Know that Knowledge can be divided into two types, one religious knowledge () and the other intellectual (), and most of the branches of religious knowledge are intellectual in the opinion of him who knows them, and most of the branches of intellectual knowledge belong to the religious code, in the opinion of him who understands them. “And he, to whom God does not commit light, has no light.”

The Risālat al-Laduniyya is a short treatise giving an account of al-Ghazālī's religious philosophy, in a compact form. It includes his theory of Knowledge, which is discussed very fully in regard to its nature, its different types, and the means by which it is acquired. The author gives special attention here to Revealed Knowledge and distinguishes between Revelation (), which was limited to the prophets and ceased with them, and Inspiration (), which is granted also to the saints and is, in fact, the awakening of the individual, human soul, by Universal Soul.

Ana hu hibil ziwa zadiqa u'uthria ahai bnia nhura ḏ minh huaina yatbinin banana rabtia ḏ nhura uruha ḏ qudsha ḏ shimat qalaian qashtinun 'l piṭrunia ukasitinun '1 hililia hiwaria urmit sandlia hilia blighrai wamra 'qum 'zil baina 'mhinun l'uthria rurbania bnia nhura anin ḏ hzainh sdamnh hramnh. 'l aina bishta ukawihta usdamnh hramnh 'l aina aqta uraiubtia u'l aina qliqtia u'l aina mṣuṣtia u'l aina 'kimtia u'l aina raiubtia mhaina bakla rba ḏ ziwa ubnarga rba ḏ. shiriatha urmaina btasniqia ḏ arqa titaita wasutha tihuilh '1 P. br P. b'sqtaihun 'uthria rurbania bnia nhura (banhura ?) (460) yatbia ḏ 'qara hiia zakhin … Hazin tartin babania kdub lṭasa d abara 'u lmagalta d ṭabia urmih bgufta d qaina ḏ zrara urmih para upartia umihla umisha ḏ shushma hawia asutha lgabra u'ntha u'lyanqia u'l yanqitha tum qrih lmihla u'l piria u'mbia u'lania u'lzira u'l bazira hiia zakhin …

In a letter which I had the honor of writing to Mr. Dundas Secretary of State in November [9–11th] last, I communicated to him my intention of convoying in the Lion, if necessary, your Ships of this Season to England and in my letter of last month, I gave him my reasons why I suffered the five Ships which I found laden on my arrival at Canton to sail from thence without waiting for the remainder, which tho more in number, were represented as more in need of protection. I am confirmed in my resolution of accompanying the latter, by the accounts received within these few days, of the Enemy having been in force in the straits of Sunda, where one of your Ships the Princess Royal has been captured. As this event must give you some alarm with regard to the safety of your homeward bound Ships now lying here, it will be some satisfaction to you to know that nothing shall prevent me from accompanying them in His Majesty's ship the Lion, whose force will, I trust, be sufficient for their protection.

From 1600 until 1833 the East India Company held a monopoly of all British trade with China. Private individuals, licensed by the Company to reside and trade in India, were permitted to carry on the so-called “Country” trade between India and China, and the commanders and officers of the Company's ships were permitted to carry on “Private” trade in minor articles and to a limited extent in tea and raw silk directly between England and China. With these exceptions British trade was a closed monopoly, but despite this favourable situation the Company found much to complain of because the Chinese had their own ideas of monopoly and of how foreign trade should be carried on.

The Honorable the President, and Chairman, of the Honorable the Court of Directors, under whose orders, and authority the Commerce of Great Britain is carried on with the Chinese Nation at Canton, to the high and mighty Lord, the Tsontock [Tsung-tu], or Viceroy, of the Provinces of Quantong [Kuangtung] and Kiang-si, Greeting.

