May (God) bless the beginning (of the text) and favour its ending with good fortune. This is both said and written by Sīdi Sālim in praise of his Shaykh. Shaykh Mā' al-'Aynayn, may God prolong his life.

This essay analyses the sole extant chapter of a fourth/tenth-century Faḍā'il al-Ṣaḥaba work by the ḥadı̄th critic and scholar Al-Ḥasan ʿAlı̄ ibn ʿUmar ibn Aḥmad Ibn Mahdı̄ ibn Masʿūd al-Dāraquṭnı̄ (d. 385/995). As scholars have noted, faḍā’il literature beyond the chapters on religious merits of the Companions in the Ṣaḥı̄ḥayn is among a number of sub-genres of tradition-based literature (alongside, for example, targhı̄b wa tarhı̄b), which tends largely to be comprised of weak, non-canonical ḥadı̄th. This has generally been interpreted as evidence of the acceptability of “lower standards” for the inclusion of ḥadı̄th in exhortatory or edifying literature (lower when compared to standards for the authentication of ḥadı̄th in relation to law). This conceptualization both centres law as the dominant lens through which to view the reception of ḥadı̄th in general, and contributes to the marginalization of faḍā’il literature as merely folkloric. Using a history of emotions perspective to elucidate the nature and mechanisms of edification and pious instruction in faḍā’il texts, this essay argues that far from being marginal, faḍā’il works were central to the formation of emotional communities and to the construction of pious subjects in the Būyid period. Al-Dāraquṭnı̄'s fragmentary text reflects how a well-known and highly respected fourth-century ḥadı̄th scholar capitalized on the emotional resonances and sectarian ambiguities made available by the abundance of non-legal and non-prophetic ḥadı̄th generated during the second and third centuries ah.

This paper introduces the exchange of letters in early Sufism, analyses the significance of these exchanges, and examines these documents not for their general literary qualities or for theoretical discussion of appropriate conduct but, rather, for actual data relating to personal and interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes the crucial need for creating a corpus of Sufi letters and pieces of correspondence. The discussion is divided into methodological and conceptual-historical perspectives. The methodological perspective includes a survey of sources, the question of transmission, letter fragment usage by later authors, and a reconstruction attempt of the actual circumstances of these documents. The conceptual-historical perspective analyses content, rhetoric, argumentation forms, and self-representation.

An Eastern Han stele with an unusual relief decoration and 367 character memorial inscription tells us much about the south-west of China in early imperial times. Unearthed in 2004 from the banks of the Yangtze River and dated to 173 ce, the stele was dedicated to Quren county magistrate Jing Yun who died 70 years earlier in 103 ce. The paper provides a full translation, annotation, and analysis of the stele's commemorative text, which borrows from the content and language of one of China's oldest anthologies of poems, the Chuci, and places it in its historical context. It also examines the iconography at the head of the stele which reflects beliefs in transcendence and the pursuit of immortality prevalent at the time and demonstrates its close relation to the inscription. Overall, the paper suggests that the decoration and text together exhibit a regional heritage that is distinct to the south-west, its memorial culture, and poetic and religious traditions.

This paper provides a new explanation for the insertion of *a in plural forms of *CVCC- nouns also formed with an external plural suffix, e.g. *ʕabd- : *ʕabad-ū- ‘servant(s)’, in various Semitic languages. This *CVCaC-ū- pattern is usually considered to be a remnant of the Proto-Semitic broken plural system in Northwest Semitic, but we show that it goes back to Proto-Semitic in this form. Internal evidence from Semitic as well as comparative evidence from Afroasiatic points towards a pre-Proto-Semitic plural suffix *-w- underlying the external plural suffixes. This suffix created a consonant cluster in the plural of *CVCC- nouns, triggering epenthesis of *a. As the prime example of broken plural formation in Northwest Semitic thus seems to be purely suffixal in origin, we conclude by briefly considering the implications for the history of nominal pluralization in Semitic.

