Professor M. J. Kister, in a justly celebrated article on the meaning of the word taḥannuth, takes notes only casually of the related word ḥinth, which, he implies, means sin. Montgomery Watt had previously noted that ‘ḥinth is properly the violation of or failure to perform an oath, and so more generally sin.’ These are of course correct reflections of the Muslim lexicographical tradition. But, I shall argue in this essay, they do not exhaust the connotations of the word ḥinth: indeed they are probably secondary developments from the meaning which I shall explore here. It is not the least benefit of my proposal that it may—after a lengthy exploration of juristic vocabulary—cast new light on the meaning of the word taḥannuth, for so long a crux in the academic study of the biography of the Muslim Prophet.

In 1989 Jadranka Gvozdanović published data of the ‘Yakkhaba’ transitive verbal paradigm. In the present paper these data are identified as Yakkha, re-arranged and interpreted. Comparisons are made with other Kiranti verbal agreement systems and with my model of the Proto-Kiranti verb.

1. Yakkhaba, Yakkha and Yakthungba

Kiranti languages are native to eastern Nepal and the western fringe of Sikkim. The Kiranti branch of the Tibeto-Burman is characterized by verbal morphologies which by Tibeto-Burman standards may be called complex. The Kiranti languages are traditionally divided into Limbu, Yakkha and the Rai languages. Limbu, at the far eastern extent of the Kiranti homeland, has several dialects, of which (Weidert and Subba, 1985) and Phedāppe (van Driem, 1987) are the best described. Yakkha occupies an intermediate position and is spoken in the vicinity of Cainpur in Saṅkhuvā Sabhā district on the slopes east of the Arūṇ river. Rai (Nep. Rāī) is a highly heterogeneous group of languages. This has to do with the fact that the name Rai, although convenient, is not a proper linguistic designation, but represents what in Nepal is perceived to be an ethnic grouping.

There is evidence that a particular musical instrument was used by various Sino-Tibetan groups to convey speech, both for courting and for religious purposes. The Proto-Sino-Tibetan etymon for this gourd reed-organ is reconstructible as *s-jan. Its use as a speech surrogate is widely reported, from the earliest sources to the present. It is still used thus by many Tibeto-Burman groups.

The land sale contracts of the late eleventh century published here are important for several reasons. First, they are the oldest known legal documents written in Turkish. Very many Uighur-Turkish civil documents were found in the more eastern parts of the Tarim basin, but none of those appear to be older than the thirteenth century. On the other hand, there are Central Asian legal documents in several non-Turkish languages from as early as the first centuries of our era. After the Turks had penetrated the area in alternately warlike and peaceful manner and become owners of land, they may have gone on using the local vernaculars for such purposes, as they adopted many other facets of local life. The present texts have a fairly rigid structure, but this should not be taken as an indication that they were preceded by a Turkish legal tradition: the Persian text of A.D. 1107 published by Minorsky (1942) shows a rather similar form, which may simply have been borrowed by the Turks. Formally, our documents differ from the non-Muslim deeds of land sale in Turkish, which appear to follow Chinese models; this also speaks against a common Turkish tradition. There is nothing surprising about this: the Turks were probably relatively new both to the area and the occupation.

The purpose of the present article is to examine the available data on Bedouin dialects in Israel and to attempt to classify them with a view to placing them in the larger framework of Bedouin dialects in the region as a whole. Section I below presents a geographical-demographical review of Bedouin groups in Israel as background information to support the linguistic material. The linguistic discussion which follows is based mainly on material from the following sources: for the Negev dialects, Bergsträsser's Sprachatlas (1915), Bauer (1913), Blanc (1970), and Piamenta (1979); for the Rashāida dialect in the Judean Desert, Katz (1980); for North Israeli Bedouin dialects, Rosenhouse (1980, 1982); for Bedouin dialects outside Israel, in Jordan, Syria and Northern Najd, Cantineau (1936–7), Cleveland (1963), Palva (1976, 1980), Abboud (1964), and Ingham (1982).

In Le Maître Phonétique for April-June, 1940, I gave some notes on the pronunciation of Mr. Su Cheng, a native of Fengtuhsien, Szechuan. I have recently been able to make further observations in his case, and also to study the pronunciation of Mr. Chao Che Shen, a native of Ipin, Szechuan, which lies some 200 miles to the west of Fengtuhsien.

