The dating of the so-called Oracle of Hystaspes or its Vorlage has for long been a major problem among scholars. This article attempts to articulate some issues present in the Oracle and similar or identical ones known to have been used in Mthridates’ VI Eupator propaganda. This can help not only dating the Oracle itself but also solve dating problems in Persian apocalyptic texts, whose dating may be pushed backwards.

The death of the last ‘Abbāsid Caliph al-Musta‘ṣim bi-llāh (d. 1258) has been the object of contradictory historical accounts by medieval historians both in the East and the West. Was he put to death by starvation? Did he have melted gold poured down his throat? Was he executed by Hülegü's own hands, or even by a Georgian Prince? Was he rolled in a carpet and kicked to death, hanged, or strangled? Writers of the period offer colourful portrayals of this event. Some saw it as martyrdom, others as a humiliating death preceded by moral admonishment and blame by Hülegü. Building upon earlier studies, this article offers a comprehensive view of the extant sources on the topic produced both in the Abode of Islam and Western Europe, as well as in Armenia and Georgia. Rather than seeking the “facts” behind the accounts, this article adopts a literary-critical and socio-political approach, arguing that the accounts are replete with symbolism targeting their specific audiences, and that the choices made by the historians on the manner of the Caliph's death were meant to offer commentary on—and evaluation of—‘Abbāsid rule.

The introduction to the special issue provides a framework to think about the changing conceptions of Sayyid-ness in various historical contexts in South Asia. First, we review some of the sociological and anthropological literature on caste among South Asian Muslims, to argue for a contextualised and historicised study of Muslim social stratification in Muslims’ own terms. Second, we throw light on the fact that Sayyid-ness, far from being a transhistorical fact, may be conceptualised differently in different socio-political and historical contexts. For instance, Sayyid pedigree was at times downplayed in favour of a more encompassing Ashraf identity in order to project the idea of a single Muslim community. Far from projecting an essentialising image of Sayyid-ness, by focusing on historical change, the articles in this collection de-naturalise Sayyids’ and Ashraf's social superiority as a ‘well-understood and accepted fact’. They further shift attention from the debate on ‘Muslim caste’, often marred by Hindu-centric assumptions, to focus instead on social dynamics among South Asian Muslims ‘in their own terms’. In so doing, these studies highlight the importance of the local, while pointing to possible comparisons with Muslim groups outside South Asia.

This article contains the original unpublished Syriac text of the Story of the Holy Friday, an anonymous hagiographic composition that promotes an idiosyncratic form of Friday veneration, which demands that Christians refrain from work on that day completely. The text of the Story, published on the basis of manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, syr. 234, is accompanied with an English translation and discussion of its unusual message, possibly related to the early period of Muslim-Christian relations in the Near East.

Public opinion is formed by the information that the public consumes. The state, whether democratic or authoritarian, employs various media of communication to influence people's opinions and behaviours. In the nineteenth century, Afghan rulers would traditionally use force and religion to gain popular support and strengthen their authority. In the second half of the century, they started to use print technology to build their relationships with the public. The state's print, however, had to compete with the institution of the bazaar that had long served as the central place where information circulated in public. This article, drawing mostly on unexamined Afghan sources, offers an account of how the bazaar operated as a source of information and how the Afghan state tried to suppress it. The history of this information conflict uncovers new aspects in the troublesome relationship between the government and the governed in Afghanistan.

The Islamic laws pertaining to mustḥāḍa—women who have dysfunctional uterine bleeding (istiḥāḍa)—have been overlooked in the research literature. This article reopens the research discourse on this topic by discussing two related questions: may a mustḥāḍa perform religious obligations and may she have sexual intercourse? The questions are shown to be somewhat related. It is found that jurists conceded the right of a mustḥāḍa to pray but disagreed about why—implying, contrary to previous scholarship, that Islam accommodates different levels of ritual impurity—and that they held divergent views on her having intercourse. By probing and investigating Islamic legal sources, it is shown that research assertions about istiḥāḍa thus far require circumscription and re-examination.

