498 Reviews

and cultural change under the impact of Europe, but the struggle for strategic bases and
for the oil in the region, and the struggle for Palestine. At the end of the period of
which he writes, Italy, Germany, France, the Soviet Union, and the Palestinian Arabs
are represented as losers, while the Zionists and in some respects the Arab states and the
United States are the winners. Sachar thinks the experiment was also worth while for
Britain: ' T h e Mediterranean-Persian Gulf route of supply more than fulfilled its
historic role as the life-line to India. In the early years of World War II it was altogether
the indispensable artery of British survival' (pp. 614-15).
The drama of the Middle East, some acts of which are admirably described in this
book, is not likely to end soon; the more valuable is this comprehensive survey of a
crucial period.
ALEXANDER SCHOLCH
Institiit fur Islatnwissenschaft der Freien Universitat,
Berlin, West Germany

DEREK HOPWOOD and DIANA GRIMWOOD-JONES (ed.), Middle East and Islam: A
Bibliographical Introduction (Switzerland and Great Britain: Inter-Documentation
Company, 1972). Pp. 368. 69 Swiss francs.
This volume consists of thirty-one bibliographical essays arranged under five headings:
reference, Islamic studies, subject bibliographies, regional bibliographies, and Arabic
language and literature. The scope of the work is broad, but not as broad as its title
suggests, and one suspects that its coverage was ultimately determined by the willing-
ness of potential contributors. For example,, there is a welcome chapter on Islam in
Indonesia, but none on Islam in India and Pakistan; and the four essays in the section
entitled 'Arabic language and literature' are not paralleled by chapters dealing with
Persian, Turkish, or any other literature. These are gaps that teachers, librarians, and
students will have to fill themselves.
The twenty-six contributors have dealt with their topics in different ways, and this
constitutes the main difficulty in using the book. Almost every author begins with a
brief essay on the bibliography of his topic, outlining his approach and stating the
problems, and in some chapters the essay is more enlightening than what follows. The
lists themselves may be long or short, and the items listed may be annotated fully,
briefly, or not at all. Thus a reader has no assurance that a given chapter will be useful
for him. Librarians may find the lists of authors and titles helpful in developing their
collections, while students may profit more from the chapters with annotations.
The authors cite works in a number of languages, both Western and Middle Eastern,
and give adequate bibliographical information.
6 n b r
J.DENNIS HYDE
University of Pennsylvania

IRFAN SHAHID, The Martyrs ofNajran: New Documents. Subsidia hagiographica, no. 49
(Socie'te' des Bollandistes, Brussels, 1971). Pp. 306.
In an important new study Professor Irfan Shahid reopens the tantalizingly half-
obscured history of the Christians ofNajran martyred by the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas -
an event that left its impression on oriental Christian circles in the sixth century A.D.,
and whose memory is perpetuated in the Koran - such a wholesale massacre being an
atrocity possibly unusual in tribal Arabia.
So thoroughly immersed is Professor Shahid in his study of this topic that, at first
 Reviews 499

