The main doctrines of the Shī'a are well known; Ibn Babuye, in his book The Reasons for Laws, gives a more popular view of theology.

The imam

‘Alī said: But for us God would not have created Adam, Eve, paradise, hell, heaven and earth. How shall we not be better than the angels? We knew our Lord before they did, our spirits were the first He created, and He made us speak of His unity. Then he created the angels and, when they saw that our spirits were one light, they glorified us; but we praised God that they might know that we too were created creatures. It is said that God created the five, Muḥammad, ‘Alī, Fāṭima, Ḥasan and Ḥusain seven thousand years before the world; they were before the throne. Ḥusain said: We were forms of light, circling round the throne of the Merciful; we taught the angels to praise, laud and magnify. Another expression is: A brilliant light, which was the substance (clay) of ‘Alī, passed before the angels. God created the hearts and bodies of the prophets from the substance of the highest places (‘illiyūn). An imam said: God created us from the highest places and our spirits from something higher; He created the spirits of our followers from the highest places and their bodies from something lower, so they are kin to us and their hearts yearn towards us. Then God created Adam and placed us in his loins; He commanded the angels to bow down to him to honour us. Their prostration was worship of God and respect and obedience to Adam because we were in his loins.

The British Museum manuscript Or. 8613 (146 folios, probably 5th–11th century) has lost both its beginning and end. Its subject is the doctrine of the Mu'tazila and it is divided into sections each of which begins with the quotation from a book by Abū 'Alī Muḥammad b. Khallād (Fihrist 174); in one place he is called ṣāḥib al-kitāb. The authorities mostly quoted are the two shaikhs, Abū 'Ahī al-Jubbāī and his son Abū Hāshim, the chief judge 'Abd al-jabbār (†415/1024) and Abū Rashīd Sa'īd b. Muḥammad who died somewhat later. He is the latest authority quoted. It is hard to decide to which of the two men Abū 'Alī refers. The MS. has been collated within the last 200 years but no other copy seems to be recorded unless no. 589 in Landberg (MSS. belonging to Maison Brill), Ziyādāt, by Abū Ṭālib Yaḥyā b. Ḥusain to al-uṣūl of Ibn Khallād, is the same work; but if the description ‘giving much information about the Zaidis’ is right, it is another book. The character of the book will be shown by a summary of its contents followed by an abridged translation of one section.

In a previous paper I discussed the typology of two collections of neolithic artifacts from the North Karnataka of India and discovered a close correspondence between them.

§1

A Short account of the Kuvalayamālā was given in “An Unpublished Fragment of Paiśācī”, BSOAS., xii, p. 659 foil. It is dated A.D. 778 and is known from two MSS.—J dated A.D. 1083 and P undated, of which P 2 is a copy. The bulk of the work is written in Pāyaya-bhāsā, i.e. Jaina Maharastri. Other styles are used, one of which is Avabbhamsa, which Uddyotana, the author, describes as Sakkaya-Pāy'ubhaya-suddh'āsuddha-paya-samataramgaramgamta vaggiram “A spoken language rippling with even waves of Sanskrit and Prakrit words correct and incorrect”. It is therefore not the classical Apabhramśa of Hemacandra and others, which does not contain Sanskrit words apart from the tatsamas or words common to Sanskrit and Prakrit.

§2

The first and longest fragment is printed by L. B. Gandhi in GOS. 37 (G.), Intro., p. 109. The spelling is much less regular than in the Prakrit preceding and following it, and cannot be ascribed for the most part to clerical errors. The two MSS. do not differ widely. For reasons into which it is unnecessary to enter here it is clear that J and P were copied from the same MS. and neither is dependent upon the other. P 2, although an inferior MS., often usefully supplements J and in the present extract such aid is particularly welcome, as owing to the habit of readers putting a finger on the text where difficulties occur, much of the J palm-leaf has been smudged and would be almost unreadable without the help of P 2.

This article is concerned with the influence of Mesopotamian myths on the Old Testament Book of Esther, with particular reference to the role of the Enūma Elish. The Book of Esther has been the subject of numerous studies, some of which have asked the questions posed in this article. Although full account is taken of these important studies, the present article contends that previous scholars have misguidedly focused their attention on Ishtar-legends to the exclusion of the Marduk-legends that are at least as important in this context. The article is divided into two parts: first, it is argued that the central figure in the Book of Esther is Mordecai (=Marduk) and it is his triumph that is being commemorated in the story. Second, similarities between the Enūma Elish (being the foremost Marduk-legend of Mesopotamian culture) and the Book of Esther are drawn, with the evidence being arranged under three rubrics: ‘the plot’, ‘themes and motifs’ and ‘language’.

The Futūḥ al-Shām of al-Qudāmi, now lost, is not listed by Brockelmann or by Sezgin although it is one of the earliest works of futūḥ: its author lived in the second half of the second Islamic century. A few excerpts from this book, taken from Ibn ՙAsākir (d. 571/1176), Ta'rīkh madīnat Dimashq and Ibn Hajar (d. 852/1448), al-Iṣāba fī tamyīzi 'l-ṣaḥāba, provide some insight into the author and the book.

Ibn ՙAsākir's monumental work (see ‘Abbreviated references’ below, under TMD) is now available, in addition to the volumes which have so far been edited, in the form of a commercial facsimile edition. Its Mukhtasar, by Ibn Manzūr, is also available in a scholarly edition. Only a few years ago, apart from the edited volumes (which only cover a small part of this voluminous biographical dictionary), one had to rely on the incomplete and at times unreliable Tahdhīb of this book prepared by ‘Abd al-Qādir Badrān. This situation has now changed fundamentally and the easier access to this book will, one hopes, give new impetus to research in those areas where Ibn ‘Asākir excels, such as the conquest of Syria and Palestine.

The recently discovered Līlātilaka, containing as it does the oldest known observations upon the grammar of the Malayalam language, has naturally won for itself a position of importance; and although there has perhaps been a tendency to exaggerate its merits, the evidence which it offers will certainly be of interest and value to students of the history of the Dravidian languages. Nevertheless, although it has quickly achieved fame in its own country, it has remained all but unknown in the west. So far as I can ascertain, only a solitary copy of the edition of the Sanskrit sutras with Malayalam translation of the original Sanskrit commentary, by A. Krsna Pisarati (Trivandrum, 1092 = A.D. 1916) has reached this country; and even this did not reach the British Museum until 1938. The chief aim of the present paper, therefore, is to render accessible the text of the sutras.