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].

A Mong many mythological beings mentioned in Zoroastrian literature and enumerated by the late Professor Louis Casartelli in his La Philosophie religieuse du Mazdéisme, Paris, 1884, p. 120, Gõpatšōh deserves our special mention. He is the man-bull of the ancient Babylonians, adopted into the mythology of the later Zoroastrian period most probably through the intermediary of the Elamites saturated with Babylonian culture. Gōpatšōh is the name given to him in Pahlavi literature, and is said to be another name for Aγēraθ, son of Pašang and brother of Afrāsiāb, king of Turan. He resides in the country called Sōkapastān or Saukavastān, which is situated between Chinistan and Turkistan (Bundahišn, 29, 5; for the legend of Aγrēraθ, cf. Darmesteter, Zend–Avesta, ii, p. 436, No. 23). Dātistān-i-Dēnīk 90, 4, explains the name Gōpatšāh by “ king of Gōpat”, and says that Gōpat is a country coterminous with Ērān–Vej on the bank of the river Dāitīk.

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.

As a serious subject of scholarly investigation modern Middle Eastern history is very young. It was only 50 years ago that the subject began to be studied by historians who were adequately equipped for the work. Its subsequent rapid progress to the position of respectability which it now occupies within the discipline of history owes much to the work of a handful of scholars among whom Albert Hourani and Elie Kedourie were especially conspicuous. The deaths of these two notable historians should not pass without an acknowledgement of the debt which we owe them and an appreciation of their contribution to the happy revolution in the branch of history which they adorned.

The term ‘nominal piece’ is applied here to any utterance stretch denned initially by the presence of any or all of Nominal Classes 1,2, and 3 set up below, and finally either by sentence-closing intonation or a marker indicating the onset of another piece. The terms ‘negative piece’ and ‘conjunctival piece’ are applied to utterance stretches which lie outside the confines of both the nominal piece (as defined above) and the verbal piece (as defined in BSOAS, XXVI, 1, 1962, 152, para. 1). Any Rarotongan utterance is divisible without residue into one or more of these four pieces.

The Melanesian and non-MN languages alike belong to the group known as agglutinating, i.e. they are able to form compound words out of a number of elements, many of which are incapable of independent existence. In this they are not entirely different from the MN languages to the east of them, and yet there is a difference, and that not merely of degree but of kind. Prefixes and suffixes play their parts in these languages, as they do in SEP, but the power of adding indefinitely suffix to suffix is much more limited in insular MN than in SEP. Such a compound word as Suau ‘ita-komakomani-uyo-i-miu, take care of yourselves again, is hardly to be thought of, say, in Mota, Fiji, or Samoa.

This article is the first systematic investigation on the location, layout, design and functions of Fāṭimid gardens. Our study is based on primary sources and focuses on different elements of the recreational and ceremonial functions of gardens. Very little is known about the layout of the royal Fāṭimid gardens because no garden has survived or been excavated so far as we are aware. However, we collected physical insights on the layout and shape of these Fāṭimid gardens through different archaeological excavations in Cairo and outside of Egypt, including our recent discoveries and the garden that we found in Darrāsa.

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.

Neither of the terms commonly used to describe the seventh-century expansion of the movement that comes to be called Islam – “the Islamic conquests” or “the Arab conquests” – is satisfactory; both terms are anachronistic and in some ways misleading; yet there is, at present, no clear candidate for an alternative terminology. This article discusses the weaknesses of existing nomenclatures, with reference to relevant primary sources, and the conceptual problems the traditional nomenclatures pose in the context of an extensive review of scholarly literature from roughly 1900 to the present. It offers a few suggestions for possible new terminologies, but essentially opens the question for further discussion.

