[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 read conjecturally as _Rushna nibik_.[2] Such a name of a book we know to exist in Middle Persian literature.[3] [Footnote 1: _Kitab Adab Jawanshir_]. [Footnote 2: As regards the mutilation of Persian proper names in the Fihrist, such comparatively wellknown books as _Khuday_ Nameh appear in some of the manuscripts of the Fihrist as Baktiyar Nameh instead of _bakhuday Nameh_; see Rosen's essay on the Translations of the Khuday Nameh, 177.] [Footnote 3: West; Sacred Books of the East Vol. V. page 241, note 1, and Sacred Books of the East Vol. III, 169. [The first authority is not quite clear to me. The second authority is evident: "writing which the glorified Roshna, son of Atur-frobag, prepared--for which he appointed the name of the _Roshan Nipik_." Tr.] _Re_ the name of Rushen see Justi _Namenbuch_ 262 under the word Rozanis.] * * * * * Books of this title in Pahlavi literature related to a variety of religious problems and treated of ethicodidactic themes. The same title, further, we find in the Middle Persian literature. This is the title of the wellknown book of Nasir-i-Khusrao, namely, _Rushnai Nameh_, a considerable portion of which manifests Shia and Sufistic influences and which by its nature must have been connected with ethico-didactic literature.[1] It is quite possible that Ar Rayhani interested himself in Persian of ethics and morality literature and in Persian _Adab_ and gave his book the name of the 'Book Light' which treated of questions of this nature. This book formed, as no doubt its author did, the uniting link between the didactic Parsi clerical writings and the ethical literature of Islam. [Footnote 1: GIPh Vol. II, 280.]