Simon Ockley

“ It is evident that a work designed for popular circulation, and which is intended to allure those whom business or indolence may prevent from more laborious reading, requires a nice combination of qualities which do not often meet together in the same intellect—accuracy, judgment, taste, and scholarship—all of which, it will be seen, are exhibited in Ockley’s pages. ”

“ The establishment of Islamism is undoubtedly to be numbered among those stupendous events which have changed the face of society in the East; and is a subject deserving not only of the careful study of the statesman and the divine, but of all who delight to search, patiently and reverently, into the ways of Providence. ”

“ Professor Smyth, also, in his recent Lectures on Modern History, recommends “Ockley’s curious work as necessary to enable the student to comprehend the character of the Arabians, which is there displayed by their own writers in all its singularities.” ”