Another geographer and cosmographer of a less scientific type is Zakariyyá b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmúd al-Qazwíní,

al-Qazwíní. the author of two works (both published by Wüstenfeld in 1848-49). One of these is entitled 'Ajá'ibu'l-Makhlúqát (“The Marvels of Creation,” or, rather, “of created things”), and treats of the solar system, the stars and other heavenly bodies, and the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and also contains a section on monsters and bogies of various kinds. The other is entitled Atháru'l-Bilád (“Monuments of the Lands”), and is a more or less systematic description of the chief towns and countries known to the Muhammadans at that period, arranged alphabetically under the Seven Climes, beginning with the First, which lies next the Equator, and ending with the Seventh, which includes the most northerly lands. The former of these two books is by far the more popular in the East, and manuscripts, often with miniatures, both of the original and still more of the Persian translation, are common. The latter, however, is in reality by far the more important and interesting, for not only does it contain a great deal of useful geographical informa­tion, but also much valuable biographical material, including, under the towns to which they belonged, a great number of the Persian poets, such as Anwarí, 'Asjadí, Awḥadu'd-Dín of Kirmán, Fakhrí of Gurgán, Farrukhí, Firdawsí, Jalál-i-Ṭabíb, Jalál-i-Khwárí, Kháqání, Abú Ṭáhir al-Khátúní, Mujír of Baylaqán, Náṣir-i-Khusraw, Nidhámí of Ganja, 'Umar-i-Khayyám, Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr, Saná'í, Shams-i-Ṭabasí, 'Unsurí, and Rashídu'd-Dín Waṭwáṭ. The geographical in­formation, too, though inferior in point of accuracy to that given by Yáqút and the earlier geographers, is full of inter­esting and entertaining matter. It is rather curious that though there is no mention made of England, the account of the Sixth Clime includes an article on Ireland, with some account of whale-fishing, while a long notice is devoted to Rome. Under the Seventh Clime we find accounts of the ordeals by fire, by water, and by battle in vogue amongst the Franks; of witchcraft, witch-finding, and witch-burning; and of the Varangian Fiord. Indeed, I know few more readable and entertaining works in Arabic than this. Strictly speaking, it falls just outside the period with which this volume concludes, for the first edition was written in A.D. 1263, and the second, considerably enlarged and modified, in A.D. 1276. The author was born at Qazwín, in Persia, in A.D. 1203, lived for a while at Damascus about A.D. 1232, was Qáḍi (Judge) of Wásiṭ and Ḥilla under the last Caliph al-Musta'ṣim, and died in A.D. 1283. His 'Ajá'ibu'l-Makhlúqát is dedicated to 'Aṭá Malik-i-Juwayní, the author of the Ta'ríkh-i-Jahán-gushá.

A few words should be said about the traveller Ibn Jubayr, whose travels were published by the late Professor W. Wright Ibn Jubayr. at Leyden in 1852. He was a native of Granada, and enjoyed a considerable reputation not only as a scientific writer, but as a poet. He made three journeys to the East, performing on each occasion the Pilgrimage to Mecca. He started on his first journey on February 4, 1183, and returned towards the end of April, 1185. His second journey, to which he was moved by the news of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin (Ṣaláḥu'd-Dín), began in April, 1189, and ended in the middle of September, 1190. His third journey was prompted by the death of his wife, to whom he was greatly attached, and led him first from Ceuta to Mecca, where he remained for some time, and thence to Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria, at which last place he died on November 29, 1217. His first journey is that whereof he has left us a record.

Passing now to the Philosophers, the two chief ones of this period, of whom something has been already said in Philosophers. Fakhru'd-Dín Rází. the last chapter, are Fakhru'd-Dín Rází and Naṣíru'd-Dín Ṭúsí. The former was born on February 7, 1149, studied in his native town, Ray, and at Marágha, journeyed to Khwárazm and Transoxiana, and finally died at Herát in A.D. 1209. His literary activity was prodigious: he wrote on the Exegesis of the Qur'án, Dogma, Jurisprudence, Philosophy, Astrology, History, and Rhetoric, and to all this added an Encyclopædia of the Sciences. Brockelmann (Gesch. d. arab. Litt., vol. i, pp. 506-08) enumerates thirty-three of his works of which the whole or a portion still exists. One of his latest works is probably a treatise which he composed at Herát in A.D. 1207 in reprobation of the pleasures of this world. One of his works on Astrology, dedicated to 'Alá'u'd-Dín Khwárazmsháh, and hence entitled al-Ikhtiyárátu'l-'Alá'iyya, was originally composed in Persian, as was his Encyclopædia, composed for the same monarch in A.H. 574 (= A.D. 1178-79).

