TEXT AIYD ITS CULT(TRAL

I]YTERPRETATION

E.A. Rezvan THE QUR'N AND ITS WORLD: I. THE PROBLEM OF RECONSTRUCTINGANCIENT ARABIAN COSMOGONIC AND ANTHROPOGENETIC LORE
For an adequate interpretation of the concept of the world as reflected in the Qur'n it is necessary first of all to understandin what way the Qur'nic ideas are linked to the corresponding systemof notions,traditions,and symbolsof the pre-Islamicculture of Arabia. This link but occasionally appearsas a direct inclusion of corresponding notions into the systemof early Islamic culture. Usually we come across statements negating the foundationsof the pagan Arabian culture and at the sametime explainingthe ideasintroduced by the Qur'n as a restorationof the forgotten creed of the ancestors []. These notions, however, usually contained only a new interpretation of the principal cultural elements of the past. Sometimesthis link hEs a more complicated structure, especially when it comes to the system of cosmogonic and ethnogenetic myths included into the Qur'n. The Qur'nic ideas connectedwith the origin of mankind have been described, to some extent, in several works [2]. P. A. Gryaznevich, who studied the system of corresponding notions reflected in jAhihyya poetry, in Arabic tribal ethnonymsand in the Qur'nic text, came to the conclusion that there had never been any common Arabic myth, or any Arabic m)'th at all dealing with the origin of mankind or of the world as a whole [3]. The availablesourcesallow us to statethat in pre-IslamicArabia there was no notion like the Primal Man or "the primary ancestor" current among the pagan Arabians. The history of every clan or tribe was being derived from a certain,usually deifred, ancestor.This determinedthe discreteness of ethnic consciousness, which was the characteristic feature of the paganArabian ideology. Certainly, Arabian Christians and Jews were familiar with the Old Testamentideas on the origin of the human race and the primary ancestor Adam. We can take for example the qa;da ascribed to the poet-Christian 'Adi b. Zayd, which presentsa narrative very close to the passagesfrom the Genesis telling about the creation of the world and the mankind [4]. 'Adi b. Zayd'stext as a whole leavesus no doubt about its pre-Islamic origin. One of its passagesis especially noteworthy. Verses 11-12 of the qa;da correspond to Gen. III.1: "Now the serpent was more subtil ('rum) than anv beast of the field which the Lord God had made". There is, however, a strangedevia'Adr tion from the Old Testament text in b. Zayd's poem: "black-and-white") (raqsh' And theserpent wasspotted wnenlt wascreated, Like you see theimage of a camel or a she-camel... It is worth noting that the versethat follow this passage are again closeto the verseof the Bible. 'rum ("more subtil") is replaced in the The Hebrew Arabic text by raqsha' ("spotted"), one of the traditional appellativesfor a serpentin the pre-Islamic poetry. If we 'rum take into accountthat Arabic e'ram' correspondingto "spotted in the text of the Bible meant (black-and-white)", when appliedto a serpentin jahiltyya poetry [5], it explains the use ofthe term raqsha'- the synonym of a'ram" 16]. In this way the "subtil" serpent became "spotted". This transition evidently leads the poet to associate the serpent before its punishmentby God with a camel, to whom the appellative raqsha' could also be applied [7]. All this bringsus to the conclusionthat, first ofall, the text ascribed 'Adi to b. Zayd is authentic,and that it goes back directly to the Hebrew text. "mistakes" Similar might probably explain some other strange features present in the Qur'nic lore deriving from the Old Testamenttradition. 'Adi So we read in b. Zayd'spoem: (7) He accomplished his creation in six days And in the lastof themcreated the man. (8) And He called to him [rising]his voice:"Adam!", andhe answered him, Because intothebodycreated [by Allah] thebreath oflife hadbeenplaced. (9) ThenHe gavehim Paradise, for him to live there, And made wife for him, creating herfrom his rib. To this very tradition Muhammad appealedin his sermons. The Old Testamentimage of "Adam the forefather", which had developed many centuries before due to the victory of monotheism in a different cultural and ethnic environment, featured for a while in the centre of Mul.rammad's disputes with his opponents. Muhammad again and again speaks about Adam: Allah had made

