ii. IRANIAN MATERIAL IN THE FEHREST

The Fehrest gives ample testimony to the knowledge of pre-Islamic Persia and its literature in classical Islamic civilization, but unfortunately only a minute sample of the numerous Persian books listed by Ebn al-Nadīm is extant.

In the chapter on languages and scripts the author quotes, among other things, a passage from Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ (q.v.) about the languages of the Persians (Ebn al-Nadīm, ed. Tajaddod, p. 15; all subsequent textual references are to this edition), followed by a description of their various styles of script, some of them illustrated by tables, unfortunately hopelessly corrupt in the existing editions (pp. 15-16). Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ is apparently also the source for an accurate description of the Middle Persian system of ideograms (p. 17), illustrated by the Pahlavi spellings BSLYʾ (for gōšt, “meat”) and LḤMʾ (for nān, “bread”). The same chapter contains descriptions of Manichaean (p. 19) and Sogdian (p. 20) scripts, both illustrated by their alphabets.

In the chapter on scribes and bureaucrats there is a biography of Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ and a list of the Persian books that he translated into Arabic, among them Ḵoḏāy-nāma, Āʾīn-nāma (q.v.), Ketāb Mazdak, Ketāb al-tāj fī sīrat Anūšerwān (p. 132). This is followed by a shorter entry on Abān Lāḥeqī, and the books that he translated into Arabic rhymed couplets, among them Kalīla wa Demna, Sīrat Ardašīr, Sīrat Anūšerwān, Belawhar wa-Būḏāsaf (see BARLAAM AND IOSAPH). The author returns to Abān Lāḥeqī in the chapter on poetry (p. 186), adding to the previous list of translations the titles Ketāb Sendbāḏ and Ketāb Mazdak.

At the beginning of the chapter on philosophy Ebn al-Nadīm gives, mainly from Abū Sahl b. Nawbaḵt and Abū Maʿšār Balḵī (qq.v.), a for the most part legendary account of the scientific knowledge of the ancient Persians and of how some primeval Persian writings on occult matters had recently been unearthed in Isfahan (pp. 299-302). This is followed by a somewhat more factual account of Persian translations of Greek books made during the Sasanian period and of how some of the books on logic and medicine which had formerly been translated into Persian were later rendered from Persian into Arabic by Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ “and others” (pp. 302-3). A few pages later (p. 305) there is a long list of those who translated from Persian to Arabic, but with few details of titles. Some books translated from Persian, or from “Indian” via Persian, are mentioned at the end of the chapter on medicine (p. 360).

The chapter devoted to what the author rather dismissively calls “bed-time stories” (asmār) and “fables” (ḵorafāʾ) contains a large amount of Persian material. Ebn al-Nadīm begins (p. 363) by mentioning Ketāb hazār afsān (q.v.; “Book of the thousand stories”), evidently the ancestor of the Thousand and One Nights, and gives a summary of its well-known frame story about Queen Šahrāzād. Several other books of similar nature are named. Concerning Kalīla wa Demna and Ketāb Sendbād al-ḥakīm Ebn al-Nadīm says that it is debated whether they were composed by the Indians or the Persians; of the latter he knew two versions, a long one and a short one (p. 364). There follows a list of ten books of “Persian bed-time stories,” including Ketāb hazār dastān (sic; different from the aforementioned Hazār afsān</em>?); the remaining titles are otherwise unknown. The next section gives titles of books dealing with lives of Persian kings, including a book about Rostam and Esfandīār (q.v.), translated by Jabala b. Sālem; one about Bahrām Čōbīn (q.v.), from the same translator; a book about Šahrīzād (read: Šahrbarāz?) and Abarwēz; a Ketāb kārnāmaj fī sīrat Anūšerwān</em>; a story about Dārā (see DĀRĀ[B] ii) and the golden idol; one about Bahrām (see BAHRĀM iii) and Narseh; and some of the titles already mentioned in the section on Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ. Under the following heading “books of the Indians about fables” etc., he again discusses Kalīla wa Demna, saying that it was “interpreted” by Ebn al-Moqaffaʿ “and others” and rendered into Arabic verse by Abān Lāḥeqī and one ʿAlī b. Dāʾūd. Then he adds that “the poets of the Persians (al-ʿajam) have reworked this book in poetry and translated it into the Persian language in Arabic (script?),” referring, no doubt, to Rūdakī; this appears to be the only explicit reference to Neo-Persian literature in the whole of the Fehrest. The Indian list continues with reference to the long and short versions of the book of Sendbād, the book of Būḏāsaf and Belawhar, etc.

In the chapter on anonymous works of assorted content there is a section on “Persian, Indian, Byzantine, and Arab books on sexual intercourse in the form of titillating stories” (p. 376), but the Persian works are not separated from the others; the list includes a “Book of Bahrām-doḵt on intercourse.” This is followed by books of Persians, Indians, etc. on fortune telling, books of “all nations” on horsemanship and the arts of war, then (p. 377) on horse doctoring and on falconry, some of them specifically attributed to the Persians. Then (pp. 377-78) we have books of wisdom and admonition by the Persians and others, including many examples of Persian andarz (q.v.) literature, e.g., various books attributed to Anūšervān or to Ardašīr (q.v.).

The chapter on non-Muslim sects, after detailed accounts of the Ḥarrānians and Manichaeans, discusses various religious movements with their roots in the Iranian past, among them Ḵorramīya and Mazdakites (pp. 405-6), the followers of Bābak Ḵorramī (pp. 406-7) and of Abū Moslem Ḵorāsānī (pp. 407-8; qq.v.).