bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Nominal suffixes in Dirayta (Gidole)
Authors: Hayward R. J.
Published: January 2010

Dirayta (ɗiraytá) is an Eastern Cushitic language spoken by a people calling themselves Diraaŝ (ɗiráaŝ), who live in the immediate vicinity of Gidole. Within Ethiopia generally the language is known as Gidoliñña. Dirayta and Musiya (Bussa or Busiñña) constitute the northernmost dialects of the Konsoid dialect chain, a linguistic entity first clearly established by Paul Black (forthcoming).
Two eighteenth-century Marathi manuscripts
Authors: Raeside I. M. P.
Published: January 2010

The following two Mahānubhāva manuscripts in Marathi were recently presented to the author in Aurangabad and have been deposited in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Since they are written mainly in sakaḷa script (see my ‘The Mahānubhāva sakaḷa lipī’, BSOAS, xxxiii, 2, 1970, 328–34) and between them contain several Mahānubhāva works, they are worth describing in some detail.
Studies in Contemporary Arabic Literature
Authors: Gibb H. A. R.
Published: January 2010

The beginnings of the novel as a literary art in Egypt are so recent that the student of contemporary Arabic literature might well be excused for seeking to trace some genetic connection between its development and the earlier productions of the Syrian school of writers. But except for the possibility that the success of the Syrian novelists (whose works have been admirably described by Professor Kratchkowsky in the study frequently quoted in the previous articles of this series, and now available in a German translation) may have encouraged the Egyptian writers to produce a class of works which would appeal to the same public, the literary movement which forms the subject of the present article has remained in general entirely independent of the Syrian historical novel. Western influences, which are very marked in the later stages, have been exercised directly, but Egyptian recreational literature continued for a long time to lean rather on classical and conventional models. It is only very slowly and hesitatingly that it has emancipated itself, and its progress in this direction has been sporadic and individual rather than the result of a steady evolution.
Notes on the Transcription of Burmese
Authors: Firth J. R.
Published: January 2010

The phonetic text given below is a simplified “broad” transcription of story No. 5 on p. 37 of A Burmese Phonetic Reader, by Armstrong and Pe Maung Tin, and is based on experience gained in the practical use of the Reader with Burmans, and also in the teaching of Burmese phonetics in the Indian Institute, Oxford.
The Popular Verse Of The Bakhtiari Of S.W. Persia-II: Specimens Of Bakhtiari Verse
Authors: Lobimer D. L. R.
Published: January 2010

THE Bakhtiari texts that follow are given almost exactly as they were recorded by me in 1914. I have not attempted to alter the rather heterogeneous collection of phonetic symbols of which I made use, except in one case. I have got rid of one frequently recurring awkward symbol by using a to represent sounds approximating to the -a- of ‘father’ and the -a- of ‘fall’ respectively. Normally it may be taken as representing the latter sound. The sound of -a- in ‘father’ occurs regularly only in a few words, e.g. baz ═ Mn.P. ba'daz
Two Studies In Gurungkura: I. Tone; II. Rhotacization and Retroflexion
Authors: Burton J.
Published: January 2010

Gurungkura is the Nepali name of a language spoken in West Central Nepal by the Gurung tribe.2 These studies are based on the speech of G./Lieut. Ganesh Gurung, M.C., l/2nd K.E.O. Goorkha Rifles, who during 1950 was seconded for duty as a research assistant at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Three Mahdist Letter-Books
Authors: Holt P.M.
Published: January 2010

In 1955 the Sudan Government presented to the School of Oriental and African Studies photographs of several important documents connected with the Sudanese Mahdia (1881–98). Amongst these are three letter-books containing the text of communications from the Mahdi, Muhammad (Ahmad) b. ‘Abdallāhi, who led the movement until his death in 1885, and his successor, the Khalifah ‘Abdallāhi b. Muhammad al-Ta‘āīishl, who was defeated by Kitchener at the battle of Kararī (Omdurman) in September 1898. None of these MSS has yet been published, although extracts have been printed from one. The purpose of this article is to give a brief indication of their history and contents. They may be designated the letter-books of ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Nujūmī, ‘Uthmān Diqnah, and Yūsuf Mikhā'īl, and the letters N, D, and M will be used for the respective short references.
Pūr-I Bahā's ‘Mongol’ Ode (Mongolica, 2)
Authors: Minorsky V.
Published: January 2010

PŪr-i BahĀ (probably Tāj al-dīn, son of Bahā al-dīn) was a contemporary of the Mongol il-khan Abaqa (663–80/1265–82), son of Hulagu, and was closely associated with the family of great statesmen, Juvaynī. He is now a forgotten poet and the information available hitherto has been scarce. Even the most accurate editor of the history of ‘Alā al-dīn Juvaynī forgot to mention Pūr-i Bahā, among the panegyrists of the Juvayni family. Yet Pūr-i Bahā enjoyed a considerable reputation in his day. According to Hamdullah Mustaufā (Tārīkh-i Guzīda, 816) his dīvān was well-known (mashhūr), and Waṣṣāf (see below) readily quoted his verses.
The Government of T'ang in the Early Eighth Century
Authors: Tweitchett D.C.
Published: January 2010

