The asbāb mentioned in five passages of the Quran have been interpreted by medieval Muslims and modern scholars as referring generally to various “ways”, “means”, and “connections”. However, the word meant something more specific as part of a biblical-quranic “cosmology of the domicile”. The asbāb are heavenly ropes running along or leading up to the top of the sky-roof. This notion of sky-cords is not as unusual as it may seem at first, for various kinds of heavenly cords were part of Western Asian cosmologies in the sixth and seventh centuries ce. According to the Quran, a righteous individual may ascend by means of these cords to heaven, above the dome of the sky, where God resides, only with God's authorization. The heavenly cords are a feature of quranic cosmology and part of a complex of beliefs by which true prophets ascend to heaven and return bearing signs.

In his Ta’rīkh al-Mawṣil, al-Azdī (d. 945) records the safe-conduct (amān) said to have been written for the surrender of the Abbasid ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Alī (d. 764) to his nephew, the caliph al-Manṣūr. This text has been overlooked in discussions of early Abbasid history and in studies of the work of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. c. 756), who is widely credited with its production. This article presents an annotated translation of the amān and considers its transmission, authenticity, attribution and significance. Parallels with epigraphic, documentary and literary sources suggest that it was indeed originally composed in the early Abbasid period and that it conforms to developing conventions for amāns. Thus, it is important evidence for political theory and practice in the mid-eighth-century caliphate. Furthermore, it probably substantially reflects the agreement between the caliph and his uncle and may indeed be the work of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘.

Received wisdom has always held that the Ottomans took little interest in events beyond their borders except when they were likely to affect them. Previous scholars have suggested that it was only when French revolutionary forces occupied the Eastern Mediterranean that the Ottomans took an interest in and then condemned the revolution. From the despatches and reports of Ebubekir Ratib Efendi, ambassador to Vienna, we discover that at least one Ottoman diplomat was sending detailed accounts of events in Paris and the reactions of governments throughout Europe. Ratib Efendi's diplomatic activities would suggest that reforms were already taking place in 1793, at least in the field of gathering intelligence. This signals a fundamental change in the psyche of the Ottoman political order.

This paper (to be published in two parts in subsequent issues of BSOAS) aims to explore the meaning of colour in Shang rituals. Operating within an established framework of Shang religion and archaeology, it offers a detailed analysis of the evidence found in oracle bone inscriptions. The oracle bone inscriptions from Yinxu, the late capital of the Shang dynasty, can be divided into different diviner schools and subgroups. Part 1 of the paper will examine the inscriptions of the various diviner groups under the kings' school, and will reveal regular patterns in the use of colour.

The common understanding that Shinto is Japan's “indigenous religion” makes it difficult to raise the question of when and how this Shinto emerged as a religious identity distinct from Buddhism. This article argues that Shinto arose from a Buddhist cult that incorporated the kami as jindō, rather than from the classical court cult that created a distance between Buddhism and the kami, and that defined the latter as jingi. This Buddhist jindō cult had obvious parallels in other Buddhist states (notably in the Burmese cult of nats), and a comparative approach is essential if we are to understand the dynamics at work here. To explain Shinto's emergence, we must, first, recognize and analyse its origins in jindō and, second, address its medieval dispersal from the royal court into the periphery – another process that can be fruitfully compared with Burma's nat cult.