anslators from Greek into Arabic, and, being
born a Greek, he was able to correct the translations of Honein bin
Ishak and others.

The number of translators, which amounted to about one hundred, might
have been increased if Arab literature had further developed itself by
incorporating works from other languages; but, as such was not the
case, translators appeared very few and far between after the
literature had attained to its highest perfection, at the end of the
third century of the Hijrah (A.D. 913).

The celebrated Ibn Al-Mukaffa was one of the earliest and best
translators. His full name is Abd-Allah Ibn Al-Mukaffa, but before he
made his profession of Islam he bore that of Ruzbeh. He was a native
of Har, a town in the province of Fars, and first served as secretary
to Daud bin Hobeirah, and then to Isa bin Ali, the uncle of the two
first Khalifs of the house of Abbas. He was an excellent poet,
letter-writer, and orator, equally skilled in his mother-tongue, the
Persian, as in the Arabic language, from the former of which he left
the splendid translations of--

(1) 'The Khodanamah,' a legend.

(2) 'The Amirnamah,' or prince-book.

(3) 'Kalilah wa Dimnah.'

(4) 'Merdak.'

(5) 'Biography of Nausherwan.'

(6) 'The Great Book of Manners.'

(7) 'The Small Book of Manners or Good
Habits.'

(8) 'The Book of Epistles.'

So far the 'Fihrist'; what follows is from Ibn Khallikan. Ibn
Al-Mukaffa was the secretary and most confidential servant of Isa bin
Ali, with whom he dined the day before he made his public profession
of Islam. Having sat down, he began to eat and to mutter according to
the custom of the Magians. 'How,' said Isa, 'you mutter like the
Magians, though resolved to embrace Islamism!' to which Ibn Al-Mukaffa
replied that he did not wish to pass a single night without being of
some religion. In spite of his conversion, he was always suspected of
freethinking, like Muti bin Iyas and Yahya bin Zaad, and one day, when
Al-Jahiz, the philologist, made the remark that they were persons the
sincerity of whose religious sentiments was doubted, one of the
learned, on hearing this, said: 'How is it that Al-Jahiz forgets to
count himself?'

When Khalil the prosodist was one day asked his opinion about Ibn
Al-Mukaffa, he said, 'His learning is greater than his wit;' and the
latter, being asked the same question concerning Khalil, replied, 'His
wit is greater than his learning.' Being a f