ASMA AFSARUDDIN, The Excellences of the Qur'an: Textual Sacrality and the Organization of Early Islamic Society

   1

STEVEN C. JUDD, Competitive Hagiography in Biographies of al-Awza`i and Sufyan al-Thawri

   25

MARTHA T. ROTH, Hammurabi's Wronged Man    38

ROBIN MCNEAL, The Body as Metaphor for the Civil and Martial Components of Empire in Yi Zhou shu, chapter 32; With an Excursion on the Composition and Structure of the Yi Zhou shu

    46

ANNA M. SHIELDS, Defining Experience: The “Poems of Seductive Allure” (yanshi) of the Mid-Tang Poet Yuan Zhen (779-831)

    61

HAYIM TAWIL, Hebrew נפץ יד [napets yad]= Akkadian Qata Napasu: A Term of Non-Allegiance

    71

PAUL R. GOLDIN, On the Meaning of the Name Xi wangmu, Spirit-Mother of the West

    83

Brief Reviews of Books  165