Ibn an-Nadīm

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Abū 'l-Faraj Muhammad ibn Abī Yaʿqūb ibn Ishāq an-Nadīm al-Warrāq ( Arabic أبو الفرج محمد بن أبي يعقوب ابن إسحاق النديم الوراق, DMG Abū ʾl-Faraǧ Muḥammad b. Abī Yaʿqūb b. Isḥāq an-Nadīm al-Warrāq ), better known under the name Ibn an-Nadīm ( Arabic ابن النديم, DMG Ibn an-Nadīm ), (died on the 20th day of the month of Shābān , that is, on September 17, 995 or 998 ) was a Shiite scholar, bibliographer and bookseller. He became known as the author of the encyclopedic work Kitāb al-Fihrist كتاب الفهرست / 'Index; Catalog'.

Life

Little is known about the life of Ibn an-Nadīm. Some historians give its ancestry as Persian , but that is not certain. The choice of the rarely used Persian word pehrest (fehrest / fehres / fahrasat) as the title for a manual on Arabic literature is noteworthy in this context.

Like his father, he was a bookseller ( warrāq ) and copyist who earned his living by copying Arabic books, among other things. He lived in the “Byzantine Quarter” of Baghdad , a stay in Mosul is documented by him. Of his teachers he mentions al-Sirafi (died 978-9), Ali ibn Harun ibn al-Munaddschim (died 963) and the philosopher Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi . He belonged to the circle around ʿIsā ibn ʿAlī († 1001), the son of ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Jarrāḥ , the great vizier of Banu al-Jarrah , whom he praised for his thorough knowledge of the logic and science of the Greeks, Persians and Indians. Ibn an-Nadīm also received the Christian philosopher Ibn al-Chammar in his house . With these men he shared the admiration for philosophy, especially for Aristotle , and the Greek and Indian - pre-Islamic - ancient science, whose breadth and tolerance he admired.

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His great work, Kitāb al-Fihrist , according to his brief introduction, should be an index of all books written in Arabic, regardless of whether the authors were Arab or only used the Arabic language.

The Fihrist was written around 989/990 and handed down in two reviews in the following generations. The complete version contains ten discourses ( maqālāt ), the first six of which are detailed bibliographies on books of Islamic content:

  1. Description of the languages ​​of Arabs and non-Arabs, their characters and the revealed books
  2. The grammarians, their schools (Kufa and Basra) and their works
  3. Works on history, biographies , prince mirrors and genealogy
  4. Pre-Islamic and Islamic poets, their works and their biographies
  5. Scholastic theology
  6. Jurisprudence , the legal scholars and traditionalists
  7. Philosophy and ancient science
  8. Legends, fables, magic and allied
  9. Teaching of non-monotheistic beliefs ( Manicheans , Hindus , Buddhists and followers of Chinese religions)
  10. Alchemy

Book titles were only mentioned in the work if Ibn an-Nadim owned the books himself or if a credible source attested to their existence. Many writings that have not survived today were available to him as autographs .

The shorter version of the work contains - besides the introduction and the first section of the first discourse on characters and alphabets - only the last four discourses: the Arabic translation from Greek, Syrian and from other languages, together with Arabic books based on these translations were written. Possibly the short version was a preliminary work that was extended to the - ultimately also printed - final version.

Ibn an-Nadīm often mentions the size and number of pages of the books, so that buyers of copies could hardly be deceived by shorter versions. It is to his merit to have "written the most important and comprehensive literary history".

The work was first edited in two volumes by the German orientalist Gustav Flügel ; published posthumously, Leipzig 1871–1872. Another edition appeared in Cairo in 1928. The best edition, based on all previously known manuscripts that were not yet available to Gustav Flügel, was published in Tehran in October 1971 under the title "Kitāb al-Fihrist li-Ibn an-Nadīm" . It is characterized by precise indices of the author's name and work title in the index section (pp. 22–164). The editor Reza Taǧaddud had already translated the work into Persian in 1965.

literature

  • The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Brill. Suffer. Vol. 3, p. 895.
  • Ignaz Goldziher: Contributions to the explanation of the Kitāb al-Fihrist . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG), Vol. 36 (1882), pp. 278–284.
  • Johann Fück: New materials for Fihrist . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG), Vol. 90, (1936), pp. 298–321.
  • Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic Literature . Brill, Leiden 1967. Vol. 1, pp. 385-388.
  • Ibn an-Nadīm and Medieval Arabic Literature. Contributions to the 1st Johann W. Fück Colloquium (Halle 1987). Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz 1996.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Werner Sundermann : Al-Fehrest. In: Enzyclopædia Iranica. Ehsan Yarshater, accessed on August 15, 2010 (English, [...] Some scholars regard him as a Persian (Gray, p. 24; Nicholson, p. 362), but this is not certain. However, his choice of the rather rare Persian word pehrest / fehrest / fehres / fahrasat (cf. comments by W. Henning quoted in Borhān-e Qāṭeʿ, ed. M. Moʿīn, p. 1509, n.1) for the title of a handbook on Arabic literature is noteworthy in this regard [...] ).
  2. ↑ Friedrun R. Hau: Ibn an-Nadīm. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1023.
  3. ↑ a b The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Brill, suffering. Vol. 1, p. 386.
  4. ↑ The Fihrist of al-Nadīm , Bayard Dodge, Editor and translator, New York [u. a.] 1970, p. xxi
  5. ↑ a b Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic literature . Brill, Leiden 1967. Vol. 1, p. 386.
  6. ^ Johann Fück: New materials for the Fihrist . In: Journal of the German Oriental Society (ZDMG), Vol. 90, pp. 298–321.
personal data
SURNAME Ibn an-Nadīm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abu 'l-Faraj Muhammad ibn Abi Ya'qub ibn Ishaq an-Nadim al-Warraq
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Shiite scholar, bibliographer, bookseller of Arab or Persian origin
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century
DATE OF DEATH 995 or 998