Of the House of Seljúq, the dynasty which succeeded the House of Ghazna, there also exists an important monograph in Al-Fatḥ al­Bundárí. Arabic, of which the third and last recension (that now rendered accessible to scholars in Houtsma's excellent edition) dates from this time. The history in question, which has been frequently referred to in the chapters of this book treating of the Seljúq period, was originally composed in Persian by the Minister Anúshirwán b. Khálid, who died, according to the 'Uyúnu'l-Akhbár, * in A.H. 532 (= A.D. 1137-38). It was afterwards translated into Arabic, with considerable amplifications and additions, by 'Imádu'd-Dín al-Kátib al-Iṣfahání in A.D. 1183; and this translation was edited in an abridged and simplified form in A.D. 1226 by al-Fatḥ b. 'Alí b. Muḥammad al-Bundárí. The relations of these recensions to one another are fully discussed by Houtsma in the illuminating Preface which he has pre­fixed to his edition of the last of them, that of al-Bundárí, which, as he points out, exists in two recensions, a longer one represented by the Oxford MS., and a shorter one represented by the Paris Codex. To al-Bundárí we are also indebted for an Arabic prose epitome of the Sháhnáma of Firdawsí, of which an excellent manuscript (Qq. 46 of the Burckhardt Collection) is preserved in the Cambridge University Library. Professor Nöldeke, on p. 77 of his Iranisches Nationalepos, has called attention to the possible importance of this work as an aid to the reconstitution of a more correct text of the Sháhnáma.

Amongst the histories of particular dynasties composed in this period, a very high place must be assigned to one which 'Aṭá Malik-i­Juwayní. has been largely used in the last chapter, I mean the Persian Ta'ríkh-i-Jahán-gushá, or “History of the World-Conqueror” (i.e., Chingíz Khán), of 'Aṭá Malik-i-Juwayní. The importance of this book has been sufficiently emphasised, and the circumstances of its author have been sufficiently described already. That no edition of this work has ever been published, in spite of the excellent materials for such which exist, especially in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, * is nothing less than a scandal which it is one of my chief ambitions to remedy. It consists of three volumes or parts, of which the first treats of the origin and history of the Mongols and the conquests of Chingíz Khán; the second of the Khwárazmsháhs; and the third of the Assassins, or Isma'ílís of Alamút and Kúhistán, and of Hulágú's campaign against them. D'Ohsson, who made large use of this book in compiling his Histoire des Mongols, is, I think, unduly severe on the author, whose circumstances com­pelled him to speak with civility of the barbarians whom it was his misfortune to serve.

Shibábu'd-Dín Muḥammad b. Aḥmad an-Nasawí (i.e., of Nasá, in Khurásán), the secretary and biographer of the gallant An-Nasawí. Jalálu'd-Dín Khwárazmsháh, next claims our attention. His memoirs of this ill-fated prince, like the work last mentioned, have been repeatedly referred to in the last chapter, and are accessible in the Arabic text and French translation published by M. Houdas (Paris, 1891, 1895). They were written in A.H. 639 (= A.D. 1241-42), some ten years after the death of Jalálu'd-Dín, with whom the author was closely associated throughout the greater part of his adventurous career, and their interest and importance are well indicated by M. Houdas in the Preface which he has pre­fixed to his translation, from which we may cite a few of the most salient paragraphs.

“Aussi, sauf de rares moments qu'il consacra à remplir des missions de confiance, En-Nesawi ne quitta point Djelâl ed-Dîn pendant la plus grande partie de son règne, et il était encore auprès de lui la veille du jour où ce prince allait dans sa fuite succomber sous le poignard d'un Kurde sauvage. Non seulement il a assisté à la plupart des événements qu'il raconte, mais le plus souvent il y a pris personellement une part plus ou moins active, aussi peut-on dire jusqu'à un certain point que sa ‘Vie de Mankobirti’ constitue de véritables mémoires.

“Grâce à la confiance dont l'honorait le sultan, grâce aussi à ses rela­tions intimes avec les plus hauts personnages de l'empire, En-Nesawi a pu voir les choses autrement qu'un spectateur ordinaire; il lui a été loisible d'en pénétrer les causes ou d'en démêler les origines. Et, comme il ne composa son ouvrage que dix ans après la mort de son maître, on comprend qu'il ait pu parler en toute franchise sur tous les sujets qu'il traitait. On sent du reste dans son récit que, si parfois il exprime ses critiques avec une certaine réserve, c'est qu'il ne veut pas être accusé d'ingratitude envers celui à qui il dut toute sa fortune. Peut-être aussi avait-il encore à cette époque à ménager la réputation de quelques-uns de ses amis quoique, sous ce rapport, il ne semble pas cacher ses vrais sentiments. Dans tous les cas la modération même dont il use est un gage de sa sincérité.

“Non content de décrire ce qu'il a vu ou de rapporter ce qu'il a entendu dire, En-Nesawi apprécie les événements dont il parle: il en recherche les causes et en tire des renseignements souvent curieux si on se reporte à ces époques lointaines. Il semble que, tout en admirant le Kámil d'Ibn El-Athîr, il sente la sécheresse un peu trop marquée de cette chronique et qu'il ait voulu montrer, pour sa part, qu'on pouvait employer une forme plus attachante, où la curiosité de l'esprit trouvait sa satisfaction et où la raison rencontrait un aliment qui lui convenait.

