The publication of the first volume of M. René Groussef's history of the Crusades, which is review'ed elsewhere in this issue, brings out again, and all the more vividly because of its wealth of detail and effort to present a complete and rounded-off picture, the very serious gaps in Orientalist research on this period. Whereas the study of the Western and Greek sources has progressed to a point at which it may be said that little more remains to be done, research on the Oriental sources is incredibly backward.

The significance of Political Philosophy for the philosophy of Islam and A Judaism in the Middle Ages has been recognized in recent years, and the importance of Plato's Republic and Laws together with Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for the falāsifa is becoming increasingly evident. Attention has been drawn to Alfārabī's political treatises, to Ibn Bājja, to Averroes' Commentaries on Plato's Republic and on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, to Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqa and to Ibn Khaldun. The reception of Platonic and Aristotelian political ideas conditions—in varying degrees—the attitude of the falāsifa to the State as such, to the Muslim State in particular, and therefore to the Sharī‘a of Islam and to Greek philosophy, both practical and theoretical. This is already clear from the writings of Alfārābī, but in his attempt at blending and harmonizing Greek-Hellenistic and Islamic conceptions no Alfarabian philosophy proper with distinct features of a definitive, authoritatively formulated synthesis emerges. It was left to Averroes—to use the name by which Ibn Rushd was generally known to the West—to work out a peculiarly Islamic religious philosophy. He establishes in unequivocal terms the supreme authority of the Sharī‘a and its identity of purpose with falsafa, religious philosophy in the Faṣl al-maqāl, the Manāhij, the Tahāfut al-tahāfut and his Commentary on Plato's Republic. The last named forms the main subject of the present article. In an earlier study it was considered in connexion with his Commentary on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics already, but not with his other treatises just mentioned. This is, however, necessary in order to gain a correct, balanced view of his philosophy, and especially of his political thought. It is equally important to see his political Commentaries against the background of his active life as qāḍī and of contemporary Muslim history in the Maghreb.

The text and translation is given below of two documents concerning the grant of an allowance in the form of a soyūrghāl. The first document, dated Ṣafar 1067 A.h. (Nov.-Dec., 1656 A.d.), concerns the redistribution of a grant dated Ramaẓān 1047 A.h. (Jan.-Feb., A.d. 1638) among the heirs of the original grantee, Mīr Ni'matullāh ‘Abd al-Wahhābī, a sayyid. The second document, dated Sha'ban 1115 (Jan.-Feb., A.d. 1704), deals with the settlement of disputes among the heirs of the original grantee concerning their respective shares. These documents illustrate the complicated problems which arose with the fragmentation of grants by inheritance.

Sīstān (Sijistān or Sāgistān) came within the scope of British Indian frontier defence during the Napoleonic era. Lord Minto sent out missions to the Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, Afghanistan and Persia in order to acquire reliable information about the borderlands. Captain Charles Christie and Lieutenant Eldred Pottinger in 1810 explored the route westward into Persia from Baluchistan. Christie separated from the others at Nushki and travelled to Herat via Sīstān before joining Pottinger in Iṣfahān. According to Christie: Seistan is a very small province on the banks of the Helmind, comprising not more than five hundred square miles, bounded on the north and northeast by Khorasan, on the west by Persia, and on the south and south-east it is separated from Mukran by an uninhabited desert.

The text presented below has been transcribed from a verbal account given by the Mntwana (Princess) Constance Magogo kaDinuzulu, of the Zulu Royal family. The Princess is the sister of the late Paramount Chief Solomon Maphumuzana Nkayishana, and great-aunt to the present Paramount Chief of the Zulu. Her late husband was Chief Mathole Buthelezi, and her son, Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, is at present Chief Executive Councillor of the kwaZulu Government. Princess Magogo is widely acknowledged as the greatest living authority on the subject of Zulu music. As a performer, her musical repertoire is prodigious, encompassing traditional items dating back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and possibly earlier. Her reply, when asked how she came to learn so much of the Zulu musical repertoire, was as follows: ‘When I was a young girl, I slept in the huts of my grandmothers, the wives of King Cetshwayo, and one could not escape hearing a great deal of our traditional music’. Besides her accomplishment as a singer, the Princess is the last remaining player of the classic Zulu instrument for song-accompaniment, the ugubhu musical bow. The present discourse, on Zulu music and its role in traditional life,, provides insight of a kind that is beyond the reach of an outside observer, since the Princess has drawn on a lifetime of personal experience. To provide relevant illustrations, she frequently broke into song during her discourse. Musical transcriptions of these songs appear at the end of the present paper, in Appendix 1. The tonality of the music is briefly discussed in Appendix 2.

