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A NOTE 
ON TRANSLITERATION 
AND NOMENCLATURE 
 One of the obvious problems to be solved by the editors of such a work as
this, intended both for general readers and for scholars in many different
disciplines, is how to render the names of persons and places, and a few
other terms, originating in languages and scripts unfamiliar to the English-speaking
reader and, indeed, to most readers whose native languages are European.
In the present volume, and presumably in the entire work, these comprise
prin cipally Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Armenian, none of which was normally
written in our Latin alphabet until its adoption by Turkey in 1928. The analogous
problem of Byzantine Greek names and terms has been handled by using the
familiar Latin equi valents, Anglicized Greek, or, occasionally, Greek type,
as has seemed appropriate in each instance, but a broader approach is desirable
for the other languages under consideration. 
 The somewhat contradictory criteria applied are ease of recog nition and
readability on the one hand, and scientific accuracy and consistency on the
other. It has proved possible to reconcile these, and to standardize the
great variety of forms in which identical names have been submitted to us
by different contributors, through constant consultation with specialists
in each language, research in the sources, and adherence to systems conforming
to the requirements of each language. I wish to record here our debt to my
ever-helpful and admirably patient colleagues at Princeton: 
Professors Philip K. Hitti and R. Bayly Winder for Arabic, Lewis V. Thomas
for Turkish, and T. Cuyler Young and Dr. N. S. Fatemi for Persian. 
 The most common of these languages in the first volume is Arabic, and fortunately
it presents the fewest difficulties, since the script in which it is written
is admirably suited to the classical language. The basic system used, with
minor variants, by all 
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