The fatwā is the legal opinion of a jurist not institutionalized in the classical sense: it is intended to elucidate, at the request of an inquirer, the position as to a legal issue; it is not binding on the inquirer or anyone else; unlike the judgement of a qāḍī, it is not enforceable. The fatwā that is the object of this paper belongs to a collection of legal documents gathered from tribal arbitrators in the Judean Desert and from the archives of sharī‘a courts. Those documents deal with various legal matters: personal status, torts (homicide and assault), contracts and property, land, etc.; most date from the twentieth century and some from the last quarter of the nineteenth. The collection has been used in research on the Islamization of tribal society in the Judean Desert in process of sedentarization.

Since the publication in the West last century of a major Sunnī work on the Islamic sects, those interested in the early firaq have found themselves dependent on the heresiographical tradition. Islamicists have had little choice in the matter; most writing and thinking produced in circles later deemed heterodox has not been preserved, and to a large extent is available only through the mediation of the heresiographers. While material of other sorts has not gone unstudied, it has for the most part been the heresiographers who have shaped the way we look at early Islamic sectarianism.

This marriage of modern scholarship and medieval heresiography is, however, a distinctly uncomfortable one. As indispensable as the firaq material may be, questions about its reliability persist. The difficulties which characterize this literature are well known, and hardly need to be rehearsed here: it is late, highly schematic, and frequently hostile to the doctrines and groups which it describes. To these might be added one other problem noted less frequently: most of the books in general academic circulation have passed through Ash'arite and/or Mu‘tazilite hands. If, as we shall see, the tradition is not entirely synoptic, there are at least powerful forces at work which militate against a diversity of perspectives.

The second volume of A. Sachs and H. Hunger, Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia (Vienna, 1989) extends from the years 261–165 B.C., and includes further information on Babylonian astronomy, weather patterns, market prices, and historical events during these years, and as such are an invaluable source for Hellenistic history. Of particular historical interest is a group of tablets from Babylon and Sippar which are duplicate reports from 16/17 August–10/11 December, 169 B.C. In addition to the usual astronomical and meteorological data, this report includes brief accounts of contemporary events which potentially alter the historical picture of the reign of Antiochus IV. Although the passage has been known for a long time, and previously cited by Pinches, Eddy, and van der Spek, the new edition by Sachs and Hunger gives the opportunity to reopen the discussion.

The nineteenth-century rise of Zanzibar under the ruling Albusaidi Dynasty of Oman owed its origins primarily to the solid foundations of commercial activity laid down in Muscat in the preceding century. In the subsequent development of the Omani economy, in Omani territories in both Arabia and Africa where the dictates of the Omani political/tribal system did not allow for any centralization of authority, local communities and tribal groups resisted the domination of the Albusaidi rulers as they strove to bring under their own control the benefits of burgeoning trade.

The opposition of the major Omani groups in East Africa, the Mazāri‘a of Mombasa and the Banū Nabhān of Pate, to the Albusaidis and the eventual success of the Omani rulers in dismantling and neutralizing this opposition are fairly well documented. However, the sustained challenge of Hilāl b. Sa‘īd to the reign of his father Sa‘īd b. Sulṭān, the Albusaidi ruler of Oman and Zanzibar and their dependencies from 1806 to 1856, has hitherto been neglected, despite the fact that Hilāl's resistance in East Africa was the greatest internal threat to Sa‘īd after that posed by the Mazāri'a and had dire consequences for the subsequent course of Oman's history. The conflict between father and son set in train a course of events that led inexorably to the 1861 British-sponsored dismemberment of Oman into two Sultanates, one in Arabia and the other in East Africa.

