The Journal of the American Oriental Society articles from July 1998

The Journal of the American Oriental Society archives from July 1998

Studies in Early Islamic History.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By MARTIN HINDS. Edited by JERE BACHARACH, LAWRENCE I. CONRAD, and PATRICIA CRONE. Introduction by G. R. HAWTING. Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, 4. Princeton: DARWIN PRESS, 1996. Pp. xix + 262. $39.95. Martin Hinds was one of...

Muhammad, the Quran, and Islam.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By N. A. NEWMAN, Hatfield, Pa.: INTERDISCIPLINARY BIBLICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 1996. Pp. xvii + 425. $19.95 (paper). Within this book is a mine of information which many students and researchers interested in the Qur an and the life of...

Muhammad in the Modern Egyptian Popular Ballad.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By KAMAL ABDEL-MALEK. Studies in Arabic Literature, Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature, vol. 19. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. xii + 232. HFI 136.50, $88.50. At the heart of this book is a valiant, extensive, and...

A lam al-adab al-arabi al-mu-asir: Siyar wa siyar dhatiyya. English Title Page: Contemporary Arab Writers: Biographies and Autobiographies.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by ROBERT B. CAMPBELL, S.J. 2 vols. Beiruter Texte und Studien, Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesallschaft, vol. 62. Stuttgart and Beirut: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1996. Pp. 1421. DM 290. This hefty work contains basic...

Constantine the African and Ali ibn al-Abbas al-Magusi: The Pantegni and Related Texts.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by CHARLES BURNETT and DANIELLE JACQUART. Studies in Ancient Medicine, vol. 10. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994. Pp. ix + 364. HF1 172.50, $108.50. This volume contains fifteen conference papers (four are in French) originally presented...

The World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Hayy ibn Yaqzan.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by LAWRENCE I. CONRAD. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, Texts and Studies, vol. 24. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. 305. HF1 150, $97. This book is the result of an interdisciplinary symposium that Lawrence I. Conrad...

The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of Ala ad-Dawla as-Simnani.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By JAMAL J. ELIAS. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS, 1995. Pp. xvi + 255. $16.95 (paper). In The Life and Thought of Ala ad-Dawla as-Simnani, Jamal Elias provides the student of both late medieval sufism and Ilkhanid cultural...

Formal Spoken Arabic: FAST Course.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By KARIN C. RYDING and ABDELNOUR ZAIBACK. Washington, D.C.: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1994. Pp. xviii + 215. $19.95; audiocassettes, $75. Formal Spoken Arabic: FAST Course makes a noteworthy addition to Arabic language pedagogy because...

Arabian Diversions: Studies in the Dialects of Arabia.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By BRUCE INGHAM. Reading, Berks.: ITHACA PRESS, 1997. Pp. xv + 193. The essays in this volume belong on the shelves of anyone interested in comparative Arabic dialectology. Most of them are reprinted from BSOAS, two first appeared in the...

Understanding Arabic: Essays in Contemporary Linguistics in Honor of El-Said Badawi.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by ALAA ELGIBALL Cairo: AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO PRESS, 1996. Pp. 274. El-Said Muhammad Badawi, Professor of Arabic Linguistics at the American University in Cairo, is that rare linguist who has exerted enormous influence in two...

Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture, vol 10, Essays in Honor of Oleg Grabar Contributed by His Students.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by OLEG GRABAR. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1993. Pp. xiii + 390. HF1 136, $78. In 1983, the annual Muqarnas was launched under the editorship of Oleg Grabar, who announced in his preface a set of goals and expectations that generated...

Sacrificed Wife, Sacrificer's Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By STEPHANIE W. JAMISON. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xvi + 340. $55 (cloth); $22 (paper). Stephanie Jamison has written an intelligent, engaging, and indispensable account of the role of women in ancient Aryan society, at...

The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India, vol 5, Sundarakanda.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Translated and annotated by ROBERT P. GOLDMAN and SALLY J. SUTHERLAND GOLDMAN. Princeton: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996. Pp. xv + 583. $89.50. The fifth volume of the Goldmans' monumental translation of the Ramayana, the Sundarakanda,...

Hindu Scriptures.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited with new translations by DOMINIC GOODALL, based on an anthology by R. C. ZAEHNER. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS; London: J. M. DENT, 1996. Pp. lii + 410. $45 (cloth); $16.95 (paper). This book is a revised...

Mantras Between Fire and Water: Reflections on a Balinese Rite.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By FRITS STAAL, with an appendix by DICK VAN DER MEIJ. Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Verhandelingen, Afdeling Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 166. Amsterdam: NORTH-HOLLAND PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1995. Pp. viii + 112. ...