It was remarked by the Czech linguist Pavle Ivi that it would be possible for particular linguistic landscapes to fit easily into particular theories about linguistic diffusion. He was referring especially to the difference between the Stammbaum or family tree theory and the Wellentheorie or wave theory as expounded by the Neo-grammarians. The family tree theory sees dialect features as genetically transmitted and traceable to the homeland of the group concerned. The wave theory on the other and concentrates more on the present geographical location of the speakers and traces the geographical diffusion of dialect features across the landscape independently of the movement of groups of people. If a distinction between family tree landscapes and wave theory landscapes is possible, as Ivi suggests, then the dialectology of the bedouin tribes of north-eastern Arabia falls quite definitely into the first group. In a previous article the writer described the dialect of the Muṭair tribe of Eastern Arabia which a dialect of the Central Najd type akin to the dialects of Central Najd and the 'Aniza tribes of the Syrian Desert. The Ḍhafr, although direct neighbours of the Muṭair to the north and west, speak a dialect of a quite different kind, basically North Najd, akin to the speech of the Jabel Shammar and the Shammar tribes, but with some admixture of Central Najd features. It seems that in this area dialect is a marker of tribal identity and since there is no gradation between membership of the Ḍhafr tribe and membership of the Muṭair, the dialects are similarly clearly demarcated geographically. The boundary between the Ḍhafr and the Muṭair also Muṭair also constitutes a more far-reaching boundary between Ahl al-Shiml and Ahl al-Jinb, northern and southern bedouin. This division is marked by dialect features and also certain other cultural externals such as dress and tent structure.

The present article may perhaps be regarded as supplementary to Professor Klingenheben's article, ‘Die Präfix- und die Suffixkonjugationen des Hamitosemitischen’, MIO, IV, 2, 1956, 210–77, in much the same way as that article followed on the article ‘Verbalbau und Verbalflexion in den semitohamitischen Sprachen’ by Dr. Otto Rössler, ZDMG, C, 2, 1950, (pub.) 1951, 461–514.

Partial and complete Bible translations into classical Chinese existed well before Protestant missionaries actually began to work actively among the Chinese. Translation work accelerated once missionaries gained a foothold in the newly opened treaty ports after 1842, and the entire Bible or portions of it were translated into Fuzhou, Amoy, Canton, Hakka, Suzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai dialects. S. I. J. Schereschewsky's (1831–1906) translation of the Old Testament (OT) into the northern vernacular in 1875 opened a new chapter. His translation was accessible to larger numbers of people and, in contrast to the OT in classical Chinese, was readily understood when read to the illiterate. Moreover, unlike previous translations, it was prepared entirely from the Hebrew original.

The purpose of this essay is to examine some of Schereschewsky's views on translating and several of the techniques which he employed in rendering into Chinese the Book of Genesis. My basic assumption is that translation is an interpretative activity. When a text is transposed from one language into another, changes are introduced that are consonant with the receiving languages and culture. Translation is affected by interpretations from within the receptor tradition which, in turn, makes possible the acceptance of the translation and the ideas which it contains. Thus the Old (as well as the New) Testament translations represented one of the initial steps in the signification of Protestant Christianity.