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a covenantwith Adam (20: ll5l1l4), but being urged by Iblis "Adam disobeyed his Lord and so he erred" (20: l23l (20: l2ll119) and was expelledfrom Paradise "Thereafter his 121-1231122). In His mercy, however, Lord chosehim, and...He guidedhim" (20 : l22ll20). The Prophetis speakingabout the dangerof temptationcoming "if from lblis, who said to Allah: Thou deferrestme to the Day of ResurrectionI shall assuredlymaster his (Adam's) seed(dhurrryya),savea few" (17 : 6216$. Mullammad's sernonstestify to a remarkablechange. Numerous primary ancestors are replacedby one common forefather - Adam. The very application to this image that before Muhammad'spreaching most of demonstrates the Meccans had no idea of a common ancestor,i. e. the "mankind" was also unknown to them. In social notion of Mullammad's sernonspreachednot long before the Hijra as ya his audienceis more and more frequently addressed "Q b a n a d a m5 e n so f A d a m ! " .( 7 : 2 6 1 2 5 ; 2 7 1 2 6 , 3 1 1 2 9 , 35133:36:60). What were the views Muhammadwas arguing against? The extant sourcesdefinitely prove that in the pagan environment of pre-Islamic Arabia there were still remnantsof the ancientmythological ideas about the origin of the Pri"the root, the sprout of raw clay" ('irq almal Man from "mother-earth" (cf. thara), from the Qur'n 22:5), from the damp layer of earth (al-thara) feeding the roots of plants; from dust (turab, see Qur'n 3 :52). The motif of "Primal Man-clay",which appears in the Qur'n (6:2), the is not presentin pre-lslamicpoetry. Most important in connection with the further development of the subject is the notion of a stone being turned into a human being, of the birth of a man from a stone-rock. A number of Arabian tribal ethnonyms connected with the worship of stonessymbolizing primal ancestors, as well as of rocks embodyingpagandeities,reflect the existence ofsuch ideas[8]. It should be mentionedalso that the word npsh (nfs, cf . "to '(5ssl", Arab.nafs from tanaffasa breathe")was used in Nabatean and South Arabian epigraphics, in graffitti which were from Central Arabia, to indicate gravestones, "represent expectedto the soul, i. e. the personalityof the dead" [9]. There is a seriesof pre-lslamic legendsconcerning the "reverseprocess"of a man being transformedinto a stone.Comparativemythology testifiesthat this kind of in"direct process" version goesback to a stableidea ofthe of a man originating from a stone. Most popularis the legendof Isf and N'ila [10]. The story tells that a man called Isf and a woman N'ila, both of Yemeneseorigin, made a pilgrimage to Mecca. When they were alone in the sanctuary they becameinflamed with passion,sinned, and were immediately turned into stone. They were carried out of the Ka'ba and installed by the sanctuary. Their location is differently indicated in the sources. Most often one of the stones is placed by the Ka'ba, the other by the Zamzam well. The shapeof the stones vaguely resembled human f,rgures.Sacrif,rcial blood was poured upon them. T. Fahd I l] takes this story for a later moralizing legend directed againsttemptations offered to pilgrims by those, who, having no ritually pure dress, performed sacred rites completely or almost naked [2]. Basing upon the information provided by alAzraqTthat these stoneshad formerly been standing on the hills of al-Safiaand al-Marwa embodying the cult of Ba'l and Ba'la, the scholar came to the conclusion that the

