The passage treated here occurs in the seventh faṣl, “Concerning words which are frequently used in reference to conquests, expeditions and historical accounts of the Arabs during Islam,” of the sixth bāb of the first maqāla of al-Xwārazmī's Mafātīḥ al-'ulūm (pp. 119–20 of the edition of Van Vloten, Leiden 1895 = p. 73 of the edition of Cairo 1342/1923–4). The whole faṣl was published in the original and translated by J. M. Unvala in his article, “The translation of an extract from Mafātīḥ al-'Ulūm of al-Khwārazmī” in the Journal of the K.R. Cama Institute, XI, Bombay 1928, 76–110. However, Unvala was primarily an Iranian scholar and his commentary on the faṣl is oriented primarily in that direction. He was on weaker ground when dealing with Central Asiatic and especially Turkish topics: and this fact, together with the lapse of nearly 40 years since Unvala prepared his article, warrants a reconsideration of the brief section on Central Asia in the light of more recent researches.

The recent discovery of a comparatively large collection of inscribed wooden and bamboo strips in north-west China has aroused considerable interest on the part of Chinese scholars, as the material concerns both the extension of the Han government and the early methods of textual compilation in China. As the material finds are not available for inspection, the following notes can be no more than a summary of the information given in the few Chinese articles that have been published on the subject.

The well known tradition in al-Bukhārī, told on the authority of al-Zuhrī—'Urwa— 'Ā'isha, about the conversation between the Prophet and Khadīja after he received his first revelation contains at the end a phrase variously interpreted by Muslim scholars and translated in modern times in various manners.

The Hijaz, being only a little less sterile than most of the Arabian peninsula, could in the 18th century support its nomadic inhabitants and urban communities owing to two important assets, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the Ḥajj, and the transit trade from the south of Arabia to the north.

There are more views and opinions about the nature and character of the vidátha than the number of scholars who have worked on the subject. That the sources are open to different interpretations is obvious from the divergent views held about the origin, development and functions of the sabh (council) and sámiti (assembly), the chief political institutions of Vedic India. The Vedic literature provides numerous vague references to the vidátha. In the Ṛg Veda alone at least 97 verses refer to it, while the Atharva Veda mentions it in about 20 hymns. The Vājasaneyī Saṁhitā, the Brāhmaṇas and the Ṯaittirīya Āraṇyaka also contain references to the vidátha. Most of the evidence, however, is provided by the Ṛg Vedic hymns, and references to this institution are fewer in the later compositions of Vedic literature.