The expression taḥannuth mentioned in some traditions in connexion with the first revelation of the Prophet was variously interpreted by Muslim philologists and commentators of ḥadīth. Several meanings have been attached to it by modern scholars. A re-examination of the material seems to give us a clue for elucidation of the meaning of taḥannuth and the ideas connected with it. This may also be helpful towards understanding the circumstances of the ‘Call to Prophecy’ of Muḥammad.

‘Surra-man-raā’, says Mas'ūdī, ‘is the last the great cities founded in Islam.’ Seven in all, till the time of Mas'ūdī, these were according to him: Baṣra, founded in 17/638–9; kūfa, founded in 17/638–9; Fusṭāṭ, founded in 20/640–1; Ramla and Wāsiṭ, founded in 13–14/634–6; Baghdād, founded in 145/762–3; and surra-man-ra'ā, founded in 221/834–5. The one common feature was that, except for Ramla, these towns were all garrison centres. Built on the edge of the desert, the natural refuge for the predominantly nomadic Arab invading armies. the first five cities maintained all along an Arab-Islamic tradition. Emerging almost at the same time (save for Ramla) and marking at the respective moments of their emergence, historical landmarks in the rapid expansion of the Islamic empire in its first stages of growth, these five cities were populated on the whole by Muslim Arabs, who were to safeguard the conquests and gradually absorb rather than be absorbed by other elements. These cities were thus able to maintain that Arab-Islamic tradition which, challenged later by the heterogeneous cultural heritage of what became the Islamic World, proved strong enough to make and keep that world Islamic, though not wholly Arbic. This result was the fulfilment of the policies of the Caliph 'Umar I, under whose reign the major Islamic conquests were made and who, for direct strategic reasons, advised his generals to encamp their troops on the borders of the desert Arab lands and of the newly acquired territories.

The evolution of technical terms in the Arabic science of rhetoric illustrates remarkalby its gradual adaptation to the exigencies of scriputural interpretation.Proliferation of rhetorical figures in the writings of the late medieval scholiasts appears to be a consequence not so much of the Qur'ān. In many of these figures a pre-exegetic existence can be discerned; others would seem to be the invention of industrious mufassirum. For the former it is sometimes possible to determine an approximate date of adaptation: the point at which the profane function of a rhetorical figure was abandoned, or at least relegated to an inferior position, in favour of its application to Qur'anic exegesis. An illustration of this process is provided by the figure called madhhab kalāmī, whose evolution I attempted to describe in a recent study. There it was seen that the figure treated by early rhetoricians shared its name, but neither its content nor its function, with that examined and applied to the Qur'ā by the later schoolmen. While the result of this metamorphosis became firmly established in the treatment of badī' by al-Qazwīnī (d. 738/1256) and his successors, it is in the earlier work of Ibn Abi 'l-Isba' (d. 654002F;1256) where we find the observation that although Ibn al-mu'tazz (d. 295002F;908) had denied the presence in the Qur'ān of Madhhab kalāmī, the Holy Book was in fact full of it; and his examples fit perfectly the scholastic interpretation of the figure.

For assistance in every Kind of way to obtain the information Presented here I am in debted to Shaikh 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Muḥammad b. 'Abdulāh Āl Khalīfah, and particularly for introducing me to his friend the nawkhudhā 'Abdullāh b. Khamīs al-Shurūqī of al-Ḥidd village, situated on the south-east tip of al-Muḥarraq island, the northern island of the Baḥrain group. Al-Shurūqī entertained us to a fuwalih and took us carefully over his ḥaḍrah, explainig the technicalities involved in siting it, etc. The aerial Photographs reproduced here were made available through the Kindness of the station commander Group Captain Sanderson, R.A.F., and through the exertions of Flight-Lieutenant W. T. Wenham and his staff. I am also indebted to Eric and Beverley Fitzsimmons of the British Council for help in this and other matters

