The Journal of the American Oriental Society articles from April 1999

The Journal of the American Oriental Society archives from April 1999

TABARI ON THE COMPANIONS OF THE PROPHET: MORAL AND POLITICAL CONTOURS IN ISLAMIC HISTORICAL WRITING.(Islamic scholar)
April 1, 1999... Albrecht Noth's landmark study, recently (1994) expanded with the collaboration of Lawrence Conrad and translated from the German by Michael Bonner, identified a number of motifs in early Islamic history writing. One of these was the way in...

SEPHARDIC SCANSION AND PHONOLOGICAL THEORY.(Hebrew poetry in medieval Spain)
April 1, 1999... 1. A good theory should be able to predict facts that can then be tested empirically. That is what theories are for. While this is standard practice in the natural sciences, in philology we rarely get a clear-cut instance. However, in the case...

THE AHRARI WAQF IN KABUL IN THE YEAR 1546 AND THE MUGHUL NAQSHBANDIYYAH.
April 1, 1999... In recent years scholars of the Islamic world have increasingly exploited charitable endowment deeds or registers as historical sources. In doing so they have recognized that these documents are qualitatively different from narrative historical...

THE EGYPTIAN EASTERN BORDER REGION IN ASSYRIAN SOURCES.
April 1, 1999... The Assyrian accounts of the Egyptian expeditions of Esarhaddon in 673 and 671 B.C. and of those of Assurbanipal in 667 and 663 mention some toponyms that can be located in the Egyptian eastern border region.(1) The Assyrian army passed by or...

EDIFYING PUZZLEMENT: RGVEDA 10.129 AND THE USES OF ENIGMA.(Hindu sacred text)
April 1, 1999... The appeal of RV 10.129 is immediate and strong: its narrative is engagingly obscure; its aims tantalizingly opaque. And, especially for contemporary readers, its concluding uncertainty about the origins of things is disturbingly familiar....

APPLIED FIELD-ALLOCATION ASTROLOGY IN ZHOU CHINA: DUKE WEN OF JIN AND THE BATTLE OF CHENGPU (632 B.C.).
April 1, 1999... Few episodes in ancient Chinese history can compare for historical drama and political significance with the struggle for supremacy in north China between the states of Chu and Jin in the early Spring and Autumn period (722-481 B.C.). Besides...

TRADE-BUDDHISM: MARITIME TRADE, IMMIGRATION, AND THE BUDDHIST LANDFALL IN EARLY JAPAN.
April 1, 1999... The emerging Japanese state, through the eighth century, was commercially underdeveloped even for its era. It was founded, moreover, upon an imported Chinese Imperial-Confucian vision of society, consisting largely of self-sufficient...

A NEW EDITION OF GILGAMESH AND AKKA.(Review)
April 1, 1999... The study under review, which is compact and handsomely produced, consists basically of two parts. First we have a general introduction, presenting the tale and discussing succinctly the history of publication, the literary structure, the...

RIDDLES AND ENIGMAS.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Much of the best research that has been done recently on fiddles and related enigmatic modes of discourse has been undertaken by folklorists, usually working with various non-literary or non-Western traditions, and developing a theoretical...

BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS: On the Amenhotep III Inscribed Faience Fragments from Mycenae.
April 1, 1999... Faience fragments excavated by Chrestos Tsountas, George Mylonas, and William Taylour at Mycenae and mostly inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs have elicited particular interest during the past twenty years as trade and economy became major...

Dismemberment in Dan 2:5 and 3:29 as an Old Persian Idiom, "To Be Made into Parts".
April 1, 1999... The book of Daniel contains two threats by king Nebuchadnezzar to dismember those not complying with his wishes. In the first instance, his own sages are at risk for failing to interpret the king's dream: "The king answered and said to the...

Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiosen Denkens im fruhen Islam, vols. 3-6.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By JOSEPH VAN ESS. Berlin and New York: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1992, 1996, 1993, 1995. Pp. xii + 507, xviii + 1107, x + 457, viii + 490. Here at length is the completion of what might well be termed Prof. van Ess' maximum opus, the first two...