The ՙAlbāުiyya are the followers of al-ՙAlbā՚ b. Dhira՚ al-Dawsī, who set ՙAlī above the Prophet, saying that Muḥammad had been sent by ՙAlī, whom he called a divine being. … Some believe in the divinity of both ՙAlī and Muḣammad, but still think ՙAlī superior; these are called the ՙAyniyya. Others who think them both divine put Muḣammad first; these are called the Mīmiyya. Yet others believe in the divinity of all five Companions of the Cloak, Muḣammad, ՙAlī, Fāṭima, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn, as equally imbued with the spirit of God.

It is one of the most tantalizing features of the ancient history of southern Asia that there is no generally accepted solution to the dating problems of the Kushan dynasty. The wide divergences of opinion still current with regard to this question were well evidenced by the lively discussions which took place at the Conference on the Date of Kanishka, held at the School of Oriental and African Studies from 20 to 22 April I960. It was rightly appreciated that numerous questions of Oriental history and archaeology depend on the correct solution of this problem.

The chinese have held to the architectural standards of the past no less tenaciously than to other traditions of their ancient civilization. Buildings standing at the present day testify to this fact, and innumerable written records indicate a continuity of architectural practice lasting more than 2,000 years. The probability is that foreign importation has affected Chinese architecture least of all the arts.

A Mongst the Kurds there is found a considerable variety of religions, which has caused unfavourable observers to regard them as idolatrous. Not only are the Christians of several dominations represented among them, but also the Muslims, who form the predominant millah or creed among the peoples of Kurdiâstan in addition to these there are several less important sects, of which by far the most important are the Qizilbâsh and the Yazîdî Kurds.

The Bornu quranic manuscripts with interlinear ajami glosses in a Kanuri dialect were discovered by A. D. H. Bivar in the late 1950s. The unique corpus of written evidence for the Kanuri language as spoken over 300 years ago has never been analysed in any depth. The first part of the paper contains a general description of the collection and a discussion of codicological and palaeographical characteristics of the manuscripts. The second part comprises a brief note on the Kanuri language and a description of the Bornu writing system used for quranic commentary in this language. The third part explores the phonological and morphological properties of selected examples of glosses. Finally, a preliminary view on the dialect affiliation of the language of the glosses is suggested.

This article explores the careers of craftsmen and other commoners, who succeeded in joining the bureaucratic system and occupying high positions in the Mamluk administrative establishment, eventually acquiring great power and even political authority. At the same time Sufi shaykhs, also men of common origin and beneficiaries of Mamluk philanthropy, emerged as mighty and authoritative figures, venerated equally by the aristocracy and the populace. The newly privileged groups also figure as founders of Friday mosques following a flexible new attitude on the part of the authorities. This social fluidity, often criticized by historians of the period, was the result of the pious patronage of the Mamluk aristocracy, which brought academic education to the reach of a large part of the populace. Towards the end of the Mamluk period, the structure of religious institutions had itself been levelled: the Friday mosque with Sufi service replaced the earlier madrasas and khanqāhs. The article also discusses how the visual arts of the period mirror the social changes with new aspects of artistic patronage.

The Treatise on the Mahāyāna Awakening of Faith, an indigenous Chinese composition written in the guise of an Indian Buddhist treatise, is one of the most influential texts in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Its outline of the doctrines of buddha nature (foxing), buddha bodies (foshen), and one mind (yixin), among others, served from the medieval period onwards as one of the main foundations of East Asian Buddhist thought and practice. The Treatise is putatively attributed to the Indian writer Aśvaghoṣa, and its current Chinese version was traditionally conceived of as a translation from an original Sanskrit text. In the course of the twentieth century, however, many important scholars of Buddhism have called into question the textual history of the Treatise. Even if the specific circumstances of its creation are still largely unknown, the view that the Treatise is an original Chinese composition (not necessarily written by a native Chinese) is now prevalent among scholars. Meanwhile, and for more than one hundred years, the text has also become a source of knowledge of Buddhism in the West thanks to a number of English translations. After examining the early textual history of the two existing versions of the text, this article will offer some examples of its modern appropriation by a novel group of readers and interpreters, an appropriation that took place during the first decades of the twentieth century amidst efforts to re-envision Chinese and East Asian Buddhist history and the place of Buddhism in modern society.

