The sovereignty of God and related ideas have had a prominent place in Islamist discourses. Key figures like Mawdudi of Pakistan and Qutb of Egypt have argued that anything less than exclusive submission to God's law, and all that it necessitates in religious and political terms, is idolatry. Yet the idea of the sovereignty of God has been invoked by many more people than the Islamists, and it has meant quite different things in different quarters. Focusing on South Asia, this paper seeks to shed some new light on the provenance of this idea, on how and to what purpose it has been deployed in religious and political argument, and what the debates on it might tell us about rival conceptions of Islam.

The significant changes that were introduced in the organization of Mughal government and the accompanying shifts in Akbar's administrative and religious policies during the period 1560–80 have remained for long a favourite subject of study for a number of modern historians. The existing interpretation of these changes seems largely to run parallel to Abul Fazl's line of argument which seeks to explain the growth of institutions and policies in terms of the unfolding of Akbar' personality. Abul Fazl often tries to ignore, or brush aside as the outcome of “evil advice”, all those measures or decisions which appeared to him inconsistent with Akbar's policy during the last 25 years of his reign. The impression created by Abul Fazl is reinforced by a similar tendency in Badauni, who, from an opposite point of view, quite frequently mixes up his comments on some of Akbar's enlightened measures of the later period with the events of the earlier phase when there was hardly any ground for him to find fault with Akbar from a doctrinal angle. Under the influence of these interpretations modern historians also tend to disregard facts that are inconsistent with Abul Fazl's theory of Akbar's gradual “unveiling” of himself as “the superman”, through the introduction, one after another, of his policies based on the principles of Sulh-i Kul and universal kingship.

When historians explain the end of empires, they often follow a ‘decline and fall’ paradigm which owes its fame to Edward Gibbon's great book on the Roman Empire. Recent historians of Late Antiquity, however, have tended to doubt its validity. This article considers the reasons for the end of the Mongol Empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It examines the division of the empire into four khanates, the eventual collapse of each of which is then studied. It suggests that the khanates which retained more of their original nomadic ethos – the Golden Horde in the Pontic steppes and the Chaghatai Khanate in Central Asia – were able to survive longer than those – in the Ilkhanate in Persia and the Great Khanate in China and Mongolia – which had their centres in sedentary lands. It concludes that in all cases, ‘fall’ was the result of internal factors, about which there was nothing that was inevitable, and that there is little evidence of a long ‘decline’. Hence the ‘decline and fall’ paradigm does not seem to provide an adequate explanatory framework.

At some time towards the middle of the twelfth/eighteenth century, the young Najdī scholar Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (1115–1206/1703f–92) experienced something like a conversion. From that point on, his understanding of monotheism seems to have been such that he considered most of the professed Muslims of his day to be polytheists who should be fought till they accepted Islam. The first Wahhābī state (1158–1233/1745f–1818) was the product of the fusion of this radical vision with the political fortunes of the Āl Sa'ūd, until then the petty chiefs of the Najdī oasis of Dir'iyya.

A'ryab'hatta, who flourished in the beginning of the thirty-seventh century of the Cáli Yuga, of which four thousand nine hundred and twenty years have passed, has in his work, the Aryab'hatiyam, in which he mentions the period of his birth, exhibited the proportion of the diameter to the circumference of the circle as 20000 to 62832, in the following verse:

Chaturadhicam ṣatamashṭaguṇandwáshashṭistathá sahasráṇám Ayutadwaya vishcambhasyásannó vritta pariṇáhah.

Scholars of Indo-European historical linguistics have long found it convenient to refer to well known sound changes by the name of the researcher who first noticed the correspondences the sound change accounts for. Because of the proven utility of such named sound laws in Indo-European linguistics, the explicit listing and naming of sound laws in the Tibeto-Burman family could be expected to bring similar benefits.

A Translation and full explanation of the complete recension of the Bundahishn have been wanted ever since Anklesaria in 1908 published his facsimile edition, the few Iranian scholars having been occupied with the endless stream of fresh material that has descended upon them since the beginning of this century. This article contains a translation of the second chapter; the first and third chapters were made available by Nyberg, JA., 1929, i, 206–237.

