bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Wolaytta languageby Marcello Lamberti and Roberto Sottile: some reactions and reflections
Authors: Hayward R. J.
Published: January 2010

In terms of numbers of speakers, Wolaytta (hereafter to be referred to by the abbreviation ‘W’) is by far and away the most important variety of the Ometo linguistic cluster. According toEthnologue: languages of the world(Grimes (ed.), 1996), there are two million mother-tongue speakers of the variety, and this number would have to be augmented by large numbers of speakers of other Ometo tongues who have some degree of second language command ofW. It is surprising, therefore, how little scholarly attention has been focused on it. The present work goes some way towards rectifying the situation. The earlier literature (Cerulli, 1929; Chiomio, 1938; Padri Missionari, 1969; Ohmanet al., 1976) represents a decidedly scanty resource for solid information onWgrammar, and in their introductory review (13–14) Lamberti and Sottile (hereafter abbreviated to ‘L&S’) dispose of it in summary fashion, though it does appear that they draw rather more heavily on these sources for their account of cultural matters (15–19). One other work that L&S refer to in their introduction is the doctoral dissertation by Adams (1983), but one must assume that they had no access to it since, subsequently, it is never cited, and this is very unfortunate as in the present reviewer's opinion Adams's description ofWis still the best available—but of this more will be discussed later.
‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and ‘Alī b. Muḥammad Binā'ī: two fifteenth-century examples of notation. Part 1: Text
Authors: Wright O.
Published: January 2010

Given the dependence on aural transmission in the pre-modern musical traditions of the Islamic Middle East it is not at all surprising to find that compositions were hardly ever notated. If there is a typical method of recording the repertoire it is to be identified, rather, in the song-text anthology, which may provide quite detailed indications of formal structure but contains no melodic specification beyond identifying the principal mode of the piece and serves, therefore, as a textual prompt. Indeed, if we disregard as wholly exceptional the rich documentation of the Ottoman repertoire provided by the extensive collections of notated pieces made by ‘Alī Ufḳī and Cantemir, we find for the seventeenth and earlier centuries just one or two not very informative craps recorded by European observers and the occasional samples provided in theoretical treatises.
New information on Antiochus IV from Babylonian astronomical diaries
Authors: Geller M. J.
Published: January 2010

The second volume of A. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia (Vienna, 1989) extends from the years 261–165 B.C., and includes further information on Babylonian astronomy, weather patterns, market prices, and historical events during these years, and as such are an invaluable source for Hellenistic history. Of particular historical interest is a group of tablets from Babylon and Sippar which are duplicate reports from 16/17 August–10/11 December, 169 B.C. In addition to the usual astronomical and meteorological data, this report includes brief accounts of contemporary events which potentially alter the historical picture of the reign of Antiochus IV. Although the passage has been known for a long time, and previously cited by Pinches, Eddy, and van der Spek, the new edition by Sachs and Hunger gives the opportunity to reopen the discussion.
Indra and Women
Authors: Söhnen Renate
Published: January 2010

Since Indra is, above all, the god of victory in battle for his believers in the Rgveda, it might not be expected that he would have relevance for women, since they do not take part in war. Moreover, the hymns of the Rgveda are composed by men; thus we can scarcely expect to learn what role Indra may have played in the religious belief of women, whether they addressed prayers to him at all, and if so, prayers of what content. We have, however (beside the hymn 8.91, ascribed to Apālā), some allusions in isolated verses of the RV (e.g. 10.85.25 and 45; 4.19.7), which may help us to identify certain ideas involved; these ideas I shall then trace also in other texts, particularly in the Pāli Jātaka stories.
Muslim identity and separatism in India: the significance of M. A. Ansari
Authors: Robb P. G.
Published: January 2010

This paper arises out of dissatisfaction with wholly instrumentalist explanations of Muslim separatism in India, views which have their critics but which generally prevail nowadays, reinforced by no less an influence than that of Michel Foucault. The problem is the fundamental one of what constitutes a group, and in particular of whether or not there can be objective harmonization, ‘orchestration sans chef d'orchestre qui confère regularité’, within any set of people. At an empirical level, in regard to Indian Muslims, the debate has three main elements: what was the nature of communalism, how far Muslim separatism was a process, and whether its development was a sufficient explanation for the partition of 1947. To the extent that Muslimsbecameseparatist, they obviously might have been diverted into other attitudes, and to that extent is it important to identify events which encouraged or errors which prevented that diversion.

On this occasion the discussion will begin as a review ofA nationalist conscience, Mushirul Hasan's study of M. A. Ansari, and then move on to some of the issues suggested by Ansari's life and Hasan's treatment of it. The book provides an important corrective, in its emphasis and viewpoint, to the tendency to attribute the partition in India to a consistent and inevitable conflict between increasingly irreconcilable forces. The study extends and rounds out earlier work; it brings to life the alternative symbolized by Ansari, and thus casts into relief the occasions when Hindu–Muslim agreement and a common front against the British seemed possible, as in 1919–22 and 1935. The book exhibits the familiarity and maturity of understanding resulting from such an intense and long-term project of research. It is a timely contribution too, as intercommunal tensions once again mount in South Asia, and voices are heard suggesting that the secular constitution of India is inappropriate to the essential character of its people. The book's implicit thesis is that separatism did indeed evolve, with clear stages from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth century; that its opponents were unable to arrest its advance; and that Ansari is significant for exemplifying these two points. Hasan thus illustrates an alternative to communalism offered during the struggles against British rule; it was an alternative which failed. The question is whether or not it could have succeeded.
A tenth-century Nuṣayrī treatise on the duty to know the mystery of Divinity
Authors: Bar-Asher Meir M. , Kofsky Aryeh
Published: January 2010

