The Site numbers used in the present study are marked in the general map accompanying the first article (BSOAS xv, 1953, p. 28). More detailed maps of the central Eastern Desert and the Eastern Delta appear below, p. 212. The E. Delta map shows two new site numbers: (a) Site 17 (at El-Maḥemdīlya = Gerra ?) is the spot where Clédat actually found inscription No. 82 and it may be that Site 16 (at ancient Mons Casios) does not figure in the present study (see classical notes, p. 242). (b) Site 18 (QaṣEsr Gheiṭ), east of El-Qanṭara on long. 33° E., has a Nabatsæn fragment, No. 83. Nos. 50–1 and 52 (at Sites 11 and 9, see BSOAS xv, p. 17) are briefly repeated here for convenience, as. Winkler's inscriptions from the Leucos Limen road came to light after the first article had gone to press.

I. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

Two accounts of trade conditions in the 6th century show that there had been a great change since the ' Periplus Maris Erythaei' was written, about A.D. 50. The writer of that manual for merchant skippers was precise as to the location of the incense-bearing lands.

After Kanē, as the land continues on, there opens out another, very broad, gulf, stretching a considerable distance in depth. It is called Sakhalitēs, and the ‘ libanos-bearing land ’. It is mountainous and bad for landing. The air is thick, dust-laden with the libanos blown down from the trees. These trees that bear libanos are of no great diameter, and are not tall. They produce the libanos in a solid form on the bark, just as some of our trees in Egypt weep gum. The libanos is handled by the royal slaves and by those sent for punishment. These places are dreadfully infectious and plague-ridden, even for those just sailing along the coast, but for those working there death is in the air, and they are downright destructive because of the insufficiency of food.1

My attention was first focused on the relation of the labial F (P) to the aspirated dental mute when I was translating Ibn Ishaq's Biography of the Prophet Muhammad.There I came across the following statement made by his editor, Ibn Hisham, who died in the year of the Hijra 218, i.e. A.D. 834: ‘ The Arabs say taḥannuth and taḥannuf, meaning the Ḥanafī religion. They change the TH into F as, for example, when they say jadath and jadaf when they mean a grave.’ Though the word that gave rise to the editor's comment does not belong to the TH-F class the principle that TH and F interchange is sound and unassailable. The indefatigable Brockelmann noted this important observation and gave a list of early Arabian authorities for the usage, together with a number of references to dialects in which it existed, or still exists to-day, from which it is clear that the phenomenon is to be met with all over Arabia and in North Africa. Landberg had drawn attention to its prevalence in Hadramaut and ‘Umān, and had often met with it in al-Shahr and Dathīna.

The inscriptions described in this article were discovered in the course of a short journey which I made in the vilayet of Urfa, Turkey, in May–June, 1952. It is my pleasant duty to thank those who made this journey possible— the School of Oriental and African Studies, who granted me leave to travel to Turkey, and the officials of the Turkish Department of Antiquities, who accorded me facilities to operate in that remote area of the country. I am especially grateful to Mr. Seton Lloyd, Director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, for his generous encouragement and help; Mr. Lloyd had visited Sumatar Harabesi during the previous year, and it was he who drew my attention to the monuments there.

The following studies are all based on the registers of land, population, and revenue contained in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul. They will be limited to the Arabic-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire, and to the first century of Ottoman rule. It is not my purpose to attempt a general study of the history of these areas in this period, nor to correlate the information derived from the archives with that obtained from other sources in a comprehensive historical monograph. My aim is rather to offer a series of studies in detail in a certain class of documents and on a few special topics; that is, to make a number of soundings in depth at selected points, rather than a surface survey of this material. The topics have, as far as possible, been chosen so as to give a wide range of variety, dealing with town and country, inland and coastal areas, mountain and plain. The first two studies deal with Palestine, which of all the countries under consideration has by far the richest documentation in outside.sources, and therefore offered the most promising field for a first experimental study. This study presents in outline the picture of Palestine in the early Ottoman period that emerges from the registers, and is intended as an introduction to the material as a whole. It will be followed by a documentary study of the quarters, population, and taxation of the towns of Palestine, and then by further studies on selected rural and urban areas in Syria and Iraq.1

Arabic documents containing eyewitness reports on historical events are very rare. They are the more welcome when they complement and illustrate the often very deficient literary sources. This is the case with the excerpts from two business letters of the 12th century published here, one sent from Aden to India and one from the same town to Cairo. Both passages describe one and the same event: the attack on Aden by a fleet sent by the King of Kīsh with the aim of taking the town or at least a part of it.