An Lu-shan's rebellion marks a turning point in practically every aspect of the history of the T'ang dynasty. The strong centralized empire which reached the apogee of its magnificence under the Emperor Hsiian Tsüng (713–56) was able, after seven years of exertion, to put down the rebellion. But in doing so it was forced to compromise with the very principle of provincial military autonomy of which An Lu-shan was the arch-representative. The empire which remained in the hands of the T'ang imperial family deteriorated by degrees into a state of provincial autonomy which differed from the actual subdivision of China during the ensuing Five Dynasties period more in name than in reality.
Notes on Baule Phonology
Authors: Stewart J.M.
Published: January 2010

Baule is one of the most widely spoken languages in the French Ivory Coast; the Handbook of African Languages, Part II, gives the number of speakers as 373,000. It is, according to the Handbook classification, a member of the Anyi-Baule dialect cluster of the Akan language group. Because of its importance, and the fact that no description of it has so far appeared, it is considered worth while to bring forward the present phonological analysis even though it is only provisional; a more definitive statement must await further study in the field.
The Classical Chinese topic-markerFu
Authors: Graham A. C.
Published: January 2010

The graph in Classical Chinese represents three different words, a noun (fu1/✴pῗwo╴ ‘man, husband’), a final particle (fu2/✴bῗwo╴ ‘n'est-ce pas?’), and a word (also read (fu2/✴bῗwo╴) which of all the common pronouns and particles is perhaps the one which has most persistently defied all attempts at a usable grammatical description.
Some observations on Greek and Latin data relating to South Arabia
Authors: Beeston A. F. L.
Published: January 2010

It is well known that, according to Pliny, the originating terminal for caravans conveying frankincense from South Arabia to the Mediterranean was at Shabwa; and there has been much talk of an ‘incense road’ followed by those caravans. It is, however, very unlikely that there was any single ‘road’ invariably followed. More probably, there was a multiplicity of routes, any one of which might be chosen according to prevailing circumstances. One such route runs directly from Shabwa to the eastern end of the Wādī Jawf, across a gravel corridor bisecting the Sayhad sand-desert, surveyed by Philby in 1936. The possibility of this route has been disregarded mainly because of a widely prevalent but tendentious translation of Pliny's remark, ‘evehi non potest nisi per Gebbanitas’, as ‘[the frankincense] cannot be exported [from Shabwa] except through the land of the Gebbanites’, where the text says nothing about a ‘land’ but merely ‘by the Gebbanites’. Other possible routes are one skirting the southern edge of the sand-desert and passing through Tumna', and one reaching the upper Wādī Bayḥān by way of Nisab and the Wadi Markha. West of Bayhan, the passes of Nagd. Marqad and Mablaqa clearly represent alternative routes.
Abū Lahab and Sūra cxi
Authors: Kubin Uri
Published: January 2010

The studies of Sūra CXI1have not yet arrived at satisfactory results, hence the meaning of this sūra is still obscure. The present study tries to present a better basis for its understanding.

1.The date and background of the sῡra

Sūra CXI deals with Abū Lahab, whom all the Muslim sources identify as Muḥammad's paternal uncle, 'Abd al-'Uzzā b. 'Abd al-Muṭṭalib of the clan of Hāshim.
Custom andSharī'ain the Bedouin family according to legal documents from the Judaean Desert
Authors: Layish Aharon , Shmueli Avshalom
Published: January 2010

This paper, by means of original Bedouin documents relating to matters of personal status, attempts to disclose interaction between custom andsharī'aand to illuminate some of the mechanisms tending to complete the islamization of a tribal society in process of sedentarization. The Bedouin dealt with here are a group of tribes in the Jerusalem-Bethlehem region: al-Sawāhira (c.6,000 persons now) east of Jerusalem, al-'Ubaydiyya (c.5,500) east of Bayt Saḥūr, the 13 al-Ta'āmira tribes (c.20,000) extending over a sector east of Bayt Saḥūr in the north to Bayt Fajjār in the south, and al-Rashā'ida (c.500) south-east of Taqū'a. Most of these tribes originate from Ḥijaz and Najd. They appeared in the region in small groups from the sixteenth century and in time developed into tribes, while absorbing localfallāḥs. Their main numerical increase took place in the twentieth century.
The ‘Dosografa’ church in the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca
Authors: Davison Roderic H.
Published: January 2010

By the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774, which marked a disastrous defeat of the Ottoman empire by Russia, the Russians were accorded the right to build a church in Istanbul, in the Galata quarter. The treaty further specified that the church was to be under the protection of the Russian minister, who could make representations concerning it to the Sublime Porte. This church, and the Russian right to protect it and to make representations about it, furnished much of the basis on which Russian governments, in later years, built a claim to a broader right to protect the Greek Orthodox Church, even the Greek Orthodox people, in the Sultan's domains. The claims were exaggerated, but since the church in Istanbul was to be ‘of the Greek ritual’, as article 14 of the treaty said, the connexion seemed logical. The Turkish text of the treaty, however, as Cevdet Pasa reproduces it in his history, makes no mention of a church ‘of the Greek ritual’. Instead, his article 14 specifies that this church is to be called the dusugrafa or dosografa church ().
The Golok Dialect and Written Tibetan past-tense verb forms
Authors: Sprigg R. K.
Published: January 2010