Historical Dictionary of Sikhism.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By W. H. MCLEOD. Religions, Philosophies, and Movements, no. 5. Lanham, Md.: THE SCARECROW PRESS, 1995. Pp. 323. Anyone remotely interested in the study of Sikh religion will be familiar with at least some of W. H. McLeod's many books and...

Aryans and British India.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By THOMAS TRAUTMANN. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1997. Pp. 274. $35. At a time of academic orthodoxies such as deconstructionism, social constructivism, and "hegemonicmaniaism," it is refreshing to come across...

Writing and Literacy in China, Korea and Japan.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By INSUP TAYLOR and M. MARTIN TAYLOR. Studies in Written Language and Literacy, vol. 3. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1995. Pp. xii + 412. Gibbon relates how Zenobia "had drawn up for her own use an epitome...

A Ming Society: T'ai-ho County, Kiangsi, in the Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By JOHN W. DARDESS. Berkeley and Los Angeles: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1996. Pp. 316 + maps, tables. $45. This book is ostensibly about social change over three centuries in T'ai-ho county, but its most important theme, unstated in...

Origins: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Institutions.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By WILLIAM W. HALLO. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. xvii + 362. $75. Among his colleagues, William W. Hallo, professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University, is known as a prolific writer on a wide variety of matters...

Oral World and Written Word: Ancient Israelite Literature.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By SUSAN NIDITCH. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville, Ky.: WESTMINSTER/JOHN KNOX PRESS, 1996. Pp. xi + 170. $19. This book, within a series on the social history of ancient Israel, touches on a very important subject having to do with...

The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew, vol. 2.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by DAVID J. A. CLINES. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1995. Pp. 660. [pounds]65, $100. This is the second of an eight-volume dictionary of all the known Hebrew texts from the emergence of the language down to the codification...

Manasseh Through the Eyes of the Deuteronomist: The Manasseh Account (2 Kings 21: 1-18) and the Final Chapters of the Deuteronomistic History.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By PERCY S. F. VAN KEULEN. Oudtestamentische Studien, vol. 38. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1996. Pp. viii + 249. HF1 135, $87.25. This work is a revision and expansion of a dissertation written under Arie van der Kooij at the University of Leiden...

Timnah: A Biblical City in the Sorek Valley.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By GEORGE L. KELM and AMIHAI MAZAR. Winona Lake, Ind.: EISENBRAUNS, 1995. Pp. xix + 185, figures and plates. $29.50. This volume provides a general summary of the twelve seasons of excavation at Tel Batash (Tell el-Batashi, Timnab) in...

The Absolute Chronology of the Aegean Early Bronze Age: Archaeology, Radiocarbon and History.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By STURT W. MANNING. Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 1. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1995. Pp. 370 + 57, maps, figures, and charts. $70. In this massively documented and closely reasoned work Sturt Manning, of the...

Zwischen Euphart und Indus: Aktuelle Forschungsproblem in der vorderasiatischen Archaologie.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by KARIN BARTL, REINHARD BERNBECK, and MARLIES HEINZ. Hildesheim: GEORG OLMS VERLAG, 1995. Pp. X + 387 + 20 fig. DM 94. Zwischen Euphrat und Indus is a collection of eighteen essays that examine a broad range of major...

The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor's Archive from Nippur.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By STEVEN W. COLE. Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 114; Nippur, IV. Chicago: THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE, 1996. Pp. xliv + 458; 3 figs., 128 text copies. $65. In the first of these volumes, 128 cuneiform tablets are edited in autograph...

Nippur in Late Assyrian Times.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By STEVEN W. COLE. State Archives of Assyria Studies, vol. 4. Helsinki: THE NEO-ASSYRIAN TEXT CORPUS PROJECT, 1996. Pp. xx + 138. $29.50 (paper). In the first of these volumes, 128 cuneiform tablets are edited in autograph copies,...

Politik und Kreigskunst der Assyrer.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By WALTER MAYER. Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palastinas und Mesopotamiens, vol. 9. Munster: UGARIT-VERLAG, 1995. Pp. xv + 545, 2 maps. In recent years, the publication or republication of Assyrian texts of historical relevance,...

Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By SIMO PARPOLA. State Archives of Assyria, vol. 10. Helsinki: HELSINKI UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1993. Pp. xxxix + 421. FM 396. Assyriologists all too rarely get, or take, the opportunity to improve on their text editions. In such a quickly...

