(6) 'The Great Book of Manners.'
(7) 'The Small Book of Manners or Good Habits.'
(8) 'The Book of Epistles.'
So far the 'Fihrist'; what follows is from Ibn Khallikan. Ibn Al-Mukaffa was the secretary and most confidential servant of Isa bin Ali, with whom he dined the day before he made his public profession of Islam. Having sat down, he began to eat and to mutter according to the custom of the Magians. 'How,' said Isa, 'you mutter like the Magians, though resolved to embrace Islamism!' to which Ibn Al-Mukaffa replied that he did not wish to pass a single night without being of some religion. In spite of his conversion, he was always suspected of freethinking, like Muti bin Iyas and Yahya bin Zaad, and one day, when Al-Jahiz, the philologist, made the remark that they were persons the sincerity of whose religious sentiments was doubted, one of the learned, on hearing this, said: 'How is it that Al-Jahiz forgets to count himself?'
When Khalil the prosodist was one day asked his opinion about Ibn Al-Mukaffa, he said, 'His learning is greater than his wit;' and the latter, being asked the same question concerning Khalil, replied, 'His wit is greater than his learning.' Being a favourite with the Khalif, he took great liberties with Sofyan, the Governor of Busra, and insulted the memory of his mother. One day Sulaiman and Isa, the uncles of the Khalif Mansur, desired to obtain a letter of amnesty from him for their brother Abd-Allah, and they instructed Ibn Al-Mukaffa to compose one in the strongest terms, which he did, and added to it the following clause, 'Should the Prince of the Believers ever act treacherously towards his uncle Abd-Allah, then may he be divorced from his wives, may his slaves be free, and may his subjects be solved from obedience!' The Khalif's dignity was shocked, and he ordered the writer of this letter of amnesty to be forthwith executed, and the Governor of Busra, whom Ibn Al-Mukaffa had many times insulted, very gladly undertook the duty. Al-Madaini narrates that when Ibn Al-Mukaffa was brought before Sofyan, the latter asked him whether he remembered the insults he had heaped upon his mother, and added, 'May my mother really deserve those insults if I do not get you executed in a manner hitherto unheard of!' He also recalled Ibn Al-Mukaffa's joke about Sofyan's big nose, because he had one day asked the governor, 'How are you and your nose?' On another occasion, when the governor remarked that he never had reason to repent keeping silence, Ibn Al-Mukaffa replied, 'Dumbness becomes you; then why should you repent of it.' Accordingly Sofyan ordered the members of Ibn Al-Mukaffa's body to be chopped off, one after the other, and thrown into a burning oven, into which, last of all, the trunk of his body was also thrown. There are other accounts of his death, viz., that he was strangled in a bath, or shut up in a privy. One opinion, however, generally prevails, that the execution was not a public one. The date of it is uncertain—A.D. 756, 759, and 760, are all given; but the victim was only thirty-six years of age at the time.
A few remarks may be made about the support given to learning and men of letters by the Omaiyide and Abbaside Khalifs, as also by those of the Spanish or Western Khalifate.
The Omaiyide Khalifs, with their capital at Damascus, were generally patrons of science, poetry, architecture, song, and music. But all these branches of knowledge were at that time merely rudimental; and, of the fourteen sovereigns of the dynasty, only five really deserve the name of protectors of learning; and of these Abdul Malik (A.D. 684-705), and his son Walid I. (A.D. 705-715), were the most distinguished.
During the period of their Khalifate there were not only male, but also some female poets. All their poems are mostly short, and confined to amatory, laudatory, or vituperative compositions, called forth by the momentary circumstances in which the authors happened to be placed. These pieces do not represent either deep thought or profound wisdom, but they show the feelings of the people, and their state of civilization at the time in question.
During this Khalifate were also produced the earliest germs of stylistics, epistolography and mysticism, all of which were more fully developed under the Abbasides. The originator of the first two was the Katib Abd Al-Hamid, secretary to the last Omaiyide Khalif, and he is designated in an old Arabic rhyme as 'the father of all secretaries.' Epistolary writing, it was said, began with Abd Al-Hamid, and finished with Ibn Al-Amid. As regards mysticism, the origin of its doctrines is sometimes assigned to Oweis Al-Kareni, the Prophet's companion, who disappeared mysteriously in A.D. 658. But mysticism and Sufism were subsequently much developed by Muhi-uddin Muhammad, surnamed Ibn Al-Arabi, a most voluminous writer on these subjects. He was born at Murcia, in Spain, A.D. 1165, and after studying in that country, went to the East, made the pilgrimage, visited Cairo and other cities, and died at Damascus A.D. 1240. He is the author of many works, but the most remarkable of them are 'Revelations obtained at Mecca' and 'Maxims of Wisdom set as Jewels.' Both Makkari the historian, and Von Hammer Purgstall, in his history of Arabian literature from the earliest times, give a long account of him.
Of the Khalifs of the house of Abbas, the second, third, fifth and seventh, viz., Al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775), Al-Mahdi (A.D. 775-785), Harun-ar-Rashid (A.D. 786-809), and Al-Mamun (A.D. 812-833) were the most distinguished as patrons of art, science and literature. But after the translation of the 'Arabian Nights' into European languages, the name of Harun-ar-Rashid became the best known in Europe as the representative of the most brilliant period of the Eastern Khalifate, and as the great protector of Arabic literature.