THE origin of the term miḥrāb is somewhat obscure. In Islām it is usually particularly applied to the prayer-niche, and the article in the Encyclopaedia of Islām2 treats of it only as such, yet this technical usage of the word seems to be derived from a more primitive and general meaning, and on the balance of the evidence its emergence as a name for a part of the sanctuary appears to be Islāmic only. Miḥrāb has been discussed by Nöldeke,3 by Horovitz,4 and by Landberg.5 It has been discussed in connexion with architectural studies by Creswell,6 and by Sauvaget.7 These studies cite a number of references and sources which I have re-examined, but do not propose to repeat in toto. Each of these authorities shows conclusively that the employment in the technical sense of prayer-niche is not early.

The Funj were a people of uncertain origin who, in the early sixteenth century, established themselves in the valley of the Blue Nile with their capital at Sennar (Sinnār), and acquired the hegemony over the Muslim Arab tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. The present investigation attempts an analysis of the documentary information on the inception of the Funj hegemony. It develops certain criticisms made by Dr. A. J. Arkell in his article, ‘Fung origins’ (Sudan Notes and Records, XV, 2, 1932, especially pp. 209–13), in connexion with an hypothesis, which he has since abandoned, that the Funj were Shilluk. It does not deal with the controversial general problem of Funj origins.

qhɔ-qhô ί-kâʔ c, Lâhō t-m c.

The mountains have [springs of] water; the Lahu have proverbs. (#1012)

Proverbs are a particularly interesting type of sentential formulaic expression. This paper analyses a rich corpus of proverbs in Lahu, a language of the Central Loloish branch of Tibeto-Burman, in terms of both their syntactic structure and their semantic content. Overwhelmingly bipartite in form, these proverbs reflect cultural and moral preoccupations of the Lahu people, and are sometimes expressed in similes and metaphors that are quite obscure to the outsider. They make implicit or explicit analogies between phenomena in the outside world and aspects of the behaviour of human beings. They often use earthy, scatological imagery, which tends to be bowdlerized in Chinese translation. Many of them bear a resemblance to the cryptic Chinese folk similes known as xiēhòuyû 歇后语. The proverbs cited are compared to similar ones in other languages, revealing the universal aspects of folk wisdom. Most Lahu proverbs seem to be original creations, although some look like literal equivalents of Western or Chinese sayings. A full-scale comparative study of Sino-Tibetan proverbs would shed light on possible paths of transmission, whether via missionaries or Chinese or Indian influence.

This paper deals with a secret language (kalamo) spoken by the Anakara clan of the Antaimoro tribe in the south-east of Madagascar. According to their own tradition, they migrated to the island between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, from the Arabian peninsula. Their sacred writings (sorabe) are written in Arabic script in a mixture of Malagasy and Arabic. The secret language kalamo contains a large number of Arabic loanwords, as well as Malagasy words that have been coded by various phonological processes. The analysis of the loanwords helps to elucidate the origin of the kalamo, which may contain elements of a pre-existing Arabic pidgin. Their phonetic form shows that the Islamic migrants in Madagascar may indeed have come originally from the Arabian peninsula.

According to the medieval medical concept, ultimately going back to Galen, memory is a psychical faculty located in the posterior ventricle of the brain. When this faculty is affected by a disturbance of the balance of the four bodily humours, i.e., by too much moisture and/or coldness of the brain, forgetfulness will be the result. One way to treat this affliction is to restore the humoral balance by administering warm drugs. A popular but also notorious drug for forgetfulness was balādhur (Semecarpus anacardium L; marking-nut), indigenous in India, and called by the Arab physicians ‘ḥabb al-fahm’ (nut of apprehension). The popularity of the marking-nut is sometimes explained from the fact that its juice when exposed to the air turns into a black corrosive fluid which was used as an indelible ink for marking linen and woollen clothes. Another explanation is that the nut has the shape of a heart, cf. the Latin ‘anacardia’ and the Arabic epithet ‘ḥabb al-qalb’. The black, resinous, viscid and acrid juice of the nut is called ‘honey’ by the medieval physicians; it is, according to them, hot and dry in the fourth degree and is recommended for a variety of diseases, but above all forgetfulness.

In the year 577/1181–2, in a letter to the Caliph in Baghdad explaining his activities in Syria, Saladin writes that he is engaged in a struggle for Islam against a three-fold enemy—the infidel Frankish invader, the heretical and murderous Assassins, and the treacherous Zangid rulers of Mosul, whom he accuses of intelligence and even alliance with both Franks and Assassins.

