Students of the early history of Arabic grammar may note with surprise that, until now, studies dealing with the possibility of Greek influence on the emergence of that Islamic scholarly discipline have hardly ever made an issue of the fact that the Hellenistic grammatical tradition as well as the Greek philosophical legacy differ significantly from the Arabic grammatical tradition in their conception of the main parts of the sentence.

Placing Tipu Sultan of Mysore's personal dream register in its textual and historical contexts reveals an internal logic to its structure and content that scholars have not previously recognised. An analysis of the manuscript as a whole suggests that it was compiled no earlier than 1795, as part of a range of strategies adopted by Tipu to ameliorate the position in which he found himself in the late 1790s. Isolated by his regional contemporaries and under increasing pressure from the British, he drew on a range of divinatory practices in an attempt to understand, and perhaps even influence, the outcome of events.

Colonial and postcolonial historians writing in English relied upon an emancipated slave's eighteenth-century Persian text, Tahmās Nāma, to construct the history of the Punjab in the same period. In this process, they have mistranslated the text and the genre. Rather than reading Tahmās Nāma as factual history or as a moral text of refinement, this article argues that if we return to the original account, in Persian, we see that the text is primarily auto/biographical. While this auto/biography does provide some insight into eighteenth-century political history of the Punjab and Mughal Hindustan, it—more importantly—sheds light on the ethnic, religious, social, economic and gendered lives of the author, Miskin, and the people whom he includes in his narrative. These intersecting and overlapping identities have been erased, flattened or misrepresented in translations of the text. Based on a re-reading of the auto/biography in its original language, this article considers how identity and slavery—conceptual categories of the present that are elided in the mistranslations—function in the text, and how those categories were understood, negotiated and leveraged during the eighteenth century.

This article examines how the introduction of western European crusaders and settlers to northern Syria from 490/1097 onwards impacted upon two important mechanisms of regional diplomacy; the ransom of prominent political prisoners and tributary relationships. Discussion begins with a comparison of the capture and ransom of high-ranking captives in northern Syria between 442-522/1050-1128, where it is argued that the establishment of the crusader states led to an increase in both the rate at which prisoners of elite status were ransomed and the financial sums involved in these interactions. This is followed by a reassessment of the various peace treaties, tributary arrangements and condominia or munāṣafa agreements concluded between the rulers of Antioch and Aleppo during the late fifth/eleventh and early sixth/twelfth centuries. Ultimately, this article seeks to place key features of northern Syrian diplomacy from the early crusading period within the context of regional norms in the decades preceding the crusaders’ arrival.

Aromatics derived from animals have played a very important role in the history of perfumery. The most well-known of these materials are musk from the preputial glands of the musk deer, ambergris produced in the stomach of the sperm whale, and civet from the anal glands of the civet cat. Two other notable materials are castoreum from the beaver, and hyraceum from the solidified urine of the African hyrax. The material that I will call ‘sweet hoof’ in this article, also called blattes de Byzance and unguis odoratus, is another fragrant material derived from an animal, consisting of the opercula of certain marine snails. With its marine origins ‘sweet hoof’ is intrinsically linked to the ocean and to trade, and it has also long been of importance all the way from the Mediterranean to China and Japan. Indeed, it is probably the most ancient animal derived aromatic to have an extensive global use, being mentioned in ancient Babylonian incense recipes. Yet, quite probably owing to its very low profile in more commonly studied genres of Sanskrit texts, the South Asian chapter of the history of ‘sweet hoof’ has yet to be written.

It is now possible for me to supplement my Arabic text of Ali Baba by printing in full the only other original version so far known. I shall add some further information which I have gathered on the identity of the scribe of the Bodleian MS. and various notes on the text of that version. Besides the criticisms of Professor Torrey, printed in this Journal for 1911 (pp. 221 ff.), I have had the advantage of privately communicated suggestions from Professor Goldziher, Artin Pasha, and Joseph Gabriel, Esq., a native of Ḥaṣbaya in the Lebanon, but now for many years in business in Manchester. His communications have been of especial interest.

Desiderata and Inquiries connected with the Presidency of Madras and Bombay were issued by the Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1827, on points relating to the language, literature, ancient history of families, antiquities, coins, people, architecture, landed tenures, arts and manufactures, of India.

The British Admiralty has published a Manual of Scientific Enquiry, so have the Statistical and other Societies.

Haxthausen, in his work on the Caucasus, remarks: “My travels and observations during more than twenty years, have convinced me that an acquaintance with the manners of a people, their moral and material interests, domestic relations, corporate associations, and specially the commercial relations of the lower classes, is indispensable to a real knowledge of the history and constitution of peoples and states.”