Historical analyses of slavery in India generally emphasize the escalation of this social institution during the era of Muslim domination in north India. The present study is not an exception to this rule. However, while historical records make it clear that the Delhi Sultans and Mughal emperors retained slavery in order to suit their political and economic needs, it should be emphasized that Muslim rulers did not introduce slavery to the subcontinent. Sources such as the Arthaśāstra, the Manu-smrti and the Mahābhārata demonstrate that institutionalized slavery was well established in India by the beginning of the common era. Earlier sources suggest that it was likely to have been equally widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BC), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period. Furthermore, just as slavery was common in India long before the eighth-century Islamic conquests in Sind, recent work demonstrates that the institution continued, in various manifestations, well after the decentralization of the Mughal Empire in the early eighteenth century. Still, it is argued here that the expansion of slavery in Muslim India is an important component of the medieval and early modern history of the region and, at least in terms of its role in the commercial and cultural relations of India and Central Asia, it is a subject that would benefit from further historical analysis.

I should like to present some ideas on what, I think, is necessary revaluation of Islamic traditions in the light of our present knowledge; but am at a loss whether to call my conclusions something new and unprecedented, or something old and well known. No one could have been more surprised than I was by the results which the evidence of the texts has forced upon me during the last ten years or so; but looking back I cannot see what other result could possibly be consistent with the very foundations of our historical and critical study of the first two or three centuries of Islam. One of these foundations, I may take it for granted, Goldziher's discovery that the traditions from the Prophet and from his Companions do not contain more or less authentic information on the earliest period of Islam to which they claim to belong, but reflect opinions held during the first two and a half centuries after the hijra.

In the north-western extremity of our Indian possessions, and under the tropic, is situated the small and sterile territory of Cutch, of importance to the government from its advanced position, but of more attraction to the student of history from its western shore being washed by the waters of the classic Indus and from its proximity to the scene of Alexander's glories. Divested, however, of these alluring enticements to enter on its history, Cutch is a country peculiarly situated. To the west it has the inconstant and ever varying Indus. To the north and east the tract called Runn, which is alternately a dry sandy desert and a muddy inland lake. To the south it has the Gulf of Cutch and the Indian Ocean, with waters receding yearly from its shores.

Was there a Xia Dynasty? By the mid-nineteen thirties, the works of Henri Maspero and other scholars in the West and of Gu Jiegang and his compatriots in China had clearly established the originally mythological character of the founder of the Xia Dynasty (traditionally ca. 2200–1760 B.C.) and of the rulers who preceded him in traditional Chinese historiography. The excavations near Anyang of late Shang palaces, tombs and inscribed oracle bones had also established the authenticity of the Shang Dynasty which followed the Xia, or at least of the latter part of it. In 1936, Chen Mengjia published an article in which he related the Xia king list to the Shang and argued that the two periods were the same. For the next forty years, the question of the authenticity of the Xia was left largely in abeyance although most scholars did continue to assume that the Xia Dynasty, which was hereditary like the Shang, would some day be authenticated by archaeological excavation.

In his Islam in Modern History, published in 1957, yet still a work remarkable for its insights, Wilfred Cantwell Smith refers to the extraordinary energy which had surged through the Muslim world with increasing force in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He talks of:

dynamism, the appreciation of activity for its own sake, and at the level of feeling a stirring of intense, even violent, emotionalism…The transmutation of Muslim society from its early nineteenth-century stolidity to its twentieth-century ebullience is no mean achievement. The change has been everywhere in evidence.

This surge of energy is closely associated with a shift in the balance of Muslim piety from an other-worldly towards a this-worldly focus. By this I mean a devaluing of a faith of contemplation of God's mysteries and of belief in His will to shape human life, and a valuing instead of a faith in which Muslims were increasingly aware that it was they, and only they, who could act to fashion an Islamic society on earth. This shift of emphasis has been closely associated with a new idea of great power, the caliphate of man. In the absence of Muslim power, in the absence, for the Sunnis at least, of a caliph, however symbolic, to guide, shape and protect the community, this awesome task now fell to each individual Muslim. I hazard to suggest that this shift towards a this-worldly piety, and the new responsibilities for Muslims that came with it, is the most important change that Muslims have wrought in the practice of their faith over the past one thousand years. It is a change full of possibilities for the future.