Charakter und Authentie des muslimischen Uberlieferung uber das Leben Muhammeds.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By GREGOR SCHOELER. Studien zur Sprache, Geschichte, und Kultur des islamischen Orients, vol. 14. Berlin: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1996. Pp. xi + 214. DM 188. Since the beginning of this century many Western scholars have doubted the...

Before Revelation: The Boundaries of Muslim Moral Thought.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By KEVIN A. REINHART. SUNY Series in Middle Eastern Studies. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 1995. Pp. xi + 255. $16.95 (paper). Among the problems (masa il) that constitute the standard agenda of the Muslim discipline of usul...

Aristocratic Violence and Holy War: Studies in the Jihad and the Arab-Byzantine Frontier.(Review)
April 1, 1999... MICHAEL BONNER. American Oriental Series, vol. 81. New Haven: AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, 1996. Pp. xv + 221. $35. Michael Bonner's studies, although they can be read independently, are united by a number of common themes and questions, and...

The Christian Communities of Palestine from Byzantine to Islamic Rule: A Historical and Archaeological Study.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, vol. 2. By ROBERT SCHICK. Princeton: DARWIN PRESS, 1995. Pp. xviii + 583, maps, plates. $59.95. The speed and processes by which solidly Christian Palestine and Jordan of the sixth century C.E....

The Jews of Medieval Islam, Community, Society, Identity: Proceedings of an International Conference held by the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College, London, 1992.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by DANIEL FRANK. Etudes sur le judaisme medievale, vol. 16. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. xiv + 357. HF1 163, $105. Cultural historians seek to integrate social, religious, and intellectual history in their quest to understand the...

Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-Modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by F. JAMIL RAGEP and SALLY P. RAGEP, with STEVEN LIVESEY. Collection de travaux de l'Academie internationale des sciences, vol. 37. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. xxxiv + 591. HFl 305. "The future of the history of science lies with...

From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Farid, His Verse, and His Shrine.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By TH. EMIL HOMERIN. Columbia: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS, 1994. Pp. xii + 162. $39.95. Ibn al-Farid (576/1181-632/1235) is renowned as the author of the Khamriyya and the Ta iyya al-kubra, two of the most celebrated odes of...

Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance: An Anthology of Hymns by the Satpanth Isma ili Muslim Saint, Pir Shams.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By TAZIM R. KASSAM. McGill Studies in the History of Religions. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 1995. Pp. xiv + 424. This book addresses a broad range of issues related to the study of Satpanth, the "True Path," the Nizari Isma...

Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions, From Mazdaism to Sufism: Proceedings of the Round Table held in Bamberg (30th September-4th October 1991).(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by PHILIPPE GIGNOUX. Studia Iranica, Cahier, vol. 11. Leuven: PEETERS, 1992. Pp. 173, plates. FB 1200. The volume under review contains ten of thirteen papers delivered at a round table meeting held during the second Conference...

Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By THOMAS T. ALLSEN. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. 137. $49.95. Several of the previous volumes in this series have dealt with the Mongols, notably Beatrice Forbes Manz's...

The Court of the Il-khans, 1290-1340.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by JULIAN RABY and TERESA FITZHERBERT. Oxford Studies in Islamic Art, vol. 12. Oxford: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. 218. The six papers in this collection are the fruit of a conference held in Oxford in 1994 on the intellectual...

Ottoman Military Administration in Eighteenth-Century Bosnia.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By MICHAEL ROBERT HICKOK. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. xxiii + 176. HFl 145, $90.75. Michael R. Hickok's contribution to Brill's series "The Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage" sheds considerable new light on Ottoman Bosnia, whose history -...

Family and the Courts in Modern Egypt: A Study based on Decisions by the Shari a Courts, 1900-1955.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By RON SHAHAM. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. xi + 236, appendix, bibliography, glossary, index. HFl 166, $103.75. For some time now, several scholars of Islamic law and modern reform have felt the need for a study of how the...

Die agyptisch-arabischen Dialekte, vol. 4: Glossar, Arabisch-Deutsch.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By PETER BEHNSTEDT and MANFRED WOIDICH. Beihefte zum Tubinger Atlas des vorderen Orients, series B, no. 50.4. Wiesbaden: DR. LUDWIG REICHERT VERLAG, 1994. Pp. xiii + 513. DM 98. If your sun bread is triangular, you must be in Kom Lolah! For...

