Studia Orientalia is an internationally recognized publication series of Asian and African studies. It is published by The Finnish Society for the Study of Asia and Africa, formerly The Finnish Oriental Society. In addition to monographs and thematic collections of articles, some volumes have been regularly dedicated to high-quality articles on all fields of Asian and African studies. In fact, the first volume of Studia Orientalia in 1925 was such an article volume. From the beginning of 2013, these article volumes have appeared in this new publication series, Studia Orientalia Electronica and from 2026 in Studia Orientalia. StOr is a peer-reviewed, Open Access journal with continuous submission. With this new journal we hope to reach a wider audience and also speed up our publication process.
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The Unburdening of the Earth: The Greek Structure of the Mahābhārata
This article focuses on the motif of the Unburdening of the Earth by reviewing five relevant passages structured as a form of Ringkomposition: MBh. 1.58.3–59.6 (narrated by Vaiśaṃpāyana), MBh. 1.189 narrated by Vyāsa, MBh. 2.33.10–20 (narrated by Nārada), MBh. 11.8.20–38 (again narrated by Vyāsa), and MBh. 18.5.7–25 (again narrated by Vaiśaṃpāyana). These texts are compared with five Greek passages dealing with the same motif: Iliad 1.1–5, Iliad 2.1–6, Iliad 12.3–9, Odyssey 8.73–82, and Cypria fr. 1. Against more accepted explanations like folk origin or Indo-European origin, and after dealing with the main methodological problems that such a proposal would entail, the article argues for a Greco-Roman origin (understood as a Greco-Roman influence in India) of the motif, along the lines of Wulff Alonso (2008; 2014; 2019a; 2019b; 2020).
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Semantic Borrowings and Grammatical Change in Written Arabic in Israel under the Influence of Hebrew: The function of DPs and the peculiar ماحش
Influence from Modern Hebrew (MH) on written Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as found in the Israeli-Arab Press in Israel can appear as 1) semantic borrowings; 2) orthographical borrowings; and/or 3) grammatical change in syntax or morphology. The word māHiš appears to be a borrowing into MSA with more than one of these aspects.
Copyright (c) 2014 Studia Orientalia Electronica
Christians in the Qurʾān: Some insights derived from the classical exegetic approach
The Qurʾān refers on several occasions to Christians. Its attitude toward them, however, has often been seen as an ambivalent one. At times the Qurʾān praises the Christians, while in other cases it condemns them. This article will attempt to analyze the Qurʾān’s view of Christians by examining Islamic exegetical writings dating from the earliest period of Qurʾānic commentary up to the late Middle Ages.
Aśoka, the Buddhist Samgha and the Graeco-Roman World
The ambassadors of Aśoka whom the emperor sent to spread his dhamma both in frontier regions and in foreign countries, notably among the Hellenistic rulers in the west, are a well-known and often-discussed subject. Nevertheless, a few more considerations seem useful.
Zionist Restitution of the Ugly Jew’s Image: The Case of Theodor Herzl
Theodore Herzl (1860–1904), as the son of a respected banker, fully indulged himself in the privileges of the bourgeois life. He was a dandy or a snob, who held great disdain for those Jews whom he believed to be old-fashioned and looking “different”. His view reflects a wider socio-cultural phenomenon among Jews, called Selbsthass, which is characterized by open criticism of the Jewish culture by Jews who consider Jewish ethnic features to be “ugly and stigmatic”. Like many other Jews at that time, Herzl strived to completely adopt a lifestyle, custom, manner, and appearance that would make his Jewishness invisible. However, during his stay in Paris he realised that emancipation could serve only as camouflage rather than a change in the perception of Jews in Europe. As a result, he revised his attitude towards the issue of ethnic visualisation which, from that time on, would constitute one of the focal points of Zionism’s attention. This process of a visual restitution, which started at the turn of the nineteenth century, concerned many aspects of Jewish culture. Jewishness was no longer a matter of religion, but a question of racial representation, physiognomic differences, and pertinent aesthetic values, with the evolution of Herzl’s image being an accurate reflection of the process.
