Thomas William Beale

“ The perpetual recurrence of such a multiplicity of names and titles must tend in many ways to confuse a literary historian; and the more naturally when he finds the same individual chronicled in one page under his honorary title only, as Jaláluddín, in another under his family-name, as Abdur Rahmán, in the third under his father's name as Ibn Arabsháh, somewhere else under the name of his sons, as Abú'l Abbás, and perhaps again, and where one would least look for it, under the name of his native province, Sháhristán. ”

“ But it is chiefly interesting as machinery for producing a certain result; and when the result has been produced is not of much more use than the scaffolding of a building when the building is complete. ”

“ The transcribers of the MSS. have frequently confounded the title Abú and Ibn, or else for abbreviation sake, have omitted them altogether and written down Abdullah, or Abdur Rahmán, him who was in fact the father or the son of Abdullah or Abdur Rahmán. Then there are a great many authors whom public celebrity has been accustomed to distinguish so exclusively by one only of their adjunctive titles, that even the native biographers find it impossible to trace either their family-names or their surnames. ”