This article reports the discovery by the Hebrew University Expedition to Bet Shean of two unique wall mosaics with Arabic inscriptions under the ruins of the entrance gate to the Umayyad market in the south-eastern part of the excavated city centre. This gate consisted of two stone piers; on the front of each of these was a rectangular decorated stone frame and a mosaic inscription in square Kufic script executed in gilded tesserae on a deep blue background. The first inscription contains four lines of prayer, including the Basmallah and the testimony of al-Shahāda. The lower part of the inscription was not found and it is suggested that the three missing lines contained the quranic verse (IX, 33), most frequently quoted in the Umayyad period. The second inscription consists of seven lines, again starting with the Basmallah formula, and followed by the order given by the Caliph Hishām b. ‘Abd al-Malik (reigned 105–125 A.H./724–743 C.E.) to the governor of jund al-Urdunn Ishāq b. Qabisa to erect this building. The market structure is believed to have been completed in the year 120 A.H./738 C.E. It collapsed eleven years later in the earthquake of 749.

This paper deals with a secret language (kalamo) spoken by the Anakara clan of the Antaimoro tribe in the south-east of Madagascar. According to their own tradition, they migrated to the island between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries, from the Arabian peninsula. Their sacred writings (sorabe) are written in Arabic script in a mixture of Malagasy and Arabic. The secret language kalamo contains a large number of Arabic loanwords, as well as Malagasy words that have been coded by various phonological processes. The analysis of the loanwords helps to elucidate the origin of the kalamo, which may contain elements of a pre-existing Arabic pidgin. Their phonetic form shows that the Islamic migrants in Madagascar may indeed have come originally from the Arabian peninsula.

This article examines material that points to the existence in pre-classical Imamism of views on the subject of the imam's knowledge and the related question of sources (usūl) of Imami law, which are at variance with the views attested in the classical sources. The evidence shows that al-Fadl b. Shādhān refuted the possibility of divine inspiration for the imam and maintained that the imam's religious knowledge was based entirely on transmission from the Prophet and restricted to the Quran (a complete and perfect source) and its interpretation. It also provides a strong indication that the doctrine of tahrif and the idea of a ‘complete’ ‘Alid codex had originally served to support the claim that the imams’ teachings were based entirely on the Quran. Other evidence examined here suggests that al-Fadl's views are likely to have been representative of the ‘orthodox’ (viz. the legalist and non-ghuluww) position in early Imamism.

Research to date on the Yuan Dynasty painter Wu Zhen (1280–1354) has concentrated on his paintings, but his poetic inscriptions on paintings have been relatively neglected, even though they are of a high standard. This article seeks to redress the balance by focusing on Wu Zhen's poetic inscriptions on paintings by his own hand and those of past masters, and argues that inscriptions and colophons are an essential key to understanding Chinese literati art. It examines the literary functions of Wu Zhen's poetic inscriptions, and includes an exploration of the depiction of objects, the narrative, discursive and symbolic aspects, the lyrical qualities, and the expansion of time, space and vision of the paintings, as well as the relationship between the two media, in order to appreciate their wholeness.

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.

In 1782, the year of King Badon's coronation, someone close to the Burmese palace wrote a legal manuscript. This paper gives a translation of and commentary on that section of the manuscript dealing with kingship. By tracing the sources of the material used, it contributes to the debate about the sources of Burmese political philosophy. Was precolonial Burmese political thought primarily Hindu, primarily Buddhist, primarily Indian or none of the above?

Carl A. Trocki's 1999 publication Opium, empire and the global political economy (London: Routledge) is in many ways an important work. His thesis that ‘Without opium there would have been no empire’ is controversial. However, the purpose of this research note is not to refute Trocki's thesis, or indeed to present a new one, but rather to examine Trocki's use of primary documentation, where some difficulties emerge. Not only are some of his East India Company (EIC) documents quoted incorrectly or used out of context, but a limited further study of the same documents sheds some doubt on Trocki's interpretation of the opium trade. Some of the papers quoted even offer intriguing insights into the nature of the EIC's opium monopoly. The issue of opium smuggling (and illicit opium production) within India was ignored by Trocki, although one of his main documents discusses the issue at length. Concern over opium smuggling within India (and by Indians) and its inevitability constituted the main moral basis of the EIC opium monopoly.