The evolution of technical terms in the Arabic science of rhetoric illustrates remarkalby its gradual adaptation to the exigencies of scriputural interpretation.Proliferation of rhetorical figures in the writings of the late medieval scholiasts appears to be a consequence not so much of the Qur'ān. In many of these figures a pre-exegetic existence can be discerned; others would seem to be the invention of industrious mufassirum. For the former it is sometimes possible to determine an approximate date of adaptation: the point at which the profane function of a rhetorical figure was abandoned, or at least relegated to an inferior position, in favour of its application to Qur'anic exegesis. An illustration of this process is provided by the figure called madhhab kalāmī, whose evolution I attempted to describe in a recent study. There it was seen that the figure treated by early rhetoricians shared its name, but neither its content nor its function, with that examined and applied to the Qur'ā by the later schoolmen. While the result of this metamorphosis became firmly established in the treatment of badī' by al-Qazwīnī (d. 738/1256) and his successors, it is in the earlier work of Ibn Abi 'l-Isba' (d. 654002F;1256) where we find the observation that although Ibn al-mu'tazz (d. 295002F;908) had denied the presence in the Qur'ān of Madhhab kalāmī, the Holy Book was in fact full of it; and his examples fit perfectly the scholastic interpretation of the figure.

For assistance in every Kind of way to obtain the information Presented here I am in debted to Shaikh 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Muḥammad b. 'Abdulāh Āl Khalīfah, and particularly for introducing me to his friend the nawkhudhā 'Abdullāh b. Khamīs al-Shurūqī of al-Ḥidd village, situated on the south-east tip of al-Muḥarraq island, the northern island of the Baḥrain group. Al-Shurūqī entertained us to a fuwalih and took us carefully over his ḥaḍrah, explainig the technicalities involved in siting it, etc. The aerial Photographs reproduced here were made available through the Kindness of the station commander Group Captain Sanderson, R.A.F., and through the exertions of Flight-Lieutenant W. T. Wenham and his staff. I am also indebted to Eric and Beverley Fitzsimmons of the British Council for help in this and other matters

The absence in Socotri of a t- Prefix in some imperfect verbal forms has been noted briefly in a number of learned atricles, but this important feature of the language has not been adequately documented or analysed. It is possible, however, to show that the non-occurrence of a t- prefix is observable only in the imperfect forms of certain types of verb, principally the causative verbs, simple quadriliteral verbs, simple hollow verbs, certain intensive-conative verbs, and, it seems likely, the passives of simple verbs.

In medieval Islam, the heavenly bodies were the subject of wide scientific interest. There was, however, at the same time, a more popular form of interest in this field. This is astrological or magical―the belief in the influence of the planets, the zodiac, or certain conjunctions of the stars on historical events, on the individual's fate, and on human destiny.

It is not too much to describe the Ṣaffārids of S‚stān as an archetypal military dynasty. In the later years of the third/ninth century, their empire covered the greater part of the non-Arab eastern Islamic world. In the west, Ya'qūb. al-Laith's army was only halted at Dair al-'Āqūl, 50 miles from Baghdad; in the north, Ya'qūb and his brother 'Arm campaigned in the Caspian coastlands against the local 'Alids, and 'Amr made serious attempts to extend his power into Khwārazm and Transoxania; in the east, the two brothers pushed forward the frontiers of the Dār al-Islām into the pagan borderlands of what are now eastern Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier region of West Pakistan; and in the south, Ṣaffārid authority was acknowledged even across the persion Gulf in ‘Umān. This impressive achievement was the work of two soldiers of genius, Ya'qūub and 'Amr, and lasted for little more than a quarter of a century. It began to crumble when in 287/900 the Sāmānid Amīr Ismā'īl b. Aḥmad defeated arid captured ‘Amr b. al-Laith, and 11 years later, the core of the empire, Sīstān itself, was in Sāmānid hands. Yet such was the effect in Sīstān of the Ṣaffārid brothers’ achievement, and the stimulus to local pride and feeling which resulted from it, that the Ṣaffārids returned to power there in a very short time. For several more centuries they endured and survived successive waves of invaders of Sīstān—the Ghaznavids, the Seljūqs, the Mongols—and persisted down to the establishment of the Ṣafavid state in Persia.

In a previous article I had dealt with Tibetan re in ha-re and re-skan. In attempting to study re in its wider context I wish to exclude from consideration re in re-ba to hope and re in re-źig re-śig ‘little while, moment’. re in re-ba does not seem to call for any special comment. As far as re in re-źig is concerned, it may suffice here to stress the identity of re in re-źig with re in ga-re ‘where?’ on the one hand, and re in re-re ‘each’ on the other. All three cases pre-suppose the basic meaning of ‘part, member, item, etc.’. The specialization in time of re-źig (part = moment)has its spatial counterpart in ga-re (what part, which part(s)? = where ?), ga being identical with ga in ga-na ‘;where’ or in ga-la introducing a rhetorical question (whewre [in all the world]?). In re-re the distributive function is due to respetition (item by item, member [of a group]by member), obviously extended from there also to single re in the meaning of ‘each’.

“ The warlords of twentieth–century china have received little scholarly attention.”. This omission is due, apart from the reasons viven in Mr. Sheridan's ‘Preface’, to the historical significance of the men and their period not being fully appreciated. What sort of men were they ? How did they rise to such great power? What effect did their abuse of power have on Chinese society ? Why did the May Fourth Movement, the Washington Conference, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, the reorganization of the Kuomintang, and the May 30th Movement use the misrule of the warlords as their back–drop? How far did the warlords undo the work of the restoration in the 1860“s and 19870”s ? These are but a few pertinent questions. In a period of merely 16 years (1912–28), over 1, 300 warlords had fought more than 140 provincial and interprovincial wars. Such a period is bund to be complicated but should not daunt the curiosity of the historian.