Whereas during the earlier part of South Arabian history dating is effected only by reference to the year of office of an eponymous magistrate, from about the 1st century A.D. we begin to find texts dated by a fixed era. The earliest inscriptions so dated are R.3958 of ‘ the year 144 ’, and R.4197b of ‘ the year 172 ’. Although these two texts are in Sabæan dialect, both have associations with the Beiḥān area, and Albright is probably right in suggesting that they do not refer to a ‘ Sabæan ’ era. The majority of the dated texts which are unquestionably Sabæan belong to the 6th and 7th centuries of that era.

Abū ‘Īsā Muḥammad b. ‘Īsā b. Sawra b. Shaddād b. al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Sulamī al-Būghī al-Tirmidhī is famous for bis collection of traditions which is one of the six books now generally recognized by Sunnīs. He is reported to have said that his grandfather belonged to Marw, but removed from there in the time of Al-Laith b. Sayyār to Tinnidh, a town on the north bank of the Āmū Daryā. Like many others Tirmidhī travelled in pursuit of learning, and heard traditions from numerous Khurāsānīs, ‘Irāqīs, and Ḥijāzīs. He was a pupil of Bukhārī, and also heard traditions from some of Bukhārī's shaikhs, such as Qutaiba b. Sa‘īd al-Baghlānī (d. 240), ‘Alī b. Ḥujr al-Marwazī (d. 244), Abū Kuraib Muḥammad b. al-‘Alā’ al-Kūfī (161–248), and Muḥammad b. Bashshār al-Baṣrī (167–252).4 An interesting story is told to illustrate his power of committing traditions to memory. On the way to Mecca he met a shaikh from whose traditions he had copied out two juz’.

Although the ratio between Egyptian gold coins (dinars) and those of silver (dirhams) is known to have fluctuated throughout the history of Islamic Egypt, no attempt has been made to explain the principles underlying the rate of exchange. Any such research is handicapped from the start by a deplorable failure on the part of numismatists to provide their fellow-historians with details concerning the alloys of various Egyptian coins. This drawback deprives us of any means of counterchecking the textual evidence. Nevertheless, it is the belief of the present writer that the material contained in written sources relating to the period of the Ayyūbids (A.H. 569–648/A.D. 1174–1250), allows us to ascertain certain facts concerning the contemporary exchange pattern. The analysis of the nature of that pattern shows clearly that the exchange rate of the gold and silver issues of the BaḥrI Mamlūks (A.H. 648–784/A.D. 1250– 1390), which remained fixed at 1: 20, 1: 25, and 1: 28 1/2, had its roots in the system of the Ayyūbids.

Office-holders in the Mamluk kingdom were, as is well known, divided into three categories: those who belonged to the Mamluk caste and were called ‘ men of the sword ’ (arbāb as-suyūf), those who were civilians and were known as ‘ holders of administrative offices ’ or as ‘ men of the pen ’ (arbāb al-waẓā' if ad-dīwānīya, or arbāb or ḥamalat al-aqlām), and those who belonged to the clerical class and were called ‘ holders of religious offices ’ or ‘ men of the turban ’ (arbāb al-waẓā'if ad-dīnīya, or al-muta'ammimūn). We list below some of those offices which had a direct connexion with the army; some have been discussed elsewhere in our work on the Mamluk army, and will therefore be accorded but the briefest attention. We shall in addition outline the evolution of the offices of the Mamluk kingdom as well as the transformations which they underwent in the various periods.

Through the kindness of Professor F. W. Cleaves I am in possession of an offprint of his important article ‘ The Mongolian documents in the Musée de Téhéran ’.

The first two documents are only insignificant fragments, but Document III, which consists of eight pieces and two endorsements, is nearly complete and full of personal and geographical names. It is a decree issued in the name of the last ilkhan of Persia, Abū-Said (716–36/1316–35), and bearing the date 720/1320 (according to Pelliot: September 1320).

Here is Professor Cleaves's summary of its contents:

‘ It had been reported by the šiγ Badaradin Abul Maqmad Maqmud that, although, by virtue of an edict, he had, in the place of his father the šiγ ǁamaladin, sat on the sujada of the šiγ šaqid Ibrayim and had been appointed over the qaγas-a-yin waγb-ud, his elder brother, Šamsadin Maqmad, not letting him approach, took his edicts and writs and let the foundation go to wrack and ruin.