Ibn Khaldūn runs the risk of being everything or nothing—or, at least, no more than this or that. It has long been customary to separate the Muqaddima or so-called Prolegomena from the body of the Kitāb al-'Ibar or so-called Universal History, and to treat them quite differently as an essay in the philosophy of history distinct from a much more commonplace amalgam of historical information of varying value. Regarded as no more than a vast compilation of historical knowledge in the manner of the time, this great bulk of the work has received much less attention than the much more famous introduction. By concentrating on Ibn Khaldūn's later career in Egypt, Fischel dwelt on the chapters dealing with the Mamlūks and the Mongols, and with Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Judaism. Treating him as an historian of the Marinids in Morocco, Shatzmiller has located the ‘Ibar as a whole in the dynastic tradition of Fes.4 The Marinids were a self-consciously Berber dynasty whose official histories fall into the well-established category of Mafākhir al-Barbar or ‘Boasts of the Berbers’, and it might be said that Ibn Khaldūn's classification of his material according to race merely reflected the origin of his magnum opus in a familiar literary tradition, from whose constraints he was only freed by the collapse of the political order in the Maghrib in the second half of the fourteenth century.

Considering the unique position of the Modern South Arabian languages within Semitic it is surprising how little has been published concerning them. A case in point is the Jibbāli language of Dhofar, whose extreme phonetic and phonological complexity should arouse the interest of the general linguist as well as of the Semitic specialist. This becomes clear in even a brief perusal of the most notable pioneer study of the language, T. M. Johnstone's Jibbali lexicon.

This article is based on letters from the Geniza. The writers were merchants who dealt in imports and exports between Egypt and other countries of the Mediterranean basin. These merchants were part of the Jewish elite and maintained close ties with the Muslim authorities. They enjoyed considerable status with these authorities, who co-operated with the merchants, especially in the transport of goods; some of the high officials were, in fact, ship-owners. The administration of the time took a great interest in imports and exports, and would at times confiscate goods required by the army. The article reviews a series of citations from letters thus examining the relationship between the merchants and the authorities. The second part deals with the evidence of the droughts found in the merchants' letters; it is interesting to compare the details on droughts with the information in the Arabic sources. The third part discusses the information contained in the Geniza documents on the conquest of Jerusalem (638). This is followed by a discussion of two figures who are also known from Arabic sources: Manasseh b. Abraham Ibn al-Qazza¯z, and Barjawa¯n. The letters also reflect the restrictive measures against Jews and Christians in the days of Caliph al-Ha¯kim.

The book which passes under the name of Ho-kuan-tzu, ‘Master of the pheasant cap’, an otherwise unknown teacher supposedly of the third century B.C., expounds a variety of syncretism which roots the fa decreed by the ruler in a Yin-Yang cosmological scheme. It is remarkable for presenting no less than three contradictory programmes for ideal government, two of them described at length and ascribed to sage emperors missing in orthodox historiography; one is roughly classifiable as Legalist, one as Yin-Yang, the third as Taoist anarchist. It attracted little attention until recently because of lack of evidence as to its date. But with the discovery in 1973 of the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts of Laotzu it was noticed that the ‘Yellow Emperor’ documents attached to manuscript B are closely related to it; and Wu Kuang has since pointed out that the first two chapters observe the taboo on the personal name of the Ch'in First Emperor.

Although in Chinese culture surgery has not usually been seen as a major part of medical practice, during the Sui (A.D. 581–618) and the Tang dynasties (A.D. 618–907) it showed a marked flowering in the field of ophthalmology. There are indications that it was closely related to Indian medical and surgical ideas which were transmitted to China. The evidence is found in historical records, popular literature and also in medical works and compilations. Interestingly, the origins of this transmission are seen in Chinese Buddhist canonical literature which emerged during the introduction of Buddhism into China in the late Han period (A.D. 25–220) and the mutual contacts which followed immediately thereafter.