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Concluding Remark
Volume Three
In The Middle of the Year 779 (November, 1377)
"We almost strayed from our purpose. It is our
intention (now) to stop with this First Book which is concerned
with the nature of civilization and the accidents that go with
it. We have dealt - as we think, adequately - with the problems
connected with that. Perhaps some later (scholar), aided by the
divine gifts of a sound mind and of solid scholarship, will
penetrate into these problems in greater detail than we did
here. A person who creates a new discipline does not have the
task of enumerating (all) the (individual) problems connected
with it. His task is to specify the subject of the discipline
and its various branches and the discussions connected with it.
His successors, then, may gradually add more problems, until
the (discipline) is completely (presented).
"God knows, and you do not know."
The author of the book - God forgive him ! - says: I completed the composition and draft of this first part, before revision and correction, in a period of five months ending in the middle of the year 779 (Novemer, 1377). Thereafter, I revised and corrected the book, and I added to it the history of the (various) nations, as I mentioned and proposed to do at the beginning of the work.
Knowledge comes only from God, the strong, the wise."
(op. cit., ibid., Vol. III, p. 481)