In February 1905 when The Sayings of Muhammad was first published, Abdullah was a young man burning with zeal for Pan-Islamism and dedicating his extraordinary energy and talent to a vision he had of uniting into one cultural and economic, if not political, whole lands which were under Muslim rule, or had a large Muslim population.
The Pan-Islamic Society of London, of which he was the founder and first secretary, was at that time an extremely active and vigorous body preaching Islam, converting British and continental Christians, and carrying on intense propaganda for Pan-Islamic unity. The Sayings of Muhammad was one of the Society's publications.
Containing as it does some of the finest Sayings of the Prophet, it attracted the attention of minds widely removed from the ranks of orthodox Islam. It was quoted from in many books and journals, and parts of it were translated into several European languages.
An interesting testimony to its success was the correspondence which was initiated after its publication between my late brother and Leo Tolstoy and which continued until the count's death. He had come to appraise the personality
of the Prophet through this volume, and I am told by a nephew of mine on the authority of one of his daughters whom he had met in Russia that a copy of this book was found in the large overcoat in which he had wrapped himself before setting out on that last walk of his to die in the fields he used to till.
The book had long been out of print, and I had a great deal of difficulty in obtaining it. An old friend of the family sent me his copy from Scotland, and in 1938, with the help of Mr. N. Mukherjee, Proprietor of the Art Press, Calcutta, a reprint was brought out.
For the purpose of the present edition, . . . First Secretary of the Royal Legation of Saudi Arabia in London, has compared the 'Sayings' with the original Arabic, and helped me translate them into simple English. Out of the 451 'Sayings' in the original publication, we have re-translated 150 and deleted 35 of which we failed to find the original Arabic.
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