The 'Kitab al-Fihrist' was written by An-Nadim in A.D. 987, and is divided into ten sections, dealing with every branch of letters and learning. It gives the names of many authors and their works long since extant, and shows the enormous amount of writings produced by the Arabs during the periods under review, up to A.D. 987, the date of the author's work. A short account of this ancient and curious book has been given in the _Journal Asiatique_ for December, 1839, and from the work itself Von Hammer Purgstall has been able to gather that the 'Thousand and One Nights' ('Arabian Nights') had a Persian origin. In the eighth section of the 'Fihrist' the author says that the first who composed tales and apologues were the kings of the early Persian dynasties, and that these tales were augmented and amplified by the Sasanians (A.D. 228-641). The Arabs then translated them into their own language, and composed other stories like them. Ibn Khallikan, the most worthy of biographers, must also be mentioned here, though he died in A.D. 1282, twenty-four years after the fall of Baghdad, having been born in A.D. 1211. This very eminent scholar and follower of Shafa'i doctrines, was born at Arbela, but resided at Damascus, where he had filled the place of Chief Kadi till the year A.D. 1281, when he was dismissed, and from that time to the day of his death he never went out of doors. He was a man with the greatest reputation for learning, versed in various sciences, and highly accomplished. He was a scholar, a poet, a compiler, a biographer and an historian. By his talents and writings he merited the honourable title of the most learned man and the ablest historian. His celebrated biographical work, called the 'Wafiat-ul-Aiyan,' or Deaths of Eminent Men, is the acme of perfection. This work was translated from the Arabic by Baron MacGuckin de Slane, a member of the council of the Asiatic Society of Paris, and printed by the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland in A.D. 1842, 1843, 1868 and 1871. For all those who wish to gain a knowledge of the legal literature of the Muhammadans it is a most valuable work, as the Baron has added to the text numerous learned notes, replete with curious and interesting information relating to the Muhammadan law and lawyers. Ibn Khallikan died, aged seventy-three lunar years, in the Najibia College at Damascus, and was buried in the cemetery of As-Salihiya, a well-known village situated on the declivity of Mount Kasiun, a short distance to the north of Damascus, and from which a splendid view of the town and its surrounding gardens is obtained. When lately there I made inquiries about the tomb of this great Arab _litterateur_, but without success. His tomb has quite disappeared, and his name seemed to be forgotten; but his work still lives, an everlasting monument of his industry and his intelligence.