“Muslims” and “Islam” in Middle Eastern Literature of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries AD: An Alternative perspective of West European oriental scholarship
The article presents a short overview of the works of researchers affiliated with the new German Oriental Institute called Inarah, known for its unconventional revisionist interpretations of the origins of Islam. On the grounds of archaeological, epigraphic, numismatic, and literary sources, the Inarah scholars attempt to challenge the traditional Islamic account of history and dogmatics in relation to the early stages of the Muslim faith, its evolution, and the first contacts of the Arab-Muslim empire with the western world. This article focuses on selected results of studies by the Inarah Institute concerning the emergence of the terms “Islam” and “Muslims” in non-Arabic, Middle Eastern literature (prevailingly Christian) of the seventh and eighth centuries AD. The Middle Eastern authors from the seventh and eighth centuries, the first two centuries of Islam, have left a rich and diverse literary heritage, illustrating an unhindered development of culture and unrestrained religious activities. The Inarah Institute’s critical linguistic and historiographical analysis attempts to prove that texts before the early eighth century do not contain any mention of “the Muslim character of power in the Arab empire” and that, when referring to Arabs, “the original source texts use neither the term ‘Islam’ nor ‘Muslims’” (Ohlig 2007: 223–325). In this way, the revisionists deny the common version of history, undermine the historical credibility of the Muslim tradition, and criticise conventional oriental scholarship in the West for a supposed lack of critical scientific approach in its studies on the origins of Islam.
The Great Migration: Inception of the Zhou identity
This essay explores the process of the accretion of the Zhou 周 people through migration, warfare, and intermarriage prior to the founding of the Western Zhou dynasty in 1045 BCE. It highlights two arguments: first, prior to the consolidation of the Zhou dynasty the Zhou ancestors had already laid the foundation of a unique Chinese cultural pattern for generations in the millennia to follow; and second, the Zhou people mostly consisted of the “Other”, namely the ethnic groups historians have called Rong Di 戎狄 and Qiang 羌 peoples, in addition to the Zhou ancestors, the descendants of the Yellow Emperor who, some six centuries before the Zhou took over the Shang dynasty, had migrated to the world of the “barbarians” and intermarried with them.
New Wine from Medina: Aesthetics of popular qawwali lyrics
Wine and intoxication are among the motifs that suffuse the poetry traditionally performed in qawwali music. Qawwali is a musical genre that has developed in the context of samā ʿ, listening as meditation. This practice, much favoured by South Asian Sufis belonging to various orders, utilizes music and poetry as a potent means of directing the attention of devotees towards the divine reality. In this process, the metaphorical language of poetry plays a significant role as it is conceived as a bridge connecting the visible, human reality with the hidden and divine. Although qawwali performances outside the samā ʿ context were not unheard of prior to the twentieth century, it was only then that a large scale venture of qawwals to new stages of performance begun in earnest. They started to perform in concerts – both live and radio – and films and their music became widely disseminated through recordings. The shift from the privacy of Sufi hospices and shrines to the public sphere led to the emergence of popular qawwali style characterized by distinct conventions relating to music and lyrical content. Popular qawwali has lost its function as a transformative meditative technique and acquired characteristics of entertainment even while retaining religious orientation. The paper explores the impact of these developments on qawwali lyrics by analysing the transformation wine imagery has undergone. In the poetry performed in samā ʿ assemblies, the metaphorical dimensions of wine are not explicated and the task of understanding inebriation as a result of divine love rather than of wine the drink, for example, is left to individual listeners. Popular qawwali lyrics, by contrast, avoid religiously dubious motifs like wine. When wine in rare occasions is mentioned, the lyricists or performers take care to explain its metaphorical meaning in explicitly religious context. I suggest that this tendency arises from the rhetoric that emphasizes doctrinal orthodoxy and meticulous fulfilment of religious obligations as the sole building blocks of Islam. Anything appearing even remotely irreligious is deemed avoidable. This rhetoric has dominated the discourses concerning South Asian Islam since the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, the denigration of Persian poetics and, by extension, culture by modern thinkers like Iqbal has contributed to the avoidance of conventional poetic motifs.
