Muḥammad 'Awfí, the author of the often-cited Lubábu'l-Albáb , and also of an immense collection of anecdotes entitled Muḥammad 'Awfí. Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát wa Lawámi'u'r-Riwáyát, next claims our attention. He derived his nisba of 'Awfí, as he himself tells us in a passage which occurs in vol. i of the latter work, from 'Abdu'r-Raḥmán b. 'Awf, one of the most eminent of the Companions of the Prophet, from whom he professed to be descended. His earlier life was chiefly passed in Khurásán and Transoxiana, especially in Bukhárá, whence he presently made his way to India, and attached himself to the court of Sulṭán Náṣiru'd-Dín Qubácha, to whose Wazír, 'Aynu'l-Mulk Ḥusayn al-Ash'arí, he dedicated his biography of Persian poets, the Lubábu'l-Albáb. When in April, 1228, the above-mentioned prince lost his kingdom and his life at the fall of the fortress of Bhakar, 'Awfí, like the historian Minháj-i-Siráj, of whom we have already spoken, passed into the service of the conqueror, Shamsu'd-Dín Íltatmish, to whom he dedicated his Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát . This, with a few additional particulars as to the dates when he visited different towns and the eminent poets and other persons with whom he was acquainted, is practically all that is known of his life. As to his works, the Jawámi'u'l-Ḥikáyát still remains unpublished, though manuscripts of it are not rare, a particularly fine old copy which formerly belonged to Sir William Jones and is now in the Library of the India Office (W. 79) being specially deserving of mention. This vast compilation of anecdotes of very unequal worth is divided into four parts, each comprising twenty-five chapters, each of which in turn contains a number of stories illustrating the subject to which the chapter is devoted. The style is very simple and straightforward, in which particular it offers a forcible contrast to 'Awfí's earlier and more important work, the Lubábu'l-Albáb. This latter—“the oldest Biography of Persian Poets,” as Nathaniel Bland called it in his classical description of one of the only two manuscripts of it known to exist in Europe * —was largely used by Ethé in the compila­tion of numerous and excellent monographs on the early Persian poets, but has otherwise been almost inaccessible to scholars until the publication of my edition, of which one volume appeared in 1903, while the other is nearly complete and should appear in the course of 1906. It is, on account of its antiquity, and the large number of otherwise unknown or almost unknown poets whose biographies it gives, a work of capital importance for the history of Persian Literature, but in many ways it is disappointing, since the notices of most of the poets are as devoid of any precise dates or details of interest as they are inflated with turgid rhetoric and silly word-plays, the selection of poems is often bad and tasteless, and, while several poets of great merit, such as Náṣir-i-Khusraw and 'Umar Khayyám, are entirely omitted, many mediocrities, especially towards the end of vol. i, where the author treats of his con­temporaries at the Court of Sulṭán Náṣiru'd-Dín Qubácha, are noticed in exaggerated terms of praise in articles of quite un­necessary length. Yet, in spite of these defects, the work, con­taining as it does notices of nearly three hundred Persian poets who flourished before Sa'dí had made his reputation, is of the very first importance, and, when properly exploited, will add enormously to our knowledge of this early period of Persian Literature. Yet it is hard to avoid a certain feeling of annoy­ance and irritation when one reflects how easily the author, with the means at his disposal, could have made it far more interesting and valuable.

