I list Fawwaz's biographical subjects in their order of appearance. The Arabic transliteration is followed, for non-Arab subjects and when the title includes more than a name, patronymic and words of relation, by a translation. I have distinguished between patronymics appearing in the title (some readers may be curious to know which subjects are fully ‘patronymicised’) and further identifying information when there is little given in the title. When a subject is known by another or a fuller name, or where further information is helpful, I give that.

In trying to provide useful information I have not been overly consistent but have aimed for clarity. It should also be noted that the many spelling and other errors in Fawwaz's book as well as some obscure names have required considerable guesswork: clearly she (and/or her typesetter and musahhih) were also guessing at times. But I think the errors are indicative of her relative lack of ‘worldly’ knowledge or ability to check against sources in other languages and so I reproduce them while noting corrections. I expect that this book stretched the capacities of even the government press at Bulaq. Or perhaps her handwriting was not very clear for typesetters, who would have been unfamiliar with European names. But note that there are quite a few errors in Arabic names as well (and I doubt that I have caught them all). I have followed the table of contents that in my bound original copy precedes the work; clearly a few corrections were made at that stage, and so there are a few discrepancies between the TOC and the entry titles.

Words that I do not always translate include: ibna[t] (daughter [of]), bint (daughter [of]), zawja[t] (wife [of]), imra'a[t] (wife/woman [of]), jāriya[t] (concubine or ‘slave/entertainer’ [of]), ukht (sister [of]), shaqīqa[t] (full sister [of]), umm (mother of, often a part of given names).