The following Arabic verses by him are also cited by Dawlatsháh:—
“I counsel you, O Kings of Earth, to cease not
Seeking good name for well-doing and right,
Spending your ‘white’ and ‘red’ to purchase honour,
Which shall not wane with change of ‘black’ and ‘white’: *
These are the lasting spoils of Maḥmúd's prowess,
Which spoils we share when we his praise indite.”
The date of his death is thus given in a verse by Malik 'Imád-i-Zawzaní:—
“Shaykh of lofty worth Abu'l-Fatḥ Majdu'd-Dín, a man who was
Leader of all wits and scholars and of orators the best;
When four centuries and thirty years from Aḥmad's Flight had
passed,
Wended in the month of Shawwál hence unto his Home of
Rest.”
It was, indeed, a time when literary men were highly esteemed and eagerly sought after, each more or less indepen- Abundant patronage of men of letters. dent ruler or local governor striving to emulate his rivals and peers in the intellectual brilliancy of his entourage. The main centres of such patronage were, besides Ghazna, Sulṭán Maḥmúd's capital, Níshápúr, the seat of his brother Abu'l-Mudhaffar Naṣr's government in Khurásán, and, till the extinction of the Sámánid dynasty about A.D. 1000, Bukhárá, * the various cities in Southern and Western Persia subject to the House or Buwayh, the Courts of the Sayyids and Ziyárid Princes or Ṭabaristán, and the Court of the three Khwárazmsháhs named Ma'mún in Khiva. On the literary luminaries of each of these Courts a monograph might be written, and in each case the materials, though scattered, are abundant, including, for the Arabic-writing poets, the often-cited <text in Greek script omitted>atímatu'd-Dahr of Abú Manṣúr ath-Tha'álibí, and its supplement, the hitherto unpublished Dumyatu'l-Qaṣr of al-Bákharzí; for the poets and men of letters of Ṭabaristán, the monographs on the history of that most interesting province published by Dorn at St. Petersburg (A.D. 1850-58) and the more ancient history of Ibn Isfandiyár, of which an abridged translation by myself forms the second volume of the Gibb Memorial Series; and, for Iṣfahán, the rare monograph on that city of which I published an abstract in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for July and October, 1901; besides the more general historical and biographical works of Ibnu'l-Athír, Ibn Khallikán, al-'Utbí, and others.
Most of the literary and scientific men and poets of the time wandered from Court to Court, dedicating a work or a Abú Mansúr ath-Tha'álibí. poem to each of their various patrons. Thus the above-mentioned Abú Manṣúr ath-Tha'álibí of Níshápúr dedicated his Latá'ifu'l-Ma'árif to the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád, * the great minister of the Buwayhid Prince Fakhru'd-Dawla; the Mubhij and the Tamaththul wa'l-Muḥádara to Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír; the Siḥru'l-Balágha and Fiqhu'l-Lugha to the Amír Abu'l-Faḍl al-Míkálí; the Niháya fi'l-Kináya, the Nathru'n-Nadhm, and the Laṭá'if wa'dh-Dhará'if to Ma'mún b. Ma'mún Khwárazmsháh, and so on. * So also that great and admirable Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní. scholar Abú Rayḥán al-Bírúní (born A.D. 973) spent the earlier part of his life, as we have already seen, under the protection of the Ma'múní Princes of Khwárazm or Khiva; then visited the Court of that liberal patron of scholars, Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír in Ṭabaristán, and dedicated to him his Chronology of Ancient Nations about A.D. 1000; then returned to Khwárazm, whence, as we have seen, he was carried off to Afghánistán about A.D. 1017, by Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna, in whose service he remained until the death of that monarch in A.D. 1030, shortly after which event he published the second of his most notable works, the Indica, of which the learned editor and translator, Dr. Sachau, remarks (p. xxii of his Preface to the text) that “if in our days a man began studying Sanskrit and Hindú learning with all the help afforded by modern literature and science, many a year would pass before he would be able to do justice to the antiquity of India to such an extent and with such a degree of accuracy as al-Bírúní has done in his Indica.” And within a few years of this publication, he produced his bi-lingual Tafhím * on Astronomy, and his Qánúnu'l-Mas'údí on the same subject, the former written for the Lady Rayḥána of Khwárazm, and the latter dedicated to Sulṭán Mas'úd b. Maḥmúd b. Subuktigín; while at a later date he dedicated his work on precious stones * to this Mas'úd's son and successor, Mawdúd.
