[52] The royal library of the Fatimites consisted of 100,000
manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly bound,
which were lent, without avarice or jealousy, to the
students of Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate
if we believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed a
library of 600,000 volumes, 44 of which were employed in the
mere catalogue. Their capital, Cordova, with the adjacent
towns of Malaga, Almeira, and Murcia, had given birth to
more than 300 writers; and above 70 public libraries were
opened in the cities of the Andalusian kingdom.--_Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire_, lii.

The few in any way acquainted with Greek literature were indebted
to the Latin translations of the Arabs; while the Jewish
rabbinical learning, whose more useful lore was encumbered with
much mystical nonsense, enjoyed considerable reputation at this
period. The most distinguished of the rabbis taught in the
schools in London, York, Lincoln, Oxford, and Cambridge; and
Christendom has to confess its obligations for its first
acquaintance with science to the enemies of the Cross.[53] The
later Jewish authorities had largely developed the demonology of
the subjects of Persia; and the spiritual or demoniacal creations
of the rabbinical works of the Middle Ages might be readily
acceptable, if not coincident, to Christian faith. But the
Western Europeans, before the philosophy of the Spanish Arabs was
known, had come in contact with the Saracens and Turks of the
East during frequent pilgrimages to the tomb of Christ; and the
fanatical crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
facilitated and secured the hazardous journey. Mohammedans of the
present day preserve the implicit faith of their ancestors in the
efficacy of the 113th chapter of the Koran against evil spirits,
the spells of witches and sorcerers--a chapter said to have been
revealed to the Prophet of Islam on the occasion of his having
been bewitched by the daughters of a Jew. The Genii or Ginn--a
Preadamite race occupying an intermediate position between angels
and men, who assume at pleasure the form of men, of the lower
animals, or any monstrous shape, and propagate their species
like, and sometimes with, human kind--appear in imposing
proportions in 'The Thousand and One Nights'--that rich display
of the fancy of the Oriental imagination.[54] Credulous and
confused in critical perception, the crusading adventurers for
religion or