Every student of Indian history is familiar with the extraordinary event, quite unique in the annals of the Muslim dynasties in India, which took place in 1537, when Burhān Niẓām Shāh, the Sunni ruler of the Ahmadnagar state, in the Deccan, proclaimed Shi'ism the official religion of his kingdom. Indian historians offer only “popular” explanations for this important step, attributing it to religious zeal or the superstitious fears of the prince. It appears, however, that Burhān Niẓām Shāh (who reigned from 914/1508 to 961/1554), though nothing exceptional, was, nevertheless, quite a reasonable and statesmanlike ruler, who would hardly permit his religious emotions to carry him too far. It is therefore permissible to suspect some weightier motives behind this act, in the form of considerations connected with the policy of the then ascendant dynasty of the Safavids of Persia, which still remain unrevealed. As is known, both Shah Ismā'īl and Ṭahmāsp used to take much interest in Indian politics. In all this the central figure, who inspired the policy of Burhān Niẓām Shāh, was the rather enigmatic personality of a Persian emigrant, a learned theologian, philosopher, poet, stylist, and politician, Shāh Ṭāhir, surnamed Dakkanī and Ḥusaynī. It would be very interesting to study every side of his activities. This, however, would carry us too far; the present note is only intended to draw attention to quite an unexpected circumstance which presents this already extraordinary historical figure in a still more extraordinary light: some materials, recently discovered in Badakhshan, reveal that in reality he was regarded as an Ismaili Imam, a successor of the khudāwands of Alamūt, in a schismatic line of the Imams, which became extinct about two hundred years ago.

In the Journal of Hellenic Studies for 1915, p. 22, Mr. Minns published two Greek documents of the Parthian period acquired by Dr. Sa'id Khan from Avroman in Kurdistan, together with the facsimile of a third, not in Greek, which was found at the same place. As the writing of this third document (on parchment) seemed to be Aramaic in character, he very kindly sent me a photograph of it at the time, and has since given me additional information. The following note represents mainly what I then made out of the text, but it has lain in a drawer ever since because the results seemed hardly worth publishing.

When the people which spread the Brahminical religion and institutions from the valley of the Ganges, extended them, by migration and conquest, over the Indian peninsula, large portions of the primitive population remained unsubdued and unconverted where physical circumstances specially favoured their resistance to force and to the pressure of moral influences; and, accordingly, numerous remnants of them are now seen, scattered widely under the most various aspects, and often under highly interesting relations to the dominant people.

My paper entitled ‘A Classified and Detailed Catalogue of the Gold Coins of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty of Northern India, with an Introductory Essay,’ written in 1883, and published in 1884 by the Asiatic Society of Bengal, gave a full account of the Gupta gold coinage, so far as it was then known. At that time it was not in my power to extend my investigations to the silver and copper coinage, and subsequent criticism and study showed that my discussion of the gold coins was in some respects defective, and erroneous. An interval of rest from official work has now given me an opportunity of resuming my numismatic studies, and of completing and bringing up to date my examination of the Gupta coinage.

Much has been written about the extraordinary artistic, religious and historic importance of the Thousand Buddha Cave Temples at Dunhuang, in Gansu province, western China. One hundred and twenty years ago, on 2 May, 1879, a Hungarian expedition reached Dunhuang. It is a little known fact that its members were to be the first western travellers to visit the cave temples there. Still less known is the influence of this expedition on Sir Aurel Stein, the Hungarian-born British archaeologist. This article examines a hitherto unstudied aspect of why Stein was in the position to become the first to arrive in Dunhuang after the important discovery was made. It is argued that the little known Hungarian expedition was a determining factor in prompting Stein to undertake the hazardous journey to Dunhuang. Furthermore the travel notes of these earlier Hungarian travellers throw light at the very unstable situation at the Dunhuang caves thirty years before Stein's visit. This information is likely to have influenced Stein's decision to take much of the material away for safe keeping as at the time of his visit the situation continued to deteriorate.

