TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THIS translation has been made to supply a want which has often been represented to me. "The Ikhwánu-s Safá" is a standard Hindustani work, which is used as a textbook both in India and England. Those who have to prepare themselves for examination in it, are often placed in situations where no competent instruction can be obtained. A translation, therefore, at once accurate and exact, with which the student may compare and correct his own work, will doubtless prove a great help and advantage to him. Such being the object of this translation, a close adherence to the text has been throughout maintained, as strict as the necessity of making the English clear and intelligible would allow. The version, therefore, is not so smooth as it might have been made, but it will give to the English reader a clear idea of the style and manner of the original. When I commenced this work I was not aware that any previous translation existed; but there are at least three different versions. One, attributed to Mr James Atkinson, the translator of parts of the "Sháh-nâma," was published in an India newspaper, and reprinted in vol. xxviii. of the Asiatic Journal for 1829. This translation is accurate and spirited, but it is imperfect, and for all practical purposes it |