The expression taḥannuth mentioned in some traditions in connexion with the first revelation of the Prophet was variously interpreted by Muslim philologists and commentators of ḥadīth. Several meanings have been attached to it by modern scholars. A re-examination of the material seems to give us a clue for elucidation of the meaning of taḥannuth and the ideas connected with it. This may also be helpful towards understanding the circumstances of the ‘Call to Prophecy’ of Muḥammad.

The literary genres of nawrīyāt and rauḍīyāt, the description respectively of flowers and gardens, figure amongst those most cultivated by Hispano-Arab poets, and it would be superfluous to identify all the poets who found in a garden the most congenial source of their inspiration. One case must suffice: that of Ibn Khafāja, styled al-jannān ‘the gardener’ on account of the predilection he showed for this genre. Just as the full understanding of Graeco Raman poetry is impossible unless the reader know what such plants as laurel, ivy, and myrtle signifed to the ancients, the study of Arab gardening is important in superlative degree for the correct interpretation of Arabic poetry. But this is not the only point of contact between gardening and literature: for, by strange coincidence, the normalk critical procedure used in analysing a work of literature, namely to consider it under its dual aspect of form and content, is equally aplicable to garden design and we purpose here first to discover the plan or form of the Hispano-Arab garden and then examine its content or flora.

The Jewish-Persian manuscript Or. 8659 was brought to my attention by Dr. J. Rosenwasser of the British Museum, to whom I am most grateful for giving me the occasion to examine it closely and discover its great interest. Dr. Rosenwasser had rightly queried the description of the manuscript as ‘a commentary on Joshua’. There are quotations from Joshua on fol. lr and v, it is true, but that is by no means the whole story. He also remarked that the first and last folios deal with the same subject, and fol. 1 should in fact follow immediately on fol. 10. It was with this introduction, and much initial help with the Hebrew passages, that he urged the investigation of the text on me.

In ancient Iran there was evidently a strong sense of existence after death, which was reinforced by Zoroaster's reform and his teachings about heaven and hell, so the life on earth came to be lived with the hereafter continually in mind. An orthodox Zoroastrian combines an appreciation of the good creation of Ōhrmazd, and an acceptance of his allotted tasks within it, with a conviction that this world is nevertheless only a halting-place, and that true life comes after death. The moral requirements of his faith make him self-reliant, bearing the responsibility for his own conduct and ultimate fate; yet there is also a striking sense of community, of a bond between all those of the ‘good religion’, united by their common purpose and way of life. This senṣe of community extends to a remarkable degree to the righteous dead, to those souls ‘who have overcome for righteousness’ (yōi ašāi vaonarə). Religious works from the remote past (notably the Farvardīn Yašt) show that the Irani and Parsi Zoroastrians are at one with their ancestors in being aware of the spirits of the departed, in wishing to please them, and in rejoicing at a sense of their continuing care and protection.

The Americans arrived (May 1911) to find Tehran in a turmoil of political excitement. In February the Minister of Finance, who had been a leading figure in the constitutional movement, had been assassinated by Russian subjects on his way home from attending the Majlis. This was followed by another political murder in Tehran later in February—again undertaken by Russian nationals. Since Russia retained the right of jurisdiction over her own subjects in Persia the murderers had to be hunded over to the Russian government. The situation the Americans found has been described by one of the members of the mission in a latter to President Taft. He wrote:

‘Pursuant to your kind request to keep you informed of our progress in Persia, the following statement of experiences and conditions may be of interest, especially in view of the recent return of the exiled Shah, Mohammed Ali, and the near approach of civil war which now seems inevitable, as the result of foreign intrigues. The entire country is in the most complete state of anarchy possible to imagine, and the government—if such it can be called—is of the opera bouffe variety, fit to adorn any stage without alteration of a single feature. Civic corruption exists to an extent beyond the limits of the wildest imagination, and is so widespread that an honest official, high or low, is almost unknown. No laws exist for the punishment of official crimes, and as the Oriental system of bribery for the consummation of any purpose whatsoever has existed since time immemorial, the natural result is beyond description.

The problems posed by the interpretation of the Ṥvetāṥvatara Upaniṣad are almost as interesting as is the Upaniṣad itself. There are both in the West and in India two clearly discernible trends in the method of such interpretation. One follows quite strictly the line of the monistic, advaita doctrine, involving frequent disregard of the text itself. The other shows a realistic appreciation of a largely deistic philosophy of the Upaniṣad, which leans towards soteriological concepts of the Sāṃkhya or rather the Sāṃkhya-Yoga syncretism. The Upaniṣad presents, in fact, a triadic combination of (I) Īṥvara = puruṣa, (2) Brahman, whose role as that of a creator is idenfield with the role of the prakṛti, pradhāna, or buddhi, and who is the intermediary between the Īṥvara, and (3) āman = jīva.