bringing togetherof these idols by the Zamzam well could mark the foundation of the Meccan sanctuary.The sacrifices formerly made on the hills were offered now by the well, and the two stonescould symbolizehere the two hills. Among the people of the Tayyi' tribe there was a legend about Aj' and Salm,at some points similar to that of Isf and N'ila. A man named Aj' b. al-Hayy fell in love with Salmwho was a manied woman from his own tribe. 'Awj', in whosehousethey usedto meet. Shehad a nurse Once the husbandof Salmand her brotherstook the lovers by surprise. Aj' and Salm tried to escape, but were caught. Salm rvas put to death on a mountain which re'Awj' was killed ceived her name, on anothermountain and Aj' on the third one. Thesemountains,including a human figure, the third one.black rock. uhich resembled got the names of the murdered [3]. Thereis anotherlegendof the samekind. Accordingto it, alongthe road usedb1'pilgrims on the way from Mecca 'Araft to the mount there rvere stonescalled al-Niswa ("Women"). One woman rvho rvas unfaithful to her husband becamepregnant.When she rvas there. on the road, she happenedto bear a child in the presenceof trvo other women. The three women immediatell' turned into stones [14]. rvith South Arabia. Ibn The next legend is connected al-Mujwir [5] tells that there. at the site called Naqil, - two women turned into stone.their rewere fwo stones productiveorganscould be seenreguiarly'shedding blood. Also, the Hadramawt idol al-Jalsadwas a great u'hite rock with a black top resemblinga human face. Al-Jalsadwas worshipped in all Arabia, even among the Mahrians. T. Fahd explainsthe etymologyof the idol's name as derit'5116no man") [6]. Alvation from jalmad ("rock" though this name easily fits the common metaphoric "flintstone" (cf., for instance, Kpe.veHb Russian scheme "strong man"), one should take into considerationthat for ss n a m er v a sn o tj u s t a t h e p r i m i t i v eo r m a g i cc o n s c i o u s n ea conventional sign but the integral part of the object to which it was attached. of all theselegends, which are The common elements widespread over the whole of Arabia (in Hij2, Najd, in the south of the Arabian Peninsula),are: (i) a criminal coitus; (ii) turning into stone as a punishmentfor adultery (in the caseof Isf and N'ila - for the desecration of a shrine): (iii) the worship of the stoneswhich came into being in this miraculousway. Comparative mythology demonstratesthat many anthropogenetic and cosmogoniclegendsinclude the story of "original the sin" which fertilized people and all other living beings [7]. It is not a mere chancethat the element of "criminal in the legendscited above.Before coifus" appears Islam often the processof childbirth itself at its different was becomingthe object of sanctification. There was stages the cult ofreproductive organs. On the other hand, the worship of rocks and stonesas the dwelling of deities (suffice it to remember the Black Stone of Ka'ba) was certainly related to the worship of which is confirmed by numerstonesas primal ancestors, '(the ous ethnonymsof the banu jandal sons of rock" type. Comparativemy.thologytestifiesto the connectionof these views with the myths of creation telling about the origin of man from stone.Thesemyths were widespreadin particular among the nomad Semites dwelling in rocky steppes and on plateaux[18]. All this brings us to the

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conclusionthat the legendscited abovepossibly go back to and ethnogenicmytholthe original layer of anthropogenic ogy of the inhabitantsof Arabia, reflecting the stageof its developmentfar gone from the archaic notions connected "sponas of with the understandingof anthropogenesis taneoustransformationof stone into man without any participationof the God'swill or action" [9]. The idea of man originating from stone ts never explicitly statedin the Qur'n, though there are certain hints "Then your hearts became present in several passages: hardenedthereafterand are like stones,or even yet harder; for there are stonesfrom which rivers come gushing, and others split, so that water issues from them, and others "then fear crashdown in the fear of God" (2:7a169) [20]; the Fire, whose fuel is men and stones,preparedfor unbe( 2 : 2 4 1 2 2 ,s e ea l s o l 7 : 5 0 / 5 3 ) . lievers" In our opinion, the system of these mythological notions was absorbedboth by the Qur'n and by the ideology of the early Islam, though in a modified form. It is known that Islam inherited the ritual of hajj, providing it with a new foundation connected with the Bible history. It is known that ritual is more conservativethan mythoiogy, though often with the change of ideology the same ritual could be provided with a new mythological foundanoto the systemof mythological tion [21]. This happened tionsconnect ed wtth hajj. What is especially interesting is that the pagan ritual connectedwith the worship of Isf and N'ila is taking its in the ethnogenetic roots, as we were trying to demonstrate, mythology of Arabia. The analysisof some of the features appliedto of the cult of Isf and N'ila, of the appellatives their names, proves that its mythological foundation that at changed several times. T. Fahd [22] demonstrates some stagethe worship of Isf, the god of wind and rain, whose appellative was Nahik Mujwid al-Rih ("power which brings abundantrain with wind") and of N'ila, the deity of fertility, was relatedto the agrariancult. Later Isf "collector", "keeper") and N'ila (etymologically ("receiver of gifts"), after their images had been installed by the temple treasury-wellZamzam,becameits guardians. Finally, according to the Muslim tradition, the meeting of Adam and Haww (Eve) after their expulsion from Para'Araflat.Therethey dwelled dise took place by the mount of for a while and there their first child was bom to them. Muzdalifa is also connectedwith the names of the forefaof the Zamzam well and one of thers [23]. The appearance the rituals of hajj - running (sa'y) betweenthe hills of alSafa and al-Marwa - are connectedwith the names of Hajar and of the forefather of northern Arabs, lsm'il, the 'Adnn. It was the realizationof ancestorof their eponym with a repetithe idea that the ritual of hajj was connected tion of what had been there at the dawn of human history, that this very place was in some way connectedwith the story of the Primal Man and the forefather of the inhabitants of Arabia (let us remember the al-Niswa women 'Arafat mount and the connection turned into stone by the of the al-Safr and al-Marwa hills with the cult of Isf and N'ila). It is also important to recall A. Hocart's remark that myth is a part of ritual and ritual - part of myth. Myth is describingthe ritual, and the ritual is stagingthe myth [24]. The Qur'n, when it insists on the necessityof performing hajj as a ritual obligation of a Moslem, thus establishes a link betweenthe new ideology and the systemof mytho-

