Scant attention has been paid to this subject by Western writers, so even an incomplete approach to it may not come amiss. The field being far too wide for any attempt at comprehensiveness within the space of a short article, I have singled out the numerical categories, since they offer a fairly coherent and manageable group.

The interminable debate between Muslim legists concerning the propriety of “audition (al-samā')”, or more properly “musical audition”, is probably the most interesting of Arabic polemical literature. The subject of the dispute has been dealt with by several writers, and translations from three celebrated Arabic disputants, Ibn Abi'l-Dunyā (d. 894), Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), and his brother Majd al-Dīn (d. 1126), as well as a Persian author Al-Hujwīrī (d. c. 1072) and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (d. 1204), have been published in English.

In the series of Phœnician inscriptions from Byblos, ranging in date from the thirteenth to the first centuries b.c., there appear words containing pronominal suffixes in forms not observed elsewhere, and on the basis of these forms deductions have been drawn as to the character of the dialect of Byblos and the history of the pronominal suffixes. Some of the peculiarities are more apparent than real. Thus in Byb. 5, 1.6, exhibits in place of the contracted form in or the secondary metanalytic suffix in the form in which is regular in other Canaanite dialects for the third plural masculine suffix after the dual-plural and other words in -ay or -ē. There are no instances of the 3 pl. attached to a singular noun, nor of the 3 f.s. suffix attached to a singular noun. The two examples of the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural noun cannot be treated as forms peculiar to Byblos, for the 3 f.s. suffix to the dual-plural has not been found elsewhere in Phœnician, and in other Canaanite dialects it has a similar form. Erom the evidence considered below it must be inferred that double indication of the plural occurs in Canaanite feminine nouns from the twelfth century on.

The Ṭāq i Kisrā is the most famous monument of Sasanian architecture, but opinions as to its date and builder differ widely. The traditional name “Arch of Khosrau” might as well refer to the first as to the second Khosrau, and perhaps not even that, as in Arabic Kisrā is used as a general designation for the Sasanian rulers. Mohammedan writers used to regard the façade of the Ṭāq i Kisrā, as one of the wonders of the world, but the historical facts were very soon obscured by legends. Eventually no less than four Sasanian rulers were quoted as its builders: Shapur I (241–273), Shapur II (310–379), Khosrau I Anushirvan (531–579) and Khosrau II Parvez (590–628).

My appreciation of Indian sculpture is not that of an art historian but of a living sculptor. I shall not therefore attempt to say anything about historical developments or to compare and criticize the characteristics of different periods, but I shall concentrate instead on trying to show some of the great and timeless qualities of Asiatic sculpture which make it as alive and significant for us to-day as it was to its unknown creators.