The Fihrist: A 10th Century AD Survey of Islamic Culture

The Catalog (Kitab al-Fihrist) by Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995 AD) is an index of all books written in Arabic either by Arabs or non-Arabs and contains ten discourses. The first six of them deal with books on Islamic scriptures, grammar, history, poetry, scholastic theology, law and tradition. The last four focus on non-Islamic subjects such as philosophy, legends, doctrines of non-monotheistic creeds, and alchemy. The author, a bookseller, often mentions the size of a book and the number of pages so buyers would not be cheated by copyists creating shorter versions. He refers often to copies written by famous calligraphers, bibliophiles, and other libraries and speaks of auctions and the trade in books. The opening section discusses alphabets, writing tools, paper varieties, and includes remarks on various cultures' writing systems.