22. Note on an Early Persian Work on Ethics. 
By W. Ivanow. 
Karly Persian prose works composed in the V and Vie. 
A.H./X1-XIIc. A.D. never have been very numerous. In those 
times many learned authors still preferred to write in Arabic. 
Others were not lucky enough to draw the attention of the 
public to their works and have never emerged from obscurity. 
Of this originally limited literature comparatively little remains 
nowadays, and every new find of an early composition of this 
kind presents special interest to students. 
In the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal there are 
several works of this period, dealing with medicine, Sufism, 
theology, occult sciences, etc. Some of them are rare, but 
known in other libraries. Others have never been des- 
cribed, such as, for instance, the hagiological treatise by 
‘Abdu’l-lah Ansari, the Vabaqgat, which is very interesting with 
regard to its linguistic side,’ and also the Unsu't-ta@’ibin by 
Ahmad-i-Jam.? To this class also belongs the work which is 
the subject of the present note.® a 
It is a comparatively lengthy treatise on ethics and polities, 
apparently composed between 503 A.H./1109 A.D.. an 
508 A.H./1114 AD., by Abi’l-Qasim Nasr b. Ahmad ash- 
Shadani an-Nishabari. The first date is referred to several 
the introduction and the first bab are lost, and there are no 
indications as to the general plan or the size of the whole 
work. The title is given in the same colophon in a peculiar 


' For a detailed account of this work see No. 234 in the Catalogue o 
the Persian MSS. in the collection of the A.S.B., and a special paper ia the 
J-R.A.S., 1923, pp. 1-34, 337-382. : 
* Described in detail in the Catalogue, No. 1169. 
$ See a brief note in the same Catalogue, No. pire S 
$ Cf. fo 7v: a te SL na de KA 2 ,.9?. rf. 
ids: f. f. Tv Pst wy yee Ree 5 Ps 2 
oO Be 4 
é'' Poed Blemad 9 edt Klee p09 cy AF duyh ethos 
