[Footnote 1: See below and also my book on _The Materials from Arabic sources,_ &c., 63-66. Like Masudi in his _Kitab_ at Tambih, Asadi in his _Lughal al-Furs_ (Asadi's _neupersischen Worterbuch Lughat al-Furs,_ edited by P. Horn, 1897, 110, 1), identifies the word _ain_ with the word _rasam,_ practice or custom. As regards the word _ain_ in the Iranian languages see Horn _Grundriss der neu persischen Etymologie_, 15-16; Hubschmann, _Persische Studien_ 11, and B.G.A. IV, 175, and VIII, Glossarium IX. To understand the ancient usage of the term the modern Parsi expression _Dad wa ain din_ in the sense of religious law and custom helps us. In this phrase the word _dad_ corresponds to the modern Musalman _shariyat_ and the word _ain_ to _adat_. Regarding its special meaning in the Umayyad times see J. Wellhausen _Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz_ 189.]
[Footnote 2: Most probably in connection with the materials of this book stood A collection of Persian genealogy written by the well-known Ibn Khurdadbeh (Fihrist 149, 4), representing a peculiar antithesis to the numerous selections of Arab tribal and family genealogies.]
[Footnote 3: Here are first mentioned the two books translated by Jabala ibn Salim, namely, the _Book of Rustam and Isfandiyar_ and the _Book of Behram Chobin_ (the well-known Romance of the King about which, sea Noeldeke's Tabari 474-478), and further the _Book of Shahrzad and Aberviz_ (which no doubt was connected with the _Thousand and one Nights_), the _Book of Kar Nameh_ or the "Acts" of Anushirwan belonging to the same class of books as the _Kar Nameh of Ardashir_. Then the books that interest us are the _Book of Taj_, the _Book of Dara and the Golden Idol_, the _Ain Nameh_, the _Book of Behramgor and his brother Narseh_ and finally, one more _Book of Anushirwan._]
It is possible that the book of Ibn al Mukaffa was not the first translation of the Persian book since this title is applied by not a few other Arabic writers of the time to some of their own works. (For example, Abu Ubaida, See Goldziher _Muhammed Studien_ 1,198).
In his time Baron Rosen called attention to quotations from a certain _Book of Taj_ in _Uyunal Akhbar_ of Ibn Qutaiba.[1] These quotations are only to be found in the first part of the _Uyunal Akhbar_. All these quotations, eight in number, bear a didactic character, and excepting three, refer back to Kisra Abarviz and contain his testament to his sons (two), secretaries, treasurers and _hajibs_. Of the remaining three one bears on general maxims of practical politics. Another is a testament of an ancient Persian king to his Wazir. And the third is a maxim of one of the secretaries of a king. In this manner all these citations are of an ethicodidactic nature; only they have been invested with a historical environment and under ordinary circumstances would represent the general type of writings on political conduct for rulers, standing for the class of literature designated _Furstenspiegel_. A similar class of citations is preserved in the "speeches from the throne" and the counsels of the Sasanian kings which we come across in various Arab historical and anthological works bearing on Sasanian Persia, as also in the Shah Nameh.