A student of Buddhism cannot proceed very far in his inquiry without being confronted with a tremendous contradiction. Perhaps I may be allowed here to speak from personal experience. I read Le Bouddha et sa Religion, by M. Barthélemy St.-Hilaire, and one or two well-known works; and soon learnt that annihilation (sûnyatâ) was the lot of the Saint when he had reached the Bodhi or Highest Wisdom, and freed himself from the cycle of new births. I then came across Schlagintweit's Buddhism in Tibet, which contains a sort of litany called The Buddhas of Confession. In it is the following passage:—

“I adore the Buddha Sa-la'i-rgyal-po. Once uttering this name shall purify from all sins of theft, robbery, and the like.” This puzzled me. This being was a Buddha. In consequence he had suffered, or enjoyed, complete annihilation. Why then should the pronouncing the name Sâ-la'irgyal-po purify from all sins of “theft, robbery, and the like?” Then I remembered that in old religions very holy names like I.A.O., A.U.M., etc., had often got to be thought more potent than the God himself. I mention all this to show that I am not at all surprised at people clinging to the idea that the Bodhi in the earliest Buddhism meant annihilation in spite of the strong evidence that can be brought against it. I myself for some time did the same.

Since the publication of my last paper on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Van (J.R.A.S. Jan. 1893) a discovery of considerable importance has taken place. In 1890 Mr. de Morgan, now Director of the Service of Antiquities in Egypt, succeeded, at the risk of his life, in taking a squeeze of the inscription on the pillar of Keli-shin Ushnei, which I have described in the first part of this Memoir (J.R.A.S. XIV. p. 66, No. LVI.). He found that there was engraved upon the stele, not only the Vannic text which I have published, but also an Assyrian text which had never been noticed before.

This article discusses the language of the Xūz mentioned in Arabic sources, endorsing the view that it is the latest attestation of the Elamite language. Drawing on models from historical sociolinguistics, it also studies the problem of mutual acculturation between speakers of Elamite and Persian in antiquity.

Whilst I was engaged last year in making a catalogue of the Oriental MSS. comprised in the libraries of the Society and the Oriental Translation Committee, I met with the historical MS. which is the subject of the following letter. I, at that time, applied to the Council of the Society for permission to forward a description of the MS. to M. Quatremere, who is employed in editing the only portion of the work hitherto known, in the hope that he would represent the matter to the French Government, and cause our MS. to be published in the “Collection Orientale,” as a sequel to his “Histoire des Mongols.” The council acceded to my request, and I accordingly wrote to M. Quatremère on the subject, but whether on account of my letter not having reached its destination or from the press of business, he has not as yet returned any answer to my communication. In the mean time, I think it desirable that the existence of this important volume should be made known to the public, and I have accordingly drawn up the following account of the MS. for insertion in the Journal of the Society.

Most dynastic lists of the Gupta kings state that Kumāragupta I was succeeded by Skandagupta. However, it is widely accepted that Skandagupta did not accede to the throne peacefully. Nor is it certain that the succession was immediate, since there is a gap between the known dates of Kumāragupta's and Skandagupta's reigns. This paper is concerned with the events following the death of Kumāragupta, using numismatic evidence as the primary source, and inscriptional and other epigraphic evidence as further support. Some of the numismatic evidence is new, and even the evidence that is not new has so far received little attention in the literature on the succession after Kumāragupta. Questions are raised about one particular theory that is presently enjoying some currency, that Skandagupta was challenged primarily by his uncle Ghaṭotkacagupta. Some other possible scenarios for the political events in the period after the death of Kumāragupta I will then be proposed and analyzed.

In the introduction to his article, entitled “The Murder of Ibn abī l-Ḥuqayq: On the Origin and Reliability of Some Maghāzī Reports”, Harald Motzki summarises “special biases” by which western scholars deal with the Muslim sources concerning the life of the Prophet. For Motzki, one of the most important biases held against the Muslim sources is that “The background is theological, in that the traditions tried to create a specific theology of history, or in that the Muslims simply tended to put a halo around the founder of their religion”.2

Albeit with some deterioration in recent years, Malaysia has a state with high levels of capacity that has achieved sustained economic growth through a commitment to macroeconomic stability and other pro-business measures. Recent comparative historical work argues that this state capacity is an institutional legacy of a specific model of British colonisation. While Malaysia is an amalgam of areas formerly under direct and indirect rule; the former – a model of colonisation characterised by the construction of a legal-rational bureaucracy with extensive geographic reach – was more prevalent. Prior to the transition to independence, the British increased the “direct” nature of their rule by creating a powerful central government that brought the various territories together. And, a concerted transition of power to a cohort of “bureaucrats-turned-politicians” ensured that the new nation's leaders inherited an intact state apparatus. However, a disproportionate number of these senior bureaucrats hailed from Johor, a state formerly under indirect rule - a colonial model associated with small, neo-patrimonial states with limited capacity. By using colonial sources to map the contours and composition of the Malayan state under British and, subsequently, Japanese rule, this article will explore the reasons for this paradox.