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Smith Margaret: The Sf Path of Love. An

anthology of Ssm. xii, 154 pp. London: Luzac,
1954, 21s.
A. J. Akbekry
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 17 / Issue 03 / October 1955,
pp 618 - 618
DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X00112625, Published online: 24 December 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X00112625

How to cite this article:
A. J. Akbekry (1955). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 17, pp
618-618 doi:10.1017/S0041977X00112625
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618

SHORT NOTICES

and law, but for poetry and literature generally

the main subject-matter of philologythey
preferred to rely on their own methods. Since
the old poetry expressed a culture that was
ah-eady dead or dying at the time when the
lexicographers set to work, they found the
technique of using Bedouin informants insufficient, and were forced to make deductions
from literary texts. In principle they attempted
to explain everythingeven at the cost of
fabricating references. Many of their definitions, therefore, being based not on knowledge
but on guess-work, are inexact or incorrect.
Dr. Kopf pays tribute to the great work of the
lexicographers, but for which much of early
Arabic literature would be unintelligible to us,
but he warns us against the countless scribal
errors, erroneous readings, false analogies, and
even differences of opinion that have
' enriched ' the Arabic lexicon. While we
will usually find in the dictionaries a meaning
that fits the text we are studying, we will
also find many others, a large proportion of
which have no basis whatever in the language.
This conclusion, Dr. Kopf claims, is not
reached inductively but by a study of the
methods of procedure of the lexicographers.
These relied on three main methods of determining the meaning of unknown words:
inquiry from Bedouin informants, deduction
or guess-work from context, and theoretical,
especially etymological reasoning. The first
method was of far less importance than is
generally believed, was vitiated by faulty
techniques of inquiry (leading questions, disregard of dialectal variation, etc.), and in any
case died out towards the end of the 4th
century A.H. Guessing from the context was
very common in the early, pre-scholarly
period, when obscure words in the Qur'an
or traditions were explained more or less at
discretion, without reference to any philological
discipline. This early guess-work is a major
source of the welter of fictitious meanings in
the dictionaries.
The greater part of the chapter under review
is devoted to a study of the methods used by the
philologists in deducing meaning from context
and by theoretical reasoning. Dr. Kopf reaches
the conclusion that ' Arabic lexicographers
offer many meanings that have no root in the
living language, and this is the source of a
large part of the wealth of meanings that the
philologists assigned to so large a number of
Arabic words. Many definitions are inaccurate
either because the philologists did not
properly understand the sense of the words,
or because they were distracted by etymology.
Because of a failure to take proper account of
rhetorical usages and semantic problems,
synonyms and homonyms have multiplied
in the dictionaries. On the one hand, the

philologists neglected to bring out shades of

meaning, between which the feeling of the
living language certainly distinguished; on
the other, they presented chance rhetorical
figures as valid meanings of the expressions
used. As a matter of principle, we should
accept no definitions of words from the Arabic
dictionaries, that are not vouched for by
sfiawahid or elsewhere '.
This study is based on an extensive and
meticulous examination of the classical
lexicographic and philological literature. It
should be made more widely available to
Arabists.
B. L.

: The Sufi Path of

Love. An anthology of Sufism. xii,
154 pp. London : Luzac, 1954, 21s.

MARGARET SMITH

Dr. Margaret Smith has added to our

indebtedness by the skill and care with which
she has put together this new and original
anthology. The first section brings together
a series of passages from the writings of
European scholars on the nature and origins
of Sufism, from Sir William Jones to Louis
Massignon. Thereafter the compiler has
arranged her extracts from the translated Sfif I
writings under broad topics, beginning with
the nature of God and the human soul and then
tracing the ascent of the soul to union with its
Creator. Dr. Smith has gathered an excellent
variety of quotations ranging over the work of
all the translators of Sufi literature except
herself; her own versions are contained in her
earlier Readings from the Mystics of Islam
(Luzac, 1950). This book makes an admirable
and attractive introduction to the study of
Islamic mysticism.
A. J. AKBEKRY

D. M. DUNLOP : The History of the Jetoish

Khazars. (Princeton Oriental Series,
Vol. 16.) xvi, 293 pp. Princeton, New
Jersey : Princeton University Press.
(London:
Geoffrey Cumberlege),
1954, $5.
The Khazars have always attracted much
attention from scholars, and the lack of reliable
source material has not prevented the growth
of a considerable learned literature on the
subject. Dr. Dunlop's book appears, however,
to be the first in English, and provides a useful
conspectus not only of the history of the
Khazars but alsoand more especiallyof
some of the literature and controversies
concerning them.
The first chapter deals with the early history
of the Khazars, their probable origins, and their
early contacts with Persia and Byzantium.