“En-Nesawi manie la langue arabe avec beaucoup d'élégance; néan-moins on sent dans son style l'influence persane…”

To this excellent appreciation of the man and his book it is unnecessary to add anything more in this place.

We come now to biographers, amongst whom Ibn Khallikán holds the highest place, not only amongst his contemporaries, but amongst all Muslim writers. His celebrated work the Ibn Khallikán. Wafayátu'l-A'yán (“Obituaries of Men of Note”), begun at Cairo in A.D. 1256 and completed on January 4, 1274, is one of the first books of reference which the young Orientalist should seek to acquire. The text was lithographed by Wüstenfeld in 1835-43, and has since been printed at least twice in Egypt, while it is accessible to the English reader in the Baron MacGuckin de Slane's translation (4 vols., London, 1843-71). The author, a scion of the great Barmecides, or House of Barmak, was born at Arbela in September, 1211, but from the age of eighteen onwards resided chiefly in Aleppo, Damascus, Cairo, and Alexandria, where he held several important scholastic and judicial posts, and finally died in October, 1282. Later supplements to his great biographical dictionary were written by al-Muwaffaq Faḍlu'-lláh aṣ-Ṣaqá'í (down to A.D. 1325), and Ibn Shákir (died A.D. 1362), and it was translated into Persian by Yúsuf b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. 'Uthmán in A.D. 1490, and again by Kabír b. Uways b. Muḥammad al-Laṭífí in the reign of the Ottoman Sulṭán Selím (A.D. 1512-19).

Coming now to biographers of special classes or professions, we have to mention two important works in Arabic and one Biographers of special classes. in Persian which belong to this period, to wit, al-Qifṭí's Notices of the Philosophers, Ibn Abí Uṣaybi'a's Lives of the Physicians and 'Awfí's Biographies of Persian Poets entitled “The Marrow of Understandings” (Lubábu'l-Albáb). All these either have been published or are in process of publication, al-Qifṭí by Dr. Julius Lippert (Leipzig, 1903), Ibn Abí Uṣaybi'a by A. Müller (Königsberg, 1884), and the Lubáb, of which one volume was published in 1903, while the other is still in the press, by myself. Let us consider them in the above order.

Jamálu'd-Dín Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. Yúsuf al-Qifṭí was born at Qifṭ, in Upper Egypt, in A.D. 1172. His paternal ancestors came originally from Kúfa, while his mother belonged to the great Arab tribe of Quḍá'a. He studied with ardour in Cairo and Al-Qifṭí. Qifṭ till he reached the age of fifteen, when his father Yúsuf was appointed by Saladin (Ṣaláḥu'd-Dín) to a high judicial post in Jerusalem, whither the family transferred their residence. About A.D. 1201 our author's father, Yúsuf, went to Ḥarrán, celebrated even in the early 'Abbásid period as the centre of Greek philosophic culture in Asia, and hence called Hellenopolis, where he became wazír to al-Malik al-Ashraf. Thence, after performing the pilgrim­age to Mecca, he retired to Yemen, where he ultimately died in A.D. 1227. His son, our author, meanwhile had gone to Aleppo, where he was placed in charge of the Ministry of Finance, and received the title of al-Qáḍi'l-Akram. He seems to have been not only an upright and capable servant of the State and a diligent seeker after knowledge, but a ready helper and patron of men of learning, the geographer Yáqút, driven westwards from Khurásán, as we have seen, before the Mongol Invasion, being one of those to whom he extended hospitality and protection. Though desiring above all things leisure to pursue his studies, he was obliged in A.D. 1236 to accept office for the third time, and it was as Wazír to al-Malik al-'Azíz that he died twelve years later, in December, 1248. Fuller details of his life, mostly derived from Yáqút's Mu'jamu'l-Udabá (of which an edition is now being prepared by Professor Margoliouth, of Oxford, for publication in the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series), will be found in the interesting and sympa­thetic Introduction which Dr. Lippert has prefixed to his edition of the Ta'ríkhu'l-Ḥukamá, and in which he is summed up as “an Arabian Wilhelm von Humboldt.” He wrote much, and Yáqút, who predeceased him by nearly twenty years, enumerates the titles of about a score of his works, nearly all of which, unfortunately, appear to be lost, destroyed, as A. Müller supposes, by the Mongols when they sacked Aleppo in A.D. 1260. Even the Ta'ríkhu'l-Ḥukamá, in the form wherein it now exists, is, in the opinion of its learned editor, Dr. Lippert, only an abridgement of the original. The book, in the recension which we possess, contains 414 biographies of philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers belonging to all periods of the world's history from the earliest times down to the author's own days, and is rich in materials of great importance for the study of the history of Philosophy. It has been freely used by several contemporary and later writers, notably Ibn Abí Uṣaybi'a, Barhebræus, and Abu'l-Fidá. The arrangement of the biographies is alphabetical, not chronological.