Casual references in the chronicles of the time show that the Turkish kings of Delhi recognized, and on occasion utilized, the local functionaries—the headmen and registrar accountants of villages and parganas—who formed an integral part of the Hindu administrative system. No references to these functionaries have been traced under the Afghan kings, but they reappear in the Mogul period, the literature of which enables us to form some idea of the position and duties, as then understood, of three out of the four. The village headman, renamed muqaddam, represented the village in its dealings with the officials, and he was required in particular to be active in agricultural development by bringing the waste land of the village under the plough. The village registrar-accountant, who retained his Hindī name of paṭwārī, kept the records and accounts of the village, and was required to assist the officials in the assessment and collection of the revenue. In the same way the registrar-accountant of the pargana, renamed qānūngo, kept the records of the pargana; and when assessment was made on the village as a unit, his estimate of its capacity to pay was one of the indispensable data. The remaining functionary, the chaudhrī or headman of the pargana, scarcely appears in the chronicles of the period, while the administrative literature contains practically nothing to show what he was expected to do, or how he was remunerated; indeed the only reference to him which has been traced in the Āīn-i Akbarī is the statement (Jarrett, ii, 228) that in the province of Berār the chaudhrī was known as desmukh. This statement shows that the chaudhrī was a familiar figure in the north, but it shows nothing more.

18. The Taurine. On p. xxxiii Mr. Allan gives a group of eighteen symbols “ formed by combinations of taurine symbols. None of them are common, and most of them are characteristic of variations only ”. Three of these require notice. No. 6, No. 18, and No. 7, are shown the wrong way up, No. 6 in its perfect form occurs as one of the four class-marks on 147 of the Bhiṛ Mound coins (Class D), on many of which it is clear, as . The vertical line in symbol 6 is the shaft of a spear, the spear-head of which is in the centre of the mark.

The notices of Ibn Salama are short. Al-Nawawī (d. 1277) and Ibn Khallikān (d. 1282) make reference to him only in the biography of his son, Abū '1-Ṭaiyib, who died in 920.

Ibn Salama was a grammarian of the Kūfan school. He studied under his father, Salama ibn 'Āṣim, a friend of Al-Farrā' (d. 822) and teacher of Tha'lab (d. 904); but Yāqūt says that he departed from his father's views. The Fihrist, followed by Ibn Khallikān, says that he met Ibn al-A'rābi (d. 846) and other learned men. Yāqūt says that he studied under Ibn al-A'rābī, Tha'lab, Ibn al-Sikkīt (d. 860), and others.

1. The ancient Semitic poem here presented is inscribed in alphabetical cuneiform upon a clay tablet unearthed in 1933 at Ras esh-Shamrah (ancient Ugarit) on the north coast of Syria. The tablet dates approximately from the fifteenth-fourteenth century b.c. The text was first edited by M. Charles Virolleaud in the periodical Syria, xvii (1936), pp. 209–228, but the present interpretation differs toto cælo from that proposed in the editio princeps.

The famous Sāsānian bas-reliefs at Ṭāq-i Bustān, (A.D. 590–628) have so often been reproduced that it is highly probable that most Orientalists could picture the scenes in the mind's eye with little difficulty. Yet I do not suppose that any could give a correct delineation of the instruments of music contained therein for the simple reason that the reproductions of these sculptures have given so many different outlines for these instruments.

In a well-known collection of ritual notes, the Ta Tai Li (The Rites of the Elder Tai), considered to be earlier than the Han period (206 B.C.), there is a calendar section (No. 47), termed Hsia Hsiao Chêng (The Lesser Canon of the Hsia), which is traditionally regarded as a true relic of the Hsia dynasty (about 2000 B.C.). It was translated by DouglasR. K.Professor (Orientalia Antiqua, 1882) and was regarded by him and some other students as of great antiquity. On the other hand, it is very difficult to understand, in the light of modern discoveries as to the Shang culture (circa 1200 B.C.), how such a document could have been produced in 2000 B.C., and the more conservative students are unwilling to admit that it can be much older than, say, 500 B.C.

The history of the interpretation of the Song of Songs is a fascinating, if inconclusive, study in the ingenuity of the interpreters. Bach has but to bring to the Song what he desires to find in it, and behold! it lies plain before him. And hence the pages of the commentaries are strewn with the strange extravagances that have been imported to becloud its apparent meaning. The older allegorical theory has fallen into disrepute because it is recognized that it built on subjective fancies; the dramatic theories have also lost the favour they enjoyed in the nineteenth century because it is recognized that the edifying plots they displayed were merely the creations of their discoverers; the wedding-cycle theory has lost something of the impetus Budde gave it because, while its point of departure was not an editor's fancy but an actual modern practice, it has to be forced upon the Song across a great gulf of centuries rather than found there.