Tibetan orthography looks phonetically challenging, to say the least; and one may well wonder whether such tongue-twisting combinations as thebrjofbrjes, theblt-ofbltas, or thebst-ofbstanever did twist a Tibetan tongue, or whether the significance of these and other such orthographic forms might not have been morphophonemic in origin, with the lettersr, l, and s in the syllable initial of forms such as these serving to associate these past-tense forms lexically with their corresponding present-tense forms; e.g.Viewed in relation to Tibetan orthography the past-tense forms of a class of verbs in the Golok dialect seem to support this hypothesis. Table 1, below, contains a number of examples of Golok verbs in their past-tense and present-tense forms to illustrate a type of phonological analysis suited to that view of the r syllable-initial unit in the Golok examples, and, indirectly, in the WT examples too (the symbols b and b will be accounted for in section (B) below).
More about the OtoΓ salt lakes
Authors: Seeruys Henry
Published: January 2010

In the autumn of 1977, sometime after my paper on salt production in Otoγ had been published, while searching for something of an entirely different nature, unexpectedly I discovered tucked away in a book from the library formerly belonging to the late Antoine Mostaert, another letter dealing with the same question of salt. It consists of one sheet of Chinese paper measuring 443 X 248 mm., with 25 lines of text: the copy of a letter of one of the ministers of the Banner of Otoγ addressed to another Banner functionary; the very last line evidently is not part of the letter but is a note whereby the addressee forwards this copy to somebody who remains unidentified, perhaps the resident priest of Boro-Balyasun; the church indeed had been involved in the salt negotiations and is also mentioned in the letter.
Some early Amharic letters
Authors: Ullendorff Edward
Published: January 2010

The great majority of the Amharic letters which form the subject of this article are part of the papers left by the late Professor Eugen Mittwoch. Not all the letters published here were addressed to Mittwoch. A few were sent by their Ethiopian writers to members of the Rosen mission to Ethiopia in 1905 or to the German Chargé d'Affaires at Addis Ababa. They were later handed by their addressees to the man who represented Amharic studies in Germany at that time. Among those addressed to Mittwoch himself the letters by Həruy Waldä Səllase, the former Foreign Minister, and by Aläqa Tayyä, Mittwoch's informant and aminore figurain Amharic literature, are perhaps of the greatest interest. Nearly all the writers here represented have played some part in recent Ethiopian history, and their letters may therefore lay claim to some interest on those grounds alone.
An Incomplete Copy of a Sūtra Incorporated in the Peking Print of the Tibetan Kanjur
Authors: Simon Walter
Published: January 2010

It is exactly 40 years ago that the Otani University, Kyoto, published its Comparative analytical catalogue of the Kanjur division of the Tibetan Tripitaka, edited in Peking during the K'ang-hsi era, this Kanjur division, together with the Tanjur division, being now available in reduced size as the Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking edition, edited by Daisetz T. Suzuki. Ever since that time it would have been possible to state that the Tibetan version of the Amoghapᾱśakalparᾱja (No. 365) has been listed as numbering 24 chapters (bam-po) as opposed to the 25 chapters of the Derge print, set out by the compiler on the same pages, together with references to the Chinese version (in vol. xx of the Taishō Tripitaka). It is easy to ascertain that the Narthang print (as well as the manuscript copy of the British Museum) also have 25 chapters. On the other hand the Cone print, though numbers of chapters are not indicated in Mibu's Comparative list, and the Mongolian Kanjur, as is evident from Professor Ligeti's catalogue, have only 24 chapters
East Himalayish
Authors: Shafer Robert
Published: January 2010

Brian h. hodgson's vocabulary of the ‘Kirānti’ contains a jumble of dialects, those in adjoining columns seldom being closely related to each other. But his vocabulary has the advantage that all the dialects listed by him belong to one Tibeto-Burmic group, which we may call East Himalayish.
Addenda To The Hudud Al-' Ālam
Authors: Minoesky V.
Published: January 2010

WHEN my translation of theHudud Al-' Ālamwas published in 1937, it was found impossible to swell the book1by further remarks on the language of the Persian original, and I promised (p. xii) to deal with this problem at a later date. On the other hand, the quarter of a century which has elapsed since I began my work on theHududhas brought a considerable number of new facts bearing on the interpretation of the data which I was trying to explain. In various ways my work has been continued, both in the articles which can be considered as a by-product of theHudud2and in contributions on fresh but cognate texts.3The object of my present article is to bring the book up to date by integrating my own research and by completing it with references to the studies of other scholars.
St. Euthymius The Georgian And The Barlaam And Ioasaph Romance
Authors: Lang D. M.
Published: January 2010

