ch we suggested above between the Parsi clergy and the
Iranophile party of the Shuubiya.

[Footnote 1: Shayed-na-shayed.]

[Footnote 2: _Shayast la-shayast_ West Pahlavi Texts, Part I, 1880.
Sacred Books of the East, Vol. V. 237-407.]

Furthermore, associated with these literary features was also that class
of Arabic books, so well known and the period of which interests us, the
books on _Questions and Answers._[1]

[Footnote 1: Kitab al Masael wa Jawabat.]

And this is precisely the form in which some of the better known of the
Parsi books have been cast, for instance, the _Minog-i-Khrad_[1] and the
_Dadistan_[2] The second of these books decidedly belongs to the ninth
century. Its contents no doubt, were strongly divergent from others
owing to its dependence on altered conditions.

[Footnote 1: Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXIV, 1-15.]

[Footnote 2: Sacred Books of the East XVIII, 1-277.]

We have already indicated the importance of the citations in early
Arabic anthologies incorporated from Persian historical works.[1] This
nature of quotations are to be found also in books on "good and bad
morals and conduct." Further we find embedded in Arabic works a
considerable amount of matter of great importance, a circumstance of
vital moment for the investigation of the survival of Persian literary
tradition. A number of passages similar to those found in these books
are undoubtedly embodied in various Arabic anthologies. We give below
from the two works _al Mahasin wal Masavi_ and _al Mahasin wal Azdad_
extracts bearing on Persian subjects.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Noeldeke "National Epos" 13.]

[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 rea