Background
Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval was born in Paris on January 13, 1795. His father, Jean-Jacques-Antoine Caussin de Perceval was professor of Arabic in the Collège de France.
Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval was born in Paris on January 13, 1795. His father, Jean-Jacques-Antoine Caussin de Perceval was professor of Arabic in the Collège de France.
In 1814 Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval went to Constantinople as a student interpreter, and afterwards travelled in Asiatic Turkey, spending a year with the Maronites in the Lebanon, and finally becoming dragoman at Aleppo.
In 1849 Armand-Pierre Caussin de Perceval was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions.
Caussin de Perceval published (1828) a useful Grammaire arabe vulgaire, which passed through several editions but his great reputation rests almost entirely on one book, the Essai sur I'histoire des Arabes avant I'Islamisme, pendant Vipoque de Mahomet (3 vols. , 1847 - 1849), in which the native traditions as to the early history of the Arabs, down to the death of Mahommed and the complete subjection of all the tribes to Islam, are brought together with wonderful industry and set forth with much learning and lucidity.
One of the principal MS. sources used is the great Kit&b al-Aghdni (Book of Songs) of Abu Faraj, which has since been published (20 vols. , Boulak, 1868) in Egypt; but no publication of texts can deprive the Essai, which is now very rare, of its value as a trustworthy guide through a tangled mass of tradition.