In the highly valuable collection of MSS. which Dr. M. A. Stein brought home from his remarkable expedition to East Turkestan, some are found written in the “runic” script we now know from inscriptions in Mongolia and Siberia, and of which the recent investigations in Turfan and the adjacent localities also have brought interesting specimens to light. Dr. Stein has done me the honour to request me to publish the MSS. in this kind of script found by him, and it has been a pleasure to me to do so in this preliminary paper, trusting that in a later, final paper I shall succeed in clearing up several of the mysteries and doubts which I have been obliged to leave unsolved here. It has been of great assistance to me that owing to Dr. Stein's kindness I have been able to make use of the two original MSS., here designated I and II, in one of our public libraries in Copenhagen.

The adoption of western notation (which is an example of graphic notation) as the “official system” in Turkey dates from after 1828. Sultan Mahmud II (reigned 1808–1839) abolished the Janissary force in 1826 and with it the musical unit of that army, it was a band for wind and percussion instruments (Mehterhâne-i Hümâyûn). He then organised his new army on western lines and thus introduced an institution of western origin, the military band, as the musical unit of his modern army. This new institution, which was European in its music system, instruments, repertoire and first and foremost its methods of education, was formed under the name Muzika-i Hümâyûn (the royal military band). Professional musicians were invited from Europe to participate and, with the foundation of Muzika-i Hümâyûn in 1827, the most far-reaching change in Turkish musical history took place. It was an outstanding manifestation of westernisation which necessarily made a deep impact on both the Turkish makam (modal) music system and the existence and the behaviour of the musicians who produced and performed it. The domination of makam music and its masters in court circles and their claim to be the sole and absolute system of taste was undermined, although the appreciation and respect of certain sultans and bureaucrats continued on a personal level. From that date on, a duality, an East-West dichotomy (the effects of which can still be seen), overtook the cultural sphere of which music was a part. Within this dichotomy, tonal polyphonic music of the West began to make its influence felt at least as much as, if not more than, makam based Turkish music both within the state framework and in the society at large. These dual concepts were referred to as Alla Turca and Alla Franga. While Alla Franga (alafranga in common parlance) came to symbolise modernity, change and the new life style, Alla Turca (alaturka in common parlance) became a manifestation of being archaic and conservative and of having a blind commitment to tradition and an under-developed taste (even no taste at all). Within this series of dichotomies, which took hold of every area of life (from literature to fashion also, eating habits, systems of beliefs, and education as well as government) makam based Turkish music received a large share of “cultural negation” with the judgement that it did not even have a decent notation system. It became marginalised and restricted to a narrow social group deeply and passionately devoted to it. Even during this process, makam music developed a dynamic of self-protection against “cultural negation” with its composers, theorists, publishers, performers and listening public. Makam music composers and performers learnt western notation, they wrote pieces down and deciphered music from that notation; a system of education based on modern methods developed while still preserving meşk (the traditional oral teaching method of Turkish music). These efforts were driven by the ‘ideal’ of transforming makam music, which was claimed to be archaic due to its monodic structure, into a polyphonic music. The musicians who knew western notation (such as Melekzet Efendi, Leon [Hancıyan] Efendi, etc.) were paid great amounts of money in order to record the works of the old masters in western notation and compile them, along with new compositions, into extensive note-collections (such as Muzika-i Hümâyûn Kumandanı [the commander of the royal military band] Necîp Paşa Collection and the Pertev Paşa Collection, etc.). Works were also published in note editions (such as Mâlûmat [literally meaning knowledge], Müntehâbât [literally meaning selections], Ûdî [lute-player] Arşak editions, etc.). Moreover, educational guides devoted to teaching makam theory and solmisation (such as Tanbûrî Cemîl Bey's Rehber-i Mûsikî [The Music Guide], Muallim [teacher] İsmail Hakkı Bey's Mahzen-i Esrâr-ı Mûsikî [The Cellar of the Secrets of Music], Muallim Kâzım Bey's Mûsikî Nazariyâtı [Music Theory], etc.) and the first methods for learning the instruments of makam music (such as Ûdî Salâhî Bey's Ud metodu [Lute Method], Seyyid Abdülkaadir Bey's Usûl-i Ta'lîm-i Keman [Method for Practising Violin, etc.], modelled on their European counterparts, were beginning to be published.

