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SEPTEMBER, 1888.]
subscriptions to periodicals and Societies connected with their studies, that the best of them are loth to add to the already too long list. So that, unless a scientific subject is sufficiently wide in its scope to demand a journal to itself, the danger of starting a new journal is that its circulation will be very small and fail to reach those who would make the best use of its contents. It is, we submit, better for the South-Indian numismatists to
use the pages of any established and widely circulated journal they may think best suited to them, than to start a journal of their own.
With this one criticism, we have much pleasure
in giving the scheme our welcome and heartiest support.
MISCELLANEA.
الأول
(whale), which is from four to five hundred 'Umari cubits long; these are the cubits in use in this sea (the Sea of Zang
267
take flight when they see this little fish, for it is their destruction."
The usual length of this fish is one (برا لزيج
A little further on the author mentions an island called "Whale Island" (J), but I am unable to identify it.
WHALE AND AL-UWAL.
I have no reason to suppose that the usual derivation of the word whale from the Anglo-y Saxon hwol is incorrect; but the word used for this animal by the old Arab traveller, Mas'udi (A.D. 1601-1603), in his Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, is curiously similar, and I do not think that attention has previously been drawn to it. The following is a translation of one of the passages in which it occurs :
"There is a fish in this sea called al-Uwal
The word dabâdab, used for a drum in the above passage, corresponds to the Old English "dub-adub," to beat a drum. Also, the blow on the
drum: "The dub-a-dub of honour."-"Rub-a-dub and dub-a-dub the drummer beats away."
TABSERET-UL-AVAM.
This work, the full title of which is padlögmaḍ has been lithographed for the first time in Persia, at Tehran, and bears A.H. 1304 in the colophon as the date of publication. It is sold bound up with the Qisas-ul-'Ulamd of Muhammed bin Sulaimân Tenekâbunt, and is an Exposition of the principal Creeds of the East. Its author, a zealous Shi'ah, is Sayyid Murteza, styled 'Alem-ulHuda. In a MS. copy which once passed through my hands the author was called Murtezâ Râzîul-Husaint. The Qisas-ul-'Ulama which precedes it contains (page 314) a notice of Sayyid Murtezâud-Dâ'i ar-Râzî-ul-Husaint, and it makes him out to be the author of the Tabsereh. At the same time it gives an anecdote of his relations with Abu Muhammed bin Muhammed al-Ghazâli-utTúsi (born A.H. 450, died A.H. 505), whilst Sayyid Murteza in his own work, in the chapter on the doctrines of the second sect of Islâm, those who call themselves Shi'ahs (page 65, line 27 of the edition under notice), mentions that Fakhr Râzî was of late times-that is to say modern in com
hundred fathoms (P). Frequently when it swims through the sea only the extremities of the two fins are to be seen, and it looks like the sail of a ship. Generally the head of the whale is out of water, and when it powerfully ejects water it gushes into the air more than one bowshot high. The vessels are afraid of it by day and night, and they beat drums (parison with himself. Fakhr Râzî died A.H. 606. dabadab) and wooden poles to drive it away. This fish drives with its tail and fins other fish into its open mouth, and they pass down its throat with the stream of water. When the whale sins God sends a fish about one cubit long, called ash-Shake (1); it adheres to the root of its tail, and the whale has no means to make itself free from it. It goes therefore to the bottom of the sea and beats itself to death; its dead body floats on the water and looks like a great mountain. The fish called ash-Shak adheres frequently to the whale. The whales, notwithstanding their size, do not approach vessels, and they
Besides the present work, Sayyid Murteza translated a genealogy of some of the Imams from the Arabic, a work written after A.H. 653, and entitled Ansáb Námeh.
1 Gulf of Aden ?
As this word probably owes it origin to an imitative sound, the similarity even in two widely
different languages is not surprising.
J. S. KING.
The Tabeereh is divided into the following twenty-six babs :-(1) On the doctrines of the philosophers. (2) Tenets of the Magi. (3) Tenets of the Jews, etc. (4) The doctrines of the different sects of Islam. (5) On the Khavarij. (6) On the Mu'tazileh. (7) On the seot founded by Jahur bin Safrån. (8) On the Murji sect. (9) On the Najjart sect. (10) On the Karâmî sect. (11) On the Mushabi sect. (12) On those who
