A 10th Century A.D Survey of Islamic Culture Abu 'l-Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Nadim Primary Author mixed material bibliography Colombia University Press Great Books of the Islamic World, Inc 1970 en English

Text

Jilid 2; 1149 hlm The Catalog (Kitab al-fihrist) by Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995 AD) is an index of all books written in Arabic either by Arabs or non-Arabs and contains ten discourses. The first six of them deal with books on Islamic subjects: 1. the Scriptures of Muslims, Jews and Christians with emphasis on the Quran and Quranic sciences; 2. grammar and philology; 3. history, biography, genealogy and related subjects; 4. poetry; 5. scholastic theology (kalam); 6. law and tradition. The last four discourses deal with non-Islamic subjects. 7. philosophy and the ancient sciences; 8. legends, fables, magic, conjuring Inc; 9. the doctrines of the non-monotheistic creeds; 10. alchemy. The author, a bookseller, often mentions the size of a book and the number of pages so buyers would not be cheated by copyists creating shorter versions. He refers often to copies written by famous calligraphers, bibliophies and other libraries and speaks of an auction and of the trade in books. In the opening section he deals with the alphabets of 14 people (Arabs and non-Arabs) and their manner of writing and also with the writing-pen, paper and its different varieties. Agama Islam 297 Nad t 1871031621 Guided by Faith and Knowledge YPSA Digital Library 297 Nad t 004567 My Library The_Fihrist.jpg.jpg 5293 2025-12-01 12:02:24 2025-12-01 12:27:43 machine generated