Of Naṣíru'd-Dín Ṭúsí also mention has been made in the preceding chapter. He was born, as his nisba implies, at Ṭús in A.D. 1200; * was for some while, as we have seen, though much against his will, associated with the Assassins; and, on the surrender of Alamút and Maymún-Dizh, passed into Naṣíru'd-Dín Ṭúsí. the service of Hulágú the Mongol, by whom he was held in high honour. Accompanying the Mongol army which destroyed Baghdád, he profited by the plunder of many libraries to enrich his own, which finally came to comprise, according to Ibn Shákir (Fawátu'l-Wafayát, vol. ii, p. 149), more than 400,000 volumes. He enjoyed enormous influence with his savage master Hulágú, who, before undertaking any enterprise, used to consult him as to whether or no the stars were favourable. On one occasion he saved the life of 'Alá'u'd-Dín al-Juwayní, the Ṣáḥib-Díwán, and a number of other persons under sentence of death, by playing on Hulágú's superstitions. In the building of the celebrated observatory at Marágha, begun in A.D. 1259, he was assisted by a number of men of learning, whose names he enumerates in the Zíj-i-Ílkhání. He died at Baghdád in June, 1274. He was a most productive writer on religious, philosophical, mathematical, physical, and astro­nomical subjects, and no fewer than fifty-six of his works are enumerated by Brockelmann (vol. ii, pp. 508-512). Most of them are, of course, in Arabic, which was still in his time the Latin of the Muhammadan East, and the language of science, but he also wrote a number of books in Persian, and even, as Ibn Shákir twice remarks in his biography in the Fawátu'l-Wafayát (vol. ii, p. 151), composed a great deal of poetry in that language. His prose works in Persian include the celebrated treatise on Ethics (the Akhláq-i-Náṣirí); the Bíst Báb dar ma'rifat-i-Usturláb (“Twenty Chapters on the Science of the Astrolabe”); the Risála-i-Sí Faṣl (“Treatise in Thirty Chapters”) on Astronomy and the Calendar; the celebrated Zíj-i-Ílkhání, or almanac and astronomical tables composed for Hulágú Khán; a treatise on Mineralogy and precious stones, entitled Tansúq-náma-i-Ílkhání; and several other tracts on Philosophy, Astronomy, and Mathematics, besides a treatise on Ṣúfí ethics entitled Awṣáfu'l-Ashráf, and another on Geomancy. Of his Arabic works the Tajrídu'l-'Aqá'id (on scholastic or religious Philosophy) is probably the most celebrated. For a fuller account of his works, see Brockelmann, the Fawátu'l-Wafayát of Ibn Shákir, and the Majálisu'l-Mú'minín, &c. The last-mentioned work quotes from Shahrazúrí's History of the Philosophers a very severe criticism of him, which declares, amongst other damaging statements, that his scientific reputation was less due to his actual attainments than to his violent temper and impatience of contradiction, which, taken in conjunction with the high favour he enjoyed at the Court of Hulágú, made it imprudent to criticise or disparage him. Of his Persian poems little seems to have survived to our time, and Riḍá-qulí Khán in his immense Anthology, the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá (vol. i, pp. 633-34), only cites of his verses six quatrains and a fragment of two couplets. It may be added that at p. 374 of the same volume he gives five quatrains of the earlier philosopher, Fakhru'd-Dín Rází, of whom we have already spoken. Another astronomer whose name should at least be mentioned is al-Jaghminí of Khwárazm, who is generally believed to have died in A.D. 1221, though considerable uncertainty exists as to the period at which he flourished, and only one of his works, the Mulakhkhaṣ, seems to be preserved.