_ 250 _ In the same year (1585) Bernard Luis issued the Ottoman archives as a source for the history of the Arab countries:(44) One of the classical difficulties of the student of the history of the Islamic Middle East, as contrasted with his colleagues in the European field, is the lack of archive material. While the western medievalist, for example, has at his disposal a mass of records, central and local, public and private, political, administrative, judicial, and ecclesiastical, the orientalist has to rely for the most part on literary and archaeological sources. In many fields of history his findings are in consequence often vague and general; they are in the main limited to the public and external life of the communities and individuals he studies. Only the events and personalities important enough to (44) Document no. and reference.
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