al-Fihrist

"Al-Fihrist" (The Catalogue) by Abu al-Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Nadim. It is an index of the books of the peoples and their sciences, with the titles of the books and their authors, arranged in ten treatises. It is among the widest surviving accounts of books and authors from the fourth century AH. ²

At the start of his book the author declares that it is a catalogue of the books of the peoples, Arab and non-Arab, those that exist in the Arabic language and script, across the categories of knowledge. It includes the reports on their authors, their classes, their genealogies, the dates of their births, their ages and their deaths, and their places, from the beginning of each science to his own time, the year 377 AH. ³

The treatises cover the languages of the peoples and their scripts, books of the revealed laws, and the sciences of the Qur'an and its readers; then the grammarians, the transmitters of reports, the kings, the scribes, the boon companions and the singers; then the classes of the pre-Islamic and Islamic poets. After these they cover the theologians, the jurists and the hadith scholars, the philosophers and the physicians, the storytellers and the magicians, the doctrines of the Sabians and the Dualists and other peoples, and finally the alchemists. ³

At the end of the first treatise he notes that this is the latest of what he had written on it up to the day of composition, at the beginning of Sha'ban 377 AH. ⁴