The treatise published here (with an annotated translation), from the codex Arabe 1450 of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (folios 176b–179a), gives a concise account of some fundamental doctrines of early Nuṣayrī theology. The literary framework of this text is a report of a few sessions held before the Nuṣayrī sage Abū Muḥammad ‘Alī ibn ‘Īsā al-Jisrī. In the treatise the date of these sessions is given as Ramaḍān 340a.h./February 952 C.E., and the treatise itself is likely to have been written down not long thereafter.
On Latin mundus and Sanskrit muṇḍa
Authors: Canevascini Giotto
Published: January 2010

Thanks to its variety of meanings, the word mundus had already aroused the interest of classical authors. It is in fact widely attested throughout the history of the language both as an adjective and as a noun.

The adjective mundus, -a, -um means primarily ‘propre, d’ où soigné, coquet, élégant’ (DELL, 420), but is it also found used in the rural language when the act of cleaning is involved as is proved by the occurrence in this context of the derived verbs commundō, emundō, and by the expression mundus ager. The definition given to the adjective as mundus quoque appellatur lautus et purus (in Festus, cf. DELL, 420) accounts for this particular meaning because we find expressions describing earth ready for farming as humus subacta et pura ‘earth (which has been) worked and cleaned’. The relevance and wide distribution of this meaning of the adjective in the spoken language is made apparent by the occurrence in the Romance languages of numerous derivatives, such as Italian mondo ‘cleaned, purified’ and mondare ‘to husk, thresh, weed’, or French monder ‘to clean by separating something impure’ and émonder ‘to remove dead branches, to lop a tree’.
‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and ‘Alī b. Muḥammad Binā'ī: two fifteenth-century examples of notation Part 2: Commentary
Authors: Wright O.
Published: January 2010

Part 1 of this paper was concerned principally with the various problems that confront any attempt to provide a satisfactory transcription of these two examples. Given the nature of the difficulties encountered, it is clear that any generalizations we might wish to derive from them can only be tentative and provisional. Nevertheless, the paucity of comparable material, which on the one hand renders the interpretative hurdles all the more difficult to surmount, on the other makes the urge to draw at least some conclusions from the material provided by ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī and Binā'ī well-nigh irresistible. Such conclusions would involve, essentially, an assessment of the extent to which their notations shed light on the musical practice of the period and provide reliable evidence for the history of composition and styles of textsetting. But in any evaluation of this nature it is essential to avoid the temptation to confuse the sources with the speculative editorial interventions that produce the versions presented in part 1 (exs. 26–8 and 30). The area about which least can be said with regard to the naqsh notated by Binā'ī is, therefore, the nature of the text-setting, while with regard to ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Marāghī's notations it is, rather, the first topic we may consider, the relationship between melody and the underlying articulation of the rhythmic cycle.
Two great British historians of the modern Middle East
Authors: Yapp M. E.
Published: January 2010

As a serious subject of scholarly investigation modern Middle Eastern history is very young. It was only 50 years ago that the subject began to be studied by historians who were adequately equipped for the work. Its subsequent rapid progress to the position of respectability which it now occupies within the discipline of history owes much to the work of a handful of scholars among whom Albert Hourani and Elie Kedourie were especially conspicuous. The deaths of these two notable historians should not pass without an acknowledgement of the debt which we owe them and an appreciation of their contribution to the happy revolution in the branch of history which they adorned.
Two notes on the london long scroll
Authors: Goblin W. South
Published: January 2010

Among the Dunhuang Tibetan texts held by the India Office Collection of the British Library is a very large scroll, catalogued as Ch. 9.II.17, and long recognized as a compendium of Tibeto-Chinese transcriptional texts. Following the practice of Walter Simon (1958), this document is now conventionally called the ‘Long Scroll’. In earlier years several small portions of it were identified by Simon and others, but more recently Professor Tokio Takata has published a transcription of the entire text and reconstructed or identified almost all of it (Takata, 1993). Nevertheless, there remain portions of the manuscript which have not yet been restored, and these present a continuing challenge to those interested both in the Long Scroll and in Tibeto-Chinese transcriptions in general. The purpose of the present paper is to fill two such lacunae.
Judaeo-Arabic material in the Cambridge Genizah Collections
Authors: Baker Colin F.
Published: January 2010

The Cairo Geniza is surely the most important manuscript source for the study of Judaeo-Arabic texts, that is to say, texts whose language is Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This paper is an overall survey of the Judaeo-Arabic material in the 54 Arabic boxes of the Old Series in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection. This collection which is housed in the Cambridge University Library is the largest collection of Geniza pieces to be found in any one place, with some 140,000 fragments. The Judaeo-Arabic material we are specifically dealing with here comprises some 7,000 manuscript fragments, research on which is now being prepared for publication. The discussion is limited to present research; it does not include references to other oriental collections such as the Firkovitch in St. Petersburg, which comprises not only fragments but codices (some almost complete) and a much wider range of Karaite Arabic material. As the Firkovitch collection is at last becoming more accessible, its contents will obviously need to be studied at a later stage in relation to the Cambridge Geniza material.
On attracting women and tantric initiation: Tilottamā andHevajratantra, II, v. 38–47 and I, vii. 8–9
Authors: Nihom Max
Published: January 2010