It has been known for many years that the Mahānubhāvas used ciphers for the transmission of much of their religious literature in Marathi. They devised a number of such ciphers which are known in the sect by names such as sakaḷa, sundarī, anka lipī, etc., but of all these sakala lipī is by far the commonest—no doubt because its extreme simplicity commended it to the scribes. Its invention is traditionally ascribed to Ravalovyāsa, the author of Sahyādrī-varnana, some time around A.D. 1335, but the earliest references to it are in fifteenth-century texts which simply call it ravalobāsāci nāgara līpa. One text of approximately the same date, however, refers to it as sakalita līpa and within the living tradition of the sect it is always known as sakala lipī or sakalī. The name has been variously derived from Old Marathi sakala ‘all’, because it was used throughout the sect, and from Skt. sankalita, because it is full of abbreviations. The former seems more plausible. The cipher was the first to be introduced and is the most widely used, whereas later, more complex ciphers tend to be the private preserve of one or other of the Mahānubhāva āmnāya or sub-sects.

This article explores some important parallels and differences between certain Eastern Christian and Islamic heterodox (Alevi/Kizilbash, Yezidi and Ahl-e Haqq) cosmogonies, which shared and developed old cosmogonic themes such as the ‘primal ocean’ and the ‘earth-diver’-demiurge, and co-existed during the Ottoman period. The investigation reveals that some of the Eastern Christian versions of these cosmogonies have retained their archaic forms, but in most of them the earth-diver is identified with the Devil, a movement towards cosmogonic and religious dualism that could have been effected by both heretical and popular Christian diabology. Conversely, despite the existing traits of dualist and earth-diver cosmogonies in Northern and Central Asian non-Islamic Turkic and related religious traditions, a comparative analysis as demonstrated in this article shows that the Alevi/Kizilbash, Ahl-e Haqq and Yezidi cosmogonies did not absorb or develop these dualist features but rather tried to neutralize them by reinterpreting them in a largely monotheistic framework.

The Anglo-Russian Convention, signed at St. Petersburg on 31 August 1907, contained provisions relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. The text of the agreement would seem to suggest that the matters adjusted were purely local in character—an arrangement arrived at between two countries settling problems in far-away frontier regions. But the Anglo-Russian Convention was of much greater significance. It represented a change not only in Anglo-Russian relations, but in Britain's fundamental European policy. It also meant that the role of the Government of India, which had often been a powerful factor in the determination of foreign policy in the nineteenth century, became less significant. It seems highly probable, too, that in the years when Sir Edward Grey was Foreign Secretary (December 1905 to December 1916—holding office for a longer consecutive period than any other Foreign Secretary in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, the next being Castlereagh, 1812–22) the permanent staff of the Foreign Office exercised more influence and had a more decisive voice in the conduct of the country's foreign policy than they ever had before of have had since.

In Korea green-glazed celadon ceramics were manufactured during the Koryŏ kingdom (ad 918–1392), but by the end of the fourteenth century their manufacture ceased and they virtually disappeared from view until the 1880s when they began to be unearthed from tombs and other sites. This led to increased interest in them from Koreans, and especially the Japanese, Americans and Europeans. Focusing on British collections, this article outlines the collecting practices of Korean celadon wares from the time of their discovery in the 1880s to the market boom of the 1910s, culminating in the decrease in their availability in the 1930s. It will be argued that the desire for celadon wares was socially conditioned and that celadon were collected for a range of different, though not unrelated reasons, ranging from collectors' pursuit of unique Korean artworks, to their want of genuine antiquities and aesthetic perfection.

In societies where oaths and vows are taken seriously the problem inevitably arises of how to escape from them when necessary. The story of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 11.3Off. illustrates what might happen if no escape mechanism is sought. In both the Bible (Num. 30:3) and the Qur՚ān (5:89) we are told that we must fulfil our oaths and vows, but both scriptures also set out acceptable ways of atonement for certain occasions when fulfilment proves impossible (cf. Lev. 5:1 ff. and Qur՚ān loc. cit.). The atonement might then serve as an escape route for someone who is bound by an oath or vow which he can no longer keep. Other ways out were also provided by the law and its interpreters (sometimes known in Islam as the ahl al-ḥall wa՚l-՚aqd, ‘those who loose and bind’): the words used might be held to be invalid; recourse might be had to the principle that we cannot be held to vows which are beyond our capacity or are contrary to God's law; our state of mind at the time we made the vow (whether in anger, jest, or mental distraction) might be taken into consideration, etc. The tension thus generated between the desire to stress the seriousness of oaths and vows on the one hand, and the need to be realistic in recognizing human weakness on the other, could be considerable.