The Galleria Estense in Mondena possesses an Islamic metal bowl which enriches our knowledge of Islamic metal work in more than one respect. This is a rounded, pot-shaped vessel (plate I), 11 cm. high and 27 cm. wide at its greatest diameter. The projecting part of the body is decorated with eight polylobed medallions intersected by oblong compartments enclosing a nakhī inscription and set against a densely filled background of flowering scrolls. The ‘neck’ of the bowl shows a narrow frieze of 24 running animals, which are placed in eight elongated panels containing three animals each. Whereas generally this frieze closely follows the traditional way of showing quadrupeds in pursuit (plate II (a, b)), there is a remarkable deviation from this arrangement in one of these compartments. It contains a camel, a lion, and a bull; these last two are shown in confrontation and seem to leap at each other as if in mutual attack (plate II (c)).

The literary genres of nawrīyāt and rauḍīyāt, the description respectively of flowers and gardens, figure amongst those most cultivated by Hispano-Arab poets, and it would be superfluous to identify all the poets who found in a garden the most congenial source of their inspiration. One case must suffice: that of Ibn Khafāja, styled al-jannān ‘the gardener’ on account of the predilection he showed for this genre. Just as the full understanding of Graeco Raman poetry is impossible unless the reader know what such plants as laurel, ivy, and myrtle signifed to the ancients, the study of Arab gardening is important in superlative degree for the correct interpretation of Arabic poetry. But this is not the only point of contact between gardening and literature: for, by strange coincidence, the normalk critical procedure used in analysing a work of literature, namely to consider it under its dual aspect of form and content, is equally aplicable to garden design and we purpose here first to discover the plan or form of the Hispano-Arab garden and then examine its content or flora.

The beginning of the twentieth century marked a new and revolutionary stage in the history of Arabic poetry. Through the increasing influence of Western literature, some new genres which show only preliminary signs of emergence in the nineteenth century found official recognition, as in the case of the strophic verse, or experimenting with them was resumed, as in the case of the blank verse (shi'r mursal), which was first practisd by Rizq Allāh Ḥassūn in 1869 and which was revived in 1905, probably unconsciously, by Jamīl Ṣidqī al-Zahāwī (1863–1936), under the name of shi'r mursal.

The absence in Socotri of a t- Prefix in some imperfect verbal forms has been noted briefly in a number of learned atricles, but this important feature of the language has not been adequately documented or analysed. It is possible, however, to show that the non-occurrence of a t- prefix is observable only in the imperfect forms of certain types of verb, principally the causative verbs, simple quadriliteral verbs, simple hollow verbs, certain intensive-conative verbs, and, it seems likely, the passives of simple verbs.

The Jewish-Persian manuscript Or. 8659 was brought to my attention by Dr. J. Rosenwasser of the British Museum, to whom I am most grateful for giving me the occasion to examine it closely and discover its great interest. Dr. Rosenwasser had rightly queried the description of the manuscript as ‘a commentary on Joshua’. There are quotations from Joshua on fol. lr and v, it is true, but that is by no means the whole story. He also remarked that the first and last folios deal with the same subject, and fol. 1 should in fact follow immediately on fol. 10. It was with this introduction, and much initial help with the Hebrew passages, that he urged the investigation of the text on me.

The immense conservatism of Zoroastrisniam brings it about that, even where circumstances have forced a break in the continuity of particular observances, yet the maintenance of the main tradition of belief and practice is so strong that it leads in time to something very like these old observances coming back into being agin, in response to the continuing religious needs of the community. Thus the practices of latter-day Zoroastrianism are often of the greatest help for understanding diffcult points in the Pahlavi books. It is accordingly of interest to examine in their light those passages relating to the founding of sacred Fires which have been recently brought together by J.-P. de Menasce in his work Feux et fondations pieuse dans le droit sassanide; for, as the author points out, such juridical texts, embodying case-law, represent actual situations and practices, which can profitably be compared with those of to-day.

In medieval Islam, the heavenly bodies were the subject of wide scientific interest. There was, however, at the same time, a more popular form of interest in this field. This is astrological or magical―the belief in the influence of the planets, the zodiac, or certain conjunctions of the stars on historical events, on the individual's fate, and on human destiny.