Comparing the Liao, the Chinggisid and the Qing successive incorporations of Inner Asia, this article is prepared to argue that the hereditary divisional system that these Inner Asian empires employed to incorporate and administer their nomadic population was the engine that generated what scholars see either as ‘tribes’ or ‘aristocratic order’. This divisional system, because of its hereditary membership and rulership, invariably tended to produce autonomous lordships with distinct names and identities unless the central government took measures to curb the tendency. Whenever the central power waned, these divisions emerged as independent powers in themselves and their lords as contenders for the central power. The Chinggisid power structure did not destroy any tribal order; instead, it destroyed and incorporated a variety of former Liao politico-administrative divisions into its own decimally organized minqans and transformed the former Liao divisions into quasi-political named categories of populace, the irgens, stripping them of their own politico-administrative structures. In turn, the Qing, in incorporating Mongolia, divided the remains of the Chinggisid divisions, the tümens and otogs, into khoshuu and transformed them into quasi-political ayimaqs. Thus, it was the logic of the imperial incorporation and the hereditary divisional system that produced multiple politico-administrative divisions and quasi-political identity categories.

The sixth to twelfth centuries of the common era were marked by intense religious activity in all parts of India. In the Paramāra kingdom – the main focus of the articles in this special issue – the dominant religious forces were Jainism and the Śaiva traditions of Hinduism. While Buddhism was certainly present in central India, archaeological remains, inscriptions and post-medieval narratives suggest its role was much diminished compared to the early historic period. In substantial contrast, Buddhism remained a vibrant force in eastern India. Bodhgayā, as the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, had emerged as a sacred place by the time of Aśoka in the third century BCE and it evolved subsequently into one of the key centres of the Buddhist world. This importance is attested by existing remains at the site, including the Mahābodhi temple, monastic ruins and innumerable sculptures from medieval times.

In MS. 104 of the Maxwell collection of the Royal Asiatic Society is a tract entitled Nūr al-Daḳā'iḳ. It is attributed to Shamsu '1-Dīn ibn 'Abdullah, the Sumatran mystic who died in 1630. This manuscript was unknown to van Nieuwenhuijze when he wrote his thesis, but he has dealt with Arabic texts of the same title, and printed extracts from them. In Leiden Cod. Or. 1945 which he hasanalysed are three passages which correspond in part with the Arabic text and the Maxwell manuscript, although none of these run parallel to this Maxwell version in its entirety. Taken together, however, these texts provide a complete second reading of the Maxwell text, and make it possible to amend several corrupt passages. When for a few words the Arabic text has provided the better reading, it has been easy to insert the equivalent in the Malay text. By this means it has been possible to produce a tolerable Malay text, and since none of Shamsu '1-Din's Malay works have been published this may be of interest.

This paper seeks to illuminate the intellectual impact of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 among Pakistani Shiʻas by focusing on Sayyid ʻArif Husain al-Husaini, the dominating Shiʻi leader of the 1980s. In particular, I am interested in exploring how al-Husaini adapted hallmark themes of the Iranian revolutionary message, such as Muslim unity or political leadership of the religious scholars (ʻulama), to the specific circumstances of Pakistan. Crucial for such processes of translation was not only pressure from the Pakistani state but rather internal challenges and divisions among the Shiʻi community. While al-Husaini could draw on a strong, indigenous tradition of political mobilisation, his revolutionary ʻthird waveʼ of Shiʻi thought sat uncomfortably between Lucknow-educated traditionalists and Najaf-trained reformers who shied away from getting entangled in these novel forms of politics. By drawing on biographical accounts and al-Husaini's speeches in Urdu, I trace how his revolutionary rhetoric had to accommodate thorny local issues such as sectarianism, South Asian mourning traditions or the lack of an established Shiʻi clerical hierarchy in Pakistan.