Kha, cf. Greek , is generally “cavity”; and in the Ṛg Veda, particularly, “the hole in the nave of a wheel through which the axle runs” (Monier-Williams). In Journ. U.P. Hist. Soc., vii, 44–5 and 62, Mr. A. N. Singh shows conclusively that in Indian mathematiqal usage, current during the earlier centuries of the Christian era, kha means “zero”; Sūryadeva, commenting on Aryabhaṭa, says “the khas refer to voids (khāni śūnyā upa lakṣitdāi) … thus khadwnake means the eighteen places denoted by zeros”.

The Avromān parchments, two (I and II) in Greek and one (III) in Parthian, were brought to England in 1913 by Dr. Sa'īd Khan Kurdistāni and were acquired soon afterwards by the British Museum. Professor E. H. Minns, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in his article ‘Parchments of the Parthian Period from Avroman in Kurdistan’, published in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1915, has translated and discussed at length the two Greek texts. The latest and most authoritative of several articles on the Parthian manuscript is that of Dr. H. S. Nyberg entitled ‘The Pahlavi Documents from Avroman’, in Le Monde Oriental of 1923. The summary of information relevant to the present paper given in the following three paragraphs is based on these articles.

Perhaps no question of historical-geographical interest relating to the ancient Middle East has been so frequently a subject of inquiry or brought a greater difference of opinion than has that of the location of the countries of Magan and Meluḫḫa. The problems of identification are particularly confused because widely separate areas appear to be indicated at different periods. Old Babylonian and Sumerian references seem to place these regions at the lower end of the Persian Gulf and along the coast of the Indian Ocean beyond, while texts of the late Assyrian period indicate Egypt and Nubia/Ethiopia

Of the 7, 000 manuscripts (including fragments) which were taken by Sir Aurel Stein, almost at random, from the great hoard in Tunhuang, some 380 bear dates, ranging from A.D. 406 to 995. Six are of the fifth century, and forty-four of the sixth. A few of the undated MSS. may be even earlier than 406, while it is highly probable that others are later than 995, seeing that the date 1035 is found in the similar collection at Paris. But in any case the period covered does not greatly exceed 600 years.

Modern tendencies in the linguistic development of Arabic, in both its literary and colloquial aspects, has for some time now been the subject of serious scholary study (see, e.g. Blau, 1978, Cantarino, 1974-5, Stekevych, 1970, amont others). Contact between different social groups and thus between different dialects and speech levels, has brought about changes in the actual speech of Arabic-speaking peoples which have been variously called koineization, levelling and classicization (or literarization) (cf. Blanc, 1960). These processes will be the subject of this paper.

English Translation: The ‘Song Of Bagauda’ In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God bless our Lord Muḥammad and his family, and his Companions, and his wives, and his offspring, and grant them peace.

Drawing on the large corpus of Chola period Tamil inscriptions, this paper attempts to clarify the meaning of the apparently obscure and neglected term in Tamil epigraphy, known as veḷam. The paper argues that the term in Chola period sources should best be understood as a “palace establishment” composed mostly of women (and sometimes men) of servile status. A relatively comprehensive review of the term in inscriptions and literature sheds significant light on the organization of the lower echelons of labour in the Chola royal household and the conditions under which men and women of this status were incorporated into such service. The paper argues for a reconsideration of the importance of the veḷam as an institution in Chola times, as well as the lives of its members, concluding with reflections on how the institution changed over time.

The onomasticon of the Elamite Fortification tablets from Persepolis, so generously placed at the disposal of Professor Benveniste and myself by Professor Hallock, keeps yielding precious pearls. Benveniste published in 1966 those which he had recognized. In the following year I sent to the printer a list of additional identifications, giving notice of more to follow. The present tribute to one of the giants of Iranian studies, whose massive work, countless discoveries, immense erudition, and many tokens of personal friendship have been a constant source of inspiration to me for decades, brings a selection of further identifications, as well as some revision of earlier views. The need to select was dictated by space-limit. An article containing what had here to be omitted, is being timed so as to appear in TPS shortly after the present one.

The dated documents belonging to this last half-century of the Stein Collection are more numerous than ever, but also for the most part scrappy and fragmentary. There are very few Buddhist canonical texts, but a considerable variety of miscellaneous prayers, eulogies, certificates, letters, contracts, calendars, inventories, and so forth. The general impression one obtains is of a period of gradually increasing poverty and political unrest, in which the civilization introduced by the Chinese is seriously threatened, and Buddhism, though still maintaining its position as the dominant religion, has greatly degenerated since the palmy days of the early T'ang dynasty.