Muntakhab al-tawarikh 1.4

1.4

After the praise of God and of the Lord the protector of the divine missive (may the blessing of God be upon him, his family and his companions, a blessing safe from all termination), we have to declare that the science of History is essentially a lofty science and an elegant branch of learning, because it is the fountain-head of the learning of the experienced, and the source of the experience of the learned and discriminating, and the writers of stories and biographies from the time of Adam to this present time in which we live, have completed reliable compositions and comprehensive works, and have proved the excellence thereof by proofs and demonstrations, but it must not be supposed that the reading and study of this science — as certain lukewarm religionists, and the party of doubt and dissent, shortsighted as they are, are wont to affirm — has been or will be a cause of wandering from the straight path of the illustrious law of Muhammad (may the blessing and peace of God be upon him and his family), or become the entry into and way of ascent to the fountainheads of scepticism, and drinking places of defilement of the licentious and heretical, and those who have gone astray;