IN the literary world of medieval Christendom, few works rival the popularity of the edifying tale of Barlaam and Ioasaph. As is well known, the work purports to relate the conversion of the Indians by the Christian sage and ascetic Barlaam. In reality, it is a Christianized version of episodes from the life of Buddha. In its Western form, it consists of a set of apologues or fables woven into a narrative framework, and interspersed with quotations from the Scriptures and from the Greek Fathers. All versions in European languages derive from the Greek Barlaam, which became well-known from the 11th century onwards.
Some Formal Characteristics Of The Hua-pen Story
Authors: Birch Cyril
Published: January 2010

The classification hua-pen. covers a small but important part of the A vast corpus of Chinese fiction. The term is sometimes translated ‘promptbooks ‘,and was applied first to the written texts used by the market-place story-tellers of the Sung period, and later to new versions, fashioned by writers, of the tales these men had told. The stories of the Ching pen t'ung su hsiao shuo may fairly be described as hua-pen in this second sense.1
Additional Notes to Idrīsī's Account of the British Isles
Authors: Wittek Paul
Published: January 2010

Since Professor Francesco Gabrieli's announcement to the twenty-third International Congress of Orientalists at Cambridge (August, 1954) has raised the hope that preparations for a new and complete edition of Idrisi's Geography will soon begin, I shall not withhold any longer the small additions which I have to make to my note in BSOAS, XIII/4, 1951, p. 1045. Wadi snt. Idrisi describes it, in his chapter on the British Isles, as the nearest place to England on the Continent and belonging to. Ifrands. It occurs several times also in his chapter on Francia, Normandy, Flanders, etc., where the main passage1 shows it as ‘a very small town on the sea shore from which one sails over to England 25 miles away’. It is now commonly accepted that Wadi snt denotes Wissant, a former port not far from Cape Gris Nez in the direction of Calais, most frequented for the crossing of the channel until the 14th century.2 Dr. Beeston's explanation of the Arabic form of Wissant, ‘with the first part of the name rationalized into the Arabic wadi’ (BSOAS, XIII/2, 1950, p. 273), is all too brief.
Did Middle Indian Know An Abl. Sg. M. N. In -ami
Authors: De Vreese K.
Published: January 2010

In his exhaustive treatment of the language of the Vasudevahindi by Sanghadasaganin (ed. Caturvijaya and Punyavijaya, Bhavanagar, 1930) in the eighth volume of this Bulletin (BSOS, VIII, 1935–7, pp. 319 ff.) Alsdorf mentions as one of the most interesting and remarkable archaic forms in this text an ablative sg. m. n. ending in am, which he tries to explain as a normal development of the common abl. in -at. The passages in which he noted this strange ablative ending are: tao nissaranto dukkhamaranam (Skt. tato nirasarisyad dichkha-maranat) ‘then he would have escaped a miserable death’ (6, 13); pawayakandaram viniggaya (Skt. parvatahmdarad vinirgatau) ‘both of them came out of the cave of the mountain’ (146, 29); cukka si ayaram (Skt. cyutasy acarat) ‘you have fallen from the acara’ (227, 24).
A Muslim Shrine At Ḥarrān
Authors: Rice D. S.
Published: January 2010

THE traveller who approaches Harrān from Urfa passes near an isolated domed building known to the local inhabitants as the shrine of Shaikh Hayāt (ziyārat shaikh hayāt). It stands just outside the city, near the southwest corner of the perimeter-wall1 and is surrounded by some modern tombs (PI. I)2.
Prepositions And Personal Affixes In Southern Kurdish
Authors: Edmonds C. J.
Published: January 2010

THE following table shows: in columns 1 and 2 two separate series of personal affixes; in column 3 the present tense of the verb ‘to be’; in column 4 the personal inflexions of the present tenses of all other verbs; and in column 5 the personal pronouns in their separable forms.
Certain Aspects Of Chinese Customary Law In The Light Of Japanese Scholarship
Authors: McAleavy Henry
Published: January 2010

IN October 1948, the Governor of Hong Kong appointed a committee to consider the position of Chinese law and custom in that colony. The report of this committee, which was published in February 1953,1 will have drawn attention to the fact that the old family law of China, quite apart from the limited recognition given to it by the courts, continues to exercise considerable influence on the lives of millions of Chinese, not only in Hong Kong, but in the other British territories of South-East Asia. In China itself, as regards matters of the family, the Civil Code of the former National Government had never, over most of the country and for the mass of the people, any very eifectual force, and the customary law continued to exist in almost undiminished vigour until the establishment of the People's Government in 1949.2 Since then the situation has changed completely. New laws regarding marriage and property are effectively enforced, and have everywhere replaced the old customs and, what is still more important, an extremely efficient system of mass-education in the principles of Communism will before long have expelled from people's minds those beliefs on which the old Chinese law was based. From now on, apart from Formosa, it is only in Hong Kong and among the communities of overseas Chinese throughout South-East Asia that Chinese customary family law will continue to exist, but even with such limitations it is still of sufficient importance to make its study of practical significance.
The founding of a new capital: Sāmarrā'
Authors: Ismail Osman S. A.
Published: January 2010

