As a normative discipline Qur'anic exegesis shares both principles and terminology with the other Islamic sciences, and as such is not likely to have been articulated before the third/ninth century. Prominent in the fully elaborated system, as for example exhibited in the work of al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1143), are the complementary principles of qiyās and taqdīr. While the former is commonly understood to represent the hermeneutical instrument called analogy, a typological description of qiyās will distinguish between applications of the principle which depend upon a textual similarity, and those which are derived from a rational or causal relation. Of the first type it may be said that there are as many kinds of analogy as there are means of establishing external (grammatical and lexical) affinity between different scriptural contexts. Underlying the second type of analogy is a unifying principle (ratio) independent of textual similarities, both explicit and implicit. In theory, if not always in practice, one may differentiate the two types of qiyās by reference to the incidence in each of what I have called the complementary principle of taqdīr. This term, of which the most common rendering ‘supplementation’ (Ergänzung), alluding to only one aspect of the procedure in question, is not quite satisfactory, signifies reconstruction or restoration (Wiederherstellung: restitutio in integrum), namely, of a scriptural context or passage. Now, while the elaboration of grammatical qiyās by the so-called ‘Basran school’ was characterized by an almost unlimited application of that principle, two reservations must be made.

The manuscript Qarawīyūn 727 in Fez contains on folios 37b–38a a tradition reported by Yūnus b. Bukayr on the authority of Ibn Isḥāq. The tradition tells of a meeting between the Prophet and Zayd b. ‘Amr b. Nufayl, one of the ḥunafā' in Mecca. During the meeting Zayd b. ‘Amr was offered meat which he, however, refused to eat, arguing that he never ate meat sacrificed before idols.

A total of 32 poems, including some of doubtful authenticity, are ascribed to Hassān b. Thābit in his Dīwān or elsewhere, which can be wholly or partly classified as elegies. It is remarkable, however, that in this total there is not a single poem on an Ansārī while no less than eight are on 'Uthmān b. 'Affān, as compared with only four on the death of the Prophet. Equally remarkable is the fact that there is a wide variety of style and method of treatment not only among the poems as a whole but among poems on the same subject.

The year in which 'Alī Bey al-Kabīr, Mamlūk ruler of Egypt (1760–72), first came to power as shaykh al-balad, the most important office in Egypt from the middle of the eighteenth century to Bonaparte's expedition, has been a matter of some disagreement. The Western contemporary accounts of Lusignan, Savary, and Volney give 1763, or the Muslim equivalent 1177. Later historians, Marcel, Cattaui, Combe, Heyworth-Dunne, Rossi, Mahmūd al-Sharqāwī, Wiet, and Shaw accept this date—though in another article Shaw changed his earlier date of 1177/1763 to 1171/1758 for the rise of 'Alī Bey al-Kabīr to the office of shaykh al-balad. Ahmad Haydar al-Shihābī and Masson also chose 1758. Other dates for this event have been given: 1757 by Dehérain, 1766 by 'Alī Pasha Mubārak and François Charles-Roux, and finally 1760 by the contemporary chronicler 'Abd al-Rahmān al-Jabartī. Muhammad Ramadān and P. M. Holt accept al-Jabartī's date. The object of this article is to show that al-Jabartī's dating and account of 'Alī Bey al-Kabīr's rise to power are accurate, and in so doing, to explain the sources of confusion in so many of the studies that have treated 'Alī Bey al-Kabīr's early history.

The likely reaction of a Semitist on reading for the first time a Mehri grammar or text, is to assume that, in forms like ɧayd (ḥayd) ‘hand’, ɧawguur (ḥawgûr) ‘slave’, ɧəyuum (ḥeyûm) ‘sun’, the ɧ(a)– element represents a definite article. A later reaction might be that the ɧ(a)– element, since few forms so affixed occur without this prefix, is perhaps a fossilized definite article.

The following chant, one of a series recorded in central Morocco in the summer of 1967, exemplifies a type of oral tradition found among the Imazighen, the Berbers of that region. It is a socio-religious poem, called a tanšhat: (plural tinšhadri). The poet-performer is an anšhad (pl. inšhadn), although like other musical performers he is addressed as ‘Shaykh’. The genre, known by other names in other regions, is characterized by its form and language, its composition and execution, its subject-matter and the poet's attitude toward it, and finally by its role in the life of the community.

