De Blois Budapest

239 Reviews of Books segmentation is surely far less counter-intuitive than the alternative, which both ignores the division suggested by the repetition of a whole cycle and assigns the same note to both segments, a particularly odd procedure as the resulting first segment stands alone as a separate subspecies, and one, moreover, that appears in no other piece. However derived, the units are organized broadly according to the identity of the finalis and then divided into subgroups on the basis of motivic affinity, with a final abstract conflation of each providing a useful overview. It is a pity that this final major publication by a scholar who has contributed so much to our understanding of Arab music in the twentieth century cannot be recommended unreservedly. Its peculiar unevenness may be ascribed in part to its being potentially two (or more) research enterprises uncomfortably yoked together; and it would certainly have benefitted from the advice of the expert editor who has now all but vanished from the field of academic publication, even when a work is to be produced as handsomely as this. But despite serious reservations about the introductory chapters, the extensive core of transcriptions together with the analysis thereof not only provides invaluable material for further comparative research but constitutes a significant achievement in its own right; and the performance itself glows enticingly as it builds upon the mood established by the very opening lines: L <U1L OWEN WRIGHT PROCEEDINGS OF THE ARABIC AND ISLAMIC SECTIONS OF THE 35m INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ASIAN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES (1CANAS), Part one. Edited by KINGA D'EVENYI and TAMAS IVANYI. (The Arabist, Budapest studies in Arabic, 19-20). pp. v, 272. Budapest, Eotvos Lorand University Chair for Arabic Studies & Csoma de Koros Society Section of Islamic Studies, 1998. The 35th international congress of Asian and North African studies was held in Budapest in July 1997 and the volume under review contains papers on Arabic subjects, specifically linguistics, literature and history. The papers in the linguistics section are: M. G. Carter, "the term mu<jari' in the Kitab of Sibawayhi"; 'Allal-Hamad, ["The terms 'u$/and'»$«/in grammatical writings"; in Arabic], S. I. Sara, "The phonetics of al-Azhari"; Ahmed Mokhtar Omer, "The establishment of Arabic in Egypt"; A. Hanafi, "Two private letters" [edition of two fragmentary papyri from the Tulunid period]; A. Shivtiel, "Arabisms in Hebrew"; L. I. Torlakova, "Some cultural and ethnic elements in modern standard Arabic idioms"; A. R. H. Ismail, "The accountability of Arabic language programme to the social needs: a case study [sic]"; 'All Muhammad Ghalib al-Mikhlafi, "Standard Arabic and the instruction at the University of San'a'"; [in Arabic]; G. M. Rosenbaum, "Address forms in [modern] Egyptian literature". Those in the literature section are: D. A. Riedel, "Medieval Arabic literature between history and psychology: Gustave von Grunebaum's approach to literary criticism"; Husang A'lam, "The Arabic translation of Dioscorides' de materia medica by Mihran b. Mansur in comparison with the older translation by Stephanos and Hunayn b. Ishaq" [with specimens of the unpublished translation by Mihran]; H. Jamsheer, "Great Arab modernist thinkers of the 20th century: the case of Taha Husayn"; K. Skarzynska-Bochenska, "Errance et patrie dans la poesie d'Adonis"; E. MachutMendecka, "The warring Sheherezade: tradition and folklore in the Iraqi drama"; B. Rayhanova, "The image of the countryside in the modern Syrian novel"; B. Michalak-Pikulska, "Painting in the literary output of Turayya al-Baqsaml". https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186300012591 Published online by Cambridge University Press 240 Reviews of Books Those in the history section are: M. H. Yahaya, "The people of al-Ayyam and their roles during the early Arab conquest of Iraq"; I. Hajnal, "The pseudo-mahdl intermezzo of the Qaramita in Bahrayn" [see below]; Mahmoud Said Omran, "Edward I, King of England, and the holy land (Jerusalem)"; B. Major, "Crusader towers of the terre de calife and its vicinity"; K. Yusoff, "Egypt and Nuba in the 13th century: a preliminary note"; Z. Szombathy, "al-QazwInl on the characters [51c] of ethnic groups in his Atar al-bilad"; A. R. Yaccob, "Ottoman-Arab relations and the formation of the modern state of Yaman"; E. Tauber, "The political life of Rasid Rida". Concerning the paper on the Qaramifah, the reviewer must declare an interest. Fourteen years ago I too published an article on "The 'Abu Sa'idls, or so-called 'Qarmatians' of Bahrayn", which appeared (unfortunately not proof-read and thus with a large number of printing errors) in Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (PSAS) xvi (1986), pp. 13-21. I take the liberty of quoting the following paragraph from that article:1 This brings us to the enigmatic events in the autumn of 931 when 'Abu Tahir handed over power to a young Persian from Isfahan, only to depose and kill him 80 days later. The accounts of this incident differ radically one from the other. One group of sources, represented by Thabit ibn Sinan, who is followed by Miskawayh and Ibn al-'Athir, states that "Abu Tahir was tricked into relinquishing power by his minister, Ibn Sanbar, who wanted to use the Isfahan? to get rid of one of his opponents. The impostor proceeded to kill a large number of people until he was demasked by 'Abu Tahir and put to death. Another rather more lurid version, given by Ibn Rizam and followed in the main by Bayriini and 'Abd al-Jabbar, makes 'Abu Tahir declare that the Isfahan? is god incarnate, that he is restoring the true "religion of Adam" and has him order the people curse [read: to curse] all the other prophets. The Persian then commands them to commit sodomy, marry their own sisters and the like. After a while 'Abu Tahir discovers that he had been deceived and has the Isfahan? killed. The reader may wish to compare this with