Several works dealing with the cultural history of Islam in India assert that the province of Sind became a centre of Islamic learning shortly after its conquest by Muḥammad b. al-Qāsim al-Thaqafī at the beginning of the eighth century a.d.

A ‘Mirror for magistrates’ entitled ‘The manners of kings and advice to them’ (adab al-mulūk'iḥhum) precedes in MS Or. 9446 of the British Museum the suḥbat al-mulūk (commonly called kitāb al-tāj) which is ascribed to Jāḥiຓ. As the former names Saladin, the ascription to Jāḥiຓ, if meant to apply to it, is wrong. Each section begins with a line or two, ‘The prudent king will do this, will not do that’, followed by one or more examples from history.

JALĀL AL-DĪN RŪMĪ in Maihnawi, ii, 3478 sqq., recounts a story of a saint J falsely accused of theft, and of the miraculous manner in which he cleared himself. R. A. Nicholson in his annotation to the passage (vol. vii, p. 359) comments: “ Saints accused of theft, who produce miraculous proof of their innocence, appear in many legends related by Moslem hagiographers.”

In Somaliland God is universally known by the names Allaah and Rabbi, both of Arabic origin, but the full list of His 99 Arabic names is known only to sheikhs and wadaads.1 In addition to the Arabic names, however, there are a considerable number of purely Somali titles for Allaah. The majority of those recorded here will be seen to be praise-names referring to God's attributes and in many cases direct equivalents in Somali of the corresponding titles in Arabic.

Though not invariably susceptible of demonstration, the influence of Classical Arabic upon the popular literature of Arabic-speaking Muslims in North Africa may safely be assumed. ‘Popular’, indeed, the early Islamic verse forms (ši'r mawzūn) and the later stanzaic compositions (klam or ālat al-andalus) have remained, and in these, even when modified by local tradition, the source of inspiration is easily recognized. Less clear is the transfer pattern of classical elements in the strictly vernacular poetry (klam melḥūn) of the same people. It is this category of composition with which the following observations are concerned, and wḥich suggested selection of the term ‘vernacular’ rather than ‘popular’. A further factor contributory to isolation of this topic is the existence of a vernacular literature amongst non-Muslim Arabic speakers in North Africa: the Jewish communities. There, owing both to Judaeo-Arabic orthography and to confessional motives in the selection of theme, the tyranny of Classical Arabic is considerably weakened, to some extent a consequence of social (educational) lines of demarcation. Important, however, are the affinities between the vernacular compositions of both groups, especially in matters relating to rhetorical convention and prosodic structure.

Persia has on many occasions produced remarkable heresiarchs, several of whom have exercised an influence extending far beyond the boundaries of that country. One of the most notable of these heresiarchs is Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ, the Isma'īlī propagandist and founder and first Grand Master of the Assassins.

Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ was born at Ray, in Northern Persia; the exact date of his birth is unknown, but, as far as can be gathered, it was in A.D. 1052 or A.D. 1053. Though claiming Ḥimyaritic ancestry, Ḥasan was both by birth and upbringing a Persian, and belonged, during his earlier years, to the Shī'a Sect of the Twelve.

In 1983 Monika Höhlig published a pamphlet (reprinted in 1990) setting out her ideas for producing a romanized script for (North-West Caucasian) Circassian. Since the bulk of the Circassian community lives not in the Caucasus but in Turkey (or elsewhere in the Near East), her basic tenet was that, where necessary, the roman characters should have the same values that obtain for the purpose of representing Turkish—so that, for example, the letter c would represent the voiced palato-alveolar affricate []. Two further principles which guided the creation of this script were: (a) that any attempt to provide one totally independent character for each phoneme of the language would lead to an unwieldy number of new letter-shapes, and (b) that no diacritic should be employed that is not available on a Turkish typewriter.

This poem is mentioned by Steere (in the Preface to his Swahili Tales, p. xii) in the following terms: “I should have been glad to have exhibited the whole of the ‘Utenzi on Job’, which was the best I met with, but my authority could give me no more than the beginning, my copy breaking off short in the council of the fiends as to how to avail themselves of the permission to vex Job [st. 37–46]. The stanzas I have printed [1–6 in an imperfect form] are followed by a confession of God's greatness and a long commemoration of Mohammed, his family, and chief followers. Then there is an account of Job's prosperity, mentioning, amongst other things, the ducks and fowls which he had; then the colloquy between Satan and the Almighty, and the planning of the temptation. The language of this Utenzix is singularly clear and intelligible.”