This article deals with Palestinian Christians and Jews who availed themselves of the Muslim pious endowment institution (waqf, pi. awqāf) during the late Ottoman period. In Judaism and Christianity we find pious endowment institutions: the Jewish ‘Hekdesh’ and the Christian ‘Piae Causae’. In both religions there exists an ancient tradition of endowments for purposes which are quite similar to those of the waqf. In spite of this, Christians and Jews in Muslim territories availed themselves of the waqf from the Middle Ages until the end of the Ottoman state. This is an example of the use by minorities of the majority's legal system.

In our very first grammar lesson at the primary school of al-Azhar we were introduced to al-mabādi’ al-‘ashara, ‘The Ten Introductory Aspects’ with which the textbook began. We learnt then that these ten aspects, as handed down by the ancient tradition, were points to be considered when embarking on each fann (branch of knowledge). ‘They said: it is incumbent upon him who sets out to expound a book to deal in the introduction with certain things before he begins with the intended subject matter’ Such was the importance of ‘The Ten ’ in traditional Islamic education that they were formulated in two lines of verse, in more than one version, to aid the memory of learners.

A number of recent studies have examined conditional clauses in Classical Arabic. However, to date I have not seen anything devoted to the study of these structures in a colloquial dialect, although most teaching manuals devote a section to this. The following is an attempt to describe conditional clauses and the related time-clause structures in certain Bedouin dialects. My interest in them originated in the difficulty I myself found in mastering this area of syntax, and from a perception of them as being more complex than such structures in English. A further point of interest which led me to investigate this area was the multiplicity of conditional and time particles including in, lo and āān signifying ‘if’, lamman and yōm signifying ‘when’ and ila signifying ‘if’ or ‘when’. I was interested to find out what factors, if any, conditioned the choice of these particles. The reason for broadening the study to take in time clauses also, is that in this dialect, in one area of conditional sentences, the two types: conditional and time clause, come very close together and are in some cases indistinguishable, or to put it another way, one would not know whether to translate the sentence into English with ‘if’ or ‘when’. The two types of sentence also share various characteristics which will be pointed out below, but in particular, many of them show a marker on both the main and subordinate clause.

Between 1985 and 1987 the present writer took part in a multi-disciplinary study of the Wahiba Sands organized by the Royal Geographical Society. During this time I was able to travel extensively through and around the Sands to visit many bedouin families of the Āl Wahība, who inhabit the greater part of the area, and other tribes including the Āl ،Amr, Āl Bū ،Īsa, Ḣikmān, Hishm and Janaba who are found in certain enclaves, particularly to the east and north of the main sand desert. The purpose of my research was to make a social and ethnographic survey rather than a purely linguistic one, but in the process I was able to record some dialect speech including the text presented below.

Very little was known about the bedouin of this part of Oman prior to the Wahiba Sands Project. Holes has recently published examples of some related dialects and has proposed a classification scheme as the basis for a dialect geography of Northern Oman (Holes, 1989). Bedouin dialects of central and eastern Arabia have been more extensively described and classified (Holes, 1983; Ingham, 1982(a), 1982(b), 1986; Johnstone, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1967). Comparative studies of the distribution of certain features of present-day dialects have been shown to shed light on the population movements of the past, often supporting the written histories and oral traditions of the area.

This short article is dedicated to a friend and scholar who has greatly promoted the study of Pahlavi by his masterly work on texts and manuscripts, and, earning thereby the gratitude of all, by his truly admirable Pahlavi dictionary. Pahlavi is a language notorious for the challenges it makes to the lexicographer, not the least of which are to be found in the field of technical religious terms. Since priests, setting down instructions for their fellow-priests, could assume a common basic knowledge of the rituals concerned, they felt evidently no need for a precise or consistent use of terms, but relied on context to make their meaning plain. There was moreover a marked tendency, in written as in spoken usage, to abbreviate common phrases and to deal casually with grammatical forms, while among the Gujarati-speaking Parsis Persian technical terms were sometimes given additional or quite new meanings. A student of religion can hope, therefore, by considering perplexing linguistic usages in the light of observances to contribute a little to the lexicographer's pursuit, a small return for the large debt which all such students owe to the work of philologists

