Author:\u00a0Devin Stewart
\nInternational Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 39, 2007<\/p>\n
Despite widespread recognition of the tremendous importance of the Fihrist itself, Ibn al-Nadim has been underestimated in modern scholarship. Many have viewed him as a bumbling bookshop owner who, as a hobby, collected lists of old books in a cluttered office at the back of his shop. He may have been a connoisseur of book lore and trivia, but he was not himself a serious scholar, merely reporting what he had read or what others had told him. This view must change. Ibn al-Nadim should be taken seriously as a substantial thinker in his own right, an intellectual historian who, like his erudite and more touted colleagues, carefully crafted original interpretations of the past, and in some cases may be equally if not more insightful than they are. Bibliography: Author:\u00a0Devin Stewart International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 39, 2007<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[244],"class_list":["post-1979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-references","tag-devin-stewart"],"yoast_head":"\n
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\nStewart, Devin; The Structure of the Fihrist: Ibn al-Nadim as Historian of Islamic Legal and Theological Schools,\u00a0International Journal of Middle East Studies<\/em>, Vol. 39, 2007, 369-387 p.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"