However, the choice of the rarely used Persian word pehrest (fehrest/fehres/fahrasat) meaning "The List" as the title for a handbook on Arabic literature is noteworthy in this context.
From age six, he may have attended a madrasa and received comprehensive education in Islamic studies, history, geography, comparative religion, the sciences, grammar, rhetoric and Qurʾanic commentary.
Ibrahim al-Abyari, author of Turāth al-Insaniyah says an-Nadim studied with al-Hasan ibn Sawwar, a logician and translator of science books; Yunus al-Qass, translator of classical mathematical texts; and Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Naqit, scholar in Greek science.
[6] While attending lectures of some of the leading scholars of the tenth century, he served an apprenticeship in his father's profession, the book trade.
The Buyid caliph 'Adud al-Dawla (r. 356–367 H), was the great friend of arts and sciences, loved poets and scholars, gave them salaries, and founded a significant library.
He admired Abu Sulayman Sijistani, son of Ali bin Isa the "Good Vizier" of the Banu al-Jarrah, for his knowledge of philosophy, logic and the Greek, Persian and Indian sciences, especially Aristotle.
The physician Ibn Abi Usaibia (d. 1273), mentions an-Nadim thirteen times and calls him a writer, or perhaps a government secretary.
[7] The Kitāb al-Fihrist (Arabic: كتاب الفهرست) is a compendium of the knowledge and literature of tenth-century Islam referencing approx.
[14] This crucial source of medieval Arabic-Islamic literature, informed by various ancient Hellenic and Roman civilizations, preserves from his own hand the names of authors, books and accounts otherwise entirely lost.