§ 1. Muhammad Nasawi, the biographer of the Khwarāzm-shah Jalāl al-dīn, several times refers to the story of Nuṣrat al-dīn Muhammad (*Mahmūd) b. *Bīshkīn. When in 614/1217 the atabek of Azarbayjan, Özbek, was expelled from Isfahan by the Khwārazm-shāh Muhammed, Özbek's vassal Nuţrat al-din led the army back to Azarbayjan and thus enabled his master to escape with a small detachment. In Miyāna Nuṣrat al-din was taken prisoner by the Khwarazmians and brought to Hamadan. Wishing to humiliate him and other distinguished prisoners, the Khwārazm-shāh ordered them to stand on their feet while he played polo on the hippodrome. One day the conqueror's interest was aroused by the pair of unusually large ear-rings which Nusrat was wearing. Nu๣rat explained (p. 18) that his grandfather was captured by Alp Arslan during his expedition into Georgia (possibly that of 456/1064). Later, Alp Arslan liberated the prisoners but ordered them (as his slaves) to wear ear-rings with his name.

Early in the sixth century A.D. the Greek author known generally as Cosmas Indicopleustes records in his ‘Christian Topography’ that he visited Adulis on the western Red Sea coast and there saw two Greek inscriptions, one on a marble throne and one on a stela standing behind it. The monuments have long ago disappeared, but we have the texts as copied by Cosmas. The stela belongs to Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–222 B.C.), but the throne text begins in mediis rebus without name of author, and is introduced by Cosmas with the slightly mysterious words ‘Then, as if sequentially, there is further written on the throne as follows’. Whatever he may have meant by this, it is certain, as modern scholars recognize, that the throne text is not part of the stela one: the former is drafted in the first person, the latter in the third; and the throne text was drafted ‘in the 27th year of my reign’, whereas Ptolemy HI died at the beginning of his twenty-sixth regnal year. This leaves the field open to speculations about the authorship and date of the throne text.

The names of the principal officers of the early Ṣafawid ṣtate are well known and need only a brief recapitulation here. They were: (1) the wakīl; (2) the amīr al-umarā; (3) the qūrchībāshī; (4) the wazīr; (5) the ṣadr. Of these, the wakīl was the vicegerent of the Shāh, representing him in both his temporal capacity as pādishāh and in his spiritual capacity as murshid-i kāmil. He was thus the most powerful official in the early Ṣafawid state. The amīr al-umarā was, as his name denotes, the principal amīr; he was the commander-in-chief of the qizilbāsh Turkomān tribesmen who constituted the military basis of Ṣafawid political power. The function of the qūrchībāshī during the early Ṣafawid period is extremely obscure. As commander of the qūrchīs or qizilbāsh; tribal cavalry his authority would appear to have been in conflict with that of the amīr al-umarā. The office of qūrchībāshī was from the beginning distinct from that of amīr al-umarā, and during at least the first 30 years of Ṣafawid rule it was of less importance than the latter. From about 940/1533–4 onwards, however, there was a decline in the power of the amīr al-umarā, and a corresponding increase in that of the qurchībāshī, and under Isma'īl II and Muḥammad Khudābanda the qūrchībāshī became the most influential officer in the state. The wazīr was the head of the bureaucracy, and was traditionally the principal officer of state. Up to the time of 'Abbās I, however, his authority was restricted by the overriding authority of the wakīl, by the intervention of the amīr al-umarā in political affairs, by the existence of the ṣadr, who deprived him of the possibility of exercising general supervision over the religious institution, and by the predominantly military character of the early Ṣafawid state in general, which placed the ‘men of the pen’ at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the ‘men of the sword’. The ṣadr was the head of the religious institution, but since in practice the religious institution was subordinated to the political institution, the authority of the ṣadr was necessarily subordinated to that of the wakīl. The main function of the ṣadr was the imposition of doctrinal unity, namely Shi'ism, throughout the Ṣafawid empire. Once this object had been achieved, the power of the ṣadr declined, although from time to time the ṣadr made attempts (largely unsuccessful) to intervene in political matters.

The Shahbazgarhi Inss. of Aśoka distinguish the three sibilants ś, ṣ, s. Hultzsch remarks ‘While at Kalsi these three symbols are used indiscriminately, the Shahbazgarhi text generally employs each of them where it would have been in its proper place in Sanskrit’ [v. Hultzsch, Inss. Aś., p. lxxxvi]. The dialect of the Mansehra text is nearly identical with the Shahbazgarhi one [v. id., p. xcvii].

