Machine summary:
There can be no doubt that we need as clear a picture as possible of the social and religious conditions prevailing in Arabic-speakingcountries at the time when the Prophet felt called upon to proclaim his mission.
Different and more obscure is the picture of the actual religious and intellectual conditions in Arabic-speaking lands in the sixth century of the Christian era.
· A false picture, to a great extent, is derived from the only literary remains of the times before Islam, the ancient Arabic poetry-which does not carry us backward far beyond the beginning of that century-because it contains only occasional references to the settled districts of that vast country.
The Ghasini kings, originally from the Yaman, had seized the government of Syria early in the fifth century, and the work of Abbe Nau is principally concerned with their history and their influence.
* In the passages cited by Nau, Huart refers to Hammad al-Rawiya, a man who is accused by Arabic critics of having forged verses.
On the same page the author states that it is generally assumed that the Arabs at the rise of Islam lived only in Arabia ; while in fact they inhabited Palestine, Syria and the 'Iraq .
For a serious student it really does not matter as the scribes are too well known, and Nau could have ascertained this without possessingany knowledge of Arabic to enable him to read the original sources of information.