Modern Arabic Literature.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by M. M. BADAWI. The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1992. Pp. xi + 571. This volume, the fourth in the series Cambridge History of Arabic Literature, is meant to provide "the first...

Das hurritische Epos der Freilassung, I: Untersuchungen zu einem hurritisch-hethitischen Textensemble aus Hattusa.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By ERICH NEU. Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten, vol. 32. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 1996. Pp. xix + 596, 6 plates. DM 248. In the thirty-second volume of the series Studien zu den Bogazkoy-Texten, E. Neu has published the transliteration...

The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By BEZALEL PORTEN et al. Documenta et Monumenta Orientis Antiqui; Studies in Near Eastern Archaeology and Civilizations, vol. 22. Leiden: E. J. BRILL. Pp. x + 621, 11 plates. HFl 402, $259.50. This work gathers together into one volume 175...

Istanbul Murasu Texts.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By VEYSEL DONBAZ and MATTHEW W. STOLPER. Publications de l'Institut historique-archeologique neerlandais de Stamboul, vol. 79. Leiden: NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT TE ISTANBUL, 1997. Pp. xiv + 215, illus. This volume...

The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by STUART CAMPBELL and ANTHONY GREEN. Oxbow Monograph, no. 51. Oxford: OXBOW BOOKS, 1995. Pp. x + 297, 1 plate. $58 (paper). The thirty essays in this book were papers presented in 1992 at an international conference sponsored by the...

The Polemic of Nestor the Priest, Qissat Mujadalat al-Usquf and Sefer Nestor Ha-Komer: Introduction, Annotated Translations, and Commentary.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By DANIEL J. LASKER and SARAH STROUMSA. Two volumes. Jerusalem: BEN-ZVI INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE EAST, 1996. Pp. 205 [English]; 142 [Hebrew]. $70. The past twenty-five years have witnessed a remarkable renascence...

The Nippur Lament: Royal Rhetoric and Divine Legitimation in the Reign of Isme-Dagan of Isin (1953-1935 B.C.).(Review)
April 1, 1999... By STEVE TINNEY. Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, no. 16. Philadelphia: UNIVERSITY MUSEUM, 1996. Pp. xxii + 276, illustrations, 28 plates. $65. This book gives the first comprehensive critical edition of the Nippur...

Rgvedic Word Concordance.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By ALEXANDER LUBOTSKY. Two volumes. American Oriental Society Series, no. 82. New Haven: AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, 1997. Pp. xii + 1667. $125 per set. It is unfortunately the case that the best and most valuable books are those about...

Les Nasatya, vol. 1.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By ERIC PIRART. Bibiliotheque de philosophie et lettres de l'Universite de Liege, fasc. CCLXI. Liege: Bibliotheque de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Universite de Liege, 1995. Pp. 459. It is something of a scandal that neither in English nor...

Os Portugueses e o Mar de Ceilao: Trato, diplomacia e guerra (1498-1543).(Review)
April 1, 1999... By JORGE MANUEL FLORES. Cosmos Historica, vol. 23. Lisbon: EDICOES COSMOS, 1998. Pp. 368, with colored illustrations and maps. This finely printed book opens with a preface by Genevieve Bouchon, one of the leading specialists on early...

Languages of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples of India: The Ethnic Space.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by ANVITA ABBI. MLBD Series in Linguistics, vol. 10. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 1997. Pp. xiv + 494, introduction, appendix, index. Rs 595. Given the fact that the 1981 Census of India calculates the population of Scheduled Tribes...

Peasants and Monks in British India.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By WILLIAM R. PINCH. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1996. Pp. xi + 242, map, table, notes, bibliography, 3 appendixes. $55 (cloth); $22 (paper). In this solid historical study, William Pinch provides an in-depth...

The Sculpture of Early Medieval Rajasthan.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By CYNTHIA PACKERT ATHERTON. Studies in Asian Art and Archaeology, vol. XXI. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1997. Pp. xiv + 130, 15 figures, 170 illustrations. Cynthia Atherton attempts to produce a chronology of the stone sculpture that comes from...