There is a long tradition of describing Sindh as peculiarly prone to Sayyid veneration. On the face of it, the biographical section of Tuhfat al-Kiram or Gift for the Noble, an eighteenth-century history and geography written in Persian in Sindh, appears to confirm this idea. In listing the notables of Thatta, Sindh's premier city, the author, Mir ʻAli Shir Qaniʻ, orders them by groups, giving priority in his hierarchical arrangement to Sayyids. However, this article examines Tuhfat al-Kiram not as a transparent description of Sindh, but rather as a normative exposition of a Sayyid-led social order. It draws attention to Qaniʻs project of reconciling individual excellence with lineage in a post-Mughal context without a discerning sovereign to uphold a meritorious order. By exploring Qaniʻs silences, particularly on Hindus and women, this article investigates the anxieties that run through this text about the threat to the old Persianate elite of Thatta. This threat spurred Qaniʻ to reimagine a social order in Sindh where claims of descent served to close off mobility in an otherwise meritocratic Persianate society. Sayyid priority in eighteenth-century Sindh was not an established fact, but a newly-fashioned claim, which remained contested and contradictory, even within Tuhfat al-Kiram.

The Collection of Namgyal Monastery (Mustang, Nepal) preserves two long and narrow scrolls painted on both sides, of exquisite artistic quality. This article describes and investigates the iconographic and symbolic meaning of the paintings and the use of these objects. One of the scrolls shows the Eight Auspicious Symbols and deities that personify diverse group of offerings painted in an elegant Newari style. The other scroll features an intriguing representation of the Eight Charnel Grounds in a continuous landscape. Full of delicate and charming details, it illustrates the Mahasiddhas, Guardians, Nāgas and stupa of the respective directions. The back of both scrolls has a vajra chain at the bottom and flames represented above it. The scrolls must have been used to encircle specific mandalas. Such objects are rather rare, and it is interesting to reflect on their former use, even more so as no contemporaneous objects of that type are known. The stylistic features of the paintings reveal the broader relationships of the Mustang region to neighbouring areas. Relationships can also be established to objects preserved in the same collection, such as a collection of metal stupa of similar design and typical for the Mustang region and the western Himalayas.

In early quranic Manuscripts the name of the prophet ʾIbrāhīm occurs in two different spellings either ابرهم or ابرهيم . These two spellings are spread haphazardly throughout the Quran. Close examination of the patterns in the manuscript, however, show that the distribution of this spelling is not random or up to the whims of the scribe. The location where one spelling or the other occurs is highly correlated across the early manuscripts. Moreover, the location of one spelling or the other is highly correlated to where the quranic reader Hišām reads the name as ʾIbrāhām or ʾIbrāhīm. This paper argues that this is not because these manuscripts have been written in the reading of Hišām, but rather that Hišām based his reading on the rasm of the quranic text.

It has generally been acknowledged that Sayyids, through their real or imagined connection to the Prophet, have represented a key trans-regional dimension of Islam. In the Punjab, the status of the Ashraf has been reinforced by their role as custodians of the Sufi shrines. In the Multan region, Sayyids and Qureshis acted frequently as pir and sajjada nashin for many Sufi dargahs. Their position, however, did not go unchallenged. The Chishti Nizami revival in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century saw the growth of an alternative religious network that competed with older families both religiously and socially. This process directly challenged the idea of inherited charisma and the established social hierarchy. Although reform movements are often considered to represent a shift towards a universal dimension of Islam, connected symbolically to Arabia and to the figure of the Prophet, the Chishti Nizami revival in Multan can be seen rather as a vernacularisation of Islamic authority. The movement favoured the social ascent of local tribes and non-Arab Ashraf families. The alliance between these groups would become a stable feature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contributed to the social status of Sayyid families being questioned.

When the plan to translate the Union Version in Guanhua (Mandarin) was announced at the 1890 Conference in Shanghai, it was decided that all three existing Mandarin versions—the 1856 Nanking Version, the 1872 Peking Version, and Griffith John's translation of 1889 - were to be equally used as the Chinese base texts of the new version. The decision was part of an overarching effort of appeasement and compromises, in order to secure the general agreement of the Protestant communities deeply divided over the issues of bible translations since the early days of Morrison and Marshman. In reality the Nanking Version and Griffith John were scarcely consulted, and the Peking Version would be the primary Chinese base text used by the committee. What is not always apparent to scholars and readers of the Mandarin Union Version is the extent it has been modeled after the Peking Version, not only because of the high regard the committee members had for this early Bible translation in Mandarin Chinese, but also as a direct result of the manner by which the Mandarin Union Version was completed in a committee setting. By examining the historical context surrounding the translation of the Mandarin Union Version, and the textual features of it in comparison to the Peking Version, this article calls for a stronger emphasis on the role and influence of the Chinese base text on this widely-used Chinese Bible translation, as its popularity and scholarly interests persist, 100 years after its completion.