Before broaching my subject I should like to explain the reason why a serial number has been added to the title of this article. A list of my publications will be found in the BSOAS., 1953, xiv/3, pp. 69–81, but as a variety of subjects has interested me during my career, readers may be baffled by the seemingly disconnected array of titles. In fact, my original intention was to integrate my studies in separate books, but on seeing that for both material and personal reasons this plan had no chances of success, I decided to take every opportunity for publishing the material collected—not only to solve some definite problems, but also to show the methods which I would have wished to apply to my subjects, in the light of my experience and the observations made in some more developed fields. This underlying preoccupation is what to my mind connects my writings. On the other hand, I should like to draw the attention of users of my ‘ specimens ’ to some particular classes of my studies; in a word, to their serial character.

It is not yet generally accepted in European works that a distinction of grammatical gender exists in Kurdish. In the Northern group of Kurdish J dialects the Izafe appears in a number of forms, e.g. a, ā, ē, ī, and the nominal 5 oblique case ending as -ē and -ī. An analysis of these forms into a clear system, with two declensions according to grammatical gender, has been made by members of the princely family of Bedir Xan. A comparison of all the available texts in the light of their analysis serves to confirm the general validity of the paradigms and therefore of a distinction of grammatical gender, disguised to a varying extent by the generalization of certain forms. The history of a number of words of known gender suggests that the distinction is inherited.

A hitherto unexplained phenomenon is the appearance in the Central Kurdish Mukrī dialect of two forms of the nominal oblique case ending, -ē and -ī. The similarity of these forms to the corresponding Northern dialect forms is obvious. A comparison of related words in the two groups of dialects shows that in the Mukrī dialect also the difference of the forms marks a distinction of grammatical gender.

In my articles on Fakhr al-dīn Gurgānl's poem Vīs-u-Rāmīn 1 I made a point of its realistic geographical and historical background which, in my opinion, connects it with the Arsacid tradition. One of the important places in the story is the castle of Gūrāb in which the heroine Vis was kept and which belonged to the family of her future rival Gul. Muslim geographers still referred to this place lying at the junction of the roads from Hamadān and Nihāvand to Karaj, and Gūrāb is mentioned in the course of the military operations of the Seljuk Sulḍān Mas'ūd (towards 541/1146), see Rāḥal al-ṣudūr, 242. In more recent times its titles to distinction had been forgotten.

The gerund here studied is a grammatical form of great interest on account of its phonological variations and the wide range of its syntactical relationships. It occurs in the single form, gide, in a strengthened form, giderek, and in a pair form, gide gide. We find it as an independent gerund and in verbal combinations which vary from mere association to complete fusion, such as gidememek and gideyor (gidiyor). It also has a tendency to become specialized in use as a post-gerund, and numerous particles have originated in this way. It has had a long history, being one of the basic grammatical forms of Turkish, a common feature of the Turkish family of languages from the time of the early inscriptions of northern Asia. In Ottoman Turkish its importance (except in the -erek and pair forms) has gradually declined during the last 500 years, and it is now used only to a very limited extent; but in Old Ottoman it was fairly widely employed, and the texts which have survived provide ample material for study. It is, however, a complicated study. In the work which has been done it would seem that investigators have usually relied on insufficient data, or have applied methods unsuitable for this case. For example, the method of general comparison between Ottoman on the one hand and various speech forms such as Uighur, Chaghatai, and modern Anatolian dialects on the other, cannot give satisfactory results. There are too many unknown factors, too many imponderables. Such a procedure inevitably leads to the comparison of mere isolated examples which do not really prove anything. I have therefore confined myself to Old Ottoman, and my method has been to take whole texts and collect and classify all the examples of this gerund which they contain. This is laborious, but it produces results which cannot be obtained in any other way.