The Great Mosque at Harāat ranks among the largest religious buildings still standing in Iranian lands. In the past it has been referred to as an example of Ghūrid architecture heavily restored at various periods. In fact, anyone standing inside the four-ayvān courtyard and looking at the typical arches (plates I-II) or at the marble columns so similar to the stone work at the Gāzargāh, and the mausoleum of Gawharshād, would be inclined to regard it as a typically Tīmūrid mosque. But as soon as one walks into the ayvān this vault takes on unusual proportions: on each side are passages with remarkably strong pillars; and the points of the arches differ from the usual Tīmūrid modulum. The same is true of the complex passages leading from the eastern façade, almost entirely rebuilt in recent years: here also strong square pillars support arches the spans of which come closer to twelfth- or thirteenth-century models rather than those of the late fifteenth century. It would be unwise, of course, to reappraise the period of such an important structure on the basis of a passing impression; a thorough study on the spot, including the drawing of the over-all plan and elevations, and accurate measurements, is necessary.

It has been known for many years that the Mahānubhāvas used ciphers for the transmission of much of their religious literature in Marathi. They devised a number of such ciphers which are known in the sect by names such as sakaḷa, sundarī, anka lipī, etc., but of all these sakala lipī is by far the commonest—no doubt because its extreme simplicity commended it to the scribes. Its invention is traditionally ascribed to Ravalovyāsa, the author of Sahyādrī-varnana, some time around A.D. 1335, but the earliest references to it are in fifteenth-century texts which simply call it ravalobāsāci nāgara līpa. One text of approximately the same date, however, refers to it as sakalita līpa and within the living tradition of the sect it is always known as sakala lipī or sakalī. The name has been variously derived from Old Marathi sakala ‘all’, because it was used throughout the sect, and from Skt. sankalita, because it is full of abbreviations. The former seems more plausible. The cipher was the first to be introduced and is the most widely used, whereas later, more complex ciphers tend to be the private preserve of one or other of the Mahānubhāva āmnāya or sub-sects.

Few phenomena in the modern history of Asia can have been so completely misunderstood by Westerners as the Vietnamese religious (and political) movement known in European languages as ‘Caodaism’. Based upon a syncretic approach to religion, in which a key role is played by spirit-séances, it has inevitably been regarded by Christian writers with the same suspicion (if not contempt) as occidental ‘spiritualism’; and this initial lack of sympathy is compounded by the fact that the spirits who have revealed themselves at Caodaist séances include such familiar figures as Victor Hugo and Jeanne d'Arc. Then there is the show-piece temple of the Caodaists at Tây-Ninh, which drew forth Mr. Graham Greene's description of ‘Christ and Buddha looking down from the roof of the Cathedral on a Walt Disney fantasia of the East, dragons and snakes in Technicolor’. This superficial notion of the religious element in Caodaism fitted in very well with the cynicism of political observers, notably Bernard Fall, who saw in Caodaism no more than a political movement anxious to preserve its private armies and local power, using its religious ideas merely to dupe a credulous peasantry. In these circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the real nature and origins of Caodaism have been lost from view, and even its history has never been adequately summarized in any Western language. The present article will attempt to fill the historical gap, by tracing the history of the religion from 1925 to 1936, and then looking at its origins and antecedents. A subsequent article (to appear in BSOAS, XXXIII, 3, 1970) will analyse the various beliefs which have been incorporated into this essentially syncretic cult.

How long did Greek continue to be spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan ? We shall probably never know. Till now Greek inscriptions have only been found on the outskirts of Afghan territory and from pre-Christian times, at Kandahar and at Ai Khanum (second century B.C.). The latter must have been a thoroughly Hellenistic city, and Kandahar also must have had an element in its population speaking or understanding Greek for Aśoka to have inscriptions written there in this language. On coins Greek continued to be used long after the Graeco-Bactrian kings, by the Indo-Parthian and the first Kusana kings. And the position of Greek was at any rate strong enough to induce the Kusānas to use Greek, and not Indian or Aramaic, script for their own language, a script which persevered, in a debased form, down into the ninth century A.D.

The Persian manuscript which is numbered 40912 in the SOAS accessions list is not given a very full description in the card catalogue of the Library. It has been entitled ‘Calligrapher's manual’, its numerous lacunae are referred to, and it is tentatively dated to the early seventeenth century. Since, for all ts defects, one of the two works it contains is an important and apparently unknown treatise on inshā' and bureaucratic practice of the late Safawid period it deserves a more adequate description. The purpose of this communication is to provide that, and to put forward some speculations about the date and authorship of that treatise.

Dans la deuxième décennie du vingtième siècle, l'historiographie s'est penchee sur un genre littéraire qui perdit très tôt la faveur du public dans l'Empire ottoman. II s'agit de chroniques, de proportions plutôt modestes qui relataient, dans un langage simple, sans enjolivures, parfois môme très archaique, l'histoire de la Maison de 'Osmān. Ne satisfaisant pas, à l'a longue, au goût des hommes de lettres, elles furent remplacées par des ouvrages d'un style plus raffiné. Ces chroniques, souvent, ne donnaient aucune indication quant à l'auteur, mais même lorsque celles-ci en mentionnaient le nom, nos connaissances s'arrêtaient là.