As regards the author, Nidhámí-i-'Aruḍí of Samarqand, he will best reveal himself by his own numerous allusions to his career and adventures. His present work was written, at least in part, during the lifetime of 'Alá'u'd-Dín Ḥusayn Jahán-súz (“the World-consumer”), who died in A.D. 1161, and since he speaks of himself as having been forty-five years in the service of the House of Ghúr, it is evident that he must have been born towards the end of the eleventh century of our era. The chief dates which he gives in the autobiographical portions of his work are as follows. In A.H. 504 (A.D. 1110-1111) he heard traditions concerning Rúdagí at Samarqand (Anecdote xiii). In A.H. 506 (A.D. 1112-1113) he met 'Umar Khayyám at Níshápúr (Anecdote xxvii). In A.H. 509 (A.D. 1115-1116) he was at Herát (Anecdote xvii). In the following year he was at Níshápúr (Anecdote i) and Ṭús (Anecdotes xvi and xx), where he visited Firdawsí's tomb. His position and income were at this time precarious, but, encouraged by the poet Mu'izzí, he succeeded in attracting the king's notice and winning his approval. In A.H. 512 (A.D. 1118-1119) he was again at Níshápúr (Anecdote xxxi), and once more in A.H. 530 (A.D. 1135-1136), when he visited 'Umar Khayyám's grave, and remarked the fulfilment of the prediction uttered by the Astronomer-poet twenty-four years earlier (Anecdote xxvii). In A.H. 547 (A.D. 1152-1153) he was involved in the defeat of the army of Ghúr by Sanjar b. Maliksháh the Seljúq, and was for a while in hiding at Herát (Anecdotes xxx and xli). His life, in short, seems to have been spent chiefly in Khurásán at royal courts, where he had opportunities of meeting many noteworthy persons. Though a poet by profession, he seems to have been equally ready to practise Astrology (Anecdote xxx) and Medicine (Anecdote xli). Of his personal character, as of his ability, his work produces, on the whole, a very favourable impression, and the book itself I should be disposed to describe as one of the most interesting, the most instructive, the most charming, and the best written Persian prose works which it has been my fortune to come across. Of this, however, the reader shall judge for himself.

Notices of the writer occur in 'Awfí's Lubábu'l-Albáb (ch. x, § 2, Poets of Transoxania), from which we learn nothing about his personality save that he bore the laqab of Najmu'd-Dín; Dawlatsháh's Tadhkira (Ṭabaqa i, No. 13, pp. 60-61 of my forthcoming edition), where laudatory mention is made of the Chahár Maqála; Hájí Khalífa (No. 4,348, s.v. ), who calls him Nidhámu'd-Dín (instead of Najmu'd-Dín), which is probably correct; the Majma'u'l-Fuṣaḥá of that most accomplished of recent Persian writers, Riḍá-qulí Khán (vol. i, p. 635), who places him higher as a prose-writer than as a poet; and, no doubt, other biographical works. But, leaving these aside, let us now allow the author to speak for himself, only premising that, where reference is made to various readings, the older MS. (Or. 3,507) is denoted by A, the other MS. (Or. 2,955) by B, and the Tihrán lithographed edition by L.