abused; and from the nature of the case there was no means of checking it. The seclusion of the Harem also exaggerated the evil; and Sprenger is of opinion that Orwa, for example, has recited many a tradition on the authority of Ayesha which she never dreamt of. The traditions, emanating from such suspicious sources, were sometimes found to run counter to the received and orthodox views; hence arose the canon that no Ahâd (απαξ λεγομενα one might call them) or traditions vouched only by a single authority, were to be received. But history lost more than it gained by such arbitrary exclusion; for whenever a tradition of this nature was (like the Mirâj, or Heavenly journey) in conformity with the spirit of the age, other authorities were easily invented for its support; while important facts, if thought discreditable to the Prophet's memory (as his relapse into idolatry) or opposed to received dogma, were dropped out of sight and lost. Happily, the Biographers did not hold themselves bound by the strict canons of the Sunna; they have preserved traditions sometimes resting on a single authority, or otherwise technically weak, and therefore rejected by the Collectors of the Sunna; and they have thus rescued for us not a few facts and narratives of special interest, bearing internal marks of authenticity. 

Sprenger next discusses the important question of the Time at which tradition began to be reduced to writing. And, first, as to the material. Egyptian paper, though freely exported to Constantinople, could have been little known in Arabia, at all events not in sufficient quantities for ordinary use. We read in the Fihrist, that the flax paper of Khorasan was introduced under the Omeyyad or the Abbasside Caliphs. "In the first century, the Moslems wrote their memoranda upon tablets of wood and slate; for more permanent records, they made use of leather and parchment." The gazelle skin, tanned in early times with unslaked lime, was hard and stiff. Later, at Cûfâ a preparation of dates was used, and the parchment thus manufactured was white and soft. By this test the antiquity of the very early MSS. (such as the exemplar of the Coran at Homs) can be satisfactorily ascertained. The writing was often washed off, as in the case of early