“More Didactic Than Lyrical”: Modern views on Karaite Hebrew poetry
Kosovo Turks: From privileged status to fear of assimilation
This study assesses political opportunities available to civil society in the Republic of Korea. After democratisation, democracy movement activists simultaneously organised within civil society and entered political society, creating many links between the two. Street politics and violence have not decreased in relation to government responsiveness to civil society’s demands. Antiauthoritarian struggles lent demonstrations prestige, which, together with authoritarian influences in policing, has sustained a history of confrontation. Thus, Korea defies the theoretical assumption that political systems open to civil society initiatives use repression sparingly.
Mujeres en cursos de alfabetización en el norte de Marruecos: Un estudio de caso en el círculo rural de Asila
Illiteracy is one of the main social problems in Morocco. It is even worse among the feminine population of the rural areas, as shown by the census data of 2004. In order to address this problem, some non-formal educational programs have been developed by official institutions and NGOs through development co-operation projects. One of these co-operation projects provides the framework for this research paper, whose main aim is to analyze characteristics of the women who attend alphabetization courses in Asilah’s rural area. Given the data, it can be stated that the general profile of these women is that of an unmarried young woman with no children, who is less than 35 years old with no remunerated job and a limited degree of personal autonomy, but who shows an active interest in formative activities that can contribute to her economic resources.
Un pionero en los estudios de árabe marroquí: el P. Fr. Patricio José de la Torre. Refranes y adagios
Patricio de la Torre was an agustinian of El Escorial who travelled in 1798 with two disciples to Morocco for studying Moroccan Arabic in order to educate Spanish Interpreters to the Diplomatic Relations. All his work was not published coming back in 1802 because of the invasion of French Troops. One of them is a collection of proverbs and adages. We present in this article the travel of the friar and the studies that he did with the critical edition of the proverbs and adages.
Falcons and Falconry in Al-Andalus
Anti-Religious Views in the Works of Ibn al-Rāwandī and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī
This article explores similarities in the anti-religious opinions of Ibn al-Rāwandī and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī, for instance, their denial of the authenticity of prophecy and their shared assertion of the human origins of religion in general and Islam in particular.
Summarized Beauty: The Microcosm-Macrcosm analogy and Islamic aesthetics
In this article, I will examine the connection of aesthetics with the microcosm- macrocosm analogy in a tenth century encyclopedic work, the Rasā ʾil Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafā ʾ. In Islamic medieval thought, the microcosm-macrocosm analogy was most extensively developed by the Ikhwān. Although they did not treat aesthetics as a separate branch of science, themes concerning the criterion for beauty and philosophy of arts appear in different contexts in the Rasā ʾil. The microcosm- macrocosm analogy in Islamic medieval aesthetics (especially in the writings of the Ikhwān) and its influence on later aesthetic thought will be addressed in three ways. First I will consider an Islamic version of the Pythagorean defini- tion of music, which provides an example of the correspondence between the universe and the material world. While the bodily aspect of man is already seen in the context of music when the position of the lute as microcosm is explored, I will examine the idea of human being as the microcosm more profoundly in the section focusing on the proportionality of the human body and its relation to the microcosm-macrocosm analogy. In the final section, my concentration is on the creative role of an artist; I will approach the idea of microcosm as an analogy between human being and God as the Creator. In addition to its contribution to study of the Ikhwān and Islamic aesthetic theory, this article suggests some broader perspectives for the examination of the microcosm-macrocosm analogy in the study of intellectual history.
