Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to the late Professor J. Derek Latham, a mentor and friend, as well as a medical doctor, justice of the peace, and, above all, consummate Arabist, who graciously helped me greatly as a student and for many years thereafter. He left an enduring legacy of notable contributions to scholarship on all things Maghrebi and Andalusi, ranging across fields such as history, law, religion, medicine, and language and literature during a distinguished career at the universities of Manchester and Edinburgh. I am deeply grateful to all the scholars, library staff, and booksellers in Morocco for their gracious hospitality, friendship, and willingness to share their expertise with me during my visits to their country and for making my research more productive and enjoyable. I am also grateful to the staff at the Bodleian Library’s Department of Oriental Collections in the early 1970s for their expertise, welcoming atmosphere, and genuine interest in my research. Finally, I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to my dear friend and colleague Mohamed El Mansour, of Rabat, without whose generous encouragement, support, and helpful expert advice on numerous points of grammar and history I very probably would not have persevered in completing this work.