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Rome and the Arabian Frontier: From the Nabataeans to the Saracens, by David Graf. (Variorum Collected Studies Series: CS594) 348 pages. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997. $93.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-86078-658-7

A handful of marginal remarks and annotations are erroneous and incomplete. For example, note 7 on page 4 reads, "A Muslim killed in battle against infidels is promised paradise unconditionally, he is a shahld, usually translated as martyr." Although the translation is literally accurate, the connotations of the two terms are completely different. Martyrdom connotes the death of a powerless, suffering individual at the hands of an oppressor, whereas shahadah connotes mainly fearlessness in battle. Practically every sentence in this paragraph is problematic. There is a condition attached to a shahids immediate entrance into Paradise; he must be debt-free. In their respective languages, shahld and martyr are etymologically and semantically almost identical; both derive from roots that have nothing to do with "bearing witness." In fact, the Qur'an uses the word shahld only in the sense of witnessing for the faith; the concept of martyrdom in the sense of falling in battle is a secondary derivation. Shahadah, therefore, does not connote "mainly fearlessness in battle;" some hadlths describe a woman who dies during childbirth as a shahld. Such a hadlth is quoted on page 158, in which Landau-Tasseron translates shuhada'as martyrs! Note 249 on page 55, which refers to manaqib might have contained a reference to the article "Manaqib" in the Enc/clopedia of Islam, which reviews the evolution of this term and the literature it refers to. The translator's comment, "there was emphasis on the merits of the Ansar in particular..." is not borne out by a broad survey of the manaqib literature. The manaqib al-sahaba ("Merits or Excellences of the Companions") sections in most standard hadlth compilations and in manaqib monographs traditionally emphasize the excellences of the muhajirun, particularly the Rashidun caliphs, since on account of their sabiqa (priority in rendering service to Islam), they were ipso facto the most meritorious.