Publisher's Synopsis
The present volume concludes the series of studies in Arabic literary papyri as envisaged in the Preface to Volume I. The studies reveal a steadily accelerating literary activity in both the religious and secular fields throughout the Umayyad period. Poets and scholars in the various fields used concurrent oral and written transmission for the publication, transmission, and preservation of their literary products. The isnad, particularly in its multiple forms, was used to a much greater degree in the religious than in the secular fields. For poetry the family isnad took second place to that stemming from a poet's personal secretary, katib, or from his transmitter, rawi. A characteristically Arab approach and critical outlook mark Islamic literature of this period and of the early decades of Abbasid rule ... [From the Preface, p. v].
