ABSTRACT
From the literary point of view as well as from the historical, Arabic literature provides a particularly fertile field for investigating Arabic life and institutions. Unlike other Semitic peoples, who for the most part have disappeared leaving only a small fragmentary and filmy record, the Arabs have left an astonishing amount of manuscript materials for studying various phases of their development since the sixth century. The Escorial of Spain, the al-Azhar of Cairo, and the mosques of Istanbul are today some of the important manuscript centres.