‘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.
Free verse (al-shi'r al-ḥurr) in modern Arabic literature: Abū Shādī and his school, 1926–46
Authors: Moreh S.
Published: January 2010

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.
On the sacred Fires of the Zoroastrians
Authors: Boyce Mary
Published: January 2010

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.
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Mā’ al-'Aynayn al-Qalqam‛ in the folk-literature of the Spanish Sahara—I
Authors: Norris H. T
Published: January 2010

The Zawāyā, the lettered fraternity of the Westren Sahara, besides contributing works of merit to Arabic scholarship have also taken an active part in the evolution of Moorish oral and written folk-literature, in the subject-matter, the systemization and classification of poetic metres, the selection of Arabic verse in the various musical styles, and in the way that Islam, and in particular the ideas of the Ṣūfī orders of the Sahara and the Sudan, has become an integral part of the daily lives of the nomad and the oasis dweller alike.
Drought, human sacrifice and the Mandate of Heaven in a lost text from the Shang shu
Authors: Allan Sarah
Published: January 2010

In the following, I will analyse a lost text from the Shang shu the ‘Ancient documents ’. The story recorded in this text that of an ominous portent—seven years of drought which occurred at the beginning of the Shang Dynasty, of a divination in which human sacrifice was demanded of the Shang founder Tang, and of the ritual in which he offered himself as a sacrifice to the Lord on High. I will argue that this text provides a conceptual link between the role of the king in Shang times as a medium between the spirits above and the earth below and the Zhou theory of the king as the recipient of a changing mandate of Heaven.
Sic enim est traditum
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: January 2010

Use of the term ‘exegesis’ is now so general that scholars in the field of scriptural studies must have sensed an impingement upon their conventional prerogative. If, perhaps, they are justified in so doing, they might none the less be prepared to acknowledge the value of ancillary functions accumulated in its extension into areas beyond its standard application to literature. While it may be that these can be encompassed in the general shift from self-consciously ‘interpretative’ to epistemologically ‘hermeneutic’, it would seem more practical to identify as ‘exegesis’ any and every act of perception. That, of course, is facilitated by the now conventional notion of ‘text’ espoused by most practitioners of structuralism. Whether one equates every datum of perception as somehow ‘textual’ or, conversely, the perception of every text as dependent upon the totality of experience, does not really matter. ‘Exegesis’ is conveniently inclusive and may be thought of general utility in the service of every taste and all analytical techniques. As such, it is ineluctably present in every transaction of the intellect: one observes, hears, reads, and makes the necessary adjustments in aid of understanding. In the very interests of survival, one seldom elects not to understand. It is the ‘necessary adjustments’ that require description, abundantly documented in the textbooks of literary criticism: from the rhetorical ‘naming of parts’ to contemporary discourse analysis. If it seems difficult to add to that vast corpus of technical terms, it is certainly possible to take a stand in respect of their presumptive efficiency.
Ḥinth, birr, tabarrur, taḥannuth: an inquiry into the arabic vocabulary of vows
Authors: Calder Norman
Published: January 2010

Professor M. J. Kister, in a justly celebrated article on the meaning of the word taḥannuth, takes notes only casually of the related word ḥinth, which, he implies, means sin. Montgomery Watt had previously noted that ‘ḥinth is properly the violation of or failure to perform an oath, and so more generally sin.’ These are of course correct reflections of the Muslim lexicographical tradition. But, I shall argue in this essay, they do not exhaust the connotations of the word ḥinth: indeed they are probably secondary developments from the meaning which I shall explore here. It is not the least benefit of my proposal that it may—after a lengthy exploration of juristic vocabulary—cast new light on the meaning of the word taḥannuth, for so long a crux in the academic study of the biography of the Muslim Prophet.
The 1904 epidemic of cholera in Persia: some aspects of qājār society
Authors: Burrell R. M.
Published: January 2010

Of all the diseases which afflicted mankind in the nineteenth century cholera has a good claim to the unenviable title of being the most dreaded. It was certainly the one which prompted the first sustained efforts to devise and implement international sanitary conventions. The reasons why cholera was so feared are many. Until the second decade of the century it was confined to the Indian subcontinent—where it had probably existed since ancient times—and medical knowledge of it elsewhere was practically nil. In 1817, however, maritime trade carried the infection to other lands and thus began the first period of diffusion which lasted for some six years. By the early years of the twentieth century a further five massive epidemics had occurred, almost every country in the world had been affected and the cumulative death toll was measured in millions. Persia, being so close to the original source of infection, suffered in every one of those epidemics and also from several other more limited and localized outbreaks.
The locust problem in Cyprus
Authors: Jennings Ronald C.
Published: January 2010

