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We give below from the two works al Mahasin wal Masavi and al Mahasin wal Azdad extracts bearing on Persian subjects. 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.
In the midst of them, an-Nadhin has also mentioned the grandsons of Naubakht. Not one of them wrote any Kitab al Mahasin which appears, therefore, to be the independent work of Umar ibn Farrukhan. This book, further, could not have been of a scientific astronomical, or mathematical nature as is obvious from its subject-matter which related to good manners and conduct.
Co-related with these books on "good qualities" stand, in our opinion, the books on "good morals and their opposite," or "goodness and wickedness," Kutub al Mahasin wal Azdad, or Kutub al Mahasin wal Masawi. Although in the Fihrist we do not come across books with this title, we have a book so named from the beginning of the tenth century whose author was Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Baihaki.
Under the title of Kitab al Mahasin wal Azdad we likewise possess a work ascribed to Jahiz. Both these books evidently go to a common origin. It is quite possible that antithesis was originally not excluded from these Kutub al-Mahasin, from which were developed a special species of educative treatises, those on "good qualities and their opposites."
It was composed doubtless after the book of Umar ibn Farrukhan, for Qutaiba flourished at the close of the reign of Mamun and his literary activities could be referred to the ninth century. Qutaiba undoubtedly interested himself in Persian literary materials. Hence it can be concluded that his Kitab al Mahasin was not foreign to the materials and in form could be the first imitation of Farrukhan.
Besides this place in the Fihrist, Umar ibn Farrukhan of Tabaristan has been mentioned in two other places. Here he is mentioned as the annotator of Ptolemy as translated by Batrik Yahuya ibn al Batrik and as the author of two books, one of astronomical contents and the other entitled Kitab al Mahasin, that is the book of good qualities and manners. This latter book demands a few lines from us.
Professor Inostranzev gives a list of passages of Iranian interest which are to be found in the Mahasin-wal masawi and in the Mahasin wal azdad giving references to pages in the European editions. Unfortunately I have not been able to procure the latter and cannot verify the allusions.
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