The publication of vol. viii, pt. ii of Sir George Grierson's monumental work, The Linguistic Survey of India, which contains a section on the Shina () language, and the appearance of a short but valuable critique of it by Dr. the Rev. T. Grahame Bailey in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of July, 1921, are immediately responsible for the present essay on Shina phonetics.

The problem of reconciling man's free will with God's omnipotent will and prescience has exercised the minds of the theologians of those religions which claim to present an almighty and a moral god to their votaries. In the following pages my aim is to show how the Muhammadan dogma of Determinism, despite the revolt of the most vigorous thinkers of the early Muslim church, was developed and consolidated; to indicate in more detail than earlier writers how dependent that reaction was on Byzantine Christianity; and how completely has been put to flight by in the traditions universally accepted as authentic.

According to Strabo, xi, 8, 4, the Sakai, a Sythian tribe, built a temple to the Persian deities Anaitis, Omanus, and Onadatus, and celebrated yearly the festival τ⋯ Σάκαια, which the people who inhabited Zêla celebrated even in his own day. The passage affords evidence for the celebration of a festival at Zêla in Pontus as late as the beginning of our era. For some reason Zêla, far removed from the old home of these Persian deities, had long been the seat of these Persian cults, from which fact alone it had any importance at all. Anaitis, or the old Persian Anâhita, “the undefiled,” was a river goddess, and probably identical with the Elamitic goddess Nahunti. This old Iranian deity, Anâhita, was also a goddess of love and beauty, the Venus or Artemis of Persian religion, and consequently an identification with the Babylonian Ishtar, “queen of heaven,” was at once made, as soon as the cults of Babylonia became known to the Persians in the sixth century, and perhaps even earlier. But Strabo, who obviously believed that this Persian festival was connected with the Sacae or Sythians both historically and philologically, gives another explanation of its origin. Cyrus, he says, was defeated by the Sacae and devised this ruse to overcome them. He hastily retreated, leaving behind his camp and all his equipment.

Firita records that Yūsuf ‘Ādil āh of Bījāpūr, the founder of the ‘Ādil āhī dynasty, on learning that āh Ismā‘īl I, Ṣafavī (1502–24), had established the ī‘ah religion in Persia, caused the call to prayer and the ubah to be recited, in the month of Ẕi-’l. Ḥijjah, a.h. 908 (June–July, 1502), in the ī‘ah form, and attempted to establish that faith as the state religion of Bījāpūr. He adds that Yūsuf was the first sovereign in India to make such an attempt. This does not necessarily mean that he was the first ī‘ah monarch in India. All that it means is that he was the first monarch of that religion who attempted to force his people to conform to his own faith.

It is perhaps not unfitting that the recent centenary festivities should be supplemented by a brief survey of the various objects of interest which the Society has accumulated during the hundred years of its existence. Apart from the intrinsic value of many of the items, the collection includes portraits of most of the scholars who were prominent during that period in Oriental research—amongst them many of the Society's office-bearers. It also testifies to the liberality of our members in the past; and it seems a mere act of justice that, after commemorating those who have benefited the Society in other ways, we should spare a little attention for those who have presented the artistic treasures that decorate its premises.