Francesca Bray has recently pointed to the neglected role of women in the history of Chinese technology. This article takes up one example, and shows that the work of one woman inventor, whose personal name is unknown but whose family name was Liu, may be securely dated to between 712 and 724. From later descriptions it is also possible to discern that her invention (or just possibly the invention of another craftsperson, which she was able to introduce to court circles) consisted of the bringing together of two carefully carved woodblocks to create a resist for dyeing cloth. Ths in turn suggests that she may well have been familiear with woodblock printing, an invention for which there are also other forms of indirect evidence at about the same time. Since her family was relatively prominent, it may in future be possible to find about more about this inventor from genealogical materials.

The two languages once spoken in the oases in the North of the Tarim basin, Tocharian A and B, have preserved many Iranian loanwords. These belong to different chronological layers and are of different dialectal origins. Whereas the oldest layers are now most likely seen as belonging to an unattested Old Iranian dialect, more recent layers have not yet been studied in detail. In this respect, the vocabulary of medical texts represents an important field of enquiry. Most terms come from Middle Indian, but a significant number are of Middle Iranian origin. This component, mostly ingredients and technical vocabulary, seems to be largely of Khotanese origin. The article introduces the material and examines possible scenarios for historical transmission and contact between the North and the South of the Tarim Basin.

In the last centuries before the current era and in the early centuries after its beginning the major intellectual and literary activity in the realms (first) of the Jewish and (later) of the Christian communities was wholly centred in the field of interpretation. The OT, as the mainspring and foundation of all religious thought and teaching in those days and in those spheres, was the subject of this interpretation activity. In both the Jewish and the Christian world the Bible was considered to be not only holy and authoritative, but also, and this is in our context more important, the only and exclusive source of divine religious doctrine and of good ethical behaviour. Also historical events, political or religious, were seen, even foreseen, and evaluated from the aspect of this holy source of divine wisdom and planning.

Hardly ever has Islam survived a more disastrous and more mournful event than the destruction of Baghdād by the Mongols of Hūlāghū Khān in the middle of the month of al-Muharram of the year 656/January, 1258. The Mongol conqueror, after having subdued the Assassins, turned against the capital of the ‘Abbāsids and captured it without any resistance. The fall of the ‘Abbāsid caliphate was followed by a veritable reign of terror which lasted for forty days. Baghdad was plundered during this dismal period, its entire population was massacred mercilessly with the exception of the Christians, the co-religionists of Hūlāghū Khān's wife and father. The Caliph al-Musta'ṣim and his sons fell victims to the fury of the enraged conqueror, who put them to death. And to complete the disaster, a great conflagration destroyed many parts of the city.

The story of Suto and Tato is in no way fiction, it is a lively reality, and anyone even slightly acquainted with these far-distant, but beautiful and picturesque countries and their inhabitants, will confirm my statement. The principal actors, Shaikh Muhammad Sadiq, the Shaikh of Barzan, Tato, Osman—Suto's elder son, are no longer alive. I am not certain about Suto himself. This old man, a perfect type of a Kurdish chief ruling over the most impregnable region of Central Kurdistan, may yet be alive. At any rate, in 1918 he was. Mulla Said, the narrator, was murdered in Urumia in July, 1918, by his countrymen. Peace be on him!

Ban Gu's compilation of the Han shu may be seen in the context of a number of intellectual and religious developments. By his time the idea of the Tian ming and the theory of the Wu xing were being applied to imperial times. Officials were quoting the sayings of Kongzi to support their arguments, and the writings of distinguished scholars such as Jing Fang, Liu Xiang, Liu Xin and Yang Xiong were well known. The religious controversies that had begun in the reign of Chengdi had died down. The pursuit of scholarship had received a new impetus thanks partly to the discussions held in 79 ce. Ban Gu drew somewhat freely on existing literature, being prudent to select material that would not arouse enmity; his sister called on official documents to complete her part of the history. As an innovator Ban Gu introduced chapters on subjects that had not been treated in the Shi ji, such as bibliography and the laws. Ready to criticize the actions of officials or the character of an emperor openly, he also contrived to do so implicitly.