Mukaffa and partly from another translator with the only difference that the anonymous writer is oftener more concise than Tabari.  Again the version which does not proceed from Ibn Mukaffa is for the most part in accord with the epitome of the story of the Sasanides in the introduction to Yakubi’s History of the Abbasides; there the excellent author occasionally subjoins extraneous information.  More often than not this presentment is in touch with Ferdausi.  I am unable to aver from whom has originated this other recension of the story of the Sasanides.  We know indeed the names of a number of persons who redacted the History of Persia, originally in Pahlavi, for Arab readers.  But though we can collect a few notices of some of the authors mentioned, we know nothing in particular about them and are completely in the dark about the special nature of their work.  All that we can postulate as established is that they wrote posterior to Ibn Mukaffa.  The latter is always mentioned in the first place.  Muhammad bin Jahm who is regularly cited next after him and bears the surname of Bermaki, was a client of the Barmecides, who came to power a long while after the death of Ibn Mukaffa.  Ifc may be supposed that they all laid under contribution the production of their celebrated predecessor.  How they individually set about their work, whether perhaps some of them tapped non-Persian tradition; also, how far one or other of them utilized the novels of which there were probably many in Pahlavi—­this we are no longer in a position to determine.  Again this too remains a mystery whence Tabari came by most of the accounts touching the Persians, which are conspicuous by their absence in the anonymous Codex.  To clear this whole ground it would appear to be expedient in the first place to set apart all that for which Ibn Mukaffa directly or indirectly is responsible.  This I have done in the footnotes but an advance is possible in this direction.  On the other hand, we must keep Ferdausi steadily before our eyes.  Whatever in Tabari and other Chroniclers does not issue from Ibn Mukaffa and is not represented in Ferdausi likewise merits special study.

[Sidenote:  Direct Sources of Ferdausi.]

[Sidenote:  The Persian prose Shahname was not derived from Arabic but Pahlavi.]

A superficial reading of Firdausi would engender the view that he obtained his material partly from Pahlavi books direct and partly from the oral communication of competent renconteurs.  That this is only a deceptive illusion we conclude at once from his strong resemblance not only in the main features but also in the details and the order, with Arab writers some of whom were much anterior to him.  Firdausi positively knew no Pahlavi and as for Arabic he knew next to nothing.  He did employ written sources preponderatingly if not exclusively and these were in modern Persian.  His principal authority was, according to the introduction mentioned above, a translation of the old Book of Kings