Bei der Durchsicht der Brāhmī-Handschriften der “ Mainzer Sammlung / [Mz]1 entdeckte einer der beiden Verfasser [Maue] mit Mz 639 ein Fragment, das neben Sanskrit eine Übersetzungssprache enthielt, die aufgrund einiger Indizien dem Iranischen, am ehesten dem Sogdischen, zuzuordnen war. Anhand einer ersten vorlä ufigen Umschrift konnte Professor R. E. Emmerick (Hamburg) das Sakische ausschlieβen. Der zweite Autor [Sims-Williams] erkannte darin zweifelsfrei das Sogdische. Somit ist nun auch dieser mir. Dialekt in Brā hmī belegt und erstmals ein sogd. Textstück, das definitiv auf eine Sanskritvorlage zurückgeführt werden kann. Der besondere linguistische Wert liegt in der durch die Schriftart erzwungenen vollen Vokalisierung. Das neu entdeckte Bruchstück nährt die Hoffnung auf weitere sogdische Materialien in Brāhmī.2 Die lesbaren und verständlichen Teile des Blattfragments lassen klar erkennen, daβ esp. sich um einen Heilkundetext handelt, vermutlich einen Abschnitt über Augenkrankheiten.3 Wir haben Reste von vier Rezepturen oder Paragraphen, wie die erhaltenen Zahlen beweisen, die es auch erlauben, Vorderund Rückseite zu bestimmen. Im übrigen aber ist das Blatt so sehr fragmentiert und die Schrift teilweise so stark abgerieben, daβ das gewohnte Schema (zu behandelnde Krankheit, Zusammensetzung des Medikaments und dessen Dosierung) an verschiedenen Stellen zwar noch durchscheint, aber im einzelnen nicht rekonstruiert werden kann. Dies beeintrachtigt die Sicherheit und das Verständnis der Lesungen. Hier kann der entscheidende Fortschritt nur vom Mūla-Text oder zumindest von Paralleltexten kommen Die Suche danach, an der sich freundlicherweise auch R. E. Emmerick beteiligte, hat bisher nur zu einem negativen Ergebnis geführt:

In his catalogue of the Haram documents, D. P. Little has brought attention to a group of nine items, which he identifies with what the handbooks and other contemporary sources describe as murabba'āt One may accept the translation ‘square’ for convenience sake, but the surviving examples show that murabba'a should strictly be understood as ‘quadrangular’. Under question are documents written on a sheet of paper in ‘landscape’ mode, folded centrally to form four pages, and distinguished from documents written on a piece of paper in ‘portrait’ mode or a series of these stuck together to produce a scroll. While looking through the Cambridge University Library's varied collection of material, both paper and papyrus, that is known by the name of its immediate source, Michaelides, I came across one more example, at least, if one judges bythe shape and general lay-out. It seems to be of sufficient interest to merit a brief study, with some cross-reference to the Haram material.

The exposition of different deity mantras forms an essential part of Tantric compendia. A mantra, a combination of letters thought to be of divine origin, is transmitted by a preceptor to a disciple in an initiation ritual whereby the disciple is authorized to practise its ritual repetition and strive for its perfection in order to attain supernatural powers. The different stages of the process from the selection of the mantra by the preceptor to its employment in desire–oriented rites by the practitioner shall be described in this paper mainly on the basis of chapters 15 and 16 of the Kulārṇavatantra (= KT), one of the most important texts of the Kaula School of Tantrism, written between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries A.D. These chapters were written at a stage when the technicalities of mantraśāstra had been fully developed and were widely accepted. Among other texts consulted were the Śāradātilakatantra (= ŚT) by Lakṣmaṇa Deśikendra with Rāghavabhaṭṭa's commentary entitled Padārthādarśa (= PĀ) (A.D. 1494), the Mantramahodadhi (= MM) by Mahīdhara (A.D. 1588/89) and the Tantrarāja(tantra) (= TR) with the commentary Manoramā (A.D. 1603/04).

