It is widely believed that the Rbbl bn Hfʿm grave inscription found at Qaryat al-Fāw is the earliest example of Old Arabic. The ten-line inscription – written in the Sabaic script – attests the common Arabic definite article, ʾl, plus several other non-Sabaic linguistic features. I argue that the definite article is not a suitable diagnostic of genetic affiliation, and other features, such as mimation, the conjunction ʿdky, and more, should also be given consideration. Through a close linguistic examination based on the principle of shared morphological innovations, I demonstrate that none of the morphological innovations which characterize Arabic are attested in this inscription. As such, its language is probably not a descendant of proto-Arabic. Our results further suggest that the ʾl- article, which has previously been used as a marker of Arabic, was simply one of many definite article forms which spread to Arabic, and other Semitic languages of Arabia, through areal diffusion.

In 1836, a British naval surgeon named J.G. Hulton collected lexical data on the Jibbali language spoken on the Omani island of Al-Ḥallaniya (Khuriya Muriya). This is the earliest Jibbali data known to have been collected by a European, and remains today the only published data on the dialect of that island. Wolf Leslau analysed this data (BSOAS XII, 1947, pp. 5–19) but Hulton's valuable material can now be reconsidered thanks to recent advances in our understanding of Jibbali and the other Modern South Arabian languages.

Many Arabic geographical texts from the medieval period portray the oecumene as comprising seven latitudinal climes. In general the middle clime, in which the majority of Muslim territories were located, was viewed as possessing the best environmental conditions, which progressively deteriorated the further one travelled north or south of this central territory. This theory of the climes was combined with ideas of humoral pathology in order to argue that those living in the central zones of the oecumene received numerous physiological and psychological benefits. Conversely, those like the Africans and the Turks, living at the peripheries of the oecumene, had neither rationality nor proportionate physiognomies because their humours were distorted by the harsh environmental conditions of these regions. This article, however, seeks to nuance the outline given above. While secondary studies have generally been happy to adopt uncritically this superficial understanding of the medieval Islamic worldview, which is gained from skimming the introductions to a few geographical works, few have questioned what (and where) is meant by the centre of the world, where did human habitation supposedly end, and was the medieval understanding of the seven climes uniform. These are some of the questions posed by the present investigation. I then go on to assess how far the notions derived from the theory of the climes were implemented in ethnological accounts of the inhabitants of the far north and south. In doing so I shall conclude that the standard conception of the medieval Islamic worldview masks numerous disagreements and debates in the writings of medieval scholars.

The Islamic tradition credits the promulgation of a uniform consonantal skeleton (rasm) of the Quran to the third caliph ʿUthmān (r. 644–656). However, in recent years various scholars have espoused a conjectural dating of the Quran's codification to the time of ʿAbd al-Malik, or have at least taken the view that the Islamic scripture was open to significant revision up until c. 700 ce. The second instalment of this two-part article surveys arguments against this hypothesis. It concludes that as long as no Quranic passages with a distinct stylistic and terminological profile have been compellingly placed in a late seventh-century context, the traditional dating of the standard rasm (excepting certain orthographical features) to 650 or earlier ought to be our default view.

This paper is about a rebellion in southern China in the first half of the tenth century and its depiction in historical sources from the tenth to the seventeenth centuries. At the core of this study is Zhang Yuxian, the rebel leader, and his allegiance to a spirit. The latter suggested moving from Guangdong, the territory of the Southern Han empire (917–971), and the original area of the rebellion, to Jiangxi, the territory of the Southern Tang empire (937–976). The approach of the paper is twofold: first, it examines the historical setting and context; and second, through a close reading of some of the major features of the sources, such as the labelling of Zhang as a yaozei, the adoption of red clothes by the rebels, and so forth, the essay makes evident the close relationship and dependency between successive historical texts.

Works produced by Xu Xuan, a Chinese scholar-official of the tenth century, on either side of the Southern Tang–Song divide reveal the challenges on the issue of loyalty he faced in serving more than one state. Xu's works suggest that a personal transfer of service brought complications for any official seeking to write about the past, but these could be addressed according to context. Under the Song, the requirements of the new orthodoxy forced compromises and concessions in the sentiments he expressed, but he was still able to maintain reverence for the Southern Tang and its achievements.