Among the well known stories of Indian mythology there is one relating how the god Mahādeva (Śiva) became four-faced and how Indra acquired a thousand eyes. When the divine maiden (divyakanyā) Tilottamā circumambulated the gods, the eyes of all save Pitāamaha (Brahmā) followed her, whence the multiplication of faces and eyes. Indeed, the great epic relates that upon orders from Brahmā, she, consisting of a mass of gems (ratnasaṃghātamayī), was originally fashioned by Viśvakarman. In Indian mythology the figure of Tilottamā is therefore that of the beauty of woman incarnate.
Shams al-Shujā'ī: a chronicler identified?
Authors: Holt P. M.
Published: January 2010

The eighth/fourteenth-century chronicle known as Ta'rīkh al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qal¯wūn wa-awlādihi was edited from the unique exemplar (Berlin, MS Ar. 9833 We. 7) and published with a German translation by Dr. Barbara Schäfer, who had already produced a full preliminary study of the work. The name of the chronicler appears in a single place in the manuscript (f. 116a) as Shams b. al-Shujā'ī. Schäfer regards the correct form of the name as being Shams al-Dīn al-Shujā'ī, as it is given in Ḥājjī Khalīfa's Kashf al-zunūn. The chronicler's only other personal reference (f. 21 Ob) is to his participation in the Pilgrimage of 745/1345, while a textual reference (f. 124b) indicates that he was alive in 756/1355–6. Schāfer found no references to al-Shujā'ī in contemporary sources, although he was mentioned by the later chronicler, Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba (779–851/1377–1448), who actually possessed this manuscript.
Professor E.H.S. Simmonds: a personal note
Authors: Chitakasem Manas
Published: January 2010

Edward Harold Stuart Simmonds, who died on November 9, 1994 aged 75, will be remembered as one of the few distinguished scholars who combined a knowledge of both the languages and the literatures of Thailand and Laos, and who, between 1951 and 1967 succeeded almost single-handedly in establishing the study of Tai languages, literature and culture in Britain at university level.
Case and proto-Arabic, Part II
Authors: Owens Jonathan
Published: January 2010

In Part I of this paper, the status of case in proto-Arabic was examined in the light of comparative Afroasiatic, comparative Semitic and the treatment of case among the earliest Arabic grammarians. The thesis was developed that a caseless variety of Arabic is prior to a case-based one. It was argued that there is comparatively little support for deriving a proto-Arabic case system from a pan-phylic or even a pan-family case system. Furthermore, various interpretive problems relating to case among the earliest grammarians were alluded to. These included the possibility that the earliest Arabic grammatical terminology for inflectional endings may imply the existence of caseless varieties of Arabic, and the difficulty of deriving the caseless forms such as are found in modern dialects from pausal forms of the classical language.
Thetammaand the dual-administrative structure of the Mongol empire
Authors: Ostrowski Donald
Published: January 2010

TheSecret History of the Mongols (Yuanchao bishi)tells us that, after the invasion and conquest of Qipchaq and Rus'lands in 1237–40, Qagan Ögödei placed ‘daruγačinandtammačin’ over peoples whose main cities were Ornas, Saḳsīn, Bulgar and Kiev.
The thanksgiving prostration (sujūd al-shukr) in Muslim traditions
Authors: Tottoli Roberto
Published: January 2010

Prostration (sujūd) is a fundamental part of the ritual prayer (ṣalāt). It is the highest form of religious devotion and is often mentioned in the Quran as well as in many traditions from all genres of Muslim literature. Prostration is also mentioned in some traditions in relation to what Muslim sources define as sujūd al-shukr, i.e., literally, ‘the thanksgiving prostration’. This is a voluntary act of devotion consisting of a prostration performed by the believer when he wants to thank God for some blessing. There is an abundance of evidence concerning this kind of prostration and it will be discussed here.
Modern South Arabian ‘nine’
Authors: Testen David
Published: January 2010

There can be little doubt that the stem of the Common Semitic cardinal numeral ‘nine’ is to be reconstructed as *tiš'-.

Among the Modern South Arabian languages, however, we find a set of forms for this numeral which, while clearly reminiscent of those of the remaining Semitic languages, are remarkable for (a) the absence of the initial *ti- and (b) the presence of the sibilant s rather than the expected *š (Johnstone, 1975:23).
Selecting and perfecting mantras in Hindu tantrism
Authors: Bühnemann Gudrun
Published: January 2010

