The articles in this volume cover a wide variety of themes, mainly in the fields of history and social anthropology, with one paper on a literary topic, making this a book of multi-disciplinary interest for those specialising in the study of the Arabian peninsula. Topics range from a beekeeping project in the Yemen Arabic Republic to weights and measures in Mecca during the late Ayyubid and Mamluk periods.

The hero cycles of Arabic belong to the literary tradition of The Arabian Nights and can be seen as the popular epics of their civilisation. The Arabian epic covers eleven of the main representatives of this genre. Each of these has been developed through the processes of accretive oral story-telling by means of an accumulation of narrative and folklore motifs, many of which belong to what can be seen as a universal tradition. The work is published in three volumes. The first volume introduces the background and the dimensions in which the cycles are set, while the second volume analyses...

The hero cycles of Arabic belong to the literary tradition of The Arabian Nights and can be seen as the popular epics of their civilization. The Arabian Epic covers ten of the main representatives of this genre. Each of these has been developed through the processes of oral storytelling through an accumulation of narrative and folklore motifs, many of which belong to what can be seen as a universal tradition. This work is published in three volumes. The first volume introduces the background and the dimensions in which the cycles are set, while the second volume analyzes their contents and...

The hero cycles of Arabic belong to the literary tradition of The Arabian Nights and can be seen as the popular epics of their civilisation. The Arabian epic covers ten of the main representatives of this genre. Each of these has been developed through the processes of accretive oral story-telling by means of an accumulation of narrative and folklore motifs, many of which belong to what can be seen as a universal tradition. The work is published in three volumes. The first volume introduces the background and the dimensions in which the cycles are set, while the second volume analyses their...

While the Syriac version of the Old Testament, known as the Peshitta, was translated from a Hebrew text, it was, surprisingly, preserved by the eastern churches alone. In his book, M. W. Weitzman argues that the translation was put together in around 200 CE by a small Jewish community estranged from the Rabbinic majority. This community eventually embraced Christianity and brought the Peshitta with them. This remarkable theory is the prelude to a comprehensive analysis of the Peshitta itself, which covers all the books in the Bible, surveys the existing scholarship and explores the...

This is a study of an aspect of the ethnohistory of North Indian peasant society: the importance of its military labor market for state and sect formation, for social change and for the energetic survival strategies of the village of Hindustan. It traces the history of the British Indian sepoy back to the fifteenth century, firmly rooting him in India's medieval past. It also shows that, from the anthropological point of view, it was not the hierarchically arranged castes, but rather the multiple alliances and fluid identities of the peasantry that were the central phenomena of North Indian...

This study examines how religious authority was distributed in early Islam. It argues the case that, as in Shi'ism, it was concentrated in the head of state, rather than dispersed among learned laymen as in Sunnism. Originally the caliph was both head of state and ultimate source of religious law; the Sunni pattern represents the outcome of a conflict between the caliph and early scholars who, as spokesmen of the community, assumed religious leadership for themselves. Many Islamicists have assumed the Shi'ite concept of the imamate to be a deviant development. In contrast, this book argues...

This broad-ranging examination of Chinese state and court ritual from 1000 BC to AD 1750 represents the first modern account of the subject in any language. The essays, written by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field, demonstrate how and why ritual has played such a fundamental and often controversial role in the practice of Chinese politics. The book will be of interest to students of Chinese history and religion, as well as those seeking to understand the legacy of that history in the context of modern China.

Judith Hadley deploys recent archaeological discoveries, alongside biblical material and nonbiblical inscriptions, to examine the evidence for the worship of Asherah as the partner of God in the Bible. She asks how Israelites construed the relationship between "Yahweh and his Asherah," and whether in fact the term referred to an object of worship rather than a female deity. This is a well-crafted study that promises to make a significant contribution to the debate about the exact nature of Asherah and her significance in pre-exilic Israel and Judah.

This examination of the interaction between state and society greatly contributes to our understanding of medieval India. The Mughal empire, one of the most powerful states in pre-British India with an impressive administrative structure and an aristocratic high culture, has long held a fascination for historians. Exploring the Mughal State on the basis of extant local documents not previously treated by historians, this book demonstrates that the state was deeply entangled with social forces.