[Footnote 2: See Part II.]

The list of Persian subjects comprised in these Arabic books afford us a
sufficient idea of the wealth and variety of the material on these
points to be recovered from Arabic discourses on manners and morals.




CHAPTER VII

The Book of Ali Ibn Ubaida ar Raihani


_PAHLAVI RUSHNAI NAMEH_.

We spoke above about the Arabic writer Ali ibn Ubayd ar Rayhani who was
prone to Persian cultural tradition in general and to the literary
tradition in particular. Besides the ethico-didactic book, _Mehr Adar
Jushnas_, he is the reputed author of a book on Adab which has a Persian
title (Fihrist 1, 119, 22 and II, 52),[1] and also another book the
title of which could not be deciphered by Flugel when he edited the text
of the Fihrist, (Fih. 119, 21). The title consists of two words which
can be read conjecturally as _Rushna nibik_.[2] Such a name of a book we
know to exist in Middle Persian literature.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Kitab Adab Jawanshir_].

[Footnote 2: As regards the mutilation of Persian proper names in the
Fihrist, such comparatively wellknown books as _Khuday_ Nameh appear in