The exposition of different deity mantras forms an essential part of Tantric compendia. A mantra, a combination of letters thought to be of divine origin, is transmitted by a preceptor to a disciple in an initiation ritual whereby the disciple is authorized to practise its ritual repetition and strive for its perfection in order to attain supernatural powers. The different stages of the process from the selection of the mantra by the preceptor to its employment in desire–oriented rites by the practitioner shall be described in this paper mainly on the basis of chapters 15 and 16 of the Kulārṇavatantra (= KT), one of the most important texts of the Kaula School of Tantrism, written between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries A.D. These chapters were written at a stage when the technicalities of mantraśāstra had been fully developed and were widely accepted. Among other texts consulted were the Śāradātilakatantra (= ŚT) by Lakṣmaṇa Deśikendra with Rāghavabhaṭṭa's commentary entitled Padārthādarśa (= PĀ) (A.D. 1494), the Mantramahodadhi (= MM) by Mahīdhara (A.D. 1588/89) and the Tantrarāja(tantra) (= TR) with the commentary Manoramā (A.D. 1603/04).
Marco Polo and His ‘Travels’
Authors: Jackson Peter
Published: January 2010

The year 1998 marks the seven-hundredth anniversary of the initial composition of the book associated with Marco Polo,Le devisament dou monde. As the first European to claim that he had been to China and back (not to mention that he had travelled extensively elsewhere in Asia), Polo has become a household name. He has been credited with the introduction of noodles into Italy and of spaghetti into China. With perhaps greater warrant, he has been cited as an authority onȔinter aliaȔthe capital of the Mongol Great Khan Qubilai, on the Mongol postal relay system, on the trade in horses across the Arabian Sea, and on political conditions on the north-west frontier of India in the mid thirteenth century. TheMarco Polo bibliographypublished in 1986 contained over 2,300 items in European languages alone.
The Neo-Aramaic dialect spoken by Jews from the region of Arbel (Iraqi Kurdistan)
Authors: Khan Geoffrey
Published: January 2010

Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities used to be found in various towns and villages throughout north-eastern Iraq, north-western Iran and southern Turkey before the mass exodus of Iraqi Jewry to the state of Israel in 1950–51. In Iraq, the Aramaic speakers were found in an area that may be denned as the land lying above a line drawn on a map across the country through the towns of Musil and Kirkuk. Aramaic was not the first language of all Jews of the area. In the large towns of Musil, Kirkuk, Aqra, as well as Arbel, Arabic was the Jewish vernacular. In some villages the Jews spoke Kurdish as their first language. In Iran, Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities were found as far south as Kerend. The northern limits of the Jewish Aramaic area were formed by communities in the region of lake Van in southern Turkey and those around lake Urmia in north-west Iran (Hopkins, 1993: 62–4).
Political and Social Aspects of Islamic Religious Endowments (awqāf): Saladin in Cairo (1169–73) and Jerusalem (1187–93)
Authors: Frenkel Yehoshuՙa
Published: January 2010

The Ayyubid Sultan Salāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin) used the pious endowment (waqf, pl.awqāf; alternativelyḥubs, hubūs, pi.aḥbās) as a major instrument in his efforts to gain political and military control over Egypt and Syria. In pursuit of this aim, he systematically converted properties belonging to his enemies intoawqāf. The present study investigates some of the legal and social aspects of Saladin'swaqfpolicy in the territories conquered by his armies. Here, I examine Saladin's endowment policy and his political aims from the viewpoint of the Sultan and his court. I will not reflect on the motives of the beneficiaries, those people of religion (al-mu῾ammamūn; literally ‘ the turbaned’) who co-operated with him, even though ‘ mingling with the monarch’ (malikorsultān) apparently clashed with some of the principles stipulated in guides for Suḟi novices.
Old wives' tales in Theīgāthaā: a review article
Authors: Wright J. C.
Published: January 2010

The commentary on the Pali Theīgāthā, without which Pischel would ‘hardly have ventured to publish this text at all’ (PTS ed., 1883, 120), has lacked, certainly a complete translation, but more importantly a satisfactory romanized edition. Edward Müller's edition of the commentary (PTS ed., 1893 = Thī-a Ee), based on transcripts of the one Burmese palm-leaf manuscript that had been available to Pischel, contained numerous misreadings and was never revised, although correct readings of the Sinhalese sources have been available since the 1918 Colombo edition, and more readily available, in large measure, since K. R. Norman's annotated translation in Elders' verses, II, 1971.1
Theqāญī'sdīwān(sijill) before the Ottomans
Authors: Hallaq Wael B.
Published: January 2010

Studies on Ottoman society and law through the so-called courtsijillshave lately proliferated, surpassing in volume all previous studies based on other archival sources, including tax and land registers. The comparatively massive size of thesesijills, and the fact that their majority did survive, even in a good state, have led some scholars to the conclusion that only the Ottoman qāḍīs kept records of their court proceedings in a systematic fashion, and that they were the first to establish thesijillas a formal institution. Even those who do not share this view of a uniquely Ottoman achievement seem in no sense clear as to the pre-Ottoman history of this important institution. My purpose in this article, therefore, is to attempt to unravel some important aspects of thesijill's history, including the less consequential issue of the terminological confusion which has engulfed it in modern scholarly discourse.
The Qur'ān and the Islamic practice of Wuḍū'
Authors: Burton John
Published: January 2010

It might appear that the Qur'ān does not establish the wuḍū', or ‘lesser ablution’. It mentions only ġasl and tayammum the distinction between which is most clearly expressed in Q. 4: 43:

Do not approach the [place of] prayer when you are befuddled, until you know what you are saying, nor in a state of ritual impurity (junub)—except for those merely passing through [the place of prayer]—until you have cleansed yourselves (taūtasilū); and if you should be ill or on a journey, or come from the lavatory or have touched women, and cannot find water, then make for (tayammamū) some pure soil and wipe your faces and your hands
Spoken Arabic Proverbs
Authors: Yassin Mahmoud Aziz F.
Published: January 2010

