypt and Syria who sent me their works or informed me of recent publications that had come to their attention, especially to Messrs Maḥmūd Taymūr, Bishr Fāris, Ḥasan K. el-Syrafi, and Sāmī al-Kayyālī, and last but not least to Mr H.G. Farmer, who was kind enough to send me the pages of his The Sources of Arabian Music in 1939 before it had appeared in print.
Halle/S
January 1942
C. Brockelmann