This paper examines the state-of-the-art for the historical study of the Rma (Qiang) language (< Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan) and points out some methodological issues in earlier work. The paper discusses how vowel correspondences have been obfuscated by loanwords, onomatopoeic forms, and analogical levelling. It also discusses the analysis of compound forms and points out how certain compound forms have been incorrectly etymologized. It deals with broader, more fundamental issues in prior work such as top-down rather than bottom-up reconstructions, and problematic conceptualizations of what constitutes reconstructions. The article offers potential solutions to the issues discussed and points out where future work would be most profitable.

From quite early on, the Shīʿa endeavoured to provide both historical and rational arguments for their central claim that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11/632), was not only his legitimate successor but also the person best qualified to lead the umma. In particular, there are several statements attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad which are used as evidence of the special position of ʿAlī and his family. One of these is a report known in the Muslim tradition as the ḥadīth manzilat Hārūn (ḥadīth of the position of Aaron). According to this report, cited by such eminent authorities on ḥadīth as Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 261/875), al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) and Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), Muḥammad said to ʿAlī: “Are you not content to be with respect to me as Aaron was to Moses, except that after me there shall be no other Prophet?” The ḥadīth alludes to the parallels and similarities between the status of Muḥammad and ʿAlī and their close relationship, and that of Moses and Aaron in the Jewish tradition. The article examines the significance of this report for the formulation of the doctrine of the special status of ʿAlī in Shīʿī Islam through its use and interpretation in the Muslim literary and historical tradition.

Passages in received texts and in recently found legal documents show the different ways in which four terms refer to offices of Han imperial government; zhongdu guan indicates offices of the central government in the capital city; duguan signifies offices controlled by the central government but posted to work in the commanderies and counties; xianguan refers to just those offices but it is often used of “the government” in general, and in exceptional cases it specifies the emperor in person; xiandao guan were the offices of provincial government established in the counties (xian) and marches (dao).

Berber in the Sahara and southern Morocco, and several West African languages including Soninké, Mandinka and Songhay, all refer to the five Islamic daily prayers using terms not derived from their usual Arabic names, and showing striking mutual similarities. The motivation behind these names has not hitherto been explained. An examination of Islamic sources reveals that many correspond to terms attested within Arabic from an early period but which have passed out of use elsewhere. Others, with a more limited distribution, reflect transfer from a time-keeping system widely attested among Berber-speaking oases of the northern Sahara. These results demonstrate that the variant prayer terminologies attested in the ḥadith reflect popular usages that were still commonplace at the time when North Africa was conquered, and underscore the conservatism of non-Arabic Islamic religious terminology in and around the Sahara.

This article examines the local character of early modern (1600–1868) Japanese Buddhism using a case study of the Narita Fudō cult of Shinshōji Temple, with particular attention to the temple's most sacred treasure, the legendary Sword of Amakuni. Drawing on local sources produced within and beyond clerical circles, it examines how the sword and its popular narratives became central to the public identity of the cult and the temple's proselytization efforts. This article illuminates the evolving, fluid nature of deity cults as highly mobile properties working across sectarian boundaries, and how these properties gained importance beyond the walls of Buddhist institutions among the artistic and theatrical landscapes of the country's capital.

The port of Cambay in Gujarat was formerly one of the premier ports of western India and home to a rich and vibrant tradition of Islamic architecture and artistic patronage. This article presents a previously unpublished structure from Cambay, the Kothī gateway. Though commonly believed to have been constructed as part of the English factory at Cambay, the article demonstrates through stylistic analysis that the Kothī gateway in fact predates the factory by several centuries and is a neglected Tughluq structure, probably dating to the 1330s A.D.. The article also suggests that the gateway is in fact a rare, if not unique, surviving example of the secular architecture of fourteenth-century Cambay so praised by contemporary travellers. The Kothī gateway therefore represents a valuable addition to our list of known Islamic structures at the port of Cambay, and takes its place among the growing number of Tughluq structures identified in India. The article also provides an opportunity to publish a number of other structures, architectural fragments and carvings from Cambay that relate to the present gateway.

Drawing on the archival study of over 1,600 copies of the Tibetan Aparimitāyur-nāma mahāyāna-sūtra (Tib.: Tshe dpag du myed pa'i mdo) produced in Dunhuang from the 820s to the 840s and now kept in the British Library, this article sheds light on the orthographic norms of Middle Old Tibetan writing. Based on editors' corrections, and on a corpus of nearly 200 transcribed explicits, the article compares the orthographic norms of this group of sutras with those of other dated Old Tibetan manuscripts and inscriptions. It proposes that among the most important markers for dating Old Tibetan writing are the increased use in the tenth century of the ’i(s) form of the genitive and ergative particles as a separate syllable, and the relative absence of the tu form of the terminative particle in Middle Old Tibetan writing. Additionally, the study offers suggestions concerning the development of the various forms of Tibetan case particles.

Francesca Bray has recently pointed to the neglected role of women in the history of Chinese technology. This article takes up one example, and shows that the work of one woman inventor, whose personal name is unknown but whose family name was Liu, may be securely dated to between 712 and 724. From later descriptions it is also possible to discern that her invention (or just possibly the invention of another craftsperson, which she was able to introduce to court circles) consisted of the bringing together of two carefully carved woodblocks to create a resist for dyeing cloth. Ths in turn suggests that she may well have been familiear with woodblock printing, an invention for which there are also other forms of indirect evidence at about the same time. Since her family was relatively prominent, it may in future be possible to find about more about this inventor from genealogical materials.

This paper looks at the professional alternatives that Buddhism offered to women by analysing the important role played by a female master in the as yet little studied Dhūta movement, a form of ‘heretical’ Chan Buddhism that flourished during the final years of the Jin dynasty and afterwards in the Yuan dynasty. By examining the descriptions of female master Jizhao and male master Puguang, as seen in epitaphs composed by officers-literati and preserved in a Bejing gazetteer dating back to the mid-fourteenth century, this paper aims to highlight some features of the Dhūtaists' discourse of femininity and also to point out the differences vis-à-vis orthodox Chan constructs, in order finally to evaluate whether such a discourse could have an influence on the general definitions and content of gender roles.

In the last centuries before the current era and in the early centuries after its beginning the major intellectual and literary activity in the realms (first) of the Jewish and (later) of the Christian communities was wholly centred in the field of interpretation. The OT, as the mainspring and foundation of all religious thought and teaching in those days and in those spheres, was the subject of this interpretation activity. In both the Jewish and the Christian world the Bible was considered to be not only holy and authoritative, but also, and this is in our context more important, the only and exclusive source of divine religious doctrine and of good ethical behaviour. Also historical events, political or religious, were seen, even foreseen, and evaluated from the aspect of this holy source of divine wisdom and planning.