Thus during the earlier Ghaznawí period there were, apart from Ghazna, four separate centres of attraction to men of The four centres of culture in Persia, apart from Ghazna. letters in the wider Persia of those days; to wit, the Buwayhid minister, the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád, who resided generally at Iṣfahán or Ray; the Sámánid Court at Bukhárá; the Court of Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír in Ṭabaristán, not far from the Caspian Sea; and the Court of the Ma'múní Khwárazmsháhs in Khiva. But in the twenty years which elapsed between A.D. 997 and 1017 the Ṣáḥib had died (in A.D. 997); the Sámání dynasty had fallen (A.D. 999); Shamsu'l-Ma'álí had been murdered by his rebellious nobles (A.D. 1012); and Ma'mún II of Khwárazm had also been killed by rebels, and his country annexed by Sulṭán Maḥmúd (A.D. 1017), who thus, by conquest rather than by any innate merit, nobility, or literary talent such as distinguished his rivals The Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád. above mentioned, became possessed of their men of letters as of their lands. Thus of the Ṣáḥib ath-Tha'álibí says in his <text in Greek script omitted>atíma:—*
“I am unable to find expressions sufficiently strong to satisfy my wishes, so that I may declare to what a height he attained in learning and philological knowledge; how exalted a rank he held by his liberality and generosity; how far he was placed apart by the excellence of his qualities, and how completely he united in himself all the various endowments which are a source of just pride to their possessor; for my words aspire in vain to attain a height which may accord with even the lowest degree of his merit and his glory, and my powers of description are unequal to pourtraying the least of his noble deeds, the lowest of his exalted purposes.”
To this Ibn Khallikán adds:—
“The number of poets who flocked to him and celebrated his praises in splendid qaṣídas surpassed that which assembled at the Court of any other.”
Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír, the ruler of Ṭabaristán, was of the noble and ancient house of Qárin (the Shamsu'lMa'álí. Qárinwands), one of the seven most honourable stocks of Sásánian Persia, whose members the Arab historians call the ahlu'l-buyútát. His pedigree is traced by al-Bírúní * up to the Sásánian King Qubádh, the father of Núshirwán. Ibn Isfandiyár, in his History of Ṭabaristán, says that whoever desires to appreciate his greatness and goodness should read what is said of him by Abú Manṣúr ath-Tha'álibí and al-'Utbí in their works. * A compilation of his sayings was made by al-Yazdádí, who entitled it Qará'inu Shamsi'l-Ma'álí wa Kamálu'l-Balágha. From this last work Ibn Isfandiyár cites some thirty lines, and praises the extraordinary eloquence of Qábús in the Arabic language, his courage and skill in all manly exercises, and his knowledge of philosophy, astronomy, and astrology. He wrote in Arabic a treatise on the astrolabe, on which Abú Isḥáq aṣ-Ṣábí pronounced a most favourable judgment. He maintained, through his chamberlain 'Abdu's-Salám, a regular correspondence with the Ṣáḥib mentioned in the preceding paragraph, and his minister, Abu'l-'Abbás Ghánimí, corresponded with Abú Naṣr al-'Utbí, the historian of Sulṭán Maḥmúd, who also cites (vol. ii, pp. 18-26), with approval and admiration of its style, a short treatise in Arabic composed by Shamsu'l-Ma'álí on the respective merits of the Prophet's Companions. * Unfortunately, with all these gifts of mind, birth, and character, he was stern, harsh, suspicious, and at times bloodthirsty. The execution of one of his chamberlains named Ḥájib Na'ím, * on the suspicion of embezzlement, was the final cause which drove his nobles into revolt, and impelled them to depose him and put him to death, and to make king over them his son Minúchihr Falaku'l-Ma'álí, chiefly known to Persian scholars as the patron from whom the Persian poet Minúchihrí (author of the qaṣída translated in the last chapter, pp. 30-34 supra) took his nom de guerre.