In the literary history of this period we have to notice first the death of the Persian poet Daqíqí (A.D. 975), who began the Literary history of this period.— Daqíqí. composition of the Sháhnáma which was after­wards so gloriously completed by Firdawsí. About a year later was composed a very important Arabic work, now rendered accessible to all scholars in the excellent edition of Van Vloten (Leyden, 1895) named “the Keys of the Sciences” (Mafátíḥu'l-'Ulúm), by Abu 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad The Mafátíḥu'l­'Ulúm. b. Aḥmad b. Yúsuf al-Khwárazmí, which, in a small compass, gives a conspectus of the sciences, both indigenous and foreign, known to the Muslims of that time, together with their terminology. About Ibn-Ḥawqal. the same time Ibn Ḥawqal* re-edited al-Iṣtakhrí's recension of the geography composed by Abu Zayd al-Balkhí, a pupil of the philosopher al-Kindí. About Aṣ Ṣírafí. a year later (A.D. 978) died the Arabic gram­marian aṣ-Ṣírafí, who was not only a Persian but the son of a Zoroastrian named Bihzád. In A.D. 980, was Avicenna. born the great philosopher and physician Abú 'Alí b. Síná (Avicenna), also a Persian. A year later died a mystic of some note, Abú 'Abdi'lláh Muḥammad b. Khafíf of Shíráz. In A.D. 982 died Ibráhím b. Hilál aṣ-Ṣábí, Ibn Khafíf the mystic.—Aṣ-Ṣábí. one of the heathen of Ḥarárn, whose great history of the Buwayhids, entitled Kitábu't-Táj (“the Book of the Crown”), has unfortunately not come down to us. This work was written in the highly artificial and rhetorical style which was now coming into fashion, and replacing the simple, unvarnished narratives of the earlier historians, and which, as Brockelmann points out, had a great influence on the formation of the prose style of the more ambitious Persian writers. Another writer of the same Ibn Nubáta. type, Ibn Nubáta the Syrian, Court preacher to Sayfu'd-Dawla, who died in A.D. 984, is still read in the East, where some of his writings have been Tamím b. al­Mu'izz. printed. The Fáṭimid poet Tamím b. al-Mu'izz († A.D. 984), brother of the Anti-Caliph al-'Azíz, in whose honour he composed panegyrics, deserves mention. The traveller and geographer al-Maqdisí, or Al-Muqaddasí. al-Muqaddasí, composed his important work, entitled Aḥsanu't-Taqásím fí ma'rifati'l-Aqálím* in A.D. 985, a work which has received the highest tributes of praise from several eminent Orientalists.* A year later was Al-Qushayrí. born al-Qushayrí, the author of an important treatise on Ṣúfíism. About A.D. 988 was composed the The Fihrist. Fihrist,* or “Index,” one of the most important sources of knowledge for the literary and religious history of the early Muslim period, and even for the more ancient times which preceded it, whereof the author, Abu'l Faraj Mu-ḥammad b. Isḥáq an-Nadím al-Warráq al-Baghdádí, died some six years later. Of his valuable work Brockelmann speaks as follows:* “His book, which he named simply the Fihrist, i.e., ‘Index,’was intended to include all books in the Arabic language available in his time, whether original compositions or trans­lations. After an introduction on the different kinds of scripts, he deals with the revealed books of the different religions, then with each individual branch of Literature, from the Qur'án and the writings connected therewith down to the Occult Sciences. In each section he groups the individual writers in approxi­mately chronological order, and communicates what is known to him of their lives and works. To this book we owe many valuable data for the history of the civilisation and literature, not only of the Arabs, but generally of the whole of the Nearer History of Qum. East.” About the same time (A.D. 988) was composed one of the earliest local histories of Persia, a monograph on the city of Qum, which is preserved in a Persian translation (made in A.D. 1128),* though the Arabic original is lost. The work was dedicated to that great The Ṣáḥib Is­-ma'íl b. 'Abbád. patron of literature the Ṣáḥib Isma'íl b. 'Abbád (b. A.D. 936, d. 995), who was minister to the two Buwayhid rulers Mu'ayyidu'd-Dawla and Fakhru'd-Dawla, and who was himself the author of a copious Arabic dictionary called the Muḥíṭ (“Comprehensive”), still partly preserved, and of a treatise on Prosody called the Iqná' (“Satis­faction”), of which a fine MS., dated A.H. 559 (= A.D. 1164), formerly in the possession of M. Schefer, is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Of the crowd of poets and men of letters whom the Ṣáḥib's generosity drew round him we read in ath-Tha'álibí's Yatímatu'd-Dahr (vol. iii, pp. 31 et seqq.); to his unparalleled generosity all writers bear testimony, so that the contemporary poet Abú Sa'íd ar-Rustamí exclaims in a threnody which he composed on his patron's death:* “God hath willed that the hopes of the needy and the gifts of the generous should perish by the death of Ibn 'Abbád, and that they should never meet again till the day of resurrection.” His love of books was such that, being invited by the Sámánid King Núḥ II b. Manṣúr to become his prime minister, he excused himself on this ground, amongst others, that four hundred camels would be required for the transport of his library alone.* Poet, philologist, patron of letters, statesman and wit, the Ṣáḥib stands out as one of the brightest ornaments of that liberal and enlightened Buwayhid dynasty of which, unfortunately, our knowledge is so much less complete than we could desire.

Amongst other men of letters and science belonging to this period, we can only mention the great Shí'ite theologian Ibn Ibn Bábawayh. Bábawayh († A.D. 991),* whose work on jurispru­dence called Kitábu man la yaḥḍuruhu'l-faqíh (“the Book of him who hath no lawyer at hand”) is still of high authority in Persia; the physician 'Alí b. 'Abbás al-Majúsí Al-Majúsí. († A.D. 994),* whose father was, as his name implies, an adherent of the Zoroastrian faith; the philologist al-Mubarrad, author of the celebrated Kámil;* and Avicenna. last, but not least, the great Avicenna (Abú 'Alí b. Síná), philosopher, physician, and statesman († A.D. 1037), who at this time, being only about seventeen years of age, established his medical reputation by curing the Sámánid ruler Núḥ II b. Manṣúr, whose favour and protection he thus secured. Of this great man we shall have more to say in a subsequent chapter.

We have now brought our history to the end of the tenth century of our era, at which point we may pause to survey, Review of this period. before proceeding further, the scientific and literary achievements of this period, its religious and philo­sophical movements, and more particularly the earliest developments of that revival of the Persian national literature which now, having once been inaugurated, goes forwards with ever-increasing force. This period which we are discussing began, as we have seen, with a Turkish ascendancy fraught with peril alike to the Caliphate and to the civilisation of Islám, and ended with the sudden rise to almost unlimited power of another Turk, Sulṭán Maḥmúd of Ghazna (succeeded Maḥmúd of Ghazna. to the throne, A.D. 998; died A.D. 1030), who, beginning with the small kingdom inherited from his father Sabuktagín, overthrew the tottering House of Sámán; invaded India in twelve separate campaigns (A.D. 1001-1024), wherein he slew innumerable “idolators,” destroyed many idol-temples, and permanently annexed the Panjáb; reduced Ghúr (A.D. 1012); annexed Transoxiana (A.D. 1016), and struck a death-blow at the House of Buwayh, from whom he wrested Isfahán. But between these two extremes we see Persia, ever more detached from the direct control of the Caliph, divided between several noble and enlightened dynasties of Persian extraction, the Houses of Sámán, Buwayh, and Ziyár, free once more to develop on its own lines and to produce in its native tongue a splendid and extensive literature.