In ancient Iran there was evidently a strong sense of existence after death, which was reinforced by Zoroaster's reform and his teachings about heaven and hell, so the life on earth came to be lived with the hereafter continually in mind. An orthodox Zoroastrian combines an appreciation of the good creation of Ōhrmazd, and an acceptance of his allotted tasks within it, with a conviction that this world is nevertheless only a halting-place, and that true life comes after death. The moral requirements of his faith make him self-reliant, bearing the responsibility for his own conduct and ultimate fate; yet there is also a striking sense of community, of a bond between all those of the ‘good religion’, united by their common purpose and way of life. This senṣe of community extends to a remarkable degree to the righteous dead, to those souls ‘who have overcome for righteousness’ (yōi ašāi vaonarə). Religious works from the remote past (notably the Farvardīn Yašt) show that the Irani and Parsi Zoroastrians are at one with their ancestors in being aware of the spirits of the departed, in wishing to please them, and in rejoicing at a sense of their continuing care and protection.

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.

It is not too much to describe the Ṣaffārids of S‚stān as an archetypal military dynasty. In the later years of the third/ninth century, their empire covered the greater part of the non-Arab eastern Islamic world. In the west, Ya'qūb. al-Laith's army was only halted at Dair al-'Āqūl, 50 miles from Baghdad; in the north, Ya'qūb and his brother 'Arm campaigned in the Caspian coastlands against the local 'Alids, and 'Amr made serious attempts to extend his power into Khwārazm and Transoxania; in the east, the two brothers pushed forward the frontiers of the Dār al-Islām into the pagan borderlands of what are now eastern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier region of West Pakistan; and in the south, Ṣaffārid authority was acknowledged even across the persion Gulf in ‘Umān. This impressive achievement was the work of two soldiers of genius, Ya'qūub and 'Amr, and lasted for little more than a quarter of a century. It began to crumble when in 287/900 the Sāmānid Amīr Ismā'īl b. Aḥmad defeated arid captured ‘Amr b. al-Laith, and 11 years later, the core of the empire, Sīstān itself, was in Sāmānid hands. Yet such was the effect in Sīstān of the Ṣaffārid brothers’ achievement, and the stimulus to local pride and feeling which resulted from it, that the Ṣaffārids returned to power there in a very short time. For several more centuries they endured and survived successive waves of invaders of Sīstān—the Ghaznavids, the Seljūqs, the Mongols—and persisted down to the establishment of the Ṣafavid state in Persia.

The Americans arrived (May 1911) to find Tehran in a turmoil of political excitement. In February the Minister of Finance, who had been a leading figure in the constitutional movement, had been assassinated by Russian subjects on his way home from attending the Majlis. This was followed by another political murder in Tehran later in February—again undertaken by Russian nationals. Since Russia retained the right of jurisdiction over her own subjects in Persia the murderers had to be hunded over to the Russian government. The situation the Americans found has been described by one of the members of the mission in a latter to President Taft. He wrote:

‘Pursuant to your kind request to keep you informed of our progress in Persia, the following statement of experiences and conditions may be of interest, especially in view of the recent return of the exiled Shah, Mohammed Ali, and the near approach of civil war which now seems inevitable, as the result of foreign intrigues. The entire country is in the most complete state of anarchy possible to imagine, and the government—if such it can be called—is of the opera bouffe variety, fit to adorn any stage without alteration of a single feature. Civic corruption exists to an extent beyond the limits of the wildest imagination, and is so widespread that an honest official, high or low, is almost unknown. No laws exist for the punishment of official crimes, and as the Oriental system of bribery for the consummation of any purpose whatsoever has existed since time immemorial, the natural result is beyond description.

