|
Sincere thanks are extended to
Professor R.B. Sergeant for many helpful suggestions,
discussions and criticism, which he constantly rendered
throughout the period in which he supervised the writing of this
research.
Special thanks are due to many
Ibadhi friends and scholars in the Ibadhi communities of North
Africa for their hospitality and unrestrained help. I am
extremely grateful to the owners of private collections of Mss.
for free access to their valuable libraries without which this
work would have been impossible. Thanks are also due to Sheikh
Muhammad al-Salimi, and Salim al-Harithi of Oman for lending me
many valuable manuscripts, as well as all other friends who have
helped me in one way of another.
I would
also like to thank the Libyan Ministry of Education for
providing me with a grant for the duration of this research, and
the Faculty of Arts, University of Libya, for granting me a
study leave in which to undertake this work. My thanks are also
due to Pr. Omar Shaibani, the president of the Libyan Unv, Dr.
Mansur Kikhya, Dean of the faculty of Arts and Mr. Abd al-Rahman
al-Sharidi, head of printing and publication dep. to whom I owe
the publication of this work in this excellent form.
"This work was originally the
English part of a thesis submitted to Cambridge University in
1971 for the Ph.D. D. degree" The publication is made without
any alteration. The Arabic texts of that thesis will be
published separate in due course.
The translation adapted the
previous work is the Middle East Center of Cambridge
University. The definite article, al- is given always the small
letters i.e. al-Wahab al-Shammakhi, etc., unless it is the
beginning of a sentence. For the title of books, only the first
letter of the title is given except when the title contains
names of more than one word; i.e. the original work and a
commentary, or summary of two works, i.e. al-Wad wa al-hayah.
The footnotes are given at then
end of each chapter. As most of the Mss. I used for this study
have not been numbered before, I numbered them in pages;
therefore the references are made accordingly, except where the
Mss were already numbered in folics, the reference in this case
being made to folios distinguished by letters a and b. For the
Qur'anic verses quoted in this work, the author used the
translation of the late Professor Arberry, unless otherwise
stated. The reference was made to the original text of the
Qur'an, the number of the Surah, and the number of the 'Ayah and
not to the translation.
For the Abbreviation of the
Periodicals, the author adopted the abbreviations given in
Index Islamicas (pp. xxix; - xxx; 11, xxii – iii; xxiv-xxv). |
