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.

§ 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.

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 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.

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 Anglo-Egyptian Sudan has, in recent years, attracted an ever-growing volume of research. In part, this may be attributed to the easier access to archival sources, both in England and—to a lesser extent—in the Nile Valley. In addition, there has evolved an increasing interest in bilateral relations between Egypt and the Sudan, prompted in part by the political outlook of Presidents Sadat and Numayri, and even more important, by the apparent decline in the Nile waters, especially in the 1980s. The Integration Charter {takamut), first announced by Presidents. Sadat and Numayri in 1974 and signed by Egypt and the Sudan in 1981, sought to establish co-operation, in a wide variety of spheres, which would—so it was hoped—ultimately lead to unity. These anticipations failed to materialize following the chatige of regime in the Sudan in 1985, and seem even less realistic under the present Sudanese fundamentalist dictatorship.

Our European words ‘gum’ go back to one common source, cf. English gum, German Gummi, French gomme, Italian gomma, Russian σýΜΜИ, etc. As is well known, this source is Latin commi ∼ cummi, vulgar Latin gummi ∼ gumma, which was borrowed from Greek κ⋯μμι.

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.

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.

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.

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).

It has long been recognized that the establishment of the Office of Music (Yüeh fu) as one of the agencies of state in Han imperial government played an important role in the development of Chinese poetry and nurtured the growth of particular genres of literature; and the precedent that was set at this time was followed at later stages of China's literary development with highly important results. Less attention, however, has been paid to the work of the office in arranging musical performances; or to the circumstances in which the office was established and in which its activities were several times curtailed, prior to its eventual abolition. In addition historians have not always appreciated the connexion that may be traced between the rise and fall of this office and other changes which occurred in the intellectual history of Han China.

The purpose of these notes is to review the Vedic and Avestic data relating to Yama and the Gandharva and to consider the possibility of connecting them with the Glaucus-saga. Without neglecting the works of predecessors in this field, I have re-examined to the best of my ability the Vedic and Avestic material, but have abstained from drawing to any great extent upon the later literatures.

In his article ‘Lecture de la Fātiḥa’ Muhammad Arkoun develops principles for a contemporary rereading of scripture which differ markedly from those of classical exegesis. The latter rests upon the dogmatic certainty that scripture constitutes the only truth and the whole truth; hence it sees its task as rendering this truth accessible by recourse to a wide range of explanatory techniques. Arkoun's principles, on the other hand, are based upon the realization that in the present circumstances man's understanding of himself must be acquired not by remaining within the fold of one assumed source of truth but by transcending the panoply of ‘biophysical, economic, political, linguistic constraints’ which delimit his condition. As result, such knowledge must consist in repeated and risky forays ‘beyond the enclosures which all cultural traditions tend to erect after a phase of intensive elaboration’ (Arkoun, 1982: 50).

Most of the available specimens of Paiśācī are recorded in Lacote′s Essai sur Gunādhya et la Brhaikathā, pp. 201 f., and in my article “ The Mysterious Paiśācī”, JRAS., 1943, 217 f. They comprise about a hundred words. I am now able, by the courtesy of Muni Punyavijayajī of the Svetambara Jaina Dharmasala, Baroda, who has sent me photostats of an early MS., to publish the longest extract extant in Paisaci from an unpublished portion of the Kuvalayamālā.