also the reputed
author of two books on Adab, perhaps among the most ancient ones in
Arabic literature.[2] One of these books called the Smaller was probably
contained in the other which is called the Larger and has the purely
Persian title of Mah farra Jushnas. (This is how the title is to be read
according to Hoffmann and Justi).[3] Since the interest of Muqaffa was
concentrated in the province of Persian culture it is indisputable that
his activity was not confined in this direction to one book and the
contents of the book have vestiges in a high degree of dependence on
Persian motifs. This is proved by a variety of circumstances. We have
descended to us his book called _Al Yatima_, a tract on that aspect of
morals which was especially diffused in the Sasanian epoch and was
devoted to politics and in form represented the species of writings
called Furstenspiegel.[4] A tradition of this kind of literature for
long continued to live in the Musalman writers and the typical
representative of the species seems to be the famous _Siyasat Nameh_, of
Nizam-ulmulk, the Saljuk Wazir. On some occasions it directly serves as
a source for the internal history of the Sasanian domination. It bears
particularly on didactic literature though it has been as yet very ill
studied from the comparative standpoint. The Sasanian influence is
perfectly obvious. Some portions of Al Yatima of Ibn Muqaffa may be
parallelled to corresponding remnants from Pahlavi literature in the
_Kabus Nameh_ and the _Siasat Nameh._[5] We know further that books
under the title of Persian Adab were spread among those who sympathised
with Mazdaism and Manichism in the circle of Moslem society.[6] These
books by their character were comparable to books on Mazdak but also to
Kalila wa Dimna.

[Footnote 1: Fihrist, 118, 18-29, and Ibn al Qifti's _Tarkh al hukama_
edited by Lippert, page 220, 1-10.]

[Footnote 2: Brockelmann, On the rhetorical writings of Ibn all Mukaffa,
Z.D.M.G. 53, 231-32.]

[Footnote 3: Hoffmann "Extracts from Syrian acts of Persian martyrs",
1880 page 289 note, and Justi, _Namenbuch_ 186.]

[Footnote 4: Precise information regarding its contents is rather to be
found in Ibn al Qifti than in the _Fihrist_. In the former the heading
is _Fi taat us Sultan_, in the latter _Fi rasail._ See _La perle
incomparable ou_ l'art du parfait courtisane de Abdallah ibn al-Muqaffa,
1906. See the French translation from the Dutch rendering of this
tract.]