One other Persian poet who wrote in Arabic, viz., Mihyár ad-Daylamí, * deserves mention because of the interesting fact Mihyár the Daylamí. that he was born and brought up in the Zoro­astrian religion, from which he was converted to Islám in A.D. 1003, by another poet, the Sharíf ar-Raḍí, who for many years before his death (in A.D. 1015-16) held the high position of Naqíbu'l-'Alawiyyín, or Dean of the descendants of 'Alí, at Baghdád. The example of Mihyár shows us how considerable a hold Zoroastrianism still had in the Caspian provinces, how readily it was tolerated, and how fully its representatives were permitted to share in the science and culture of which Arabic was the medium of expression. This appears in the frequency of the nisba “al-Majúsí” (“the Magian”), in works like the Dumyatu'l-Qaṣr of al-Bákharzí, who composed a supplement to ath-Tha'álibí's oft-cited Biography of Poets, the Yatímatu'd-Dahr.

Al-Majúsí, the physician. The best-known bearer of this nisba was, however, 'Alí b. al-'Abbás al-Majúsí, the physician of the Buwayhid 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla, and the author of the Kámilu'ṣ-Ṣaná'at, or “Complete Practitioner,” who died in A.D. 994; but in his case his father had already renounced the ancient religion. An account of one of this physician's cures is given in Anecdote xxxvi of the Chahár Maqála (pp. 124-5 of my translation).

To the period immediately preceding that which we are now discussing belong that great work the Fihrist (composed about A.D. 988) and the Mafatíḥu'l-'Ulúm (composed about A.D. 976), of both of which the contents were pretty fully analysed in the Prolegomena. Of local histories also several important monographs deserve mention, e.g., the History of Bukhárá by Narshakhí (composed about A.D. 942), the History of Qum (composed for the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád about A.D. 989), and the Histories of Iṣfahán and Ṭabaristán, composed respectively by al-Máfarrúkhí and al-Yazdádí, all of which were composed originally in Arabic, but are now known to us only in Persian translations. Another Arabic-writing Persian, of whose works too little has survived, was the historian 'Alí b. Miskawayhi, who died in A.D. 1029. Al-'Utbí's mono­graph on Sulṭán Maḥmúd (which is only carried down to A.D. 1018, though the author lived till A.D. 1035-36) has been already mentioned repeatedly, as well as the numerous works of Abú Manṣúr ath-Tha'álibí, the author of the Yatímatu'd-Dahr , who died in A.D. 1038. Persian prose works are still few and unimportant: those which belong to the Sámánid period, such as Bal'amí's translation of Ṭabarí's great history (made about A.D. 964), Abú Manṣúr Muwaffaq's Pharma­cology (circa A.D. 971), a Persian commentary on the Qur'án preserved in a unique MS. at Cambridge, and Bal'amí's transla­tion of Ṭabarí's commentary (about A.D. 981), have been already mentioned in the Prolegomena. If to these we add the rare Dánish-náma-i-'Alá'í (composed by Avicenna for 'Alá'u'd-Dawla of Iṣfahán, who died in A.H. 1042), and the lost Khujista-náma of Bahrámí, and the Tarjumánu'l-Balágha of Farrukhí, both of which treat of Prosody and Rhetoric, and both of which were presumably written about A.D. 1058, we shall have nearly completed the list of Persian prose works composed before the middle of the fifth century of the Flight of which any knowledge is preserved to us. Allusion has already been made to the fact that there is evidence of the existence of a literature, both prose (like the Marzubán-náma) and verse (like the Níkí-náma), in the dialect of Ṭabaristán; and Ibn Isfandiyár's history of that interesting province (founded on the above-mentioned monograph of al-Yazdádí) has preserved to us specimens (much corrupted, it is true, by lapse of time and careless copyists) of Ṭabarí dialect verses by poets entirely ignored by the ordinary Memoir-writers, such as the Ispahbad Khurshíd b. Abu'l-Qásim of Mámṭir, Bárbad-i-Jarídí, Ibráhím Mu'íní, Ustád 'Alí Pírúza (a contemporary of al-Mutanabbí, and panegyrist of 'Aḍudu'd-Dawla the Buwayhid), and Díwárwaz Mastamard, rival of him last named, who also enjoyed the favour of Shamsu'l-Ma'álí Qábús b. Washmgír.