The fifteenth-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machaeras, whoseRecital concerning the sweet land of Cyprusconcludes in 1432, first mentions locusts thus: ‘And in 1351 the locust, with God's blessing, began to come to Cyprus (and did great damage).’ Strange as it may seem, this may have been the first visit of locusts to the island in numbers sufficient to be destructive. Soon other local chroniclers, as well as travellers, pilgrims, and merchants, joined Machaeras in recording such invasions. They may have been no surprise to the Cypriot chronicler, writing a little under a century later, but in 1351 they could well have been the cause of surprise, even terror, on the island.
A Preliminary Investigation of the Ṭomarä Təsbə't of Emperor Zär'a Yaʿəqob of Ethiopia
Authors: Haile Getatchew
Published: January 2010

Our information to date about the possible existence of a work known as ṭomaräǝsbǝ't or ‘Epistle of Humanity’, by Emperor Zär'a Ya'ǝqob (1434–68) comes from the works of the Emperor himself. It is important that we study closely his description of this work in order to determine whether the contents of a given manuscript could be at least part of the so-called ṭomaräǝsbǝ't, or .
The Syllable as Prosody: a re-analysis of syllabification in eastern Libyan Arabic
Authors: Owens Jonathan
Published: January 2010

One unit of Firthian prosodic analysis is the anaptyctic vowel: ‘such common phenomena as elision, liaison, anaptyxis, the use of so-called cushion consonants or “sounds for euphony” are involved in this study of prosodies. These devices of explanation begin to make sense when prosodic structure is approached as a system of syntagmatic relation’ (Firth, 1948, 57 f.).
Sanskrit mā- ‘to make, produce, create’
Authors: Burrow T.
Published: January 2010

In JRAS, 1960, 95 f., while reviewing J. Gonda's Four studies in the language of the Veda (The Hague, 1959), I put forward the view that the Sanskrit root mā- ‘to make, produce, create’ should not be regarded as a special meaning development of the root mā- (<IB mē-) ‘to measure’, but that it should be taken as an independent root derived from IE mā- ‘to make’, etc., which is also to be seen in Lat. māteria, māteriēs ‘substance, material’ and in the IE word for ‘mother’ (Lat. māter, etc.). The matter was dealt with very briefly in that review, and a much fuller treatment is needed to establish the conclusions proposed there. It is the purpose of the present article to provide this.
The oracles of the clouds and the Winds
Authors: Loewe Michael
Published: January 2010

The subject of oracles and divination usually calls to mind two topics, the shells and bones of the Shang–Yin period, and the cast of the yarrow stalks with a view to constructing the hexagrams. Attention may then fasten on the inscriptions of the shells and the bones, or on theChanges, and their respective places in linguistic, religious, historical or philosophical studies. However, it is by no means always recognized that divination and oracles continued to be matters of considerable importance in their many forms in later ages, playing a significant role alike in political decisions, religious practice and scientific enquiry.
The participle ghaṭita as applied to windows
Authors: Willis Michael D.
Published: January 2010

The participle ghaţita (from the root ghaţ) has a wide range of meanings, but is quite restricted when applied to windows in a house or palace. Our purpose here is to clarify this specific usage by reference to texts and archaeological remains. As such, this note elucidates the cultural milieu of the term.
Shapur's shooting
Authors: MacKenzie D. N.
Published: January 2010

The Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities of the British Museum has in its collections an inscribed plaque (BM 136772) which is intriguing for bearing not one but one and a half inscriptions, for being almost perfectly legible, and yet for having no obvious purpose. There is no information about its provenance (the plaque was in a European private collection for some considerable time) other than that it is said to have come, indirectly, from Iran. Of this there can be little doubt, as we shall see. The plaque is of sheet silver, roughly rectangular, and measures approximately 13 · 5 cm. in width and 14 · 5 cm. in length. At some time it has been folded in half both ways, leaving a horizontal crack across the middle. Another crack runs across the bottom right-hand corner. It is possible to give these orientations because of the 21 lines of writing which, from their division, were incised in the plate after it acquired its present shape. The writing is ‘inscriptional’ Parthian. The first 14 lines bear a close copy of the corresponding version of the rock inscription of Shapur I at Ḥāǰīābād (by Persepolis), and 11. 15–21, probably by another hand, contain a repetition of the beginning of this. But this is by no means to say all.
Nerccas: saint-martyr worship among the Muslims of Kerala
Authors: Dale Stephen F. , Menon M. Gangadhara
Published: January 2010

Saint worship is a form of religious expression common to most Islamic societies, but it is especially important in the religious life of the Māppiḷas, the Muslims of Kerala State, South India. The Māppiḷas' largest public festivals are a variant of saint worship known as nerccas. These are expensive and elaborate ceremonials which combine nominally Islamic elements with certain features of indigenous folk festivals. Thus, while the focal point of each nercca is the reverence shown to a pīr, shaykh, or shahīd, all the festivals are conducted within a ritual framework derived from the worship of folk deities in Kerala. The nerccas are important just because of this hybrid character; that is, they provide examples of an especially complex variety of Islamic saint and martyr worship. However, the festivals are equally important when they are viewed solely as a source of information about Kerala Muslims, for the Māppiḷas possess only the most fragmentary records concerning their own past and the nerccas offer one of the most important means by which it is possible to study the history and religious culture of this important Muslim community.
Bayso revisited: some preliminary linguistic observations—I
Authors: Hayward R. J.
Published: January 2010