Arabs have always had a particular taste for brief, concise and witty idioms and proverbs. Whereas an idiom is a ‘transition point’, a necessary introduction to the forthcoming discussion, a proverb is, instead, the climax of that event, the most important domain for the display and evaluation of verbal art. The view is occasionally expressed that proverbs are in fact a dead trait in the modern world. This view is due, at least in part, to the mistaken assumption that only illiterates use proverbs. It is doubtful whether increased literacy and education have seriously affected the quality and quantity of proverbial speech, at least in Arabic culture. Arabs' gatherings, formal and informal, are marked by highly formalized relationships. A formalized relationship gives rise to highly predictable and normalized language such as idioms and proverbs.
Organizational principles in thai phannánaa passages
Authors: Hudak Thomas John
Published: January 2010

Thailand has had a rich literary tradition in which, until recently, serious literature has always been equated with poetry. Classical Thai poetry written during the past 700 years has covered a vast range of topics: religion, history, romance, legendary figures, imaginary worlds and their inhabitants, to name a few areas. For each major composition, Thai literary anthologies provide representative excerpts, plot summaries, descriptions of verse forms used, biographical data for the author when known, and historical background information. Discussions of the organizational principles that lie behind the literary compositions, on the other hand, rarely occur. Rather, a tacit assumption seems to exist that the structural organization of a work is the same as the plot. An examination of literary selections, however, implies otherwise.
Babylonian astronomical diaries and corrections of diodorus
Authors: Geller M. J.
Published: January 2010

The long-awaited first volume of the astronomical diaries, the life-work ofthe late Abraham Sachs, has been admirably brought to fruition by HermannHunger, in Sachs and Hunger, Diaries and related texts from Babylonia.2Although one laments the passing of Abraham Sachs before the completion ofthis momentous task, Hunger has earned the acclaim of his colleagues for thepolished presentation of the finished product, particularly as the Sachs Nachlasswas not yet in publishable form when he died. The importance of these diariesreaches far beyond the narrow confines of philology, since they includecalendrical and astronomical data, lists of commodity prices for the particularday or month, weather reports and often a tantalizing allusion to a currentevent, being the closest ancient counterpart to a modern news report.
Georgia in 1840: The Lister Diaries
Authors: Lang David M.
Published: January 2010

Georgian and Caucasian historical studies have recently received a stimulus through the publication of Professor Ronald Grigor Suny's important work, The making of the Georgian nation. Professor Suny draws attention to the seminal importance of the first half-century of Russian rule in Georgia, following the 1801 annexation. The old picturesque norms of Georgian social life were increasingly under pressure, as the Russian autocratic military bureaucracy sought to absorb the intransigent Caucasian peoples into their own larger administrative entity. (Dr. Stephen Jones and Professor Laurens Hamilton Rhinelander have done useful work on this phase of Georgian history).2 As we know from recent events in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, these efforts at assimilation met with mixed results, and serious nationality problems continue today
Diplomatica Siciliana
Authors: Wansbrough John
Published: January 2010

The study of Muslim rule and its vestiges in medieval Sicily has a long and distinguished pedigree. In the nineteenth century the impetus was both scholarly and political, to which the monumental works of Amari and De Mas Latrie bear eloquent witness. In more recent times the motive has been simple and straightforward curiosity about a remarkable instance of cultural symbiosis. The parameters are now either linguistic or historical or both, and the gain is substantial. With the reprint exactly a century after its original publication in Palermo of Salvatore Cusa'sI Diplomi greci ed Arabi di Siciliaone might be permitted to suppose that a reassessment of the earlier scholarship is underway. But the commemoration is itself curiously unhelpful: we are offered a typographically reduced replica of the original innocent of comment save for two pages of very general observations by Albrecht Noth on the significance of Cusa's compilation for students of Islamic history. Neither reference to subsequent work nor indication of a present project is included, a circumstance that only with generosity could be regarded as tantalizing.
Mahābhāratamotifs in the JainaPāṇḍava-Purāṇa
Authors: Jaini Padmanabh S.
Published: January 2010

Judged in the context of the 18 Purāṇas, or even the 180 Upa-, or Subsidiary Purāṇas, the title,Pāṇḍava-Purāṇa, must seem unusual, since the Pāṇḍavas are neither gods nor avatāras, nor sages; for it is the exploits of these divine or semi-divine figures that form the subject matter of the traditional Purāṇas. The Jainas' choice of this title would therefore appear to be a deliberate effort to present a Jaina version of theMahābhāratastory, a version which would show how the virtuous Pāṇḍavas and the rather harmless Balarāma are reborn in heaven, whereas Kṛṣṇa, the ‘nārāyana’, and Jarāsandha, the ‘pratinārāyaṇa’, are consigned to hell.
A new Negev Arabic inscription
Authors: Nevo Yehuda D.
Published: January 2010

In the Northern Church of the Negev town whose name has been preserved by the local Arabs as Ruḥeibe, on a flagstone still in situ in the south-westernpart of the atrium, Loc. 523, the following inscription was carefully and clearly inscribed:
The estates of ‘Amr b. al-‘āṣ in Palestine: notes on a new Negev Arabic inscription
Authors: Lecker Michael
Published: January 2010

