Premodern Arabic belles-lettres are not only known as being highly intertextual and polyphonic, but also as densely „populated“. Name-lists abound, toponyms as well, and almost every piece of poetry and prose appears as quotation attributed to a named individual, very often accompanied by a lengthy chain of transmitters (“isnad”) that not only authenticates the textual unit and reinforces the validity of the utterance, but also serves as space and time marker by anchoring the piece in a delimited moment of history. Therefore, when an author chooses not to mention names, though clearly quoting earlier authorities, this must be considered as deliberate literary strategy that needs to be interpreted. In my presentation, I will share my thoughts on a very famous Arabic encyclopedia of belles-lettres composed in tenth century Andalusia, which only mentions very few authorities and avoids giving “isnad”s and place-names, and ask what this mode of “anonymity” does and in how far it might be connected to the universalistic program of the work.