British social surveys and census statistics defined ‘Sayyid’ as a caste identity, while often casting a sceptical eye on the authenticity of genealogical claims associated with the concept. The article examines how Muslims, especially Sayyid Ahmad Khan, participated in the formulation of the concept of Sayyid identity and status. Islamic ideology and practice have long wrestled with conflicting claims of religious equality and hierarchical status, often based on concepts of sacred lineage. From his earliest writings Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–98) emphasised his descent from the Prophet Muhammad on his father's side alongside his somewhat less exalted relationship with his Kashmiri grandfather. In later years he tried to balance universalistic ideals with claims to status based on supposedly ‘foreign’ ancestry, which he cited as parallel to the supposed Aryan ancestry of high-status Hindus. His British allies used his Sayyid ancestry as reinforcement of his leadership of an India-wide Muslim ‘community’ and evidence that India was not prepared to develop into a national polity based on representative government. But the Aligarh movement's claim to represent the wider Muslim population and in particular its educational project at Aligarh struggled with a more egalitarian ethos, defining students and the members of voluntary associations as ‘brothers’, and quite prepared to cross ascriptive boundaries both in public life and personal relationships.

The influences of Chinese traditional culture, especially the traditional Three Teachings and folk religion, on the Mandarin Union Version of the Chinese Bible (first edition, 1919) and the resulting complications are explicit in some contexts but implicit and subtle in other contexts. Some influences are helpful for Chinese people's proper understanding of biblical truth and theology in a Chinese context, but other influences can be misleading. In this paper, I will examine three translated Chinese phrases in the Mandarin Union Version that show evidence of Ruist influences: (1) “xūxīn de rén” “虛心的人”, in Matthew 5:3, (2) “tiānguó shì nǔlì jìnrù de﹐nǔlì de rén jiù dézháole” “天國是努力進入的﹐努力的人就得著了”, Matthew 11:12, and (3) “lǎoliàn” “老練”in Romans 5:4. Ruist influences is explicit in the first two cases but implicit in the third case, I will first analyze the verses and argue that they reflect the dominant Ruist ideology of moral self-cultivation instead of the biblical vision of transformation by “gracious moral cultivation”. Then I will demonstrate how Chinese readers might respond based on the context of each verse: Some Chinese readers might detect the inconsistenices between the Ruist emphasis on moral self-cultivation and a more general biblical theology, especially in an intertextual context of other Bible passages that explicitly teach the total depravity of human beings (e.g. Romans), as well as reconciliation and redemption by the free gift of Christ's grace for salvation and sanctification (e.g. Ephesians). Other Chinese readers might be misled by Ruist suggestions that they pursue sanctification and transformation only by means of moral self-cultivation that relies solely on their willpower. I will conclude by arguing how mistranslating and misinterpreting these verses can cause possible complications, especially negatively masking behaviour, in the personal and interpersonal spiritual transformation and ecclesiological development among Chinese Christians.

This article analyses philological and literary aspects of a jātaka tale with a pygmalionesque motif involving a craftsman who falls in love with a non-human woman. This tale circulated along the Silk Road in at least six different versions: two original Sanskrit versions; one Tibetan translation from the Sanskrit source; one Tocharian adaptation; and two Chinese translations that also adapt the work to a smaller degree than the Tocharian version. By analysing the textual contexts and the content of the tale in all its alterations, this article shows that the two versions that differ most from the others, the Tocharian and the older Chinese version, are closely related to each other. Further analysis of the Tocharian version situates the tale among its literary kin. An analysis of the formulaic elements of the Tocharian tale indicates possible relations to Chinese chu-kung-tiao and pien-wen genres. The article also suggests the Tibetan lha mo as a link between Indian prosimetric campū style and the two Chinese genres. Finally, the analysis of the cluster of motifs in the tale is paralleled with canonical Western texts by Ovid and E. T. A. Hoffmann, opening fruitful venues for literary scholarship regarding human-like objects.