[Footnote 44: A separate history of the conquest of Syria
has been composed by Al Wakidi, cadi of Bagdad, who was born
A.D. 748, and died A.D. 822; he likewise wrote the conquest
of Egypt, of Diarbekir, &c. Above the meagre and recent
chronicles of the Arabians, Al Wakidi has the double merit
of antiquity and copiousness. His tales and traditions
afford an artless picture of the men and the times. Yet his
narrative is too often defective, trifling, and improbable.
Till something better shall be found, his learned and
spiritual interpreter (Ockley, in his History of the
Saracens, vol. i. p. 21 - 342) will not deserve the petulant
animadversion of Reiske, (Prodidagmata ad Magji Chalifae
Tabulas, p. 236.) I am sorry to think that the labors of
Ockley were consummated in a jail, (see his two prefaces to
the 1st A.D. 1708, to the 2d, 1718, with the list of authors
at the end.)
Note: M. Hamaker has clearly shown that neither of these
works can be inscribed to Al Wakidi: they are not older than
the end of the xith century or later than the middle of the
xivth. Praefat. in Inc. Auct. LIb. de Expugnatione
Memphidis, c. ix. x. - M.]