The inscription recently found in the Negev (see Y. D. Nevo, ‘A new Negev Arabic inscription’, p. 18 above) mentions one Hakim b. Abī Asmā', amawlā of ‘Abdallāh b. 'Amr b. al-‘Āṣ.No reference to a person called Ḣakīm b. Abī Asmā could be found in any other source, literary or archaeological, for the early Islamic period. His master, ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Amr b. al-‘Āṣ, is presumably the famous scholar, son of the conqueror of Palestine and Egypt, who was from the Quraysh clan of Banū Sahm. There is a considerable amount of evidence linking both father and son to Palestine
Notes on the dialect of the Āl Murra of eastern and southern Arabia
Authors: Ingham Bruce
Published: January 2010

It is widely held belief among bedouins that common linguistic characteristics point to a common genealogical origin. Bearing in mind the importance attached to racial origin amongst bedouins, it is not surprising that they should be keen observers of the dialect of their own and neighbouring tribes. My investigations of the bedouin dialects of the North and East of Arabia do indicate that a common geographical origin is often reflected in a uniform dialect. In this area many bedouin tribes seem to have left an original homeland in the west some 200 years ago, so that in the somewhat isolated conditions of bedouin life their dialect retains the characteristics of the speech of their homeland. A particularly striking case of this is the Rashāyida, a tribe which ‘Arab tradition allies to the Hutaim of north-western Arabia. At some time this tribe broke up and many of them moved east to become clients of the Muṭair. Many others however crossed by sea to the Sudan when they acquired new camels and resumed the nomadic way of life. At present, with the increasing prosperity of Saudi Arabia, many of these have returned as immigrant workers or have been repatriated. Their dialect, however, after a period of perhaps 150 years' separation, is still recognizably of the Najdī type. It would not be possible for dialectology to verify bedouin genealogies; nevertheless, it can be seen that it might support traditions about the earlier location of tribes, since historical sources are not very informative for the medieval period in the Arabian peninsula.
The Tibetan verb: tense and nonsense
Authors: Siklós Bulcsu I.
Published: January 2010

Written Tibetan (WT) is unusual among Sino-Tibetan (ST) languages in possessing a relatively complex verb morphology which contains—apart from distinctive ‘prefixes' for intransitive/transitive verb pairs, a phenomenon found elsewhere in ST—prefixes and suffixes for certain tenses as well as a morphologically significant ablaut system, none of which can be found, or at least, none of which are common in other ST languages. The simplest ways of dealing with the problem of the origin and development of this system in the light of comparative ST researches are, firstly, ignoring it, and secondly, coming up withad hoctheories about its independent development, thereby not affecting the apparently stable edifice of ST in any way.
Le regard du roi: roman anti-existentialiste?
Authors: Fabijančić Par Ursula
Published: January 2010

Il serait faux de considérer Le regard du roi de Camara Laye comme un manifeste anti-existentialiste. Il n'en est pas moins vrai qu'il se dégage de ceroman symbolique et mystique une attitude envers la vie et la mort qui est aux antipodes de celle adoptée par un existentialiste athée tel que Jean-Paul Sartre, par exemple. Or, Camara Laye passa neuf ans à Paris, entre 1947 et 1956, époque oé l'existentialisme fut é apogêe. Le regard du roi parut en 1954. Parmi les thêmes nombreux qui s' entrelacent inextricablement dans ce roman complex, ceux du libre-choix et du mysticisme se détachent comme les deux aspects opposês de la condition humaine. Ces deux thêmes correspondent, en gros, à la distinction que Camara Laye fait, ê tort ou ê raison, entre l'attitude ‘rationnaliste' occidentale et l'attitude surnaturelle africaine respectivement. Notre but, dans cette étude, est d'analyser Les rÔles à la fois parallêles et antagonistes, que jouent dans la vie du personnage principal, Clarence, le librechoix et le mysticisme.
Lowering rules in Chadic
Authors: Frajzyngier Zygmunt
Published: January 2010

In Frajzyngier (1981) I attempted to reconstruct vowel-raising and vowellowering rules in Chadic. Vowel-raising rules were found in three branches of Chadic, and they operated under similar conditions, viz., vowels of the stem were raised when there was a high vowel added in the suffix. Vowel-lowering rules were found in two branches of Chadic, but I could not reconstruct them as being part of Proto-Chadic because they were essentially different rules: in the East branch the vowels of the stem were lowered when a low vowel suffix was added. In the West branch the last vowel of the word was lowered when a heavy syllable preceded it. In that paper I stated that unless vowel-lowering rules were found in some other branches of Chadic, these rules could not be reconstructed as existing in Proto-Chadic. It now appears that such rules do
exist in other branches. In Mulwi, or Munjuk, a Biu-Mandara language, there exists a vowel-lowering rule that operates under similar conditions as vowel-lowering rules in the East Branch l
anguages, Mubi and Migama.
On M. Mayrhofer's Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen
Authors: Thieme Paul
Published: January 2010