sight at least, it is a little difficult for those less well versed than he is to find their way in
his discussion of the new MSS of which he treats here. His is an absorbing account,
however, of a hunt for MSS, following up clues that remained unobserved by earlier
scholars, with that persistence and patience which are a prerequisite for any person who
tries to trace MSS in oriental collections - in this case in the Christian monasteries of
the Levant - a time-consuming process all too often fraught with disappointment. The
tale in condensed form, as I understand it, runs as follows.
There was, first of all, a new letter of Simeon of Beth Arsham in a Karshuni codex
containing the translation of the letter from the original in Syriac, made at a Mardin
monastery in 1733-4. This codex is now in St Mark's Monastery at Jerusalem. Though
known to Georg Graf as early as 1913 it seems to have attracted no attention. On learning
of the Syriac original mentioned in the Karshuni codex Professor Shahid set to negotiat-
ing and searching for this Syriac original which eventually turned up in the Patriarchal
Library at Damascus. The Patriarch, when his notice was drawn to the existence of the
MS, published an account of it in al-Majallat al-Bafriyarkiyah (xxxiv [1965] and
subsequent issues), ultimately collecting and publishing these articles in a monograph
entitled al-Shuhadd' al-Himyariyun. It seems unlikely that these articles will have
much scientific value.
Professor Shahid now turned to the Martyriutn Arethae, Arabic texts of which were
already known to exist in St Catharine's Monastery in Sinai - here his task was much
easier since Professor A. S. Atiya had catalogued the Monastery's Arabic MSS and
microfilms of them are available in the Library of Congress. There are no fewer than
four copies of the Martyriutn.
He sums up their relation as follows (p. 9): 'Just as the new Letter is a link between
the old Letter of Simeon and the Book of the Himyarites, so is the Arabic version of the
Martyriutn Arethae the link between the Greek and Ethiopic (BHO 105) - or possibly
the Coptic - versions.'
The new Letter (with material additional to that in Simeon's earlier Letter) contains
neither the name of the writer nor the recipient, but Professor Shahid produces ample
evidence to support his contention that the author is indeed Simeon of Beth Arsham,
and he also makes suggestions as to the possible recipient. The anonymity of the writer
and recipient he surmises may be because it was written in the Ghassanid camp at
Cbita (al-Jabiyah), and care was necessary lest it fall into enemy hands.
This Monophysite Letter is, in any event, a source for Near Eastern history, ecclesi-
astical or profane, and throws special light on three groups in the sixth century - the
Harithis of Najran, the Ghassanids, and the Lakhmids. Professor Shahid reproduces
facsimiles of all the new documents he examines, and he provides an edition of the
Syriac text of the new Letter. There is a biography of Simeon, and he discusses at great
length the Book of the Himyarites, giving some attention also to the Arabic, Ethiopic,
and Greek versions of the Martyriutn Arethae.
It is argued by Professor Shahid after examining the relationship of Simeon's
various Letters, that he is the author of the Book of the Himyarites - which for Moberg,
its editor, was anonymous. Both are based on written documents and oral reports, the
latter from South Arabs of Najran, mainly eyewitnesses. The four Arabic copies of
the Martyriutn Arethae are compared as to their contents - the earliest is in Kufic
script and assigned to the A.D. tenth century - which is indeed early. He concludes that
' the Martyriutn Arethae was based upon a primary source, the Book of the Himyarites,
that the hagiographer availed himself also of other sources which supplemented what
the Book may have left out. But the Martyrium belongs to the category of hagiographic
works, unlike the Book, which is essentially a chronicle.'
The evidences of Christianity in southern Arabia tend to be confirmed by the work
500 Reviews

of the Cambridge group which worked in the Yemen in the summer of 1972, finding
capitals to columns of Byzantine provincial types reused in mosques in Shibam,
Kawkaban, Jiblah, and elsewhere. As Professor Shahid says, the credibility of the erec-
tion of a church in Tyfr (zafar) needs little argumentation. The Jews at Najran burned
the church there with the martyrs inside it - its remains might presumably be discovered
in the large ruin-field there - the present-day town of Najran is built of adobe. Perhaps
the cruelties perpetrated on the Najranis may have been to blame on the Jews of Tiberias
who were with the Himyarites, for one would not expect one south Arabian tribe to
maltreat another in this way. A Roman arch-presbyter burned in the church of Najran
is called Sergios, and three presbyters were sent to Hadramawt where they were killed.
I have already indicated the existence of a mosque of the pre-Islamic ' prophet' Sarjis
in the Haddrami capital Tarim in BSOAS (London), xxn, 3 (1959), 574-5.
A new point made by the author is that the Jewish king known as Dhu Nuwas had
at one time, before the second Ethiopian invasion, become a Christian before his
ultimate turning to Judaism. In one text of the Arabic version of the Martyrium he is
called FNHAS - it may be remarked that in the Sirah of I. Hisham (trans. A. Guil-
laume, 263,269) one of Muhammad's opponents, the Jewish rabbi Finhas, is mentioned,
and, in al-Waqidi's Maghdzi, 756, there is a Jew Ibn Funhus. Of the other names by
which the Jewish king is known, these being treated at some length, Masruq need not
be a pejorative nickname - two Arab personages called Masruq are cited by Ibn
Duraid in his Ishtiqdq, although his derivation of the name is to be rejected. Could it
not in fact be a name given a child against the evil eye, or have some connection with pre-
Islamic religion ? One thinks of the Aden term mushtard, a child whose existence has
been purchased from a saint. Jewish links with Mecca would be fairly close - Ibn
al-Habib (Munammaq, 94) has a tale of a Najran Jew, Udhainah who took protection
with Muhammad's ancestor 'Abd al-Muttalib so as to trade in the Hijaz.
In the new Letter there is a reference, of great importance to Arabists, to 'the
Najranite language', showing that the original despatches were in an Arabian tongue -
these were read at the camp of the Ghassanid king, himself an Arab. One can hardly
•dissent from Professor Shahid's contention that this language was in all probability
Arabic, though the script in which they were written remains an open question. This
leads the author into discussing whether there existed pre-Islamic translations of the
Christian scriptures or parts thereof (p. 249).
The Letter has often little touches that are quite Arabian. Women voluntarily join
the martyrs in the burning church crying' Let us enjoy the scent of the priests' (p. 47).
It is just possible this may have some link with the Hadrami practice of sniffing the
hands of the Saiyids. The Jewish king confronts the freeborn men of Najran, and (p. 61)
a child says he is the son of freeborn men and the son of sons of freeborn men. This
recalls the ahrdr of the pre-Islamic 'Uqlah inscriptions near Shabwah. A freeborn
woman ' whose face no one had ever seen outside the door of her house and who had
never walked during the day in the city' (p. 57), goes out openly to insult the Jewish king
and is martyred - she is buried at the edge of Lwdya (Ar. al-awdiyah, the valleys). So
might a Muslim writer describe a noble Hadrami Sharifah. By contrast another woman
is described as ' masculine in her deeds' - in Arabic tnustarjil, a type of woman who if
she engages in fighting, tribal law, according to MSS in my possession, makes special
provision. On page 61 and 95, the puzzling reference to making a cross between the
eyes may in some way be similar to the Hadrami practice of marking a newly born babe
on the same spot for protection against the evil eye - this is as old as the time of
Muhammad.
It is interesting that so long ago the Syriac writer should treat Dhu Raidan as a
single compound word (p. 66) for medieval, perhaps also later, Islamic writers treat
 Reviews 501