Natyasastra (Chapter 28): Ancient Scales of Indian Music, with Sanjivanam Commentary of Acarya Brhaspati.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Translated by BHARAT GUPT. New Delhi: BRIHASPATI PUBLICATIONS, 1996. Pp. xxvii + 203. Rs 320. As its title demonstrates, the Natyasastra (NS) is essentially a work dealing with theater. However, its chapters 28-36 offer one of the earliest...

Relativism, Suffering, and Beyond: Essays in Memory of Bimal K. Matilal.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by P. BILIMORIA and J. N. MOHANTY. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. 381. $35. This delectable volume of essays, in tribute to the philosopher/indologist Bimal Matilal, shows that the field, the maidan that Matilal had...

Ideas and Society in India from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By EUGENIA VANINA. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. 215, index. Rs 375. A determination of when and why this book was written may play an important part in evaluating its scholarly position. The author, a member of the Centre of...

La Presence francaise dans le royaume Sikh du Penjab, 1822-1849.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By JEAN-MARIE LAFONT. Paris: ECOLE FRANCAISE D'EXTREME-ORIENT, 1992. Pp. 553. In La Presence francaise dans le royaume Sikh du Penjab, Jean-Marie Lafont documents in rich detail the activities of a small, colorful, if only occasionally...

Japanese Civilization: A Comparative View.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By S. N. EISENSTADT. Chicago: UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 1996. Pp. xii + 581. $39.95. Japan is a modern industrial nation-state that bears only a superficial resemblance to other modern industrial societies. Eisenstadt's goal is to...

Son of Heaven and Heavenly Qaghan: Sui-Tang China and its Neighbors.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By PAN YIHONG. Studies on East Asia, vol. 20. Bellingham, Wash.: CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES, WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 1997. Pp. 428 + maps, tables. $35 (paper). Scholars have long examined sources from China's Sui (581618 A.D.)...

Mencius and Early Chinese Thought.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By KWON-LOI SHUN. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. 295. $45. Although "ethics" does not appear in the title, Kwong-Loi Shun's Mencius and Early Chinese Thought is an analysis of ethics in the Mencius. Shun's goal is to...

Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By ANTHONY C. Yu. Princeton: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. xv + 321. $55. Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) is by far the finest novel in traditional Chinese literature. As such it continues to stimulate the finest minds in...

Literati Identity and its Fictional Representations in Late Imperial China.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By STEPHEN J. RODDY. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1998. Pp. 315. $49.50. Even though vernacular fiction enjoyed a lower status with the Chinese literati of the eighteenth century than those of the seventeenth century up to the...

Fin-de-siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By DAVID DER-WEI WANG. Stanford: STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1997. Pp. 433. $49.50. As the first full-length survey of late Qing fiction by a single author in English, David Der-wei Wang's Fin-de-siecle Splendor is a major contribution to...

The Art of the Saljuqs in Iran and Anatolia: Proceedings of a Symposium in Edinburgh in 1982.(Review)
April 1, 1999... Edited by ROBERT HILLENBRAND. Costa Mesa, Calif.: MAZDA PUBLISHERS, 1994. Pp. xxvii + 319. Robert Hillenbrand's publication of the proceedings from the Edinburgh conference on the art of the Saljuqs in Iran and Anatolia reminds us of the...

Religions of Asia Minor.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By MACIEJ POPKO. Translated by IWONA ZYCH. Warsaw: ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS DIALOG, 1995. Pp. 230 (paper). Recent years have seen a significant increase in Hittite religious studies, culminating in two handbooks on Anatolian religions: the...

Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl-Fishing, Origins to the Age of Discoveries.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By R. A. DONKIN. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, vol. 224. Philadelphia: AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 1998. Pp. xxi + 448, with 40 maps, 72 figures, 12 tables. This book...

A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum.(Review)
April 1, 1999... By W. ZWALF. Two volumes. London: BRITISH MUSEUM PRESS, 1996. Pp. 423 (text), 16 color plates; pp. 355 (plates), 680 black-and-white illustrations. The British Museum in London has a rich collection of sculpture from ancient Gandhara,...