Immediately after finishing his Kurzgefaβtes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen (KEWA), M. Mayrhofer had the very commendable courage to start work on an Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (EWA), of which the first 11 fascicles now (Autumn 1992) lie before us. It is not, as the author rightly insists,‘a new (and improved) edition’ of KEWA, but a renewed attempt in its own rights. It is an attempt to produce ‘an etymological dictionary of’ a big corpus language (i.e. of Sanskrit)’ in ‘a practicable and finishable form’, that is: an etymological dictionary such as could be brought to completion ‘by a single scholar within his life time’,—provided this scholar would have the industry and tenacious dedication of a Mayrhofer, we should like to add. Even in the close atmosphere of such a somewhat constraining qualification, Mayrhofer aims high: he thinks of –an etymological dictionary approaching the fulfilment of demands of an ideal order–. The differences between the former work and the one recently begun, already clearly recognizable, are many and conspicuous. The changes introduced are mostly—not always, as is only to be expected—distinct improvements. One of the most important changes is highly welcome: the conscientious- reference to the first occurrence of each word in Sanskrit literature. The attribute ‘kurzgefaβt’ does not appear in the title. Even the KEWA was not actually ‘conciseမ: it was so in comparison only with the planned Vergleichendes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen by W. Wüst
The conjugation of the Tangut verb
Authors: Kepping Ksenia Borisovna
Published: January 2010

The data and analyses of Tangut verbal morphology which I have presented (1979b, 1981, 1982, 1985) represent the cumulative result of more than twenty years of research of Tangut texts. It is with great regret that I saw my analyses misunderstood (LaPolla, 1992). In order to clarify my view on the Tangut verbal agreement, I feel compelled to give a succinct account of the phenomena causing so much controversy in the Tibeto-Burman linguistic literature.

The Tangut verb shows agreement for person and number of actant. The three overt agreement morphemes are<-ŋa2> (first person singular),<-na2> (second person singular) and<-ni2> (first and second person plural). The Tangut verb shows overt agreement only with first and second person actant. Third person involvement is marked by zero. A Tangut intransitive verb agrees with the subject, i.e. the ‘intransitive subject’. The two rules for the distribution of the overt agreement markers in the transitive verb as formulated in my Tangut grammar (Kepping, 1985: 233–4) are: (1) If one and no more than one of the actants is a first or second person, then the verb will overtly agree with that actant regardless of its syntactic role, and (2) if a transitive verb has two non-third person actants, the verb will agree with the grammatical patient or ‘transitive object’.
The Yakkha verb: interpretation and analysis of the Omruwa material (a Kiranti language of eastern Nepal)
Authors: van Driem George
Published: January 2010

In 1989 Jadranka Gvozdanović published data of the ‘Yakkhaba’ transitive verbal paradigm. In the present paper these data are identified as Yakkha, re-arranged and interpreted. Comparisons are made with other Kiranti verbal agreement systems and with my model of the Proto-Kiranti verb.

1.Yakkhaba, Yakkha and Yakthungba

Kiranti languages are native to eastern Nepal and the western fringe of Sikkim. The Kiranti branch of the Tibeto-Burman is characterized by verbal morphologies which by Tibeto-Burman standards may be called complex. The Kiranti languages are traditionally divided into Limbu, Yakkha and the Rai languages. Limbu, at the far eastern extent of the Kiranti homeland, has several dialects, of which(Weidert and Subba, 1985) and Phedāppe (van Driem, 1987) are the best described. Yakkha occupies an intermediate position and is spoken in the vicinity of Cainpur in Saṅkhuvā Sabhā district on the slopes east of the Arūṇ river. Rai (Nep. Rāī) is a highly heterogeneous group of languages. This has to do with the fact that the name Rai, although convenient, is not a proper linguistic designation, but represents what in Nepal is perceived to be an ethnic grouping.
Astronomy and authorship
Authors: Geller M. J.
Published: January 2010

A new edition of the astronomical compilation MUL.APIN follows closely upon the recent publication of two sections of the large compendium of Babylonian astronomical omens known as Enūma Anu Enlil. The text of MUL.APIN likewise includes a section of astronomical omens, as well as a catalogue of stars, including the ‘fixed’ (ziqpu) stars, and information regarding the planets, heliacal risings, the path of the moon, calendrical intercalations, and a shadow table and water clock. This modern edition is clearly presented nd well-translated, and includes notes on both the philology and astronomy of the text.
Abū ‘Ubaid's Kitāb al-Nāsikh wa'l-mansūkh
Authors: Rippin A.
Published: January 2010

In my review of John Burton's edition of the work on abrogation (naskh) in the Qur'ān and the sunna by Abu ‘Ubaid (d. 224/839) in BSOAS, LII, 2, 1989, 346–7, I mentioned the existence of a fragment of this text found in the Türk ve Islâm Eserleri Müzesi, Istanbul; neither Burton nor Fuat Sezgin in his facsimile edition of the Topkapi Ahmet III manuscript of the text (Frankfurt am Main, 1985), mention this fragment or clarify its status.

