Aden, of old one of the main Eurasian ports for goods from China, Southeast Asia and India on their way to the Mediterranean lands, was controlled during the 13th - 15th centuries by the Rasūlid dynasty. One of their kings, al-Malik al-Afḍal al- 'Abbās b. 'Alī (1363-1377) wrote multilingual glossaries (vocabularia) of extraordinary importance, universally termed the Rasūlid Hexaglot. Its emergence caused quite a stir (e.g. New York Times, February 1981), and it is with pride that we now present our customers with the authoritative translation,...

This is the first comprehensive, scholarly work on the military history of Inner and Central Asian peoples, including Turks, Uighurs, Mongols and Manchus, over a long period. Based on original documentary sources, this is the only scholarly work specifically devoted to Inner Asian military history.

This comparative and etymological dictionary of the more than fifty languages traditionally classified as Altaic is arguably the most comprehensive, systematic work as yet on the subject. Subdivided into five branches: Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu, Korean and Japanese, it deals with the entire Altaic family. The introduction contains a detailed account of the phonetic correspondences between Altaic languages, as well as their morphological and lexical characteristics. The body of the dictionary presents almost 3000 lexical matches between different subgroups of Altaic, with Proto-Altaic...

The Sogdian Traders were the main go-between of Central Asia from the fifth to the eighth century. From their towns of Samarkand, Bukhara, or Tashkent, their diaspora is attested by texts, inscriptions or archaeology in all the major countries of Asia (India, China, Iran, Turkish Steppe, but also Byzantium). This survey for the first time brings together all the data on their trade, from the beginning, a small-scale trade in the first century BC up to its end in the tenth century. It should interest all the specialists of Ancient and Medieval Asia (including specialists of Sinology, Islamic...

This volume, a product of international collaboration, presents readers with the state of the field in Khazar Studies. The Khazar Empire (ca. 650 - ca. 965-969), one of the largest states of medieval Eurasia, extended from the Middle Volga lands in the north to the Northern Caucasus and Crimea in the south and from the Ukrainians steppelands to the western borders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the east. Turkic in origin, it played a key role in the history of the peoples of Rus', medieval Hungary and the Caucasus. Khazaria became one of the great trans-Eurasian trading terminals connecting...

This book unravels some of the complex factors that allowed or hampered the presence of (certain aspects of) Buddhism in the regions to the north and the east of India, such as Central Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, or Korea.

This dictionary offers a complete compilation and a historical-comparative reflection of the hereditary lexis of the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) language family. With this significantly enlarged (e.g. more than a thousand new etymologies) and revised successor of Surab Sardsheweladse's and Heinz Fahnrich's earlier dictionary (Brill, 1995) the author here represents the latest stage of etymological research. The dictionary contains a wealth of new lexical entries, corrections of earlier attempts and new reconstructions. The introduction provides a survey of general data of the four Kartvelian...

At long last, with Professor Fahnrich's Georgische Sprache here is a systematic description of the structure of the Georgian language. The book is divided into two parts, one for Old and the other for Modern Georgian. A separate section treats the main differences between the two. Illustrated by a wealth of examples, an overview is given of characteristic features, the stages of development, phonetics, morphonology, morphology (word formation, formation of grammatical forms), syntax and aspects of the Georgian vocabulary. The introduction presents readers with general information on...

Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries brings together ten original studies on historical aspects of Sufism in this region. A central question, of ongoing significance, underlies each contribution: what is the relationship between Sufism as it was manifested in this region prior to the Russian conquest and the Soviet era, on the one hand, and the features of Islamic religious life in the region during the Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras on the other? The authors address multiple aspects of Central Asian religious life rooted in Sufism,...

For generations, Central Asian Muslims have told legends of medieval rulers who waged war, died in battle, and achieved sainthood. Among the Uyghurs of East Turkistan (present-day Xinjiang, China), some of the most beloved legends tell of the warrior-saint Satuq Bughra Khan and his descendants, the rulers of the Qarakhanid dynasty. To this day, these tales are recited at the saints' shrines and retold on any occasion. Warrior Saints of the Silk Road introduces this rich literary tradition, presenting the first complete English translation of the Qarakhanid narrative cycle along with an...