el-Fihrist

Also known as Kitāb al-Fihrist

The '''' () (The Book Catalogue'') is a compendium of the knowledge and literature of tenth-century Islam compiled by Ibn al-Nadim (d. 998). It references approx. 10,000 books and 3,500 to 3,700 authors, despite being incomplete. A crucial source of medieval Arabic-Islamic literature, it preserves the names of authors, books and accounts otherwise entirely lost. is evidence of Ibn al-Nadim's thirst for knowledge among the sophisticated milieu of Baghdad's intellectual elite. As a record of civilisation transmitted through Muslim culture to the Western world, it provides unique classical materi