On 3 January 1868, when an Imperial decree announced the Emperor's intention of resuming direct responsibility for the administration of Japan, those who had done most to bring this about had no detailed plans for the future of their country's governmental structure. In fact it was not until 15 August 1869 that the new system took anything like a stable shape. In the interval Japan's leaders worked largely by trial and error, partly in a search for a form of government which would meet their needs, partly in accordance with the dictates of political necessity, the final result being to place both power and office in the hands of what is often called the Meiji oligarchy: a handful of Court nobles (kuge) of relatively low rank and a slightly larger group of former samurai from the fiefs of Satsuma, Chōshū, Tosa, and Hizen.

In his article in BSOAS, xv, 1953, pp. 588–597, Professor E. G. Pulleyblank has made a number of statements which, in my opinion, need explanation and correction. This is not the place to discuss wider problems of Chinese gentry society in detail; this will be done on another occasion. I limit my notes, therefore, to a few interesting points.

It has often been said that the Persian language written and spoken in India does not possess that flavour which is generally found in the writings of the Iranian authors. There is an element of truth in the foregoing charge so far as the literature produced in India during the later period of Muslim rule is concerned. But the Persian literature produced in India from the middle of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century may be favourably compared with the writings of many an indigenous Iranian scholar. The works of Amīr Khusrau and Hasan of Dihli and Badr-i-Chāch, who flourished during this period, are highly esteemed by Iranian scholars and are placed next to Sa'dī and Jalāl ul-Dīn Rūmī. The early immigrants who made India their permanent home retained the purity of their tongue in a much larger measure than their successors. But with the growing influence of the Hindu scholars who began to study Persian to qualify themselves for the service of the State, the difference in the style of India and Persia proper became more marked.

A new English translation, by Peter Khoroche and Herman Tieken, of “Hāla's 700” Prakrit verses caters for a long-felt want in the field of classical Indology. It is an attractive literary rendering, succinctly annotated, of stanzas epitomizing the delights and sorrows of love. The result is not, however, in every case an improvement upon previous efforts, and it emphasizes the need for more objective textual criticism. It is the compilers' personal selection, both from among the thousand or so verses that vie to represent the nominal 700, and from among the multifarious variant readings that have accrued over the centuries in half a dozen distinct recensions. It is particularly regrettable that the work is based substantially upon Weber's Madhyadeśa Vulgate text, despite the indications, largely provided by Tieken's own previous work on the text, of the reliability of the “Jaina” recension, especially Bhuvanapāla's readings when supported and corrected by their Madhyadeśa and Kerala offshoots. The evidence does not really justify postulation, following Weber, of an underlying original corpus of 700 verses.

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.

The following few pages, dedicated to Dr. L. D. Barnett in memory of many A kindnesses, may call up for a brief moment the forgotten princes, the acaryas, Buddhist teachers, who in the tenth century on their way between Khotan and China were plundered and distracted by the Turks who met them on their way. They are religious teachers and have no enemies, said their guides to the Turks. The short text forms part of the Buddhist legacy of India to Central Asia. The Stein MS. Ch 00269 contains, after some incomplete phrases in lines 0–8, the drafts of three letters: 9–23 concern a certain Prabhākaravardhana; 24–108 and 108–120, here edited and translated, give the letter of the messengers, written in Sacū (1. 84), and the letter of the seven princes. Lines 75–80 were quoted in BSOS 8. 883 (twelve years ago) for their importance for the Tokharian problem. The companion piece to this MS. is P 2741 at the Bibliotheque Nationale, of which an edition has been given in this same volume XII of the BSOAS. Both were prepared for the press as long ago as 1942, but it has not been possible hitherto to publish them.

This article consists mainly of an annotated transcription of a report on the wartime courses in Japanese at SOAS prepared by Frank Daniels in August 1945. An introduction is provided setting his report in context and providing some of the background relating to the attempts by SOAS, well before the outbreak of war with Japan, to persuade the government that training needed to begin without delay. These attempts were unsuccessful, but Frank Daniels and the teachers assembled to help him, including his Japanese wife and some Japanese released from internment in the UK, successfully developed a teaching programme that went on to train many individuals who were to become the first generation of university Japanologists in the UK.