logical notions which developedaround the worship of the "Safa and Marwa are Mecca shrine in he jahiltyya time: among the waymarks (al.masha'rr) of God; so whosoever makes the Pilgrimage ('umra) to the House, or the Visitation (hajj), it is no fault in him to circumambulatethem; and whoso volunteers good, God is All-grateful, All"but when you presson from Araknowing" (2 : 158/153); fat, then rememberGod at the Holy Waymark (al-mash'ar al-haram), and remember Him as He has guided you, though formerly you were gone astray" (2 : 1981194). It is unknown when the name of Adam becameassociated in the people's minds with these places and with the stages of the hajj ritual [25]. As the Old Testamentideason the origin of man were widespread among monotheistic Arabians, it is quite probable that the Hanifs [26], whose devotion to the performanceof the hajj ritual is marked by the Muslim tradition, could link some of its stepswith the name of Adam even before Muhammad'spreaching. It is noteworthy that such an associationindicatesthe of the Prophet to have been familiar only contemporaries with the echo of the ancientArabian myths of creation.By the time of the rise of Islam the erosion of the system of ancient Arabian cosmogonic ideas had been almost accomplished.The Qur'n only reflected the final stage of this long process. The way the terms adam and banfi adam are employed in the Qur'n, as well as a number of other Qur'nic terms [27], confirm that Qur'nic ideas on the origin of man, which were gradually developing through the whole period of Mullammad'sprophetic activities, reflect a complicated process of interaction of different ideological trends, a singular combination of both the Old Testament lore and ideas produced by inter-Christian disputes of that time overlaying the original Arabian ideological stratum. The development of the system of principal - "Creator", peoQur'nic notions which implied God "the "sons ple of Adam", the sanctuary of Mecca House of Allah". etc.. also turned to be connectedwith the image of Adam. All this took place against a very complicated social and ideologicalbackgroundof Arabia in the sixth and early seventh century (gradual consolidation of Arabian tribes into one nation, transitionfrom the tribal stageof organisation to territorial, from paganismto Islam, developmentof the State, etc.). As early as the end of the seventhbeginning of the eighth century in the works of genealogists and commentators of the Qur'n there appearsa joint "forefather genealogyof the tribes of Arabia going back to 'Joined the family" of Adam" [28]. In this way the Arabs the other peoplesof the Bible, their history becamepart of the world history, and the Arabs themselvesbecamemembers of the humankind (banu adam). ln this respectthey "civilised" than the peoples conwere becoming no less queredby them. Penetrating beyond the limits of Arabia, Islam entered the field which for many centurieshad been cultivated by different monotheisticsystems.There, first of all in Syria and lraq, under the circumstances of intensive inter-ethnic and inter-confessional contacts,took place the final formation and record of the dogmatic and legal system of Islam and of its "sacredhistory". The strong ideological pressure of this all-embracingsystemof values,which absorbedthe cream of the principal cultural elements of theiahiltyya period, its aim being to justify the new role of the Arabs in the

