A literary history of Persia

372of Islam. This Sabuktagin was originally one of the Turkishslaves of Alptagm,himself in turn one of the Turkish slavesand favourites of 'Abdu'l-Malik the Samanid ;and he enlargedthe littlekingdom founded by his predecessors Alptagin and histwo sons Ishaq and Balkatagin in the fastnesses of the SulaymanMountains by the capture of Pi'shawar from the Rajputs, andby the acquisition of the government of Khurasan in A.D. 994under the nominal suzerainty of the Samanids.In the literary history of this period we have to notice firstthe death of the Persian poet Daqiqi (A.D. 975), who began thecomposition of the Shahndma which was after-Literary history. . .of this period. wards so gloriously completed by r irdawsf. AboutDaqiqi. .. .a year later was composed a very important Arabicwork, now rendered accessible to all scholars in the excellentedition of Van Vloten (Leyden, 1895) named " the Keys of theSciences " (Mafdtlhul- l Ulkm\ by Abu 'Abdi'llah Muhammadb. Ahmad b. Yusuf al-Khwarazmi, which, in aThe'uirimtlk ul ~ small compass, gives a conspectus of the sciences,both indigenous and foreign, known to theMuslims of that time, together with their terminology.Aboutthe same time Ibn Hawqal J re-edited al-IstakhrTs,Ibn-Hawqal. ... ."--r-frecension or the geography composed by AbuZayd al-Balkhi, a pupil of the philosopher at-3CindI. Abouta year later (A.D. 978) died the Arabic gram-At-Si'rafi. . o/ /-/manan as-birari,iwho was notionly aTIrersianbut the son of a Zoroastrian named Bihzad. In A.D. 980, wasborn the great philosopher and physicianAbu 'AHb. Sfna (Avicenna), also a Persian. A year later diedof some note, Abu 'Abdi'llah Muhammad b.a mysticKhaftf of Shiraz. In A.D. 982 died Ibrahim b. Hilal as-Sabf,ibn Khafif the one of the heathen of Hararn, whose greatmy stic.- A? -Sabi. history of tne Buwayhids, entitled Kit&bu't-TAjnot come(" the Book of the Crown "), has unfortunatelyI*This forms the second volume of de Goeje's Bibliotheca GeographorumArabicorum (Leyden, 1873).