It was Harold Fleming who first drew the attention of linguists to the Bayso language. Reports concerning the existence of such a people on Gidicho Island in Lake Abaya go back to the beginning of the century and descriptions of various cultural and economic aspects of the life of the Bayso and other inhabitants of Gidicho appeared subsequently; but concerning the language nothing was available until the publication of Fleming's germinal article in 1964. The latter followed a brief period of work on the island with a Bayso speaker. The 216-item vocabulary list and brief indications of the grammar have nevertheless proved tantalizingly suggestive to everyone working on questions of genetic relationships within Cushitic. Alongside the Bayso material the article also presented the first data on the Rendille language of north-east Kenya. Fleming's conclusions that Bayso, Rendille, Boni, and Somali constitute a Macro-Somali group were seen as linguistic support for H. S. Lewis's hypothesis of a south Ethiopian (rather than a northern Horn of Africa) origin for the Somali. Since the initial presentation of these proposals, linguistic research into the Dasenech (Galab), Elmolo, and to a limited extent Arbore, languages has led German linguists to propose an extension of Fleming's Macro-Somali to include these languages. Until very recently the limited nature of the data available on many of the relevant languages had tended to detract from the strength of arguments about their internal relationships. Heine's reports of his recent researches on Rendille, Elmolo, and Boni, as well as his work on the diachrony of the ‘Sam languages’ have done much to advance our knowledge. To date, however, the material available on Bayso has remained restricted to what was presented by Fleming in 1964. The primary purpose of the present paper is to set out the results of research conducted for a period of 17 days during September 1976.
The ‘Song of Bagauda’: a Hausa king list and homily in verse–I
Authors: Hiskett M.
Published: January 2010

The ‘Song of Bagauda’ (WB) is apparently known to Joseph Greenberg, for he quotes two hemistichs from it in his article on Hausa prosody. He refers to the work briefly, among a list of unpublished Hausa poems as a ‘qaṣīda History of Kano’, but gives no further details of subject-matter or provenance.
A New Source For the Biography of Aḥmad Bābā Al-Tinbuktī (1556–1627)
Authors: Hunwick J. O.
Published: January 2010

The name of Aḥmad Bābā first became known to European scholarship through the articles of the French scholar M. A. Cherbonneau in the years 1854 and 1855. In 1857, when Heinrich Barth published hisTravels and discoveries, Aḥmad Bābā achieved a spurious fame which lasted for over 40 years as the supposed author of theTa'rīkh al-Sūdān. It was not until 1897 that the learned German's attribution was scornfully refuted by the French journalist Felix Dubois, in hisTombouctou la mystérieuse, and the work was correctly assigned to al-Sa'dī the Timbuctoo scholar who died in 1656. During the twentieth century the name of Aḥmad Bābā has frequently been mentioned by writers about the medieval Western Sudan, usually as the symbol of all that was finest in sub-Saharan Islamic learning in the Middle Ages.
Al-Ash‘arī’s Tract on Faith
Authors: Derrett J. Duncan M.
Published: January 2010

Wilhehn Spitta in the body of his Zur Geschichte Abu'l-Hasan al-Aś‘ari's (Leipzig, 1876) published the text (pp. 138–40) and translation (pp. 101–4) of a brief but important tract by al-Ash‘arī on the uncreatedness of faith: Mas'ala fi 'l-īmān. (This treatise is recorded in C. Brockelmann, GAL, I, 195, as Risālat al-īmān; presumably it is the same as the Kitāb al-īmān mentioned in Suppl., I, 346.) Spitta's edition, which is in general excellent, was based on a Cairo manuscript, believed until now to be unique.
The sultanate of al-Mansūr Lāchīn (696–8/1296–9)
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: January 2010

Al-Malik al-Mansūr Husām al-Dīn Lāchin al-Manṣsūrī was one of the succession of sultans whose brief reigns occupy the two decades from the death of al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn in 689/1290 to the third accession of his son, al-Nāsir Muhammad, 709/1310. Lāchīn himself reigned little more than two years; his sultanate ended as it had begun in conspiracy and it was distinguished by no outstanding successes. Nevertheless it has some features of significance for the history of the Mamlūk sultanate.
Urban and rural Arabic in Khūzistān
Authors: Ingham Bruce
Published: January 2010

It has been frequently noted by linguists and other observers that in many parts of the Arabic-speaking world, the speech patterns of any one region divide quite sharply into two groups—that of the towns on the one hand, and that of the surrounding countryside on the other. The following is an attempt to show the relationship of two dialects of Arabic spoken in the province of Khūzistān in Iran which can be considered to be representative of urban and rural groups within their area.
Observations on a recent article on Syriac inscriptions
Authors: Segal J. B.
Published: January 2010

