All over the Orient dreams have ever been regarded as divine revelations, and the interpretation of them has developed into a distinguished branch of study. Islām, too, has ever attributed a great importance to dreams, especially under Jewish and Stoic influences. Muḥammad's revelation started with visions while he was asleep, and Qur'ān and Ḥadīth contain plenty of allusions to the significance of dreams. Small wonder that the interpretation of dreams ('ilm at-ta'bīr or 'ilm at-ta'wīl) has developed into an important branch of Muslim science, one of the natural sciences together with medicine, physiognomy, alchemy, and astrology, as also with the Greeks. The interpreters of dreams occupied a high rank in society and were reputed to rank with the prophets, whose miraculous qualities they were believed to possess.

At the beginning of this century shadow plays were sometimes performed in Egypt, but not very often. They had latterly become chiefly an entertainment for the lower classes, and because of the drastic comedy of these plays the Government took steps to suppress them. But we know that these shadow plays had a long history in Egypt, and have been performed also for the higher and highest classes. It is reported,1 for instance, that the well-known Sultan Saladin (died 1193) with his Wazir al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, was present at the performance of those plays; that the Turkish Sultan Selīm I, who in 1517 conquered Egypt, amused himself by seeing a performance of the shadow play. In recent times, the Khedive Taufīq Pasha (1879–1892) liked to see such representations. I myself possess some shadow play figures especially made for performances before him.

The question of aparmānd once more becomes actual with the publication of Professor Herzfeld's Altpersische Inschriften. In that work, p. 247, the author suggests the meaning “Pflicht” or “Privileg” for ZāmN, § 41, differing but slightly from Bartholomae in meaning, but rejecting the latter's etymology apar + mānd, “something left over” in favour of a derivation from an (unattested) OP. loanword *mandā-, “*Dienstpflicht” which he would read in Beh., § 40, in the place of yadā-. The continued existence of this *mandā- must therefore largely depend on the correctness or otherwise of Herzfeld's interpretation of MP. aparmānd. A detailed examination of the evidence would therefore not be out of place.