We come now to local histories, of which the most import- Local hístories. Ibn Isfandiyár. ant composed in Persian during this period is the History of Ṭabaristán of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Isfandiyár. We know little of the author save what he himself incidentally tells us in the pages of his book, which represents him as returning from Baghdád to Ray in A.H. 606 (= A.D. 1209-1210), and finding there in the Library of King Rustam b. Shahriyár the Arabic history of Ṭabaristán composed by al-Yazdádí in the time of Qábús b. Washmgír (A.D. 976-1012); on this he based his own Per­sian work. Shortly afterwards he was obliged to return to Ámul, whence he went to Khwárazm, at that time, as he says, a most flourishing city and a meeting-place of men of learning. Here he remained at least five years, and discovered other materials germane to his subject which he incorporated in his book, on which he was still engaged in A.H. 613 (= A.D. 1216-17). His subsequent history is unknown, and we cannot say whether or no he perished in the sack of Khwárazm by the Mongols in A.D. 1220, or whether he had previously returned to his home in Mázandarán. Of his book not much need be said, since its value can be judged from the abridged translation of it which I published as the second volume of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series. It con­tains a great deal of legendary matter in the earlier part, but much historical, biographical, and geographical information of value in the Muhammadan period, and in particular many details concerning persons of local celebrity, but of considerable general interest, notably poets who wrote verses in the dialect of Ṭabaristán, which seems at that time to have been exten­sively cultivated as a literary vehicle. Ibn Isfandiyár's chronicle is naturally brought to an end with the death of Rustam b. Ardashír in A.H. 606 (= A.D. 1209-10), but a later hand has carried on the record as far as A.H. 750 (= A.D. 1349-50).

Local histories of the type of Ibn Isfandiyár's work are numerous, and constitute a well-defined division of Persian ad-Dubaythí. Literature. We have, for example, such local histories of Iṣfahán, Shíráz, Yazd, Qum, Herát, Sístán, Shushtar, &c., besides several others of Ṭabaristán. Of these last several were published by Dorn, but in general this class of works exists only in manuscript, though a few have been lithographed in the East. But there is another kind of local history which may more accurately be described as a local Dictionary of Biography, treating, generally in alphabetical order, of the eminent men produced by a particular town or province. Such a book was composed on the learned men of Baghdád by Ibnu'l-Khaṭíb (b. A.D. 1002, d. 1071) in Arabic in fourteen volumes, and at the period of which we are now speaking a Supplement to this, also in Arabic, was written by Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad ad-Dubaythí, who died in A.D. 1239. This book does not, so far as is known, exist in its entirety; there is a portion of it at Paris, and what I believe to be another portion in the Cambridge Library. This last is on the cover ascribed to Ibnu'l-Khaṭíb, but as he died, as stated above, in A.D. 1071, and as the volume contains matter referring to the year A.H. 615 (= A.D. 1218-19), it evidently cannot be his work, but rather the Supplement. As this volume, which is of considerable size, contains only a portion of one letter ('ayn) of the alphabet, the work must have been of a very extensive character.

We next come to books of Geography and Travel, of which I will here mention only three, all written in Arabic. The most Geographies and Travels. Yáqút. important of these, to which I have already referred in the last chapter, is the great Geo­graphical Dictionary of Yáqút, entitled Mu'jamu'l-Buldán , published by Wüstenfeld in six volumes (1866-71). Yáqút b. 'Abdu'lláh, born in A.D. 1179 of Greek parents, and hence called “ar-Rúmí,” was enslaved in boyhood, and passed into the possession of a merchant of Ḥamát, whence he took the nisba of al-Ḥamawí. He received an excellent education and travelled widely, his journeys extending south-east as far as the Island of Kísh in the Persian Gulf, and north-east to Khurásán and Merv, where, as we have seen, he was busily at work in the splendid libraries which then graced that city when the terrible Mongol Invasion drove him in headlong flight to Mosul. There, in the spring of A.D. 1224, he completed his great work, the Mu'jamu'l-Buldán, a most precious book of reference for all that concerns the geography and much that touches the history of Western Asia, accessible, so far as the Persian part is concerned, to non-Orientalists in M. Barbier de Meynard's Dictionnaire Géographique, historique et littéraire de la Perse et des contrées adjacentes (Paris, 1871). He is also the author of two other geographical works, the Maráṣidu'l-Iṭṭilá' (edited by Juynboll at Leyden, 1850-64), and the Mushtarik, which treats of different places having the same name, edited by the indefatigable Wüstenfeld at Göttingen in 1846. Besides these he composed a Dictionary of Learned Men, entitled Mu'jamu'l-Udabá, of which a portion is to be edited by Professor D. S. Margoliouth in the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series; and a work on Genealogies. A good and sympathetic appreciation of Yáqút is given by Von Kremer in his charm­ing Culturgeschichte des Orients, vol. ii, pp. 433-6.