The image of the Buddha which is the most widely renowned and the most revered by Buddhists throughout Tibet and Central Asia is the image in the Jo-wo-Khang, the Great Temple at Lhasa. This image has been mentioned by many writers. Sarat Chandra Das says, “The image is exquisitely modelled and represents a handsome young prince. The Kunyer said that the image represented the Buddha when at the age of twelve, hence the princely apparel in which he is clothed and the dissimilarity of the image to those seen elsewhere.” The Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi also refers to the image, but does not describe it. But, until Sir Francis Younghusband's Mission reached Lhasa in 1904, it had not been described in detail by anyone who had seen it. It was then seen by certain of the officers on the Expedition, and has been described by Colonel L. A. Waddell, who was with the Mission as Principal Medical Officer, in his Book Lhasa and its Mysteries (1905), and by the late Mr. Perceval Landon, who was with the Mission as the Correspondent of The Times, in his book Lhasa (1905). These two descriptions differ as regards every detail and cannot be reconciled.

In the passage of nearly forty years since the first discovery of the Honan relics and their strange inscriptions, great has been the progress in their decipherment. How much and how solid this gain in knowledge has been, the present writer can perhaps appreciate better than more recent students, when he looks back at his own notes and the correspondence that passed betweenthe late Mr. Frank Chalfant and himself.

Every student of Indian history is familiar with the extraordinary event, quite unique in the annals of the Muslim dynasties in India, which took place in 1537, when Burhān Niẓām Shāh, the Sunni ruler of the Ahmadnagar state, in the Deccan, proclaimed Shi'ism the official religion of his kingdom. Indian historians offer only “popular” explanations for this important step, attributing it to religious zeal or the superstitious fears of the prince. It appears, however, that Burhān Niẓām Shāh (who reigned from 914/1508 to 961/1554), though nothing exceptional, was, nevertheless, quite a reasonable and statesmanlike ruler, who would hardly permit his religious emotions to carry him too far. It is therefore permissible to suspect some weightier motives behind this act, in the form of considerations connected with the policy of the then ascendant dynasty of the Safavids of Persia, which still remain unrevealed. As is known, both Shah Ismā'īl and Ṭahmāsp used to take much interest in Indian politics. In all this the central figure, who inspired the policy of Burhān Niẓām Shāh, was the rather enigmatic personality of a Persian emigrant, a learned theologian, philosopher, poet, stylist, and politician, Shāh Ṭāhir, surnamed Dakkanī and Ḥusaynī. It would be very interesting to study every side of his activities. This, however, would carry us too far; the present note is only intended to draw attention to quite an unexpected circumstance which presents this already extraordinary historical figure in a still more extraordinary light: some materials, recently discovered in Badakhshan, reveal that in reality he was regarded as an Ismaili Imam, a successor of the khudāwands of Alamūt, in a schismatic line of the Imams, which became extinct about two hundred years ago.

The duty of the pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Ka'ba (ḥajj), as imposed by Qur'ān 3: 91 on every Muslim, has been expounded in all the collections of traditions (ḥadīth) and all the textbooks of canonical law (fiqh). Historians dealt with the institution of the pilgrimage, and geographers described the sacred cities of Makka and Madīna as well as the surrounding country of al-Ḥijāz. The traditional and topical information about the pilgrimage had in time increased so much that in the sixth century A.H./twelfth century A.D. the celebrated Baghdād polyhistor Ibn al-Jauzī could compile it in a medium-sized handbook.

In the well-known doctrine of the Three Bodies of the Buddha, the physical and earthly manifestation is called a nirmāṇa-kāya, “a body of artifice” or even more literally “a body of measurement”; a body made, then, as images and other works of art are made, by a “measuring out” (root mā). In the Divyâvadāna, ch. xxxvii, the word nimittam is similarly used of the Buddha's appearance which he himself emanates and projects for Rudrâyaṇa's painters, who cannot grasp his likeness unaided. It may be remarked that Indian imagery is always as much or more an iconometry (tālamāna) than an iconography; and that all this has an important bearing on the pragmatic equivalence, in Buddhist iconodule theory, of the verbal, carnal, and fictile manifestations by means of which the Buddha is presented to the world in a likeness. Our present object, however, is rather to point out what has not been generally recognized hitherto, that prototypes of the expressions nirmāṇa-kāya and nimittam occur already in the Brāhmaṇas and Saṁhitās.