The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander

Excerpt

The story told in this book is based upon legendary history, and the statements on which it is founded appear in the chronicles of Abou-djafar Mohammed Tabari. This historian was the first Mussulman to write a general history of the world. He was born in the year 244 of the Hejira (838-839 A.D.), and passed a great part of his life in Bagdad, where he studied and taught theology and jurisprudence. His chronicles embrace the history of the world, according to his lights, from the creation to the year 302 of the Hejira.