The fragment appears to have been discovered and identified by Janine Sourdel-Thomine and Dominique Sourdel; it is mentioned in their article, ‘Nouveaux documents sur l'histoire religieuse et sociale de Damas au moyen age’, Revue des études islamiques, 32, 1964, 16. Sezgin cites this article and the existence of the fragment of the text in GAS, vm, 85, item V.
Two Bi'r Ḥīma inscriptions re-examined
Authors: Beeston A. F. L.
Published: January 2010

The Sabaic rock inscription published by A. Jamme under the siglum Ja 1028, from a Location at Bi'r Ḥimā, 85 km. north-east of Najrān, is among the most important documents that we have for the history of Yemen in the period beford Islam. Attention has hitherto been mainly centred on exploiting its historical data; less notice has been accorded to the detailed linguistic (and specially syntactic) features, which are my topic here.
Artists and patronage in late fourteenth-century Iran in the light of two catalogues of Islamic metalwork
Authors: Blair Sheila S.
Published: January 2010

Islamic metalwork has in recent years been the subject of several important new publications. James W. Allan has written a lavishly illustrated guide to a recently acquired private collection whose pieces attest to the high quality of objects available to the discriminating collector. The 27 pieces span the variety of wares produced in the medieval Islamic world: bowls, ewers, candlesticks, inkwells, incense burners, and other objects produced in Egypt, Syria, the Jazira, Iran, and India from the tenth to the seventeenth century. Multiple photographs in both colour and black and white accompany a lengthy discussion of each piece. In the introduction the author offers a brief summary of the Islamic metalware tradition (its origins, expansion, and decline) and discusses the symbolism inherent in its decoration, particularly the imagery of light and darkness and the sun.
A Melkite Arabic literary lingua franca from the second half of the first millennium
Authors: Blau Joshua
Published: January 2010

After the Islamic conquest, the Greek Orthodox, so-called Melkite ( = Royalist), church fairly early adopted Arabic as its literary language. Their intellectual centres in Syria/Palestine were Jerusalem, along with the monaster ies of Mar Sabas and Mar Chariton in Judea, Edessa and Damascus. A great many Arabic manuscripts stemming from the first millennium, some of them dated, copied at the monastery of Mar Chariton and especially at that of Mar Saba, have been discovered in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, the only monastery that has not been pillaged and set on fire by the bedouin. These manuscripts are of great importance for the history of the Arabic language. Because Christians were less devoted to the ideal of the ‘arabiyya than their Muslim contemporaries, their writings contain a great many devi ations from classical Arabic, thus enabling us to reconstruct early Neo-Arabic, the predecessor of the modern Arabic dialects, and bridge a gap of over one thousand years in the history of the Arabic language.
The naming of the frontier: ՙAwāṣim, Thughūr, and the Arab geographers
Authors: Bonner Michael
Published: January 2010

The Arabic geographical literature of the Middle Ages used several terms to indicate limits and frontiers, includingāfāq, ḥudūdandtukhūm. For the external frontiers of Islam itself the term most commonly used wasthughūr(sg.thaghr). And among these it was the Arab-Byzantine frontier, which to some was the frontierpar excellence, which came closest to having a nomenclature peculiar to itself. In this essay I wish to demonstrate that this nomenclature, and the picture which we have of this region, do not derive from administrative history so much as from a series of superimpositions made by medieval writers on geography and related subjects. I intend to follow Professor Wansbrough's lead, by showing the consequences of the ‘use by many of the same (limited) sources of information’. I also wish to emphasize that differences over how things are to be named reflect conflicts over who is to have power over them.
Tafsīr of ՙālamīninrabb al-ՙālamīn, Qur՚ān 1:2.
Authors: Calderini Simonetta
Published: January 2010

This preliminary study is intended to analyse the Muslim exegesis of the termՙālamīnin the Qur՚ānic expressionrabb al-ՙālamīn(‘Lord of the Worlds’), with reference toSūrat al-Fātiḥa, verse 2: ‘Praise be to Allāh, Lord of the‘ālamīn’. The relevance of thetafsīrofՙālamīnis multifaceted: it indicates the awareness among medieval, as well as modern, exegetes of the need to explain a term which was felt, at least grammatically, to be anomalous; it provides the opportunity to discuss the interpretations of a formula often repeated in Muslim prayer but rarely examined in theological context; finally, it leads through these interpretations—as is often the case with thetafsīrgenre—into wider elaborations arising from the text (or imposed on it?).
From Asia to Africa: the Tuḥfat al-Albāb by Abū Ḥāmid al-Gharnāṭī (473/1080–565/1169) as a source for the chronology and content of the Sīrat ՙAntar b. Shaddād
Authors: Norris H. T.
Published: January 2010

The Sīrat YAntar conceals within its narrative identifiable literary sources.This is especially so in those sections which describe the adventures of the ՙAbsī hero in Byzantium, Italy, al-Andalus, ՙUmān, Egypt and Ethiopia. Its I use of such sources is without parallel in the sister siyar. Though the fact was not ignored by Bernhard Heller or by Rudi Paret, it is insufficiently appreciated elsewhere, especially in the Arab world itself. So pervasive is the literary treatment as it draws upon Arabic geographical works, and the exploring of ‘wonder books’ (kutub al-ՙajā՚ib) for source material so apparent, that it is doubtful, nay unacceptable, that this particular Sīra (others may bide our question) can be accurately described as Arabic oral and formulaic ‘coffeehouse entertainment’, or as being outside the corpus of classical Arabic literature. That part of the giant work, categorized by Maḥmūd Dhihnī as al-Marḥala al-malḥamiyya, which describes these adventures, is unquestionably post-twelfth century in date, marked as it is by Crusading proper names and by those of Mamlūk offices. That the text is not earlier than the late thirteenth century will here be shown.