The imperative occupies A unique position in the conjugation system. In its real function it implies the presence of a speaker issuing a command to one or more listeners, or making an order referring to a third person or persons. This means that the conjugation tends to be defective. Because of its immediate association with the speaker the imperative is generally linked with the present tense, but through its meaning it is also associated with the future tense. The uncertainty of whether a command will be carried out links the imperative with the subjunctive, while the idea of volition brings it close to the optative. These special features and varying associations make the history of the imperative extremely complex in Middle Indo-Aryan as in other languages. An attempt is made here to study two aspects of this history: the use of the subject pronoun with the imperative, and the distribution of the forms of the second person singular of the imperative. Other features of the imperative, in particular its relation to the passive, will be discussed later.

The passage treated here occurs in the seventh faṣl, “Concerning words which are frequently used in reference to conquests, expeditions and historical accounts of the Arabs during Islam,” of the sixth bāb of the first maqāla of al-Xwārazmī's Mafātīḥ al-'ulūm (pp. 119–20 of the edition of Van Vloten, Leiden 1895 = p. 73 of the edition of Cairo 1342/1923–4). The whole faṣl was published in the original and translated by J. M. Unvala in his article, “The translation of an extract from Mafātīḥ al-'Ulūm of al-Khwārazmī” in the Journal of the K.R. Cama Institute, XI, Bombay 1928, 76–110. However, Unvala was primarily an Iranian scholar and his commentary on the faṣl is oriented primarily in that direction. He was on weaker ground when dealing with Central Asiatic and especially Turkish topics: and this fact, together with the lapse of nearly 40 years since Unvala prepared his article, warrants a reconsideration of the brief section on Central Asia in the light of more recent researches.

The recent discovery of a comparatively large collection of inscribed wooden and bamboo strips in north-west China has aroused considerable interest on the part of Chinese scholars, as the material concerns both the extension of the Han government and the early methods of textual compilation in China. As the material finds are not available for inspection, the following notes can be no more than a summary of the information given in the few Chinese articles that have been published on the subject.

Naghm (pi. Anghām) and Naghmah (pi. Naghamāt) mean “Vocal melody”, both being derived from the Arabic “To speak, hum, or sing in a low pleasant tone”. Such were the classical meanings of those terms, in distinction from LAḤN (pi. ALḤĀN), which stood for “melody” whether in the vocal or instrumental art. Thus, one of the earliest Arabic books on music—the Kitāb al-naghm (Book of vocal melody)—by Yūnus al-Kātib (d. c. 765), became the source book on this subject. Then came Isḥāq al-Mauṣilī (d. 791) who wrote the Kitāb al-naghm wa'l-īqā' (Book of melody and rhythm). Yet the famous Kitāb al-aghānī of Al-Iṣfahānī (d. 967) introduces each song under the title of saut, although that is only done so as to indicate the singing (taghannī) of a poem. Later, the term naghm came to be used in a modal sense, equating with the Sanscrit rāga and jātī, and the Persian āvāz. We know of the naghm in the modal sense as early as Al-Kindī (d. c. 874), one of them (called ṭarā'iq) being known as Iṣfahān. In the Mafātiḥ al-'ulūm of Abū 'Abdallāh al-Khwārizmī (d. c. 1000), these modes (dasātīn) were attributed to the famous Bārbad of the court of Khusrau Parviz the Sāsānī ruler. Al-Mas'ūdī (d. c. 957) names one of these modes as mihrbānī (cf. mihrgānī) among the ancient Persian modes, whilst Ibn Zaila (d. 1048) mentions a mode (ḍarb) called nāqūsi, which is the 26th of the Sī laḥn of Khusrau va Shīrīn of Nīzāmī of Ganja (1203).

The well known tradition in al-Bukhārī, told on the authority of al-Zuhrī—'Urwa— 'Ā'isha, about the conversation between the Prophet and Khadīja after he received his first revelation contains at the end a phrase variously interpreted by Muslim scholars and translated in modern times in various manners.

The Cambridge University Library has in its collection a well preserved manuscript of the Buddhist Tantric text Kālacakratantra whose painted covers are of considerable significance to the history of Indian painting. According to the colophon the manuscript was written in Bihar in the 15th century, a period from which we have no documentary evidence of such painting in Eastern India.

The Hijaz, being only a little less sterile than most of the Arabian peninsula, could in the 18th century support its nomadic inhabitants and urban communities owing to two important assets, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Ḥajj, and the transit trade from the south of Arabia to the north.

Upon the sudden death of Meḥemmed II in May, 1481, his two surviving sons, each hastily summoned from his provincial governorate by his own partisans among the Ottoman statesmen, set out with all speed to Istanbul. The race was won by the elder, Bāyezīd; but the younger son Jem had so strong and numerous a following that it was not until July, 1482, that he was finally obliged to admit defeat and take refuge at Rhodes with the Knights of St. John. The Grand Master, Pierre d'Aubusson, with a lively appreciation of the value of his guest as a hostage to insure Christendom against aggression by the new sultan—it was only two years since the Knights had beaten off a determined Ottoman siege—lost no time in removing him to France, where he would be less exposed to the danger of assassination by one of Bayezld's agents. For six years, well-treated but strictly guarded, Jem was confined in various houses of the Order in Savoy and France, his last prison, from whence he was handed into the custody of the Pope at the end of 1488, being the castle of Bourganeuf, in the present department of La Creuse, some 40 km. west of the Grand Master's native Aubusson. Jem's subsequent detention in Rome was brought to an end when he fell as a prize of war to Charles VIII of France in 1495, only to die at Naples a few weeks later.

There are more views and opinions about the nature and character of the vidátha than the number of scholars who have worked on the subject. That the sources are open to different interpretations is obvious from the divergent views held about the origin, development and functions of the sabh (council) and sámiti (assembly), the chief political institutions of Vedic India. The Vedic literature provides numerous vague references to the vidátha. In the Ṛg Veda alone at least 97 verses refer to it, while the Atharva Veda mentions it in about 20 hymns. The Vājasaneyī Saṁhitā, the Brāhmaṇas and the Ṯaittirīya Āraṇyaka also contain references to the vidátha. Most of the evidence, however, is provided by the Ṛg Vedic hymns, and references to this institution are fewer in the later compositions of Vedic literature.