This study examines a little-known case of Enlightenment knowledge transmission centred on the rock-cut monument of Darius I at Bīsotūn in western Iran. It discusses a report on the monument published by the cartographer and historian Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, which originated with the Decalced Carmelite monk Emmanuel de Saint-Albert (born Jean-Claude Ballyet); who transmitted it to Isaac Bellet, a doctor involved in secret negotiations in Constantinople; who in turn sent it to Louis, Duke d'Orléans, in Paris; who passed it on to d'Anville. The collison of scholarly interest, political service and scientific personality offers a fascinating case study of the Enlightenment ‘republic of letters’ in action.

This article studies the political and symbolic importance of elephants for medieval Muslim kingship in South Asia. Specifically, the incorporation of the elephant by the Ghaznavid dynasty led to a crisis of sovereignty for early Muslim kings of South Asia. This was because while the elephant stood for divinity and sovereignty among Hindus, it represented satanic pride among Muslims. The famous Koranic chapter of “the elephant”, tells the story of a king Abraha who had tried to destroy the House of God in Arabia (the Ka‘ba) with elephants, but it was said that God pelted his army to death by small pebbles thrown by birds. This meant that any Indo-Muslim ruler that posed as an elephant-master could appear as the destroyer of the house of God in the eyes of his Muslim subjects. In order to compensate for this crisis, early Indo-Muslim rulers employed a number of tactics, which included trying to present themselves as the opposite, i.e. destroyer of pagan temples for which they are infamous today. But perhaps more significantly, the continued symbolic (and not just practical) use of the elephant, in spite of its problematic association, shows that what is often today understood as an alien institution imposed upon a majority non-Muslim population, was actually the opposite: that is, it was mainly a project equally pitched to non-Muslim South Asians with a compensatory nudge toward Muslims.

In the medieval world of Islamic kingdoms, the Friday sermon in the name of the reigning sultan (khutba) and the striking of coins (sikka) have been thought of as universal declarations of sovereignty. Yet, the sultanates of the Deccan that succeeded the Bahmani kingdom did not strike their own coins for almost a century after they had declared sovereign status. Therefore, two important issues are present here. First, the axiom of sovereign status for Islamic monarchs does have exceptions. Second, the circumstances surrounding the non-issue of coin, by these kingdoms, needs explanation. Similarly, the reasons why they all start to mint their own coins in the last quarter of the sixteenth century is also addressed. Mughal monetary policy is an essential element in this history.

The aim of the present paper is to describe the morphosyntactic properties of Iranian Coastal Balochi as spoken by the Afro-Balochi community. The Afro-Baloch have completely switched to Balochi and there are no traces of African languages in their speech. However, in comparison with other Balochi dialects of Iran on the one hand, and with Coastal Balochi dialects of Pakistan on other, Afro-Balochi shows archaic characteristics, particularly in its case system, in the demonstrative pronouns and in the alignment features. This might be due to the persisting social segregation of the Afro-Baloch and their limited access to education and media, resulting in reduced contact with the languages and dialects outside of their community.

When the Spaniards came to settle Manila in 1571 Dionisio Capulong was a young boy. His father was one of the rulers in the region and all were scions of the Muslim royal family of Brunei. The father astutely complied—to a certain extent—with the colonising Spaniards. His son subsequently pursued an ambivalent career alternately working for and rebelling against the Spanish colonisers. Ultimately he became a landowner in the Spanish mode. This is his story. Even from only Spanish reports one can discern great astuteness and opportunism, which enabled the elite to keep local supremacy. Tracing the career of Dionisio Capulong sheds light on the elite in pre-Spanish Manila and environs as well as on Manila's earliest Spanish years.

Since their first publication in 1922, two Islamic inscriptions formed an essential basis of the early history of Islam in Champa. Recently, however, they have been shown to have originated, not from Southeast Asia, but from Tunisia. It is clear that either there was an error regarding their provenance, or it was deliberately falsified. The implications of this are discussed, and the remaining evidence of early Islamic presence in Champa is reassessed. It is suggested that there is now no good evidence of any Islamic presence there until after the sixteenth century. In relation to this issue, the maritime links between China and the Islamic world are examined, as also are other examples of possible falsification of history.