^{page 3 note 1} Minor points of criticism in the translation are first of all the transcriptions of the type Abu ‘Abdu Shams, which does not seem very consistent, and secondly, the avoidance of the literal translation of obscenities which might perhaps have been rendered in good orientalist tradition into the decent obscurity of Latin! For example (p. 177) farj does not mean ‘ womb ’, and on p. 502 the translation of a phrase well known to Arabists as, ‘ Suck al-Lāt's nipples! ’ might well lead the sociologist who is not at the same time an Arabist to formulate theories entirely baseless concerning the mother-nature of al-Lāt! The significance of Abū Bakr's rudeness is better understood when one recalls that ‘Urwa, to whom it was addressed, was actually the sādin of al-Lāt. It is a pity that, owing to the shortness of time, the indices are so incomplete, but for the scholar this is not so vital a matter as he can have recourse to those provided with the standard Arabic versions.