Baptist missionaries were the first to operate effectively in northern India. William Carey arrived in 1793, and worked for six years mainly in North Bengal, moving in 1800 to the Danish settlement of Serampore to join Joshua Marshman and William Ward. From the beginning they were concerned with education, starting schools at first in their immediate vicinity and eventually throughout the province of Bengal, from Dacca and Chittagong in the east to Suri in the west; meanwhile other Baptist missionaries in connexion with Serampore ranged south-east as far as the Moluccas and north-west to Ajmer, with many intermediate stations. The climax of their educational efforts in Bengal was reached in the years 1816–18, when over 100 elementary schools were established, and also Serampore College for higher education. During these same years, however, a group of younger Baptist missionaries broke away to form a separate mission based on Calcutta, and simultaneously disputes developed between the Serampore Trio and the officials of the Baptist Missionary Society in London, which resulted in a complete separation between them in 1827. But in December 1837 the Serampore Mission found it impossible to continue, for financial reasons, and had to agree to a reunion with the BMS; Joshua Marshman, the last survivor of the original Trio—and the one mainly responsible for their educational work—died in the same month.

The problems posed by the interpretation of the Ṥvetāṥvatara Upaniṣad are almost as interesting as is the Upaniṣad itself. There are both in the West and in India two clearly discernible trends in the method of such interpretation. One follows quite strictly the line of the monistic, advaita doctrine, involving frequent disregard of the text itself. The other shows a realistic appreciation of a largely deistic philosophy of the Upaniṣad, which leans towards soteriological concepts of the Sāṃkhya or rather the Sāṃkhya-Yoga syncretism. The Upaniṣad presents, in fact, a triadic combination of (I) Īṥvara = puruṣa, (2) Brahman, whose role as that of a creator is idenfield with the role of the prakṛti, pradhāna, or buddhi, and who is the intermediary between the Īṥvara, and (3) āman = jīva.

In a previous article I had dealt with Tibetan re in ha-re and re-skan. In attempting to study re in its wider context I wish to exclude from consideration re in re-ba to hope and re in re-źig re-śig ‘little while, moment’. re in re-ba does not seem to call for any special comment. As far as re in re-źig is concerned, it may suffice here to stress the identity of re in re-źig with re in ga-re ‘where?’ on the one hand, and re in re-re ‘each’ on the other. All three cases pre-suppose the basic meaning of ‘part, member, item, etc.’. The specialization in time of re-źig (part = moment)has its spatial counterpart in ga-re (what part, which part(s)? = where ?), ga being identical with ga in ga-na ‘;where’ or in ga-la introducing a rhetorical question (whewre [in all the world]?). In re-re the distributive function is due to respetition (item by item, member [of a group]by member), obviously extended from there also to single re in the meaning of ‘each’.

The manuscript now known as Śrīkṛṣṇakīrtana was discovered by Basanta Ranjan Ray in 1909 in the village of Kakilya in west Bengal. The manuscript, which is incomplete, undated, and without title, consists of 418 songs on the Rādhā-kṛṣṇa theme. The songs, which are arranged so as to form a continuous narrative, each contain a bhaạitā giving the name of the author. In the majority of cases, but not in all, the name in Baḍu Caṇḍidasa. On the evidence of these bhaṇitās Basanta Ranjan Ray ascribed the whole work to Baḍu Caṇḍīdāsa. He also gave it the title ŚrīkṛṢṇakīrtana, hereafter abbreviated as ŚKK. The MS is probably the work of two hands. Some scholars allege that there were three scribes, but in view of the close similarity between the third hand and the first, this is doubtful.

“ The warlords of twentieth–century china have received little scholarly attention.”. This omission is due, apart from the reasons viven in Mr. Sheridan's ‘Preface’, to the historical significance of the men and their period not being fully appreciated. What sort of men were they ? How did they rise to such great power? What effect did their abuse of power have on Chinese society ? Why did the May Fourth Movement, the Washington Conference, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the reorganization of the Kuomintang, and the May 30th Movement use the misrule of the warlords as their back–drop? How far did the warlords undo the work of the restoration in the 1860“s and 19870”s ? These are but a few pertinent questions. In a period of merely 16 years (1912–28), over 1, 300 warlords had fought more than 140 provincial and interprovincial wars. Such a period is bund to be complicated but should not daunt the curiosity of the historian.