In the last centuries before the current era and in the early centuries after its beginning the major intellectual and literary activity in the realms (first) of the Jewish and (later) of the Christian communities was wholly centred in the field of interpretation. The OT, as the mainspring and foundation of all religious thought and teaching in those days and in those spheres, was the subject of this interpretation activity. In both the Jewish and the Christian world the Bible was considered to be not only holy and authoritative, but also, and this is in our context more important, the only and exclusive source of divine religious doctrine and of good ethical behaviour. Also historical events, political or religious, were seen, even foreseen, and evaluated from the aspect of this holy source of divine wisdom and planning.

In his interesting and provocative book Hindu and Muslim mysticism (Athlone Press, 1960), Professor R. C. Zaehner has discussed at length the part which lie believes Abū Yazīd al-Bistāmī played in introducing Vedāntin ideas into Muslim mysticism. In this paper it is proposed to re-examine some of the crucial texts upon which this theory has been based.

1. Analysis of al-Jabartț's account Al-Jabartī's chronicle, ‘Ajā’ib al-āthār fi'l-tarājim wa'l-akhbār formally begins with the year 1100/1688–9 (p. 24 of the first volume of the BŪlāq edition). He precedes his annals, however, with an introduction, of which the last part (p. 20, line 23–p. 24, line 4) is concerned with Ottoman Egypt from the time of the conquest by Sellm I to the beginning of the twelfth Hijrī century.

In the fourth chapter of book  of the Metaphysica Aristotle deals with the principle of contradiction. This law is formulated as follows: ‘it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be’. Let us imagine, says Aristotle, that somebody wished to oppose this view. Our opponent cannot hold a view which contradicts the law of contradiction without assuming the validity of this law itself: for otherwise he is not even denying what we are saying. The only alternative for him, then, will be to say nothing. But this is absurd: of which one line may be quoted here:

In a recent article on ‘Words for “printing block” and the origin of printing’, Mr. R. Shafer rejected B. Laufer's derivation of Tibetan par from Chinese baan ‘printing block’, which the latter had proposed in his article ‘Loan-words in Tibetan’, though, in fairness to Laufer, it must be added that he qualified his etymology by the adverb ‘presumably’. While I fully agree with Mr. Shafer's rejection of Laufer's suggestion, I feel bound to say that he reached his conclusion from premises which are open to serious objections and indeed lend little support to the hypothesis on the origin of printing which he advances as a corollary.

The examination and cataloguing of Mongol manuscripts and prints in European libraries in recent years has brought to light a considerable number of books whose subject matter is the occurrence and treatment of sickness by magical means, and the magical ceremonies to be performed after a person's death in order to counteract the prolongation of the evil influences which were responsible for the occurrence.

The purpose of this essay is to provide a convenient introduction to the Arabic literature composed in Nigeria and the immediately adjoining areas in the period before the commencement of the Fulani jihād. That far-reaching movement of political and religious reform, initiated in 1804 under the leadership of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio (in Arabic texts ‘ b. Fūdī, often surnamed Nur al-zamdn and Mujaddid al-isldm) clearly marks off the division between the early and the modern period in the Arabic literature of this area. As is well known, the standard bibliographical work of reference, Brockelmann's encyclopaedic Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, however full its coverage of the writing of the Arabic-speaking world at large, represents only scantily the West African writers of Arabic.

While engaged on Desert Locust Survey work, Mr. Walford came across the rock-drawings reproduced here, at a place he calls Thor es Sellim lying near the junction of the Wadi Kutne (Philby, Kutne) and the Wadi Hurjab (Philby, Harjab) which is clearly al-Hamdānī's Hirjāb, in the district (long. 42°–43°; lat. 19°–20°). The Wadi Hirjab is a tributary of the Wādī . The-drawings were discovered by Mr. Walford on the under side of an overhanging rock projecting into the wādī-bed, but his work unfortunately rendered it impossible for him to take more particulars than those given here. A second group of figures was found on another rock at a short distance from, and to the right of the first. As he states in a letter, ‘there were many groups of lettering of the fairly common South Arabian type on other rocks in the area, and perhaps more drawings’.

The chapter about innovations in mosques in al-TurtŪshī's Kitāb al-hawādith wa-'l-bida‘ contains a remarkable tradition about the building of the mosque of the Prophet in Medina which deserves special attention. This tradition, not included in the orthodox collections of hadith, is of considerable importance: it seems to belong to a large body of early traditions omitted by later collectors of hadīth, and it may throw some light on an attitude of the Prophet which was later ignored by Muslim scholars. This tradition may help us to understand the views and opinions of the early Muslim scholars.

In the preface to his edition of the Kulliyāt i Qāsim i Anvār (printed at Tehran, 1337/1958–9, p. 112) Professor Sa‘‛d Nafīsī alludes to the difficulty he has encountered in establishing the text of four of the poems (pp. 406–8) which the Persian poet wrote, playfully as it seems, either completely or partly in Turkish. Although the editor had ten manuscripts at his disposal, he has to admit himself (in a footnote on p. 406) that the Turkish of the four poems in their present form is largely incomprehensible. He consoles his readers on this point with the promise of an improved edition of the Kulliyāt, proposed for some future date.