This study examines in detail the biographical entry of an Ilkhanid (the Mongol state centred in Iran) princess, El Qutlugh Khatun daughter of Abagha Ilkhan (r. 1265–82), in the biographical dictionaries of the Mamluk author Khalīl ibn Aybeg al-Ṣafadī (d. 1363). Al-Ṣafadī‘s biography of the lady provides a rare glance into the life of women of the Mongol royal household during the transitional period which followed the Ilkhanid conversion to Islam. It sheds light on issues such as the relations between the Mamluks and the Ilkhans in light of the latter's conversion to Islam and the influence of the process of Islamization on traditional Mongolian gender related practices. This paper also discusses the motivation of the Mamluk author in including El Qutlugh's unusual story in his biographical dictionaries showing how his choices might have been influenced not only by his own interests but also by what appealed to his readers.

In the epigraphic and literary records of medieval Hindu India the term sāmanta is used to mean vassals and nobles. Thus the sāmantas were vitally connected with the structure of Indian society. But, in spite of its importance, the term has not received a full-length study.

According to its derivation the term sāmanta is an adjective and means ‘being on all sides’, ‘neighbouring’ or ‘bordering’. In earlier works we find it used in this sense.

Islam is often seen as playing only a minor role in pre-colonial Malay political life. J. M. Gullick, for instance, in his seminal work Indigenous political systems of Western Malaya concludes that Islam “was not to any significant extent a ‘state religion’”. The “chaplains of the more devout Sultans and chiefs”, he explains, “never attained any collective importance in the political system owing to the lack of organization”; there were “no Kathis (Muslim judges and registrars) until the era of British protection”; and no evidence exists that “Islamic legal doctrine” was “effective law”?

The important rôle which the Kārimī merchants played in Oriental trade at the end of the Middle Ages has been touched upon by some outstanding orientalists. The last to treat the subject exhaustively was W. J. Fischel in his paper “Über die Gruppe der Kārimī-Kaufleute”, published in 1937 in the series Analecta Orientalia (of the Pontifical Bible Institute) no. 14. The Arabic historical works of the later Middle Ages contain, however, additional material, which partly corroborates and partly modifies Fischel's conclusions. A good many of the notices on the Kārimīs to be quoted in this paper are taken from the hitherto unpublished chronicle Inbā' al-ghumr bi-abnā al-'umr of Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqalānī (d. 1449), MS. Constantinople, Yeni Cami 814 and the Who's Who of the fifteenth century composed by al-Sakhāwī (d. 1497) and called ad-Ḍau' al-lāmi' fī a'yān al-qarn al-tāsi' (Cairo, 1353–55).

A glance at any map of excavated sites in Iran will show clearly the relative rarity of controlled excavations north and east of the Tehran region. A cluster of sites in the vicinity of Behshahr, four in the neighbourhood of the Gorgan plain, two from the flat terrain immediately south of the eastern Elburz, and only one near Meshed represent the sum total of those north-eastern settlements that have attracted archaeological expeditions between the years 1930 and 1964. As a consequence, our excavated evidence from this extensive area is astonishingly slight, particularly following the fall of the rich Bronze Age “Gorgan Culture” in the middle of the second millennium b.c.

This article explores the historical writings of Rashid al-Din Tabib (d. 1318) as part of a programme of political legitimisation for the Mongol Ilkhans of Iran. By considering both volumes of the Jami` al-tawārikh alongside one another and in their political context, it reveals aspects of the text that get lost when the dynastic and world history are treated in isolation. Rashid al-Din's presentation of legendary figures of communal identity from Perso-Islamic and Turko-Mongol traditions responds to immediate political conflicts between his patrons and their neighbours, the Jochid Mongols of the Volga region and the Mamluks of Egypt. In the relative absence of documentary evidence, court-sponsored narrative chronicles can in this way inform our understanding of ruling ideology during the period.