In Quest of Meaning: A Study of the Ancient Egyptian Rites of Consecrating the Meret-Chest and Driving the Calves.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By A. EGBERTS. Two volumes. Egyptologische Uitgaven, 8.1-2. Leiden: NEDERLANDS INSTITUUT VOOR HET NABIJE OOSTEN, 1995. Pp. xxxvii + 514; pp. xi + 15 tables + 154 plates. HFI 125 (paper). I will refrain from describing the structure of...

Ihadayutha: A Study of the Life of Singleness in the Syrian Orient, from Ignatius of Antioch to Chalcedon 451 A.D.(Review)
July 1, 1998... By SHAFIQ ABOUZAYD. Oxford: ARAM SOCIETY FOR SYRO-MESOPOTAMIAN STUDIES, 1993. Pp. xx + 449. $40, [pounds]22. S. AbouZayd, founder of the Aram Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies and editor of its journal Aram, has undertaken a stimulating...

Legal Documents of the Hellenistic World: Papers from a Seminar Arranged by the Institute oc Classical Studies, the Institute of Jewish Studies and the Warburg Institute, University of London, February to May 1986.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by MARKHAM J. GELLER and HERWIG MAEHLER, in collaboration with A.D. E. Lewis. London: THE WARBURG INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, 1995 Pp. xiv + 254 (paper). The editors of this volume wish to contribute to the comparative study of...

The Furniture of Western Asia,Ancient and Traditional.(Review)
July 1, 1998... Edited by GEORGINA HERRMANN. Mainz am Rhein: PHILIPP VON ZABERN, 1996. Pp. xxviii + 301, 143 illustrations, 92 plates. DM 248. My first encounter with ancient furniture was with the beautiful artifacts, wood and bronze, brilliantly revealed...

In memoriam: Jeanette Wakin August 2, 1928-March 13, 1998.(Islamic editor of the Journal of the American Oriental Society)(Obituary)
July 1, 1998... These remarks were read by President Stanley Insler at the plenary meeting of the American Oriental Society, New Orleans, March 31, 1998. A sudden and unexpected illness prevents me from attending this year's meeting of the Society. With...

'Les Mite D'Assyrie': moths in the Assyrian texts of the second millennium B.C.
July 1, 1998... The moth was one of many insects that people from the ancient Near East had to battle. Although found universally and at all periods of the year, the moth is relatively rarely mentioned in written documentation from antiquity, possibly perhaps...

The problem of the historical Nagarjuna revisited.
July 1, 1998... Claims about the life of Nagarjuna are often asserted as if the facts were known and secure, when they are not. Those who explore the evidence in quest of more secure facts come up with contradictory conclusions. Even the century or...

Mr. Five Dippers of Drunkenville: the representation of enlightenment in Wang Ji's drinking poems.
July 1, 1998... If there is one thing for which the early Tang poet Wang Ji (590-644) is famous it is his own heavy drinking. Over thirty-five percent of the works in his five-juan collection refer to his fondness for wine, and the proportion is even greater...

Surat al-Rum: a study of the exegetical literature.
July 1, 1998... Qur'an commentaries have, in recent years, been exploited to "reconstruct trends and motivations in exegesis as revealed by the use and invention of textual and orthographic variants to the Qur'an."(1) One of the functions of interpretation is...

Ibn al-Jazzar on medicine for the poor and destitute.
July 1, 1998... INTRODUCTION ABU JA FAR AHMAD B. ABI KHALID B. AL-JAZZAR, a physician who was born and who practiced in Qayrawan in the tenth century, is the author of a number of medical works, the most famous of which is his Zad almusafir wa-qut...

India without Hindu concepts?(caste society)
July 1, 1998... Can India's caste society be better understood without reference to Hindu concepts? Social anthropologist Declan Quigley declares that it can, and tries to prove his claim by critical reviews of some previous understandings and a glimpse of his...

The discovery at Mada in Salih: myth or artifact?
July 1, 1998... Few books in islamic studies or Arabic literature are like this compact and engaging volume. Its great merit is its singularity - the identification and informed presentation of an undeniably arresting and rich subject. For it "reconstructs" an...

The industrial park of Girsu in the year 2042 B.C. interpretation of an archive assembled by P. Mander.
July 1, 1998... G. BUCCELLATI WAS THE FIRST to recognize an archive characterized by registration of expenditures of bread for a group of Amorite women. He collected a corpus of thirty-one texts and considered them a variety of messenger texts.(1) M. Sigrist,...

Coarticulations and coronals in Malayalam.
July 1, 1998... Recently, in this journal, Murray Emeneau (1995) significantly clarified the phonological conditions required for palatalization in Tamil-Malayalam. Generally, initial k [greater than] c [tC] before a front vowel. This change was blocked by a...