We must now pass to the great Persian poets from whom the literature of this period, and in particular the Court of Ghazna, derived such lustre. Of these Firdawsí, who success­fully accomplished the great work begun by Daqíqí (d. A.D. 975), and embodied for all time in immortal verse the The great Persian poets of this period. legendary history of his country, ranks not only as the greatest poet of his age, but as one of the greatest poets of all ages, so that, as a well­known Persian verse has it:—

“The sphere poetic hath its prophets three,
(Although ‘There is no Prophet after me’) *
Firdawsí in the epic, in the ode,
Sa'dí, and in qaṣída Anwarí.”

After him come the panegyrists and qaṣída-writers 'Unṣurí (Sulṭán Maḥmúd's poet-laureate), Asadí (Firdawsí's friend and fellow-townsman and the inventor of the munádhara, or “strife-poem”), 'Asjadí, Farrukhí of Sístán, and the some­what later Minúchihrí, with a host of less celebrated poets, like Bahrámí (who also composed a work on Prosody, the Khujista-náma , no longer extant), 'Uṭáridí, Ráfi'í, Ghaḍá'irí of Ray, Manṣúrí, Yamíní (who is also said to have written a history of Sulṭán Maḥmúd's reign in Persian prose), Sharafu'l-Mulk (to whom is ascribed a Persian Secretary's Manual entitled the Kitábu'l-Istífá), Zínatí-i-'Alawí-i-Maḥmúdí, and the poetess Rábi'a bint Kalb of Qusdár or Quzdár, besides many others whose names and verses are recorded in chapter ix of 'Awfí's Lubábu'l-Albáb (pp. 28-67 of my edition of the second part of this work). It is neither necessary nor possible in a work of this character to discuss all of these, and we must confine our­selves to a selection of the most typical and the most celebrated. Three other poets of some note belonging to this period differ somewhat in character from the above; namely Kisá'í, who, beginning as a panegyrist, repented in later life of the time­serving and adulation inseparable from the career of a Court-poet, and devoted himself to religious verse; Abú Sa'íd b. Abi'l-Khayr, the mystic quatrain-writer; and Pindár of Ray, chiefly notable as a dialect-poet, though he wrote also in Arabic and Persian. Another celebrated dialect-poet and quatrain-writer, reckoned by Ethé * as belonging to this period, on the strength of the date (A.H. 410 = A.D. 1019) assigned to his death by Riḍá-qulí Khán (in the Riyáḍu'l-'Àrifín ), really belongs more properly to early Seljúq times; since the History of the Seljúqs, * entitled the Ráḥatu'ṣ-Ṣudúr, composed in A.D. 1202-03 by Najmu'd-Dín Abú Bakr Muḥammad of Ráwand, and preserved in a unique MS. copied in A.D. 1238, which formerly belonged to M. Schefer, and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (Suppl. pers., No. 1314), recounts an anecdote of his meeting with Ṭughril Beg at Hamadán, probably in A.D. 1055-56 or 1058-59.

Before speaking of Sulṭán Maḥmúd's poets, however, it should be mentioned that he himself is said to have been something of a poet, and stands second, after a brief notice of the unfortunate Isma'íl b. Núḥ, the last Sámánid, in 'Awfí's Lubáb amongst the kings and princes who wrote incidental verse. Ethé (op. cit., p. 224) says that six ghazals are (on doubtful authority, as he thinks) ascribed to him. 'Awfí cites two short fragments only, of which the first, containing but three verses, is a little elegy on the death of a girl named Gulistán (“Rose-garden”), to whom he was attached. The following is a translation of it:—

“Since thou, O Moon, beneath the dust dost lie,
The dust in worth is raised above the sky.
My heart rebels. ‘Be patient, Heart,’ I cry;
‘An All-just Lord doth rule our destiny.
Earthy and of the earth is man: 'tis plain
What springs from dust to dust must turn again.’”