The Good, the Beautiful, and the True Aesthetical Issues in Islamic Philosophy
“Islamic aesthetics” is something of a tricky designation when approached from a philosopher’s point of view, or for that matter a historian’s. Without a doubt, many of the Muslim philosophers wrote on topics which a modern student of aesthetics would find of interest. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī’s (d. 950) forays into music are well known, for instance; Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185) less so, although we know that he, too, fancied himself a musicologist. The long-standing tradition of commenting on Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics, meanwhile, meant that a sizeable body of work formed around the question of what constitutes pleasing, effective, and persuasive speech. Most pertinently for our present purposes, we have a series of rich philosophical discussions surrounding the use of the sense organs and the way in which pleasure figures in both sensory and intellectual cognition. These frequently incorporate at least some comments on the part of the Arabic philosophers regarding the aesthetic aspect of human experience, especially when it comes to the superior joys that occur when one comes face to face with the divine. I shall examine one such meditation in the principal part of this study.
New Considerations Regarding the Identity of Vedic sóma as the Mushroom Fly-Agaric
This paper examines several Sanskrit, and also Dravidian terms for ‘mushroom’ that suggest that the Vedic sóma was indeed a mushroom, specifically the mushroom fly-agaric (Amanita muscaria).
Studies in the Gṛhya Prayogas of the Jaiminīya Sāmaveda: 5. Pratisarabandha
In the Jaiminīya gṛhya tradition, the pratisarabandha or binding the auspicious string on a man’s or woman’s wrist is given as an auxiliary rite of the sīmantonnayana although in the JSP manuscript, its description is located before the puṁsavana. It has a full chapter in the JSP and (very brief) in the A, which are both edited here, but it is not included on the GKKK. Pratisara or kautuka is an apotropaic string (here consisting of three fibres) that is worn round the wrist or neck. It is mentioned in texts as early as the Kauśikasūtra and several gṛhyasūtras. It is important at weddings, but also used in other ceremonies. It is placed on the right wrist of the yajamāna, but on the left of the woman. The kāppu of Tamils seems to be related.
Economía de los Centros de Culto del Reino de Granada: Los bienes habices de la mezquita y rábitas del Padúl (Valle de Lecrín, Granada)
This study is about endowment goods of the Padul, a place located in the Lecrin Valley (Granada). The news contributed by the surveyors and connoisseurs of these goods help show how they were used by the religious centers of the various districts of this population. The paper details Moslem mosques and rábitas that were turned into churches and hermitages by the Christians, as well as news on urban and rustic goods donated by Muslim believers to meet the expenses of the alfaquíes and buildings dedicated to the cult. Such goods were destined for students, the needy, captives, and the conservation of alminar. As the greater mosque of Granada and the one of the Chite have some endowment goods in the Padul, this study offers an important data set about the economy and Muslim society in the kingdom of Granada.
Algerische Literatur im achtzehnten Jahrhundert
While the culture of Northern Africa found itself in decline from the fifteenth century onwards, it is not the case that those times were lacking in interesting poets or writers. Until now, the study of Arabic literature under Ottoman domination (not only in North Africa) has remained blurry compared to that of Arabic history and culture. Besides the historiography developed in Algeria in the eighteenth century, one finds poetry in the form of Qaṣīda and folk Malḥūn, as well as the itinerary (Riḥla). To show the vitality of Arabic literature in the Maghreb, this paper focuses on some notable authors, such as Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī al-Ǧazā ʾirī (1st half of the 18th century), Aḥmad Ibn ʿAmmār al-Ǧazā ʾirī (d. c.1790) and Abū Rās al-Muʿaskarī (1737–1824).