the name of Dhu Marmar, the celebrated fortress near San'a', in exactly the same way.
On pages 54 and 83 the word JW appears to cause some difficulty - but it is a quite
familiar term in those areas for the flat open country before one comes to the sands of
the Empty Quarter. There is for example Jaww Kudaif near Baihan.
Professor Irfan Shahid has evidently thought very carefully over the complex issues
raised by his study, and his volume is rich in ideas which one would like to pursue
further. For those Arabists who are unfamiliar with the Syriac character it would have
been easier to distinguish correspondences with Arabic material through language had
the Syriac in the notes been presented in transliteration, and the number of scholars
readily conversant with Syriac cannot be great. Now that so many parts of southern
Arabia have been opened to research this book has a particularly current interest, and
all praise is due to Professor Shahid for re-examining the Najran episode with such a
wealth of useful comment.
R. B. SERJEANT
Cambridge University

K. A. FARIQ, A History of Arabic Literature (Printed for the Indian Institute of Islamic
Studies by Vikas Publications, Delhi, 1972).
The title is too inclusive: Professor Fariq ends his survey around A.D. 660. After some
ancillary chapters on language and ethnography, there follows an enumeration of
poets, with a wealth of anecdotal detail. The last fifteen pages of text deal with the
beginnings of hadith, tafsir, andfiqh.There are some samplings of poetry and of speeches
attributed to the period covered in the book; originals generally accompany the English
versions.
There are some bizarre opinions. That the pre-Islamic Arab's eloquence came of eat-
ing dates and drinking camel's milk (p. 17) no doubt derives from a medieval observer,
but could use revision.
The author, who is Professor of Arabic at the University of Delhi, obviously has an
excellent command of that language. Most of his translations have the rare virtue of
being true to sense yet untrammeled enough to be fluent. On occasion they are too
untrammeled, as in the slightly bowdlerized three lines by Imra'alqays on page 47.
The writing is clear. There are a few instances of very infelicitous usage: one who
knew English less well would have asked for an editor's help. At times a translation is
badly put and the reader without Arabic is bound to go wrong. So for example on page
184 'jallada fi 1-khamri bil-jaridi wan-ni'al' is rendered by [the prophet]' punished for
drinking with palm branches and shoes', instead of something like ' had wine drinkers
flogged with palm branches and [the leather soles of] sandals'.
Not much is added to the books through which the American student usually makes
his first acquaintance with medieval Arabic literature. He will find anecdotes enough
in Lyall and Nicholson, organization in Gibb and others.
Some references are missing and there are quite a few misprints in the Arabic.
r, . TT • ... ANDRAS P. HAMORI
Princeton University

THOMAS F. GLICK, Irrigation and Society in Medieval Valencia (Cambridge, Mass.:

Harvard University Press, 1970). Pp. 386. $15.00.
The management of water resources has long been of fundamental importance to
Middle Eastern peoples. Conflict over irrigation rights has been one of the most fertile
causes of dispute in the region from ancient Babylonian times to the present. (The
Code of Hammurabi contains legal principles for the fair distribution of water and the