In the autumn of 1929, a Kyôto-based journal for popular medicine reported that the dean of sexology, Habuto Eiji, had committed suicide after having suffered from neurasthenia (shinkei suijaku) for a long time. A practicing gynaecologist, Habuto had been the editor of the sexological journal Seiyoku to Jinsei (Sexual Desire and Humankind), the author of numerous books on sexual issues, and the co-author, together with Sawada Junjirô, of an abridged Japanese version of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, entitled Hentai Seiyokuron (1915). He also was involved in the translation of Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1901–1928), the twenty Japanese-language volumes which were advertised under the title Sei no Shinri as early as in 1927. Among other sexologists, Habuto had been a chief theorist on the causes of neurasthenia. Physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, pedagogues, and sexologists agreed with him that neurasthenia primarily afflicted men and was caused by overpowering exhaustion that was in turn the result of certain sexual practices. Modern commentators like Habuto speculated that neurasthenia was the result of masturbation or – even worse – homosexuality.

On November 17, 1307, the Armenian king, Het'um II, was assassinated by a Mongol, recently converted to Islam, the noyan Bularghu. In this paper I will look at this assassination, which has often been seen as significant in the context of the conversion of the Mongols of Persia to Islam, and also at the effects, or perceived effects, of that conversion, especially regarding Ilkhanid foreign policy. I shall consider the attitude of the Ilkhans to the small Armenian kingdom centred on Cilicia, now in south-eastern Turkey, which, by 1307 had shrunk from the size and importance it had enjoyed in the middle of the thirteenth century. First, I intend briefly to describe Armenian relations with the Mongols, from the irruption of the latter until about 1307; then I shall discuss the assassination, the sources and reasons for it; next I shall look at the conversion of the Mongol rulers of Persia to Islam, and any effects that this may have had on Ilkhanid foreign policy; finally I shall consider how both this conversion and the assassination have been interpreted by historians, and what this event actually shows us about the effects of the Mongol Ilkhans' conversion to Islam on their relationship with their subject, Christian, Armenian satellite.

Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician and one of the first pharma-botanists is known mainly for his book De Materia Medica, a medical codex listing hundreds of medicinal substances. The Arabs admired Dioscorides’ legacy however they were very aware that their own inventory of drugs was much larger than his.

The Andalusian physician Ibn Juljul (944 – after 994) became famous on account of several medical treaties which he wrote. He devoted most of his time to identifying the drugs listed in Dioscorides’ monumental work, and thereafter wrote: “An article on the drugs not mentioned in Dioscorides’ book. . .”

This article analyzes and discusses the names of those drugs and presents an English translation of this work. The absence of these substances from Dioscorides’ codex, and from other classical sources of the pre-Islamic period (Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen, Paul of Aegina), is a prime reason for ascribing their distribution to the Arabs.

Ibn Juljul's list reflects the major change that took place in the inventory of Galeno-Arabic drugs after the Islamic conquests; about one hundred new substances. Some of these substances, such as the myrobalan, soon became among the most common and popular drugs in the practical pharmacology of the Middle Ages. The fact that about half of the substances not mentioned by Dioscorides are of “Indian” origin should be seen against the background of the influence of the Ayurvedic medical culture, to which the Arabs were exposed alongside the Greek.

It is difficult to lose a good story. Many of the best folk tales transcend the boundaries of language and nationality, and the Gilgamesh Epic, attested in Human, Hittite, Elamite and Akkadian cuneiform, is no exception. The latest Akkadian tablets to be inscribed with the story come from the site of Uruk of the late Babylonian period, some time after the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. and perhaps as late as the Seleurid period, after the reign of Alexander the Great. The story had been popular for some two thousand years. Despite this popularity in so many countries and for such a very long period of time, the story of Gilgamesh was supposed to have died more or less with the death of cuneiform writing, although some residual themes were recognised in various versions of the Alexander Romance.

