خلاصه ماشینی:
lIUSANNIFIN & ITS AUTHOR Two years ago~ when only 2 volumes of this ency• clopeedic Arabie work were published, a Hyderabad visitor to Rome was .
asked by a learned orientalist of that European metropolis as to the identity of the author of this remarkable work who nowhere mentioned his name in the book or on its title page as is usual.
It may be interesting briefly to recount here that the first regular collection of biography of Muslim or rather Arabic authors was written by the historian Ahmed bin Tambur of Baghdad in the 3rd century A.
He has laboriously collected an enormous mass of material for his great biographical encyclopserlia of the world of Islam, which aims at dealing with _practically every known author from the first up to the last century of the Hijra era.
As a matter of fact Abu Hatam and Abu Hamdan are not two separate authors, as is proved from a book called ' Ismaili Authors' which deals with authors of that sect and in which the works mentioned above are ascribed to Abu Hatam Ahmad bin Hamdan Ar-Razi.
Ahmad bin Muharnmad is a great author of Islamic jurisprudence in the 6th century.
" The author of this series is Maulana Mahmud Hasan Khan of Tonk, a great scholar and traditionist.
Alto• gether, the author has spent at least 30 years on his great work, which is expected to comprise about 25 volumes.