From quite early on, the Shīʿa endeavoured to provide both historical and rational arguments for their central claim that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11/632), was not only his legitimate successor but also the person best qualified to lead the umma. In particular, there are several statements attributed to the Prophet Muḥammad which are used as evidence of the special position of ʿAlī and his family. One of these is a report known in the Muslim tradition as the ḥadīth manzilat Hārūn (ḥadīth of the position of Aaron). According to this report, cited by such eminent authorities on ḥadīth as Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 261/875), al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) and Ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), Muḥammad said to ʿAlī: “Are you not content to be with respect to me as Aaron was to Moses, except that after me there shall be no other Prophet?” The ḥadīth alludes to the parallels and similarities between the status of Muḥammad and ʿAlī and their close relationship, and that of Moses and Aaron in the Jewish tradition. The article examines the significance of this report for the formulation of the doctrine of the special status of ʿAlī in Shīʿī Islam through its use and interpretation in the Muslim literary and historical tradition.

This paper examines the state-of-the-art for the historical study of the Rma (Qiang) language (< Trans-Himalayan/Sino-Tibetan) and points out some methodological issues in earlier work. The paper discusses how vowel correspondences have been obfuscated by loanwords, onomatopoeic forms, and analogical levelling. It also discusses the analysis of compound forms and points out how certain compound forms have been incorrectly etymologized. It deals with broader, more fundamental issues in prior work such as top-down rather than bottom-up reconstructions, and problematic conceptualizations of what constitutes reconstructions. The article offers potential solutions to the issues discussed and points out where future work would be most profitable.

It has long been recognized that the letters n and z, whose initial and medial forms had already fallen together by the date of the ‘Ancient letters’, remained distinct in final position, -n being provided with a long horizontal or vertical tail. At a slightly later period in the history of the Sogdian script two more pairs of letters—still distinguished in all positions in the ‘Ancient letters’— fell together: ‘ain with r,1 and x (ḥīth) with γ (gimel). The rare letter ‘ain does not occur in final position; but both x and γ are comparatively common in all positions. It is therefore remarkable that it should never have been noticed that final x and y are regularly distinguished in exactly the same way as -n and -z. The distinction is clearest in the Buddhist manuscripts,2 in which final x has a long horizontal or vertical tail: — (= ‘horizontal -x’) or L (= ‘vertical -x’), while final γ has only a rudimentary tail pointing down-wards. There is some variation in the distribution of the two forms of -x. In some manuscripts, e.g. Vim. and P 2, both are used interchangeably. In most ‘horizontal -x’ is preferred: it is the only form found in VJ, SCE, Dhu., P 5, and P 6, while in Dhy. and P 3 ‘vertical -x’ is also occasionally employed

The story of Tepegöz is the eighth of the twelve surviving tales of the medieval Turkish cycle of Dede Korkut. In language and style it is uniform with the remainder of the cycle, but in character it differs considerably, being composed largely of incidents common to the folktales of many peoples. Its most striking feature, and the one which has attracted most attention, is the variant of the story of Polyphemus which it contains. But besides this the story has a peculiar interest of its own. It is not a mere chance retelling of an old tale. Its narrative has been based upon a traditional wording which goes back to a time before the various incidents, of independent origin, were welded together in the present complex story.

How long did Greek continue to be spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan ? We shall probably never know. Till now Greek inscriptions have only been found on the outskirts of Afghan territory and from pre-Christian times, at Kandahar and at Ai Khanum (second century B.C.). The latter must have been a thoroughly Hellenistic city, and Kandahar also must have had an element in its population speaking or understanding Greek for Aśoka to have inscriptions written there in this language. On coins Greek continued to be used long after the Graeco-Bactrian kings, by the Indo-Parthian and the first Kusana kings. And the position of Greek was at any rate strong enough to induce the Kusānas to use Greek, and not Indian or Aramaic, script for their own language, a script which persevered, in a debased form, down into the ninth century A.D.

The Candimā-sutta or ‘discourse on the moon’ in the Samyuttanikāya of the Pali canon based on the Indian myth according to which eclipses of the moon as well as of the sun are caused by a demon named Rāhu ‘the Seizer’, who is supposed to try to lay hold of one or the other of the two planets at certain times. The Sutta reports that on such an occasion the god dwelling in the moon takes his refuge in the Buddha who successfully shows his power and pity by directing Rāhu emphatically to set the moon at once at liberty.

Whatever was the original meaning of IE *sneigwh-, it is clear that it already meant ‘snow’ in the time of Indo-European community. Words of that group are to be found in all branches of Indo-European except Hittite, Albanian, Armenian, and Tocharian (of which in any case the recorded vocabulary is small).

Tamīm al-Dārī was one of the Prophet Muḥammad's companions and an early convert to Islam from Christianity. His name is most closely associated with the eschatological traditions concerning the Dajjāl (the Muslim Antichrist), and various early ascetic ideas. The best known story involving him is in fact his meeting with the Dajjāl, after he and others of his tribe are shipwrecked on a mysterious island. He is taken by a creature called al-jassāsa to meet a chained man in a monastery, who asks the tribesmen a number of questions about the state of the outside world, most of which are related to the area of the Rift Valley in Syria. After they answer him, he proclaims himself to be the Dajjāl and announces that he is about to be let loose on the world. Somehow Tamīm and his companions manage to leave the island and come to visit the Prophet, who hears their story and relates it to the populace of Medina. However, in spite of this story, historical material about him, as is common with the Prophet's companions in general, is hard to come by. In this article I will explore some of the historical traditions connected with this figure and try to establish which material is reliable and which is not.

Over Northern India from Delhi to Patna, there is no more popular story than that contained in the cycle of ballads called the Ālh-Khand. This is a long epic poem in twenty-three cantos, composed in the Bunēlī dialect of Western Hindī, telling in rude ballad metre of the exploits of the famous Ālhā and Ūdan, and sung by wandering minstrels known as Ālhā-gānēwālās, or “Singers of Ālhā”. Up to the middle of the last century the cycle does not appear to have ever been reduced to writing, as was the lot of the more elaborate productions of the professional Rajput bards, and few, if any, of its reciters are masters of the whole; but in the eighteen-sixties Mr. C. A. Elliott (afterwards Sir Charles Elliott), when stationed at Farrukhabad, near the ancient city of Kanauj, found three or four of these minstrels, and employed one of them to compile a complete set of the twentythree ballads from their joint memories. The poem thus rescued was printed, and its great popularity is shown by the fact that it has passed through many editions, and can be purchased in the bazaars written either in the Nāgarī or in the Persian character.

This paper examines the nature of performance literature in Ancient Greece, comparing it with other modern and medieval examples. It concentrates on archaic Greek ‘song culture’, and especially choral praise poetry. It discusses the social and cultural significance of the original performances and, drawing on comparative examples, investigates the ‘gap’ between performance and text, possible cultural explanations and interpretations of ‘difficult’ performed literature—particularly competitive and religious—which stand out in comparison to performance literatures elsewhere.