Categories of Proper Language in Classical Arabic Literature
When we discuss Islamic aesthetics, we combine two fields – the study of Islam and the discipline of aesthetics – both of which have received major attention and cover a wide range of associations, involve long historical traditions, and include a variety of phenomena. When I today add a third field – language/literature – I do so to focus on the point at which the concepts central to those three fields meet, and to explore some of the ways in which those concepts influence one another. Three issues are important in this respect: The role of language and literature in the classical period of Islam The concept of beauty in Arabic literature The relation between Islam and aesthetics in Arabic literature In his otherwise noteworthy study, Beauty and Holiness. The Dialogue Between Aesthetics and Religion, James Alfred Martin Jr. (1990: 138) admits frankly that, for limitations of time and space, discussion of Islam was omitted from the book. (To be fair, he does state that Islam has celebrated the riches of the Arabic language, both as a medium of conceptual expression and as possessing a physical form of aesthetic excellence.) But he is not the only one to omit Islam. A most important book on the so-called linguistic turn in philosophy starts with Aristotle and ends with Paul de Man and Derrida, without any mention of Arabic theories which deal with roughly the same subjects as the Western theories of rhetoric, semantics and semiotics (Braun 1996). In Western research on the history of thought, we often find that Islamic concepts are, if not neglected, at least not as valued as they could be. This is primarily due to two causes: overviews and basic works being written by scholars who are unfamiliar with either Islam or the Arabic language, and narrowness in specialized fields of research precluding real interdisciplinary experience.
King without a Kingdom: Deposed King Saud and his intrigues
Over the years, the matter of succession has been of the most important challenges to the Saudi monarchy. Although the founder of the kingdom, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz Ibn Saud, had determined that the throne would be handed down to his firstborn son, his sons had to deviate from their father’s wishes not long after his death and depose the new heir, King Saud. This undermining of the order of succession at such an early stage demanded that Faisal, who took King Saud’s place, restore confidence in the principle of primogeniture and unite the royal family by establishing a system of checks and balances between the various authorities. Despite King Faisal’s efforts to stabilise the government from within, deposed King Saud had no intention of abandoning his former posi- tion, and he began a campaign to return to power by means of Saudi domestic operatives and inter-Arab forces.
Review of Rainer Voigt (ed.), “Und das Leben ist siegreich!” Mandäische und samaritanische Literatur. Im Gedenken an Rudolf Macuch (1919–1993) / “And Life is Victorious!” Mandaean and Samaritan literatures: In memory of Rudolf Macuch
Progress Report: An Online database for the documentation of seals, sealings, and seal impressions in the Ancient Near East
This is a report on the efforts for the creation of a relational database to document Ancient Near Eastern seals, seal­ings and seal impressions. The aim of this paper is to acknowledge the existence of such a project, its background, methods and future perspectives. A brief overview of glyptic art and sealing practices is given before the structure of the database is explained in more detail. The database was initially created at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin in cooperation with the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI); it comprised a catalogue (a FileMaker database), images and the transliteration server, used for the epi­graphic seals, all hosted in UCLA, Los Angeles. The web-interface was developed at the MPIWG in Berlin by Robert Casties, and was hosted in both Berlin and Los Angeles. Catalogue data on tablets and seals was entered and edited in the FileMaker databases on the LA server online using a FileMaker client. Transliterations of tablets and seals in ATF format were kept on a separate translit­eration server, while images of sealed tablets and seals were on the LA server, with high-resolution files archived and web-resolu­tion files kept on the web server.
Chinese May Fourth Movement as Nationalist Discourse
This article analyses national discourses that the Chinese and British constructed particularly during the May Fourth Movement. Moreover, the paper will analyse the form, content and function and impact of the May Fourth national rhetoric expressed by the Chinese and the British. This paper concentrates on analysing mainly cultural, historical, political dimensions of nationalism presented in China. It was clear that the May Fourth protestors, especially the urban and educated men, dominated public articulations of national identities. With their control of knowledge production and in some cases control of state bureaucracies, élite men were able to make demands for the nation, often combining their own group needs with particular definitions of the nation. British discourse that was constructed during the May Fourth Movement responded to a reality that was infinitely adaptable in its functions of preserving the basic structures of power. For the British, May Fourth demonstrators represented a potential change in the existing intellectual, political, social and economic stability which, for decades, had guaranteed a British privileged position in the country.