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"civilised world", had terminatedthe long processof disintegrationand erasurefrom the collectivememory of the old "barbaric" traditions. First of all, it affected the principal myths, the core of all ancosmogonicand anthropogenetic

cient and medieval ideological systems.Due to their significance.however,the ideas of this kind could not vanish without a trace. Their presenceis evident in the ritual of hajj recordedby the Qur'n.

Notes "O nekotorykh ustanovleniiakhrannego islama" ("On some of the regulationsof early lslam"), Islam. Re1. See L Sh. Shifman, (Moscow, 198a),pp. 3H3. gosudarstvo ligiia, obshchestvo, 2. SeeTh. Frankl. Die Enstehungdes Menschennach den Koran, (Prag. 1930)l D. Bakker. lan in the Qur'n (Amsterdam, 1965), pp. 1-27; J. Bouman. Gott und Mench im Koran (Darmstadt, 1977); O. lzutzu. God nnd .\lon n the Koran (Tokyo, 1964); "Koranicheskie zametki" ("Qur'nic notes"), Issledovaniiapo istorii kul'turr- narodov l'ostoka (Moscorv-Leningrad, i.-N. Vinnikov. "Razvitie istoricheskogo ofthe Arabs"), ofthe historicalconsciousness arabov"("The development soznaniia 1960):P. A. Criaznevich. Ocherk istori arabsko kul'tury I:-Xtr: w. (Moscow, 1982),pp. 75-155. op. ct.,pp. 89-90. 3. Griaznevich, 1.9 6 5 ) N , o . 1 0 3 .C f . G c n , I : l - 3 . 6 ' 7 . 1 4 . 1 6 , 2 6 , Khabbar(Baghdd by Muhammad , ompiled . v , A nc 4 . ' A d i b . Z a y d a l ' I b d 1D 1 5 1 7 . 2 2 ; I I I : 1 6 1 8 . 2 8 ,3 1 ; I I : 7 , 8 , "A vocabularyof the Hudailian poems",Humaniora, XIII (Goteborq. 1978).p. 28'1.also E. H. Lane, 5. See,for example,A. Lelvin, An Arabic-English Lexicon,Pt. 1-8 (London, 1863-1893), 2026. No. 89 : 5. von I. Goldziher(Leipzig, 1893). Der Diwan desGarwal b. Aus al-Hutej'a,bearb. 6. [al-Hutej'a], 7 . Lane, op. cit., 1135. op. cit., p.84. 8. Griaznevich, 9. I. Sh. Shifman. Nabateskoe gosudarstvo i ego kul'tura (The Nabatean State and Its Culture) (Moscor.v. 1976). p. 105; G. Lankester Harding, An Inlex aid Concordance of Pre-lslamic rabian Names and Inscriptions (Toronto. 1975), p.333; 'ture drevnegoBlzhnego Vostoka(Man in the Culture of the Ancient Near East) (Moscorv, I 986). p. 88 L P. Veinberg, Chetoiek v kul 'an Ab-l-Mundhir Hsham b. Muhamntad b. al-Sa'ib al-Kalh h 10. On the earliest version see [Ibn al-Kalbi], Kitab at-Asnm tahqiq al-ustdhAhmad Zak (al-Qhira,1963),p. 16. 11. T. Fahd, La panthon de I'Arabie centrale la velle de l'Hgre, (Paris, 1968),pp. 103-9. sociologiquesetfolkloriques sur le milieu natifde I'lslam, (Strasbourg,1966) 12. T. Fahd, La divination arabe. Etudes religieuses, p.128. 13.Ibid.. p. 15. 14.Ibid., p. 16. 15. [Ibn al-Mujwir], Descrptio Arabiae Meridionialis (extr. de Tarkh al-Mustabsir), ed. O. Lofgreen, i (Leiden, 1954), p. 150 ff. Seealso Fahd,La divinaton, p. 15 ff. "Etnoreligioznaiasituatsiiav Khadramautev VI-VII vv." ("Ethno-religious situa16. Fahd, La panthon, p. 86; S. A. Frantsuzov, Khadramaut. Arkheologicheskie, etnografcheskie, istoriko-kul'turnye issledocenturies"), in the iixth-seventh tion in Hadramawt i (Moscorv, 1995),pp. 316-7. kspeditsii, kompleksno vaniia - Trudy Sovetsko-iemensko 17. SeeL. A. Abramian, Pervobytnyprazdnik mifulogiia (Primitive Feastand Mythology) (Erevan, 1983),p. 112. 18. The ideas of the origin of man from stone and of petrifactionas a punishmentfor a broken taboo are reflected in particular in in Greek myths (the story of Deucalion and Pyrra, the myth of Niobe). Hurrian and Hittite mythology. They are also widely represented Reflectionsof theseideas apresent in the Propheticbooks of the Bible (cf. Isaiah,LI, 1; see Griaznevich,op. cit., p.84). Thompson's index provides us with abunant comparativematerial: the motif of a man being turned into a stone or rock for breaking a taboo (St. Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Lierature, new enlargedand revised edition, i-v (Bloomington, 1956), C 961; D 230), as well as the idea of creatingman from stoneand of the origin of mankind from a rock (ibid., A 1245;A 1234.2). op. ct.,p.84. 19. Griaznevich, 20. A. I. Arberry's translationof the Qur'n is usedin the presentarticle' 21. Abramian,op. ct., p. 113. 22. SeeFahd,La panthon, pp. 106-8. 23.lbid..p.24l.n.2. 24. A. M. Hocart. The Life-Gving Myth and Other Essays(London, 1970),p. 22' 25. The Muslim tradition identifies al-mash'ar and al-harm with a small mound in Muzdalifa, six miles from Mecca. between "Alcune precisazionisull' espressione 'Arafat, for more detailsseeC. Pansera, al-Mash'ar al-Haram", Rivistadegli studi orienMecca and "Mosque of the sacredgrave" is located.seeA. Kamal, The SacredJourney, Being Pilthe (1949). pp.74-7. There tali,XXXIYll-5 p. 8,1.The term mash'ar had probably been applied to this sacredmound long before the coming of grmage to Makknh (Lo"Oon, t OO+;, and al-Marwa worshippedbefore Islam as rvell (Fahd, La panto a certainstonebetweenal-Safla was also applied The name Islam. same thon, p.238, No. 3). Now the term al-ntash'ir is applied to different stagesof hajj. The connectionof some elementsof haji,like putof haij as a completeritual system ting onspecial garments,ritual trimming, etc. with pre-lslamicritual practicetestifiesto the acceptance by Islam. to poet-anif Umayya b. Abu'l-Salt, seeUmayya a number of times in verseascribed 26. Adamas the name of the forefatherappears 'dm was widely used in northern b. Abu'l-Salt, Dwn (Baghdd,1975),Nos. 21, 45; No. 50 : l; No. 95 : 3. It is noteworthythat the narne cases of its use in Safaite inscriptions (see 109 Harding recorded Arabia long before Islam (second-fifth centuriesA.D.). Lankester "earth", 'dm belongsto the main fund of Semitic roots, it is connectedwith such notions as Lankesterarding, op. cit., p. 32). The sem "red colour", "skin",-"man", see I. Diakonoff, "Earliest Semitesin Asia", Schriftenzur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients (Berlin' "Praotets'Adam" ("Adam the forefather"), Vostok,I (Moscow, 1992), pp.5l-8. In the pre'Islamic Bed1981), p. 52; L M. D'iakonov, "dark", "white", "brown'', see ouin poetry the word-form adam, similar to the Qur'anic one, could be used to indicate such notions as arabischenSprache,hrsg. von J. Kraemer,Bd. I (Berlin, 1952), p.14. lt is clear in this Th. ].ildeke,Belegwrterbuchzur klassischen
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"Die Lucken in Gawliki's Mu'arrab", ZDMG, connection why Arab authors, such as, for example, al-Jawliqi (see von W. Spitta, the name Adam, along with the namesSlih, Muhammad, Shu'ayb, an original Arabic name, in opposition XXXIII, pp. 20S), considered to the names of other prophets:Ism'il, Ibrahim, Ishq, Ilys, Idris. Numerous different etymologiesof the name were, however, suggested,seeibid., p.25; also I. Goldziher,Studenilber TanchumJeruschalimi(Leipzig, I 870), p. I 2, No. 4). 27. See E. A. Rezvan, ,tnosotsial'naia terminologiia Korana kak istochnik po istorii i tnografii Aravii na rubezhe VI VII vv. (Ethno-SocialTerminology of the Qur'n as a Sourceon the History and Ethnographyof Arabia at the Tum of the Sixth-Seventh Cen"pervochelovek" i "Adam i banu Adam v Korane k istorii poniatii turies), PhD Thesis (Leningrad, 1984); E. A. Rezvan, "Primal "mankind"), "chelovechestvo"("Adam and banu adam in the Islam. ReMan" and Qur'n - to the history of the notions the lgiia, obshchestvo, gosudarstvo, pp. 59-68. "Arabs are "Historia Ecclesiastica", already mentions that who lived in the first half of the fifth century, in his 28. Sozomenes, "Ismailites" after their origin, after their "forefather" Ismail, the son of Abraham" (cited after Pigulevskaya,see her Araby u called granits Vizantii i Irana v IV-W w. (Arabs on the Byzantine and lranian Frontiers in the Fourth-Sixth Centuries) (MoscowLeningrad,1964),p. al).