Since Indra is, above all, the god of victory in battle for his believers in the Rgveda, it might not be expected that he would have relevance for women, since they do not take part in war. Moreover, the hymns of the Rgveda are composed by men; thus we can scarcely expect to learn what role Indra may have played in the religious belief of women, whether they addressed prayers to him at all, and if so, prayers of what content. We have, however (beside the hymn 8.91, ascribed to Apālā), some allusions in isolated verses of the RV (e.g. 10.85.25 and 45; 4.19.7), which may help us to identify certain ideas involved; these ideas I shall then trace also in other texts, particularly in the Pāli Jātaka stories.

The use of oral mnemonics in the transmission of instrumental music is a well-known and persistent feature of East Asian musics. In both Korea and Japan, there are several such systems for different instruments. There are also various systems of written mnemonics, that is, musical notation; many originally oral systems have come to be used as notations as well. Following Western scholarly usage, we shall often refer to oral mnemonics in general by the term solfège; although etymologically dubious, this practice at least helps avoid over-use of the unwieldy expression ‘oral mnemonics’.

The present paper will deal with one type of oral mnemonics in Korea, known collectively as yukpo or sometimes as kuŭm (cf. Lee, 1981: 31–4; Hahn, 1973: 79–83; Howard, 1988: 68, 91, 115, 182, 212, 227).3 Yukpo exist or are known to have existed for most string and wind instruments and even for percussion. By the sixteenth century at least, these originally oral syllables had begun to be written down as a kind of musical notation. The first mention of yukpo is in the Annals of King Sejo (A.D. 1470): ‘ Formerly there was only [for musical notation] the use of mnemonic sounds, called the Yukpo … The complexities are difficult to comprehend’ (quoted in Lee, 1981: 31, Condit 1976: 205, 207 has a more extensive but interpretive translation). This quotation suggests that yukpo were already considered both old and obscure by Sejo's time.

A complete and reliable edition of the Khwarezmian phrases and words in the lawbook Qunyat al-munya by Najm al-Dīn Abū RajāMukhtār b. Mahmūd al-Zāhidī al-Ghazmīnī (d. A.H. 658/1260 C.E.) has long been a desideratum but was delayed by the inaccessibility of the best extant manuscript, no. C2311 in the Leningrad Oriental Institute (cited as S in the edition under review). The Qunyat al-munya comprises a résumé of a work by Najm al-Dīn's teacher, Munyat al-fuqahā’, a compilation of legal cases that in turn were probablytaken from a still older work, the Yatīmat al-dahr by Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd ‘A;ā’ al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Raḥīm al-Tarjumānī al-Makkī al-Khuwārzmiī (d.A.H. 645/1247 C.E.). The Khwarezmian elements in the Qunya can therefore, roughly, be said to be descended from the Yatīma via the Munya. Most of the cases from the Qunya involving Khwarezmian words, as well as several from the Munya that were preserved as marginal notes in manuscripts of the Qunya, were collected by Jalāl al-Dīn al-‘Imādī around A.H. 750/1350 C.E. in a separate text (referred to as the Risāla (R) in this edition). Professor D. N. MacKenzie's recently published edition is based upon manuscript no. C2311, originally from Astrakhan, which contains both the Qunya and the Risāla.

