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SEPTEMBRE, 1889.)
MISCELLANEA.
281
the London fragment contains parts 11 and 12. discoveries made in Egypt in Tal-el-Amarna, The loss of the greater part of this manuscript is cuneiform tablets and rubAyat (a collection of much to be regretted. The eleventh part is portraits). Bezold has contributed further infor. entirely devoted to women, distinguished and mation to the Allgemeine Zeitung, his report undistinguished, free and slave, clever and stupid, being partly cornpiled from that of L. A. Budge. pre-islamite and post-islamite: their speeches, (3) Rosen adds a further note on the Essay and witticisms are introduced with many anec. by F. Hommel on Eduard Glaser's Reise nach dotes. The author gives some of the heads of Marib (in Südarabien). For all Arabists this the chapters which he noticed, as a supplement to book preserves great interest and throws much Dr. Rieu's work. In the twelfth part two poets light on the Early history of Yaman. especially deserve attention : Ahmad Ibn- (4) The Persian Version of the Story of Al-Karim has an elegy on an old shirt, the Varlaam and Joasaf. whole history of which the author lays before us: S. F. Oldenburg in a letter from London, dated the other gives a very realistic picture of the 17/29 of October has written to say that there is sufferings which were endured from the tar. a Persian Varlaam and Joasaf in the British gatherers, &c.
Museum. The MS. is without date: it came from The text of the London manuscript is very the Churchill collection, and belongs to the last mutilated. One chapter is devoted to the in- century. It is in tolik handwriting, and contains comparable verses' of various poets. The author
33 leaves. This MS., the speedy publication of was to all appearance a special worshipper of which would be very desirable, will perhaps give Nabigi. Among other things there is an Epistle the full text of the Musalman version of the of Abu'l Kabi Muhammad ibn-al-Lails to Con Romanoe, which in its Arabic form has no constantine, the emperor of the Greeks, which is no clusion. The opening lines of the MS. quoted doubt the same as the book of the Answer to in the letter of Oldenburg, give us the first Constantine in the name of Haran which the account of the Romance among Musalmans. Fihrist mentions among the works of that cele. The Ibn-Bataveih mentioned in this part, must brated secretary. It contains an enthusiastic be the celebrated Abu-Ja'far-Muhammad ibndefence of Islam, with a quantity of citations from 'All-ibn-Bataveth-al-Kummi, ob. A.L. 381(A.D. the Old and New Testament, and deserves notice 991), whom the Shi'a authors considered the best of as one of the oldest specimens of Muhammadan the scholars that came from Kumm, and one polemic with Christianity. The Epistle appears to 1 of the most notable Shra teachers. He com. be complete.
piled about 300 books, of which a few are The rest of the MS. contains letters and preserved in the great European libraries. There fragments. Enough will have been said to shew is also mention in the same passage of Abuthe character and importance of this anthology. Bakr Muhammad Ibn-Zakari-ar-Rant, the
We see from this manuscript that (1) the celebrated philosopher, surgeon and polyhistor, ancient poems, or mu'allahs, as they were called in who died probably A.H. 320. Among his numer. later times, in the time of our author, i.e. the ous productions is the Book of the man who has third century A.H., already formed a subject of not a surgeon at hand, a short guide to medicine. study. (2) The Khalifa • Abdu'l-Malik collected Ar-Razi was a many-sided writer, among other seven pieces of poetry, which up to that time things on Ethics, and in his works we might hope had never been gathered into any recueil. to tind mention of the Romance ; moreover be Among this number were six pre-islamite; and, was not unacquainted with foreign languages. strange to say, there was not one production of (5) N. Miednikov: on the coin No. 1 of the the Yaman or South-Arabian races. Finally, it collection of A. V. Komarov. is curious that our author does not make On a previous page is described the 'Abbast use of the term mu'allah, and knows nothing fels coined at Merv, A.H. 156, in the reign of the about the mu'allihs or any other ancient poems, Khalifa Al-Mahdi. Here an inaccuracy has crept which were written in golden letters and hung at in, inasmuch as Al-Mahdi ruled from 158 to 169 the Ka'aba: 80 we must consider Ibn 'Abd-u'r. A.H. (A.D. 275-785). This fels was not coined in Rabbi, as the oldest author acquainted with this the time of Al-Mahdi, but in that of his predelegend.
oessor Al-Mansur. (2) The latest discoveries in Egypt and Criticism and Bibliography. Southern Arabia.
1 8. Georgievski. An analysis of the Chinese V. S. Golenistchev has already communicated Characters, &c. St. Petersburg, 1888. on pp. 121-126 of the Journal of the Russian. The book is uncritical: the author connects the Archeological Society, some notes on the Chinese language among others with the Aryan.