It is well known that the Almohades instituted a politico-social system or hierarchy. In it the subjects of the Almohade state were divided into ranks or grades of aristocracy which do not appear to be closely connected with their administrative arrangements but may originally have been a battle-array. The broad lines of this system are fairly clear; it is the details that are often obscure. The Mahdī's, later the Caliph's, advisers, the ‘ cabinet’ of his government, were ten men known simply as ‘ the Ten’ or Ahl al-jamā'a. Below them came a council called ‘ the Fifty ’ {Ahl Khamsīn or Ayt Khamsīn). The mass of the people were divided thus in descending order (I follow here Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, later copied by the anonymous author of the Ḥulal al-mawshiyya): the Talaba, the Ḥuffāẓ, the Ahl al-dār, Hargha, Ahl Tīnmāl, Gadmīwa, Ganfīsa, Hintāta, the Jund, the Ghuzāt, and Rumāt. Other writers have additional categories and put them in a slightly different order. Gaudefroy-Demombynes has used the Kitāb al-ansāb for the light it throws on the description of Hafsid institutions given in his partial edition of ‘Umarl's Masālik al-abṣār, and more recently Terrasse has summarized its information in his Histoire du Maroc.

Part I concluded with the suggestion that certain general-phonetic features, those of rounding and spreading, and those of vowel closure, might profitably be given a prosodic statement for the word as a whole, as:—

I. a 3-term system: y/w/ә

II. a 2-term system: o/c

A given word might thus be assigned to a prosodic category, to the ‘ y ’, the ‘ w ’, or the ‘ ә ’ term, and treated as a ‘ y word ’, ‘ w word ’, or ‘ neutral word ’ (yW, wW, әW). Similarly a given word might be assigned to either term of the closure system, and treated as a ‘ close word ’ or as an ‘ open word ’ (cW, oW). Theoretically it is a matter of indifference which of the two systems should be stated first. Since, however, they cannot be stated simultaneously in practice, the method of statement adopted here gives priority to the w/y/ә system; the exponents of ‘ w ’, ‘ y ’, and ‘ ә ’ are stated in turn. The o/c system is considered within the framework of these three categories, the exponents of o/c being given for wW, yW, and әW in turn, immediately after the exponents of ‘ w ’, ‘ y ’, and ‘ ә ’ respectively.

Before proceeding to examine the poetry of the Baḵẖtiāri people, it is desirable to say something about their manner of life and the physical environment which to a large extent has determined it, and which presents those aspects and objects of nature which are familiar to all of them.

The system of mountains which extends from N.W. to S.E. across the south-. western part of Persia is occupied by a series of tribes, all of whom pursue a more or less nomadic form of life. On the west, south of Karmanshah, are the Feili Lurs of what may be called the Kingdom of Pusht i Kūh, with its practically independent ruler, the Wāli. Next, to the east come the large autonomous

On several occasions in the Nara period, the Takahasi and the Azumi families quarrelled over the precedence to be observed at religious ceremonies. These petty struggles for preference are in themselves of little historical significance, but they are of interest in that certain family records with which the Takahasi family attempted to justify their claims have been preserved and constitute what is known as the Takahasi Uzibumi (The corresponding Azumi records have unfortunately been lost.) Though the exact date of its composition is unknown, the Takahasi Uzibumi belongs undoubtedly to the 8th century and is the oldest extant document of its kind; yet it appears to have been neglected by commentators, for I have been unable to find any commentary on it save that of the kokugakusya Ban-Nobutomo (1773–1846)1 Certainly, these fragmentary records do not have as great a value as, say, the records of the Imibe family, the Kogo Syuui

When Buddist works in Sanskrit were first introduced into Europe, it was at once obvious that the language of some of them as it appears in the manuscripts was, in comparison with Classical Sanskrit, frequently ungrammatical, and on occasion barbarously so. The immediate and natural reaction of scholars accustomed to the regularity of Sanskrit was to stigmatize these shortcomings, and to attempt to remove as many irregularities as possible by forcibly emending the text. It was, however, very soon recognized that many of the seeming anomalies could not be abolished, and that they must be accepted as genuine in their own context. This was especially clear in the case of the verses of some of the older texts, where the metre often guaranteed non- Pāηinean forms; and the language of these verses, variously called the Gāthādialect, mixed Sanskrit, or hybrid Sanskrit, was recognized as something in its own right. The same courtesy was readily extended to the prose of the Mahāvastu, which in places could only have been made to resemble Sanskrit by completely rewriting the text. The prose of the other texts, being in many waysvirtually Sanskrit, took considerably longer to win the same recognition; but for many years now it has been generally admitted that here also is a language which must be judged according to its own standards, and not exclusively by the canons of classical Sanskrit grammar.