Osborn, Robert Durie

Islam Under the Arabs [1st edition]

London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1876. 1st ed., octavo, original brown cloth boards with blind stamped design boards, gilt title to spine, gilt stamped central motif upper board, pp xiii, 414, plus 44 page publisher's catalogue. Hinges cracking internally, corners bumped and rubbed, head and foot of spine rubbed, light markings upper board. Scattered light foxing preliminary pages, and more foxing last pages of publisher's catalogue last pages: otherwise clean. Good condition. Uncommon.

First edition of an uncommon title. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Durie Osborn (1835-1889) was a British army officer, born in Agra. Osborn states in his Preface to "Islam Under the Arabs" that he wrote the book because "very few English officers know more of the men they command than that they are called Sikhs, Afghans, Ghoorkhas, or Mahrattas, What these names signify - what was the history of those that bore them, in the past; what are the memories which still thrill them with pleasure or pride - these are matters which the officers in our native army have small knowledge." Osborne says that he researched and wrote the book to address this gap in knowledge and understanding, "Osborn was a serious thinker on both religious and political topics. [...] While in India he was a conscientious student of oriental religions, and spent fourteen years in digesting the tangled materials for his two works, ‘Islam under the Arabs,' 1876, and ‘Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad,’ 1877; 2nd ed. 1880. These books are highly valued by serious students. They are models of lucid and graceful treatment of a perplexing subject. At the same time Osborn was always a zealous advocate of the rights of the native Indians, and his retirement from the army was largely due to his dissatisfaction with the policy of Lord Lytton, which, in his opinion, outraged native sentiment and needlessly provoked the Afghan war of 1879." (Dictionary of National Biography). Item #105117

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