Editing Abul-Abbas (section)

===White elephant===
Some modern works indicate that Abul-Abbas was [[albino]] – literally a [[White elephant (animal)|white elephant]] – but the basis for the claim is wanting. An early example claiming that Abul-Abbas was a "white elephant" occurs in a title authored by Willis Mason West (1902).<ref>{{cite book|last=West|first=Willis Mason|title=Ancient history to the death of Charlemagne |publisher=Allyn and Bacon|year=1902|page=521n|url=https://archive.org/details/ancienthistoryt02westgoog}}</ref> In 1971, [[Peter Munz]] wrote a book intended for popular readership which repeated the same "white elephant" claim, but a reviewer flagged this as a "slip" given there was "no evidence" known to him to substantiate it.<ref>{{cite journal|author-link=H. E. J. Cowdrey|last=Cowdrey|first=H.E.J.|title=Review: Life in the Age of Charlemagne by Peter Munz|journal=The Journal of Ecclesiastical History|volume=21|number=1|date=January 1970|page=75|doi=10.1017/s0022046900048466|s2cid=164157979 }}, quote: "I know of no evidence that Harun al-Rashid's present to Charlemagne was literally a 'white' elephant."</ref> Mention of "white elephant" also misleadingly occurs in the title of the published catalog from the Aachen exhibition of 2003: ''Ex oriente : Isaak und der weisse Elefant'', however, in this publication is a contributing article by Grewe and Pohle that appends a question mark on it: "Among the famous gifts to Charlemagne was a (white?) elephant".<ref>{{Harvnb|Grewe|Pohle|2003|p=66}}: "Zu den für Karl den Großen bestimmten Geschenken gehörte ein (weißer?) Elefant, "</ref>