Of a few other Arabic-writing authors of this period it is sufficient to mention the names. The Jewish philosopher Maimonides. and physician Maimonides (Abú 'Imrán Músá b. Maymún) of Cordova, who in later life was physician to Saladin (Ṣaláḥu'd-Dín), and who died in A.D. 1204, is too great a name to be omitted, though he Shaykh al­Búní. has no connection with Persia. Also from the Maghrib, or Western lands of Islám, was the Shaykh Muḥiyyu'd-Dín al-Búní († A.D. 1225), one of the most celebrated and most prolific writers on the Occult Sciences. From the West also (Malaga)

Ibnu'l-Bayṭár. came the botanist Ibnu'l-Bayṭár, who died at Damascus in A.D. 1248. Mention may also be al-Tífáshí. made of al-Tífáshí, who wrote on Mineralogy, precious stones, and others matters connected with Natural Philosophy. Amongst the philologists of this 'Izzu'd-Dín Zanjání. period mention should be made of 'Izzu'd-Dín Zanjání, who died at Baghdád in A.D. 1257, and who was the author of a work on Arabic grammar, of which copies are extraordinarily common;

Jamál al­Qurashí. Jamál al-Qurashí, who translated into Persian the Saḥáḥ, the celebrated Arabic lexicon of al- Ibnu'l-Ḥájib. Jawharí; Ibnu'l-Ḥájib (d. A.D. 1248), the author of the Káfiya and the Sháfiya, two very well al-Muṭarrizí. known Arabic grammars; al-Muṭarrizí, born in A.D. 1143, the year of az-Zamakhsharí's death, and known as “Khalífatu'z-Zamakhsharí” (“the Lieutenant Ḍiyá'u'd-Dín ibnu'l-Athír. of az-Zamakhsharí); and Ḍiyá'u'd-Dín ibnu'l-Athír, the brother of the great historian so often cited in these pages, who died at Baghdád in A.D. 1239, and wrote several works on Arabic philology, of which the Kitábu'l-mathali's-sá'ir is perhaps the best known.

Majdu'd-Dín ibnu'l-Athír. A third brother, Majdu'd-Dín ibnu'l-Athír (b. A.D. 1149, d. 1209), was a traditionist and theologian of some repute. Of greater impor- al-Bayḍáwí. tance is 'Abdu'llah b. 'Umar al-Bayḍáwí, a native of Fárs, who was for some time Qáḍí, or Judge, of Shirwáz, and who composed what is still the best known and most widely used commentary on the Qur'án, as well as a rather dull little manual of history, in Persian, entitled Nidhámu't-Tawáríkh. To this period also belongs one of Yáqút al­Musta'ṣimí. the greatest calligraphers the East has ever produced, namely, Yáqút, called al-Musta'ṣimí because he was in the service of the unhappy Caliph whose fate was described in the last chapter. In the notice consecrated to him in Mírzá Ḥabíb's excellent Khaṭṭ u Khaṭṭáṭán (“Calligraphy and Calligraphers,” Constantinople, A.H. 1306, pp. 51-53) mention is made of three copies of the Qur'án in his handwriting preserved in the Ottoman capital; one, dated A.H. 584 (= A.D. 1188-89), in the Mausoleum of Sulṭán Selím; another, dated A.H. 654 (= A.D. 1256), in Saint Sophia; and a third, dated A.H. 662 (= A.D. 1263-64), in the Ḥamídiyya Mausoleum. For a copy of the Shifá of Avicenna made, it is stated, for Muḥammad Tughluq, King of Delhi (but this seems to involve an anachronism), he is said to have received 200,000 mithqáls of gold. He died A.H. 667 (= A.D. 1268-69), according to a chronogram in verse given by Mírzá Ḥabíb, but according to Brockel-mann (vol. i, p. 353) in A.H. 698 (= A.D. 1298-99). He and his predecessors Ibn Muqla and Ibnu'l-Bawwáb are reckoned the three calligraphers to whom the Arabic script is most deeply indebted. Another writer unpleasantly familiar Abú Naṣr-i­Faráhí. to Persian school-children is Abú Naṣr-i-Faráhí, the author of a rhymed Arabic-Persian vocabu­lary still widely used in Persian schools, and of a rhymed treatise in Arabic on Ḥanafite Jurisprudence. He died in A.D. 1242. Much more important is the very rare treatise on Persian Prosody known as the Mu'ajjam fí Ma'áyíri

