'This volume [New Arabian Studies 4], like its predecessors in this series, includes a variety of topics all relating to the Arabian Peninsula. We find articles on language and literature, dialect, geography, archaeology, history, architecture, agriculture, sociology, religion and documents. It also includes illustrations and reproduction of documents in facsimile form, where needed, to support the text. The journal's main aim is to make available to scholars with specializations in various aspects of Arabia new research findings, in addition to traditional themes treated separately or in joint anthologies and also to entice those living in or interested in Arabia to join researchers in making contributions of their own...The authors are specialists in the fields they write about, either through training and basic research or through personal experience. Diversity in the topics enlisted reflects also the range of the journal's interests in research and publication on the Arabian peninsula. Generally, the authors have bequeathed the reader a wealth of first-hand data, regardless of the field of specialization, which scholars should find useful in carrying out their work. The editors, as usual, have done an excellent job in controlling the quality of transcription, even though more than one system was employed.' Journal of Semitic Studies