He also was not a very pious person either so that we could...

He also was not a very pious person either so that we could claim that he was influenced by the reality of events. He is the author of the book called, “Al-Aghani”. Aghani is plural for Ughniyyah and Ughniyyah means songs. He has explained the history of music in the Muslim World and in proportion to that, a lot of other histories in this book which is apparently about eighteen thousand big volumes.

They say Sahib ibn ‘Ubbad who was contemporaneous with him, used to take two or three loads of books wherever he went. But when he had Abu al-Faraj’s book he would say: I am no longer in need of a library. This book is so comprehensive that even though its writer is Abu al-Faraj and it is about music and musicians, a group of traditionalist such as the late ‘Allamah…