Shams-i-Qays. Ash'ári'l-'Ajam, composed by Shams-i-Qays in Shíráz for the Atábek Abú Bakr b. Sa'd-i-Zangí (A.D. 1226-60), chiefly celebrated as the patron of the great poet Sa'dí. This valuable work, represented in Europe, so far as I know, only by the British Museum MS. Or. 2,814 (though Dr. Paul Horn discovered the existence of two manuscripts at Constantinople), is now being printed at Beyrout for the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series. The book is remarkable for the large number of citations from early and sometimes almost unknown Persian poets (including many Fahlawiyyát or dialect-poems) which it contains. Of the author little is known beyond what Rieu (Persian Supplement, pp. 123-25) has gleaned from this work. He was probably a native of Khurásán or Transoxiana, and was involved in the rout of the troops of Khwárazm by the Mongols before the fortress of Farzín in the summer or A.D. 1220. Another book of this period which ought not Marzubán­náma. to be passed over in silence is the Persian transla­tion of the Marzubán-náma, originally written in the dialect of Ṭabaristán by Marzubán-i-Rustam-i-Sharwín, author of a poem called the Níkí-náma in the same dialect, and dedicated to Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír (A.D. 976-1012), and turned into the ordinary literary language of Persia about A.D. 1210-15 by Sa'd of Waráwín.*

We come now to a much more important group of writers, the great Ṣúfís and Mystics of this period, amongst whom are Ṣúfís and Mystics. included some of the most celebrated names in this branch of thought and literature, including two of Arabian race, whose singular eminence makes it very doubtful whether the once popular view, that Ṣúfíism is essentially an Aryan reaction against the cold formalism of a Semitic religion, can be regarded as tenable. These two are 'Umar ibnu'l-Fáriḍ, the Egyptian mystical poet, and Shaykh Muḥiyyu'd-Dín ibnu'l-'Arabí, the illustrious theosophist of Andalusia. Besides these we have to speak of the two Najmu'd-Díns, called respectively Kubrá and Dáya; Shaykh Rúzbihán; and Shaykh Shíhábu'd-Dín 'Umar Suhra-wardí. A few words may also be devoted to Ṣadru'd-Dín of Qonya (Iconium), the most notable of Shaykh Muḥiyyu'd-Dín's disciples, and perhaps one or two other contemporary Mystics, excluding the two great mystical poets, Shaykh Farídu'd-Dín 'Aṭṭár and Mawláná Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, who will be discussed at some length in the next chapter.

In point of time Shaykh Abú Muḥammad Rúzbihán b. Abí Naṣr al-Baqlí, nicknamed Shaṭṭáḥ-i-Fárs (“the Braggart of Rúzbihán. Fárs”), * was the earliest of the Mystics above mentioned, for he died in Muḥarram, A.H. 606 (= July, A.D. 1209) at his native place, Shíráz. His tomb is mentioned in the Arabic work (British Museum MS. Or. 3,395, f. 110b) correctly entitled Shaddu'l-Azár, but commonly known as the Hazár Mazár (“The Thousand Shrines”), which was composed about A.D. 1389 by Mu'ínu'd-Dín Abu'l-Qásim Junayd of Shíráz on the saints of his native town. It is there stated that Shaykh Rúzbihán in his youth travelled widely, after the customary fashion of these Ṣúfí dervishes, visiting 'Iráq, Kirmán, the Ḥijáz, and Syria; and that he composed a great number of works, of which some thirty, according to the Persian Shíráz-náma (composed in A.D. 1343 by a grandson of the eminent mystic, Shaykh Zarkúb), were celebrated, including a mystical commentary on the Qur'án, entitled Laṭá'ifu'l-Bayán, or “Subtleties of Enunciation”; the Mashrabu'l-Arwáḥ, or “Fount of Inspiration of Souls”; the Manṭiqu'l-Asrár, or “Language of Mysteries,” &c. He also wrote verses in Persian, of which the following are specimens:—