the following passage from Hajnal's article in the volume under review (pp. 190-1): However, the reports on his appearance are contradictory, confused, and differ radically from one another. One group of sources, represented by Tabit b. Sinan, who is followed by Miskawayhi (. . .) and Ibn al-Atir (. . .), states that Abu Tahir was deceived into giving up power by his chief da't, Ibn Sanbar, who wanted to use the Isfahan! to throw out one of his opponents. Then the Isfahan! proceeded to kill some prominent Qarmaf! leaders and others until he was exposed by Abu Tahir and put to death. Another, rather more astonishing, version given by Ibn Rizam and mostly adapted by 'Abdalgabbar (. . .) and partially by Nizam al-Mulk (. . .), makes Abu Tahir declare that the Isfahan! is god incarnate, and that he is restoring the true "religion of Adam" and has ordered the people to curse all the other prophets. He also commanded them to commit debaucheries and the like. After a while Abu Tahir discovered that he had been duped and had the Isfahan! murdered. The author does not alert his readers to the fact that these two paragraphs are lifted more or less verbatim from an earlier writer. Similarly, on p. 199 Hajnal compares the passage in the Safarnama 1 PSAS xvi (1986), p. 18. I would wish to qualify one of the statements in this passage: Although the (lost) history of Thabit b. Sinan as-Sabi' is clearly one of the principal sources used by Miskawayh and Ibn al-'Athlr for this period, I do not now believe that the work published as Thabit's 'Akbaru l-qaramitah has anything to do with him and have expressed in print the opinion that the latter is "a clumsy forgery knocked together out of extracts from Ibn al-'Athlr"; see El2, art. Sabi". The El article has presumably been overlooked by Hajnal, who quotes repeatedly from pseudo-Thabit. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186300012591 Published online by Cambridge University Press Reviews of Books 241 of Nasir i Khusraw about how the people of 'Ahsa' kept a bridled horse ready at the tomb of 'Abu Said for him to ride when he rises from the dead with a similar statement in the Risalatu l-ghujrfin of al-Ma'arri; here again it would have been better if he had called attention to the fact that the two passages had already been confronted with each other in my paper of 1986, pp. 16-17. The article in PSAS xvi is indeed listed in Hajnal's bibliography (though he has apparently overlooked the followup article in PSAS xvii, 1987, pp. 21-35, which is also of relevance for his subject) and on pp. 195-6 he criticises some of the conclusions in the former article. Of course, that is his right. The author believes, perhaps, that the fact that he has included some earlier publication in the bibliography gives him right to plunder it whenever he likes and that he needs to mention his predecessors by name only when he disagrees with them. But this is not (not yet) accepted practice in international scholarship. Otherwise, Hajnal's account of the Qaramifah follows closely Madelung's well-known article "Fafimiden und Bahrainqarmaten" in Der Islam xxxiv (1959), pp. 34-88, and does not have very much new to say. But alongside the correct information lifted from the author's acknowledged and unacknowledged sources there are also a number of false statements. On p. 191 he writes that "according to al-Blrunl (Atar 313), the date of the Isfahanl's arrival was chosen to coincide with the passing of 1,500 years from the death of Zoroaster". But the passage (which is actually on p. 213 of the book by Blrunl/Bayruni) states merely that the arrival of the false prophet of the Qaramitah happened to coincide with the 1500th anniversary of Zoroaster's death, not that it "was chosen" to coincide with the same. On pp. 198-9 he claims that in the "post-intermezzo period of Qarmap statehood . . . the Islamic rite was restored to its rightful position" and that Nasir i Khusraw reported that "the Qaramita of Bahrayn still believed they were in the era of the Prophet of (sic) Muhammad and Islam". In fact Nasir writes only that they acknowledge that Muhammad is a prophet, that is, one prophet among others, while at the same time stressing that they do not pray and fast, that they have no Friday mosque and that they eat the flesh of all animals; thus there can be no question of their having "restored the Islamic rite". FRANCOIS DB BLOIS MUSIC AND SONG IN PERSIA. THE ART OF AVAZ. By LLOYD MILLER, pp. iv, 360. Richmond, Curzon, 1999An aspect of performance much appreciated by savants of the art music of Iran is the practice, called morakkab navazi, of skilfully moving from one mode to another in the course of a single piece. Its proficient execution requires a thorough understanding of the dastgah modal system and is one of the criteria by which masters are distinguished from lesser musicians. It is perhaps surprising, given the subject matter of the work under review, that no reference is made to morakkab navazi in Music and Song in Persia. Its principles however could well have been applied to the writing of a book in which speculative notions are mixed indiscriminately with historical, analytical and descriptive material. At the very least, the judicious organisation of the content of this volume would have allowed the establishment of a modality by which to judge the often preposterous pronouncements on Persian music. In his preface, Miller eschews the methods of "occidental writers who prefer to follow thefieldsof ethnomusicology, historiography, philosophy, and maybe even semiotics". This is an intriguing statement, and coupled with the author's claim to have derived musical knowledge "directlyfromthe spring of wisdom protected by native masters rather than considering befuddled observations several generations removed from the source", sets up the exciting prospect that we are about to be offered a real alternative to the tired disciplines of our forefathers. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1356186300012591 Published online by Cambridge University Press