The Zoroastrian calendar which was in official use in the Sasanian times in Iran is conveniently called “Young Avestan”. This system of time-reckoning, which was adopted by the Persian government in the Achæmenian period and most probably about 441 B.C., was introduced later in Cappadocia and Armenia. The date of its introduction in Armenia is not known. According to Moses of Khorene, the famous Armenian historian (ii, 59), the order (or succession) of the weeks, months, and years which was unknown to the Armenians was regulated by Ardashes II, king of Armenia. Gutschmid (Kleine Schriften, iii, p. 209 n.) is inclined to identify this king with the historic king Tiridates, the founder of the Armenian branch of the Arsacid dynasty and a contemporary of Nero. But the names of the 10th and 12th Arm. months point to an earlier date for the said introduction. The former is called “Mareri”, which name according to Marquart's conjecture (Untersuchungen zur Geschichle von Ēran, p. 205) is derived from Maidhyāirya, the well-known Avestan season festival or gāhanbār, which was originally in the 10th Persian month and remained there till the time of the first of the 120 yearly intercalations, which must have taken place (if carried out regularly) about 321 B.C. The name of the 12th Armenian month is ”Hrotic'“, which is believed to be the Armenian form of Frōtīgān-Frōdīgān, the Persian feast better known as Fravardīgān, the words being derived from the O.Pers. fravarti, Avestan fravashi.

It is remarkable that no Syriac inscriptions have been discovered hitherto at Harran or in its immediate vicinity. Cuneiform tablets have been unearthed, and these reflect the prominence of the city in ancient times.But written records in Syriac have been strangely absent. And yet we know that for more than a millennium—certainly until the eleventh century—the indigenous inhabitants of Harran spoke Syriac. Lying only about 30 kilometres south of Edessa, the home of classical Syriac, Harran was nevertheless able to maintain jealously its distinctive character and traditions.

While I preparing an edition of Matrceta's Hymn of 150 Verses (Satapañcāśatka) I learnt of the existence in the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin of a quantity of unpublished manuscript fragments of poetry identified as Mātrceta's, included among the material brought back by four successive German expeditions to Central Asia. Through the good offices of Professors H. W. Bailey and F. W. Thomas, photographed copies of these pieces eventually reached me. They proved to consist of about 120 leaves or portions of leaves, practically without exception in “Slanting Gupta” script, from at least seventeen separate MSS., ranging from almost complete folios to fragments containing only two or three legible syllables.

The collection was placed unconditionally at my disposal by the authorities of the Academy, to whom are due my most grateful acknowledgments of their generosity, the more so because a complete transcription by Dr. W. Siegling accompanied the texts. It is hardly necessary to add that this transcription is a work of the highest care and competence which could only have been carried out by an expert in the deciphering of Central Asian documents. In doubtful cases I have compared his readings with the originals and have checked several lengthy passages systematically, but additions or corrections thus introduced could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The text which follows can, therefore, be presented with a confidence which I could not have felt in a decipherment of my own; for apart from the normal difficulties of this script, blurred and mutilated characters abound.

With this article are presented the inscriptions upon nine fragments of tablets belonging to the royal library of the Assyrian kings which was found at Nineveh, its remains being now in the British Museum (and the writer is indebted to the Trustees for permission to publish these specimens). He had already taken the liberty to quote from them in the course of his Inaugural Lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and it is therefore appropriate to include them in a volume in honour of Professor Sir Ralph Turner, Director of the School, whose great services will be more fittingly celebrated by others, but the present writer gladly uses this opportunity to testify his gratitude for many acts of personal kindness, of which the Director's presence and publicly-expressed approval on the aforesaid occasion were not the least appreciated.

A thorough and scientific treatment of the historiography of the African Muslim peoples and institutions south of the Zambesi is a long-felt and eminent want. As yet, this particular field of research has hardly been explored, and its results, if collected and evaluated, would add tangibly to our contemporary knowledge of Oriental penetration in lands where Europeans have founded new homes and fostered a vitalist conception of Occidental civilization.

This present study is the result of observations I made on the speech of Mr. S. M. Ahamba, while he was at the School in 1946. Mr. Ahamba is an Igbo, and was born and brought up in Lorji, a small rural village situated near the western bank of the Imo River, some twenty miles east-south-east of Owerri town. He has spent some time at Obosi and Awka, both in Onitsha Province, and also at Egbu, three miles from Owerri. It must be emphasized, however, that the type of Igbo he speaks is not that of Owerri town itself. It could be most nearly described as the Lorji dialect spoken by a school teacher who has spent some years away from home.