The method of editing Sumerian literary texts has been the subject of heated debate in recent years. It used to be that Sumerian text editions followed the practice of classical philologists, giving the text with an apparatus criticus of manuscript variants, but this method has an inherent flaw: the editor must either choose to use as his main text an ‘eclectic text’ combining the best readings of all the manuscripts, or select one manuscript as the best version. Moreover, although the apparatus may reveal manuscript variants, it often does not inform the reader of how much of any one line is preserved in any one text. Since Sumerian literary texts may show a considerable number of variants between duplicates, the Partitur format has been proposed and utilized, in which every line of every manuscript is given in full, although the system has been opposed on grounds of waste of space.

Modern scholarship dealing with the history of Arabic grammar has almost entirely neglected serious consideration of the possibility that during the very early period of the Iraqi grammatical schools, a Medinese centre of that science was a living fact. I believe that the data collected by some scholars, including myself, will now allow the conclusion that such a school really existed and probably disappeared during the first century of the 'Abbāsid regime. First, the few accounts of eighth-century Medinese grammarians in modern works will be surveyed, then the available material will be carefully studied and evaluated.

While the status of the offspring of illicit intercourse has long attracted the interest of Muslim scholars, it is a particularly significant—and problematic—issue within Imāmī Shī'ism. The problem arises from the way in which the Imāmīs view their place in the universe. A considerable body of traditions characterizes the Imāmīs as a breed apart, created of a heavenly substance and combining pure origins (nasab) with impeccable moral qualities. At the same time, there are other Imāmī traditions which portray the offspring of illicit intercourse—usually called walad zinā (=w.z.) —as combining impure origins with moral turpitude. The ineluctable conclusion to be drawn from these two sets of traditions is that ‘an Imāmī w.z.’ is a logical absurdity. Now it is a fact that Imāmī lawyers discuss at some lenght the status of the w.z. in this world, while Imāmī theologians ponder his fate in the next; an analysis of their views forms the bulk of this paper. As long as the w.z. is not an Imāmī, a discussion of his legal and salvation statuses presents no insurmountable problem; but what if he is, Imāmī tradition notwithstanding? The final section of this paper consists of an attempt to trace the answers provided to this question.

The attitude of the early Islamic state towards figurative representations is often cited as a source contributing to the establishment of officially-supported iconoclasm within the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 726. Islam has generally adopted a position opposed to the representational in secular art, and the exclusion of all figurative motifs from Islamic religious art is clear from the first, yet this attitude is not necessarily to be regarded as intrinsically iconoclastic in the true sense of the word; indeed, outside Arabia itself, the only evidence of iconoclasm until the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate in 132/750 is confined to the well-known attack on images and statues carried out on the orders of Yazīd II. b. ‘Abd al-Malik (101–105/720–724). This much discussed outbreak of iconoclasm is well documented by Islamic and Christian sources, but the very fact that it is so specifically associated with Yazīd's Caliphate suggests that it was considered unusual at the time. Although Christian sources carefully record the difficulties of their communities under the Umayyads, the absence of references to image-breaking under Caliphs before Yazīd implies that his action was a rarity worthy of comment: under normal circumstances, it would seem the Muslims left the Christians to use icons and representations or not, as they wished.

One obstacle which confronts any historian interested in reconstructing the history of the Bētä Esra'ēl (Fälasha) of Ethiopia is the comparative scarcity of reliable historical sources. References to the Bētä Esra'ēl in Ge'ez chronicles and gädlat are all too rare, while those in Hebrew generally lack historical value. The scattered mentions of the Fälasha in other languages prior to the nineteenth century are few and limited in scope. In light of this situation, any new source, no matter how brief, is deserving of attention and study.

The tercentenary year of the second siege of Vienna by the Turks has seen the first-fruits of a long-planned venture, the publication in full of the Ottoman documents preserved in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv. This first part presents, in facsimile and with full transcription and translation, the texts of 36 documents issued in the name of Süleymān the Magnificent (1520–66), one being addressed to Charles V as ‘King of Spain’, 28 to Ferdinand I as ‘King of Austria’ and later as Emperor, and seven to Ferdinand's son and successor, the Emperor Maximilian. The earliest, a remarkably splendid fragment, is the beginning of a fetḥnāme, probably sent from Baghdad in December 1534 to report victories in Persia to Ferdinand as being (ostensibly) a friendly neighbour after the conclusion of peace the previous year; nos. 2–8 relate to negotiations during the war-years 1541–7; nos. 9–15, mainly recriminations over frontier skirmishes but with another fine fetḥnāme (no. 11) of 1549, belong to the brief period of uneasy peace; nos. 16–27 concern peace-feelers and embassies during the war-years 1551–62, no. 25 being the 'ahdnāme; a main topic of the remainder is the tribute, while no. 32 is the renewal of the 'ahdnāme of 1562 in favour of the new emperor Maximilian.

Most commonly it is presented as a list of beneficial psychic characteristics (kuśala dharma) or simply psychic characteristics (dharma). Sometimes practising the items of this list is stated to be a precondition for liberation from the intoxicants (āśrava). Or else the list is said to constitute the ‘cultivation of the road’ (mārgabhāvanā). In a few instances the items of the list are characterized as ‘jewels’ (ratna). This characterization occurs where doctrine and discipline (dharmavinaya) are compared with the ocean, and finds its justification in this comparison.

In this paper a number of gestures used by Kenya coastal Swahili speakers is described. We describe gestures that are associated with speech in various ways ranging from some requiring speech as they are performed to others referred to via verbs or phrases which are performed non-verbally. We attempt to place the verbal-dependent gestures on a continuum of verbal—non-verbal communication. We also describe verbally-independent gestures and gesturally independent speech forms that function similarly in discourse.