The Influence of North Korean Political Ideologies on the Integration of North Korean Defectors in South Korea
This paper investigates how the political socialisation of North Korean defectors (NKDs) in North Korea affects their adjustment in South Korea. This project is based on a survey of 106 NKDs and interviews with some of the respondents and South Koreans who help NKDs. An account is given of the history and resettlement of NKDs in South Korea, including the difficulties they experience. Furthermore, the paper describes the political ideology of self-reliance (Juche) and heavily monitored lives to which NKDs have been exposed in North Korea. The research finds that resettlement can be significantly affected by self-reliance ideology and heavily monitored lives. When NKDs in South Korea realised the deceptive reality of self-reliance ideology, they adjusted better than those who maintained the Juche point of view. Being brainwashed by Kim Jong-il’s regime caused NKDs to develop distrust and become individualistic. Due to having antipathy and hatred towards their enemies, they were inclined to be critical, aggressive, and negative towards South Koreans. Many also held a Manichean mindset and tended to avoid attending seminars and training meetings. The negative influences of their former lives in North Korea have generally had a great effect on their resettlement in South Korea.
Artists and Society in Modern Tibetan Literature
It is usually thought that modern forms of Tibetan culture started to emerge largely in the latter half of the twentieth century, although there existed some signs and developments of modernization already in the first half. Since then, modern and traditional arts have existed side by side, often influencing each other and even appearing in hybrid forms. This situation is reflected in stories about artists in contemporary Tibetan fiction: these literary works include stories about artists which reflect both traditional Tibetan arts and folk culture and modern arts. This essay focuses on prose works by three writers: Dhondup Gyal (1953–1985), Tashi Palden (b. 1962), and Tsering Dhondup (b. 1961). In the works discussed, the main characters are representatives of different art forms. The stories contain descriptions of the lives of artists and themes related to becoming, practising, and living as an artist. After the occupation of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s, Tibetan society underwent a considerable transformation. The changes in society and its norms and values are also reflected in the descriptions of the artists’ lives. The relationship between artists and the surrounding society cannot be characterized unidimensionally. The stories describe highly differing attitudes and values towards culture and art, which range from appreciating and being supportive to limiting and being negative. The relationship between the artist and society may also undergo changes within a single story, reflecting the influence of different attitudes and cultural policies in the society towards the practice of an artistic vocation. Examining the descriptions of artists and the theme of living as an artist, this essay contributes to the discussion of the genre of artist stories in Tibetan culture.
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Consensus and Dissensus in the Public Sphere: How East Asian associations use publicity
Jürgen Habermas has developed a model describing how civil society can use the public sphere to influence politics. Habermas assumes that, because discourse in the public sphere is open, inclusive, anonymous, and autonomous, the public sphere is best setting in which to develop consensus about common affairs. However, when this model is examined in the context of political advocacy by East Asian associations, the public sphere turns out to be characterized by dissensus rather than consensus. Consensus is enabled by trust, shared aims, exclusions, bargaining and exchanges, predictable decision-making procedures, or authority. These conditions helpful for consensus building are often lacking in the public sphere. Nonetheless, civil society can be politically influential because it can use minority influence and cross the state-society boundary.
Ordenanzas jerezanas sobre la guarda de la frontera frente a Ronda y su serranía a comienzos de la guerra de Granada (1482–1484)
Frontier relations between the Crown of Castile and the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada demanded the establishment of a set of ordinances in case of a broken truce or other threat. Given these potential dangers, the Christian councils situated on the western frontier of the kingdom of Granada were responsible for maintaining control and observation points with guards who could give warning of Muslim invasion by means of signal beacons. Though each council had their own set of ordinances, during times of major threat they were able to coordinate together in such a way that no section of the frontier lacked vigilant protection.