The manuscript now known as Śrīkṛṣṇakīrtana was discovered by Basanta Ranjan Ray in 1909 in the village of Kakilya in west Bengal. The manuscript, which is incomplete, undated, and without title, consists of 418 songs on the Rādhā-kṛṣṇa theme. The songs, which are arranged so as to form a continuous narrative, each contain a bhaạitā giving the name of the author. In the majority of cases, but not in all, the name in Baḍu Caṇḍidasa. On the evidence of these bhaṇitās Basanta Ranjan Ray ascribed the whole work to Baḍu Caṇḍīdāsa. He also gave it the title ŚrīkṛṢṇakīrtana, hereafter abbreviated as ŚKK. The MS is probably the work of two hands. Some scholars allege that there were three scribes, but in view of the close similarity between the third hand and the first, this is doubtful.

Dans leurs éditions respectives du manuscrit ouï;gour de Touen-houang, Pelliot chinois 3509, où figure le conte bouddhique du Prince Bien-pensant et de son mauvais frère, Huart et Pelliot ont tous deux lu, à la p. 2, 1. 4, ‘qar(i)š’, sans avoir réussi, cependant, à expliquer cette forme de façon satisfaisante. En fait, le mot doit se lire qars, défini par Kāšγarī comme ‘vêtement (=étoffe) de poil de chameau et de laine de mouton’, mot.qui a persisté en čagatay au sens de ‘châle, bande d'étoffe dont on se ceint les reins’ (cf. M. Pavet de Courteille, Dictionnaire turc-oriental, Paris, 1870, 400; et W. Radloff, Versucheines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte, II, St. Pétersbourg, 1899, col. 205). On rencontre Le mot qars à maintes reprises, d'ailleurs, dans d'autres manuscrits ouïgours du dixième siècle provenant de la grotte murée de Touen-houang. De ces textes, il ressort: (1) que les pièces de qars étaient qualifiées, dans presque tous les cas et à l'exclusion de toute autre couleur, de ‘blanches’ (yürüŋ) ou de ‘rouges‘ (qizil); (2) que les pièces de qars rouge valaient plus que les pièces de qars blanc dans la proportion de deux à trois: autrement dit, deux pièces rouges valaient trois pièces blanches; (3) qu'un mounton valait quatre pièces de qars rouge, ou encore, dans un autre cas, trois pièces de rouge et une pièce de blanc, de même qu'une peau (de mounton ?) valait deux pièces de qars rouge; (4) que le qars était une étoffe tissée (cf. notamment qars toqiyur, ‘ils tissent le qars’, à la p. 2, 1. 4, du ms. Pelliot chinois 3509 précité); et(5) que le qars pouvait servir à faire des vêtements, vu qu'il était commandé par tant de tonluγ (= la quantité d'étoffe requise pour un costume).

May (God) bless the beginning (of the text) and favour its ending with good fortune. This is both said and written by Sīdi Sālim in praise of his Shaykh. Shaykh Mā' al-'Aynayn, may God prolong his life.

This tract is an answer to Ḥanbalī claims; it is badly arranged with much repetition and there are no new ideas in it. It is an example of theological controversy at a low level of intelligence. A summary will show the conclusions reached by Muslims about the speech of God.

More than 40 years ago, the private libraries built up by kings chulalong korn (1868–1910)and vajiravudh (1910–25) were handed over by King prajadhipok to the National Library of Thailand; and included in the gift were 10 large volumes countaining a typewritten transcript of manuscript diaries of chulalongkorn which had been made for vajiravudh in 1917. After the abolition of the a absolute monarchy in 1932, the Thai Fine Arts Department, created to take charge of the National Library and associated institutions, began to offer to inquirers seeking books to publish for free distribution at the cremations of their relative and friends portions of these diaries, the size of the portion tailored to meet theit budgets for this purpose. The first portion, of 74 printed pages, was distributed to guests at the cremation of Princess Arunawadī, a daughter of King Mongkut, in 1933. Nineteen parts were so published before the second World War, followed by volumes in 1944 and 1946; but it was not until the early 1960's that the project was resumed and the final volumes published, one in 1963 and two in 1965, the twenty-fourth and final volume appearing for the cremation of mm čhao Čhongkonnī Watthanawong, a grand-daughter of king Chulalongkorn.