In the study of Chinese science it is important to take into account the fact that there are many Chinese terms which do not convey exactly the same meanings to traditional and modern scholars. It is essential to try to put ourselves in theshoes of the former in order to have a better understanding of classical Chinese texts. Take for example the simple term shuxue, which we all take to mean ‘mathematics’. Indeed we are quite correct to call it ‘ mathematics’ when it appears in a modern text, or after the time of Li Shanlan (1811–1982) who first used itwhen he translated Western mathematical works into Chinese. However, when the term shuxue appears in any text written before the time of Li Shanlan it can often be dangerous to use the modern meaning of the term without circumspection. I quote a passage on the Biography of Zhang Zhong from the Ming waish. contained in the Imperial Compendium Gujin tushu jicheng which reads:

(Zhang) Zhong was studying at his youth and presented himself at the jinshi level of civil examinations. However, he failed, and whereupon he gave rein to roaming among the mountains and streams. On one occasion he came across an extraordinarily gifted person and learned shuxue from him. (Henceforth) he talked about future destiny, and was often uncanny in accuracy.

This article examines the mythical significance of the famous Afghan Kafir ‘Temple of Imra’ described in Robertson's Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush (1896: 389–92) within the cosmology of the Kalasha (‘Kalash Kafirs’) of Chitral in northern Pakistan. It is known as the ‘Temple of Mahandeu’ in Kalasha tradition, and stories about this sanctuary play an important role in the exegesis of all Kalasha rites. It is, indeed, a focal symbol of Kalasha cosmology: the site of an axis mundi linking heaven and earth with the underworld of the deceased, and the primordial domain of major deities. After examining narratives about this temple, I shall discuss several problems in the comparative religions of the Hindu Kush that such traditions help to elucidate. In recognition of the pioneering scholarship on this subject by Wolfgang Lentz (1974) and Lennart Edelberg (et al., 1959), I present here some Kalasha perspectives on an extraordinary Kafir sanctuary (cf. Jettmar, 1986: 50–51). But in discussing its significance in Kalasha cosmology, I also address broader questions about our present conception of religious knowledge in the Hindu Kush, particularly on the comparative ‘mythology’ of the Afghan Kafirs and of their Dardicspeaking neighbours in northern Pakistan

Data on the Bahing verbal agreement system were collected in the first half of the nineteenth century and in the second half of the twentieth century. The current periphrastic model of the Proto-Kiranti verb is evaluated in the light of a morphemic analysis of the Bahing conjugation. This re-assessment leads to a refinement of the model of the Proto-Kiranti verb

This paper arises out of dissatisfaction with wholly instrumentalist explanations of Muslim separatism in India, views which have their critics but which generally prevail nowadays, reinforced by no less an influence than that of Michel Foucault. The problem is the fundamental one of what constitutes a group, and in particular of whether or not there can be objective harmonization, ‘orchestration sans chef d'orchestre qui confère regularité’, within any set of people. At an empirical level, in regard to Indian Muslims, the debate has three main elements: what was the nature of communalism, how far Muslim separatism was a process, and whether its development was a sufficient explanation for the partition of 1947. To the extent that Muslims became separatist, they obviously might have been diverted into other attitudes, and to that extent is it important to identify events which encouraged or errors which prevented that diversion.

On this occasion the discussion will begin as a review of A nationalist conscience, Mushirul Hasan's study of M. A. Ansari, and then move on to some of the issues suggested by Ansari's life and Hasan's treatment of it. The book provides an important corrective, in its emphasis and viewpoint, to the tendency to attribute the partition in India to a consistent and inevitable conflict between increasingly irreconcilable forces. The study extends and rounds out earlier work; it brings to life the alternative symbolized by Ansari, and thus casts into relief the occasions when Hindu–Muslim agreement and a common front against the British seemed possible, as in 1919–22 and 1935. The book exhibits the familiarity and maturity of understanding resulting from such an intense and long-term project of research. It is a timely contribution too, as intercommunal tensions once again mount in South Asia, and voices are heard suggesting that the secular constitution of India is inappropriate to the essential character of its people. The book's implicit thesis is that separatism did indeed evolve, with clear stages from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth century; that its opponents were unable to arrest its advance; and that Ansari is significant for exemplifying these two points. Hasan thus illustrates an alternative to communalism offered during the struggles against British rule; it was an alternative which failed. The question is whether or not it could have succeeded.