Turning now to the Mafátíhu'l-'Ulúm, we find the sciences primarily divided into two great groups, the indigenous or Arabian, and the exotic, which are for the most part Greek or Persian.

1. Jurisprudence (fiqh), discussed in 11 sections, including First Principles (uṣúl), and Applications (furú'), such as Legal Purity; Prayer; Fasting; Alms; Pilgrimage; Buying and Selling; Marriage; Homicide, Wounding, Retaliation, Compensation, and Blood-wit, &c.

2. Scholastic Philosophy (kalám), discussed in 7 sections, in­cluding its subject-matter; the various schools and sects of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Gentiles (Persians, Indians, Chaldæans, Manichæans, Marcionites, Bardesanians, Mazdakites, Sophists, &c.); Arabian heathenism, and the First Principles of Religion discussed and established by this science.

3. Grammar (naḥw), discussed in 12 sections.

4. The Secretarial Art (kitábat), discussed in 8 sections; including explanations of all the technical terms employed in the various Government offices.

5. Prosody ('arúḍ) and the Poetic Art (shi'r), discussed in 5 sections.

6. History (akhbár), discussed in 9 sections; especially the history of Ancient Persia, Muhammadan history, pre-Muhammadan history of Arabia, especially Yaman, and the history of Greece and Rome.

7. Philosophy (falsafa), discussed in 3 sections, including its sub­divisions and terminology; the derivation of the word (correctly explained from the Greek); and the proper position in relation to it of Logic (manṭiq), the Natural Sciences (Medicine, Meteorology, Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, and Alchemy), and the Mathematical Sciences, Geometry, Astronomy, Music, &c.).

8. Logic (manṭiq), discussed in 9 sections.

9. Medicine (ṭibb), discussed in 8 sections, including Anatomy, Pathology, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Diet, Weights and Measures, &c.

10. Arithmetic (arithmátíqí, 'ilmu'l-'adad, ḥisáb), discussed in 5 sections, including the elements of Algebra.

11. Geometry (handasa, júmetriya), discussed in 4 sections.

12. Astronomy ('ilmu'n-nujúm), discussed in 4 sections, treating of the names of the Planets and Fixed Stars; the composition of the Universe according to the Ptolemaic system; Judicial Astrology; and the instruments and apparatus used by astronomers.

13. Music (músíqí), discussed in 3 sections; including an account of the various musical instruments and their names, and musical notation and terminology.

14. Mechanics ('ilmu'l-ḥiyal; “the Science of Devices”), in 2 sections, including Hydrostatics.

15. Alchemy (kímiyá), in 3 sections, including an account of the apparatus, the substances, and the processes used by those who practice it.

The Fihrist, or “Index,” of Muḥammad b. Isḥáq an-Nadím is one of the most remarkable and valuable works in the Arabic language which has survived to our days. Manuscripts of it are rare, and more or less defective. Flügel's edition is based on two Paris MSS. (of which the more ancient codex con­tains the first four of the ten Maqálát or “Discourses” into which the book is divided, and the more modern, trans­cribed for de Slane in Constantinople, presumably from the MSS. numbered 1134 and 1135 in the Küprülü-zádé Library, the latter portion of the work, from the fifth section of the fifth discourse onwards); two Vienna MSS., both incorrect and incomplete; the Leyden MS., which contains only Maqálas vii-x; and two Leyden fragments.* Sprenger hazarded a conjecture that the work was in reality a Catalogue raisonné of some large library, but this view is rejected by Brockelmann.

*

Be this as it may, I know of no Arabic book which inspires me at once with so much admiration for the author's enormous erudition, and so much sadness that sources of knowledge at once so numerous and so precious as were available when he wrote should, for the most part, have entirely perished. Of authors who are known to us only by a few small fragments, he enumerates dozens or scores of works, but even these are the fortunate few, for the majority are known to us only or chiefly by his notices. His preface is such a model of con­ciseness, such a pleasing contrast to the empty rhetoric which disfigures, as a rule, at any rate the opening pages of most later Arabic and Persian works, that I cannot forbear translating it here.

“Lord, help man by Thy Mercy to reach upwards beyond pre­liminaries to conclusions, and to win to the aim in view without Translation of Preface to the Fihrist. prolixity of words! And therefore have we limited ourselves to these words at the beginning of this our Book, seeing that they sufficiently indicate our object in compiling it, if it please God. Therefore we say (and in God do we seek help, and of Him do we pray a blessing on all His Prophets and His servants who are single-hearted in their allegiance to Him: and there is no strength and no power save in God, the Supreme, the Mighty):—This is the Index of the books of all peoples of the Arabs and non-Arabs whereof somewhat exists in the language and script of the Arabs, on all branches of knowledge; together with accounts of their compilers and the classes of their authors, and the genealogies of these, the dates of their births, the extent of their lives, the times of their deaths, the location of their countries, and their virtues and vices, from the time when each science was first discovered until this our age, to wit the year three hundred and seventy-seven of the Flight (= A.D. 987-8).”

The author then immediately proceeds to summarise the contents of his book in the following epitome:—

First Discourse, in three Sections.

Section i. Describing the languages of the different peoples, Contents of the Fihrist.

Arab and non-Arab, the characteristics of their writings, the varieties of their scripts, and the forms of their written character.

Section ii. On the names of the Books of the Law (i.e., the Scriptures) revealed to the different sects of Muslims (i.e., Jews, Christians, and Sabeans)* and the different sects of those who follow them.

Section iii. Describing the Book “which falsehood approacheth not from before nor from behind, a Revelation from One Wise and Laudable”;* and the names of the books com­posed on the sciences connected therewith, with notices of the Readers, and the names of those who handed down their traditions, and the anomalies of their readings.

Second Discourse, in three Sections, on the Grammarians and Philologists.

Section i. On the Origin of Grammar, with accounts of the grammarians of the School of Baṣra, and the Stylists of the Arabs, and the names of their books.

Section ii. Account of the Grammarians and Philologists of the School of Kúfa, and the names of their books.

Section iii. Account of a school of Grammarians who strove to combine the views of the two schools (above mentioned), and the names of their books.

Third Discourse, in three sections, on History, Belles Lettres, Biography, and Genealogies.

Section i. Account of the Historians, Narrators, Genealogists, Biographers, and Chroniclers, and the names of their books.

Section ii. Account of the Kings, Secretaries, Preachers, Ambassadors, Chancellors, and Government Officials (who composed books), and the names of their books.

Section iii. Account of the Courtiers, Favourites, Minstrels, Jesters, and Buffoons (who composed books), and the names of their books.

Fourth Discourse, in two sections, on Poetry and Poets.

Section i. On the groups of the Heathen Poets, and such of the Muslim poets as reached back to the Pagan Period (of the Arabs), and of those who collected their díwáns, and the names of those who handed down their poems (till they were collected and edited).

Section ii. On the groups of the Muslim Poets, including the modern poets down to this our time.

Fifth Discourse, in five sections, on the Scholastic Philosophy and the School-men.

Section i. On the origin of the Scholastic Philosophy, and of the School-men of the Mu'tazilites and Murjites, and the names of their books.