RUSSIANACADEMY OF SCIENCES THE INSTITUTEOF OzuENTALSTUDIES ST.PETERSBURG BRANCH

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Jntetnotionol ./ouvnol ot ()cientil ryAonuscript Qeseaccll

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76eSA
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CONTENTS DESCRIPTIONAND RESEARCH TEXTSAND MANUSCRIPTS.,

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II'{TERPRETATION TEXTAI{D ITSCULTURAL

Ancient Arabian Cosmogonicand E. Rezvan. The Our'n and Its World: l. The Problernof Reconstructing Lore Anthropogenetic

30

30 35 35 48

PRESENTING THE COLLECTIONS

in 1992--l996 . of OrientalManuscripts New Acquisitions O. Vasilyeva.The NationalLibrary of Russia: Branch of the N. Tumanovich. PersianFolklore Materialsin the ManuscriptCollectionof the St. Petersburg Institute of OrientalStudies

I]{FORMATIONTECHNOLOGIES AND NE'14/ MANUSCRIPTS ORIENTAL

Round Table Correspondence
Problem of CD-ROM Protection/Piracy E. Rezvan,P. Roochnik. ITISALAT Discussion

56 56 62

. THE MANUSCRIPT PRESENTING

Branch of O. Akimushkin. A Manuscriptof Yusufwa Zuluykha by Jmi in the Collection of the St. Petersburg the Institute of OrientalStudies.

62 65

BOOKREVIEWS
Manuscripts Orientalio in 1996,vol. 2, Nos.I-4 (the list of contributions)

69

ColouR Front

PLATES cover:

Zulaykh's maidens struck by the beauty of Ylsuf, a miniature from the St. PetersburgBranch of the Institute of Oriental Studiesmanuscript Yusufwa Zulaykha by Jmi(callnumberB2325),fol. 102b,7.7x1.8 cm (seepp.62-a\' Back cover: l.Merchants rescuing Yusuf on their way to Misr with a caravan,a miniature ffom the same manuscript, fol. 6 | a, 8.2 x 7.8 cry. Zulaykh'sflock of sheep,a miniature from the same manuscripl,fol.12a, Plate 2.Ylsuf shepherding 8 . 8x 7 . 8c m . bringing Y[suf to her SeventhPalacewhere he rejectsher courting, a miniature from the P I a t e 3. Zulayl<h samemanuscript,fol. 90b, 8.9 X 7.8 cm. P I a t e 4. Obeying heavenly command Yfsuf who marries Zulaykh after her adopting Islam, a miniature fiom .7 x'7 .8 cm. fo|. 132a,7 the samemanuscript, Ptate