The admirable article by Drijvers is a significant contribution to the study of early Syriac texts and certainly calls for further analysis. In the decipherment of lapidary texts the overriding factor is, of course, the script; and, fortunately, monumental Syriac script conforms to a fairly uniform pattern of development. The comments that follow are based principally on epigraphic considerations.
A critical edition of the Kubjikāmatatantra
Authors: Van Kooij K. R.
Published: January 2010

A group of scholars at the Institute for Oriental Languages, State University of Utrecht, Netherlands, are planning to prepare a critical edition of the Kubjikāmatatantra, which is likely to be one of the oldest Hindu Tantras, but is still accessible only through manuscripts.
Some Recent Studies of Revolutionary Movements in China in the Early Twentieth Century
Authors: Schram Stuart R.
Published: January 2010

When revolution broke out in China in 1911 and rapidly led to the overthrow of the dynasty and the founding of a republic, opinion throughout the world was startled and deeply impressed. The European press expressed amazement that a quaint Oriental people such as the Chinese should take it into their heads to carry out an anti-monarchical revolution, and that hard-headed political realist Vladimir Ilich Lenin waxed positively lyrical about the Chinese revolution and its leader. ‘The East’, he wrote, ‘has committed itself to the Western path,…further hundreds and hundreds of millions of people will from now on join in the struggle for the ideals for which the West has striven’. In Sun Yat-sen, he saw ‘a revolutionary democrat, imbued with that nobility and heroism peculiar to a rising rather than a declining class’. Even when Sun had been supplanted as President by Yüan Shih-k'ai, Lenin still saw a ‘mighty democratic movement’ in progress throughout Asia, whereby hundreds of millions of people were ‘awakening into life, light, and freedom’. Succeeding generations of scholars and political observers, instructed by the spectacle of corruption, division, and military domination which unfolded itself in various guises throughout the era from 1911 to 1949, have gone almost completely to the opposite extreme. What happened in 1911 was not a revolution at all, or only in the most superficial sense; the monarchical system was indeed overthrown, but there was no real change in the locus of power in society.
Folk-Remedies from Ḥaḍramawt
Authors: Serjeant R. B.
Published: January 2010

The ms of miscellaneous contents from which this treatise has been extracted was lent me by its owner, Shaikh Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Ḳāadir Bā Maṭraf, Assistant State Secretary to the Mukallā Government; a microfilm is now in the Library of the School.

Of the author, Muhammad Bahrak1 (H. 869/A.D. 1465 – H. 930/A.D. 1524) I have already given some account in connexion with his manual al-Nubdhah al-Muharrirah.2 Brockelmann does not, however, allude to the work from which this brief extract is drawn, Ḥilyat al-Banāt wa-'l-Bariīn.
On the Relationships Between Early Buddism and Other Contemporary Systems
Authors: Warder A. K.
Published: January 2010

In investigating the nature of original Buddhism a consideration of its position as one among a number of contemporary historical systems, and of the way in which it may have arisen in opposition to the others, may be more illuminating than attempts to trace back the original doctrine through the history of the schools of Buddhism itself. The most important among these systems appear to have been those of the Ājīvakas, the Nirgranthas or Jainas, and the Lokayatas. Many other systems existed, and are occasionally discussed in the extant literature, but the majority failed to attract a substantial following and to persist as organized schools. We may mention the doctrines attributed to the Buddha's teachers, and perhaps the Iśvaravāda, if this was not simply a part of the older Brahmanical tradition (Iśvara = Prajapāti or Brahmā). The cults of Baladeva and Vāsudeva, which with the Kṛṣṇa and other legends were later integrated into Vaisnavism, and which probably were non-Brahmanical in origin, seem from Jaina references to have existed already in eastern India. A heterodox proto- may date back to the period of the origin of Buddhism.
Feng Meng-Lung and the Ku Chin Hsiao Shuo
Authors: Birch Cyril
Published: January 2010

In a previous article I described certain features of that form of Chinese short story which is most conveniently known as hua-pen. Illustrations were taken in the main from a number of stories of the Ku chin hsiao shuo, a collection published in Soochow in or about the year 1621.

As I indicated, however, the stories of the Ku chin hsiao shuo show wide variations in age and in the degree to which they qualify to be regarded as genuine hua-pen, that is to say, as written versions of the actual stories told by the story-tellers of the Sung, Yüan, or Ming periods.
The Middle Voice in Fula
Authors: Arnott D. W.
Published: January 2010

Various writers on the language of the Fulani, or, have included in their accounts a description of the three Voices of the verbal system, and a brief statement of their role in the operation of the language. But no detailed analysis of Voice in Fula has yet been published. Such an analysis is attempted in this article, on the basis of the speech of two informants from Gombe Division in Northern Nigeria.

2. The term Voice is here applied to each of the three series of verbal affixes which are found in Fula. The tense affixes fall into three series, differing in distribution and behaviour, and to some extent in meaning. These series cut across the tenses, so that each tense (except for the Negative of Quality and the Imperative) has three different tense-signs associated with it, each belonging to a different series. Thus in the two sets of sentences.