The following is an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of Mu'tazilite theology by looking at the political attitudes of its exponents. I am much indebted to H. S. Nyberg's pioneer work, notably his article Mu'tazila in the Encyclopedia of Islam and his edition of Kitāb al-Intiṣār. If different conclusions are reached, that is because his work has made possible a more radical estimate of the sources.

The early beginnings of grammatical and lexicographical studies of the Arabic language are said to have been due to the desire to enable the many converts to Islam to understand the meanings of the Holy Book correctly as their languages differed and the Qur'ān contained many words and expressions which were by no means clear to the Arabs themselves. It is not surprising therefore to find that the chief of the early interpreters of the Qur'ān, Ibn 'Abbās, is stated to have been learned in “Lugha” i.e. lexicography or interpretation of words. The real home however, of these studies lay in the borderland towards Persia, in the newly founded towns of al-Baṣra and al-Kūufa. As the originator of these studies generally, Abul-Aswad ad-Du'ali is named. His work has not come down to us, but it can only have consisted of a few general notes. The man, if judged by the poems which have been preserved in a Dīwān edited by Nöldeke and Rescher, gives the impression of not being endowed with high ideals, but conceited beyond the measure of his own worth. As an example that circles existed in his time in which the display of strange words was appreciated, a poem rhyming upon the letter Dāl may serve, in which he defies his adversary to produce one upon the same rhyme.

The Shī'ite revolts against the Umayyads may be said to have begun in 671. Immediately after his father's death in 661, al-Ḥasan had made an unsuccessful attempt to resist Mu'āwiyah, and had then retired to a life of luxury in Medina. Ten years later there was an abortive revolt in Kūfah led by Ḥujr b. ‘Adī al-Kindī. Next, in the troubled period after the death of Mu'āwiyah in 680, al-Ḥusayn, the younger son of 'Alī and Fāṭimah, with some encouragement from the Shī'ite party in Kūfah, came to 'Irāq and claimed the caliphate. He did not receive the support he had expected, however, and his small force of about a hundred was massacred at Karbalā'. In the confusion of the following years, with considerable support in ‘Irāq for Ibn az-Zubayr, the Shī'ites remained quiet; but on the death of Yazīd in 684 some of the older Shī'ites of Kūfah, led by Sulaymān b. Ṣuraḍ al-Khuzā'ī, preparedfor military action. The basis of this movement was twofold: they were to show that they repented of the betrayal of al-Ḥusayn (and so are known as the tawwābūn or Penitents), and they were to seek vengeance for his blood. Most of those who carried out the massacre at Karbalā' were living in Kūfah, but the governor who had despatched the army against al-Ḥusayn, 'Ubaydallāh b. Ziyād, had been forced to retire from 'Irāq and was now on the Syrian border with an army. After some debate they decided to march against him with their 4,000 men, but they were defeated and several of their leaders killed (Jan., 685).

In offering to Sir Mortimer Wheeler some of the firstfruits of our recent excavations at Shahr-i Qūmis, 32 kilometres west of Damghan, it may not be inappropriate if we enlarge on certain of the details that have been recovered from the only major building with both Parthian and Sasanian associations.

The Mongol conquest of Tibet has been poorly understood. ‘Traditional’ Mongol and Tibetan accounts, in comparatively late sources, tell of a submission to Chinggis Khan by Tibetan chieftains. This version of history was rejected some time ago, and replaced with an account that begins with a Mongol invasion of Tibet in 1240. Problems with clarifying this issue include the often poor quality of Tibetan sources, the confusion of Tibet and Tangut (Xi Xia) in Persian sources, and misunderstanding by modern scholars of Chinese terms relating to Tibet. In fact, Chinese sources make clear that there was considerable contact between the Mongols and Tibet before 1240. Chinggis Khan may never have invaded Tibet, but undoubtedly had the intention of doing so. The picture that emerges is of a gradual conquest, with early incursions across the borders of Tibet followed by more penetrating invasions in the 1240s and 1250s.