Ibn al-Nadim
Abū 'l- Faraj Muhammad ibn Abī Ya ʿ qūb ibn Ishaaq at - Nadim al - Warraq (Arabic أبو الفرج محمد بن أبي يعقوب ابن إسحاق النديم الوراق, DMG Abū ʾ l - Faraǧ Muḥammad b. Abī Ya ʿ qūb b. Ishaq an- Nadim al - Warraq ), better known as Ibn al - Nadim (Arabic ابن النديم, Ibn an - Nadim DMG ), ( † September 17, 995 or 998 ) was a Shia scholar, bibliographer and bookseller. He is best known as author of the encyclopedic work Kitāb al - Fihrist كتاب الفهرست /, index; Catalogue '.
Life
Little is known about the life of Ibn al - Nadim. Some historians give his ancestry as Persian, but this is not certain. The choice of the rarely used Persian word pehrest ( fehrest / Fehres / fahrasat ) as the title of a handbook on Arabic literature is noteworthy in this context, however.
Like his father, he was a bookseller ( Warraq ) and Kopist, who earned his living, among other things with the copy of Arabic books. He lived in Baghdad, a stay in Mosul occupied by him. From his teachers, he mentions al - Sirafi (d. 978-9 ), Ali ibn Harun ibn al - Munaddschim (d. 963) and Abu Sulayman al - philosophers Mantiqi. He belonged to the circle around a son of Ali bin Isa, the Grand Vizier of Banu al - Dscharrah, whom he praised for his thorough knowledge of the logic and science of the Greeks, Persians and Indians. Ibn an - Nadim received in his house even the Christian philosopher Ibn al - CHAMMAR. With these men he shared the admiration of philosophy, especially Aristotle, and the Greek and Indian - pre-Islamic - ancient science whose width and tolerance he admired.
Work
His great work, Kitāb al - Fihrist, should his brief Introduction It be an index of everything written in Arabic books, regardless of whether the authors were Arabs or only used the Arabic language.
The Fihrist 938 was published and delivered in subsequent generations in two reviews. The full version includes ten discourses ( maqālāt ) representing the first six detailed bibliographies of books Islamic content:
Book titles were listed in the work only when Ibn an - Nadim had the books themselves or a credible informant testified their existence. Many fonts that are no longer received today, were to him as autographs available.
The shorter version of the work includes - in addition to the introduction and the first section of the first discourse on the characters and alphabets - only the last four discourses: the Arabic translation from the Greek, Syriac, and other languages , together with Arabic books based on these translations were written. Maybe the short version was a preparatory work to the - was extended final version - ultimately printed.
Ibn an - Nadim often mentions the scope and page number of the books, so buyers of copies could be difficult cheated by shorter versions. It is thanks to him " to have written the most significant and most comprehensive literary history ".
The work for the first time the German orientalist Gustav wing edited in two volumes; published posthumously, Leipzig from 1871 to 1872. Another edition appeared in 1928 in Cairo. The best, according to all known manuscripts, which were not yet available Gustav wing, produced Edition in October 1971 in Tehran under the title " Kitāb al - Fihrist li - Ibn an - Nadim " has been published. It is characterized by accurate indices of the author's name and work titles in the register part (pp. 22-164 ). The Editor Reza Taǧaddud had in 1965 translated the work into Persian.