Diffuse astrocytoma (DA), anaplastic astrocytoma (AA), and glioblastoma (GBM) are defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) based on IDH-mutational status. The vast majority of IDH-mutated gliomas (90% of which involve a mutation in IDH1 R132H, which can be assessed by IDH1 immunohistochemistry [IHC]) occur in persons younger than 55 years of age. This raises the question as to the prevalence of IDH-mutant tumors in older persons and whether the gliomas in older patients should be routinely tested. Since January 1, 2014, we have employed a standard screening panel for all gliomas regardless of patient age. From 578 total gliomas tested, 88 were IDH-mutant DA/AA/GBMs and 11 IDH-mutant tumors were in persons age 55 and older. Of the 11 IDH-mutant examples in the older group, 9 were first clinical presentations of the tumor, 4 of which were in persons age 70 or older (oldest, 76 years). We assessed whether the typical profile of nuclear ATRX loss with or without strong nuclear p53 IHC occurred in these and younger patients and found that ATRX/p53 IHC patterns paralleled those in younger patients. We conclude that, although infrequent, IDH IHC is strongly recommended for all ages of adult patients with diffuse gliomas.

This chapter discusses how the remarkable achievement of Al Tabari — a young Arab scholar — says something about both his exceptional abilities and energies and the context in which he wrote. His primary education took place against the backdrop of the so-called mihna, a period of over twenty years when a succession of caliphs attempted to impose a measure of theological uniformity through persuasion and coercion. Meanwhile, political and social turbulence at the centre of the polity resulted in the splintering off of provinces that had earlier paid regular tribute to the capitals in Syria and Iraq. What this means is that when Al Tabari was completing a draft of his history, he was surveying two interrelated processes. The first was the emergence of a Sunni scholarly elite that anchored its religious authority in its command of Prophetic Traditions, and second was the dissolution of an imperial order.

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In l889 Ignazio Guidi edited an East Syrian chronicle that covers the late Sasanian and very early Islamic period.1 Four years later Theodor No ¨ldeke translated the text into German, dated it to the late seventh century, and argued that its provenance was southern, rather than northern Iraq.2 No ¨ldeke's arguments were accepted, and the text came to be called the Khu : zista : n Chronicle, which now seems to be the preferred designation in the secondary literature.3 Little more was said about the text until 1982,4 when Pierre Nautin argued more vigorously for an idea floating around since No ¨ldeke's day, viz. that the text consisted of two unequal parts, the second of which was made up of what No ¨ldeke called 'notes' (Aufzeichnungen).5 More specifically, Nautin proposed that at least two hands fashioned the work: first a chronicler, who he suggested was Elias of Merv (fl. 7th century);6 and second, at least one (and perhaps more) redactor/copyist(s), who added a grab-bag collection of material onto the chronicle, which had already lost its beginning; this collection Nautin called an 'appendix'.7 Now whether Elias is to be credited with the first, * Versions of this paper were delivered at the Washington meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in December 1995, and at the Near and Middle Eastern History Seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies in February 1996. I am indebted to those who listened and responded. I am also grateful to Sebastian Brock, Lawrence I. Conrad, and Patricia Crone, who read and criticized drafts. For several years this article has been described as 'forthcoming' in L. I. Conrad, History and historiography in early Islamic times, from which it was reluctantly withdrawn. The author regrets any confusion that may result. Abbreviations for periodical and other titles are given as follows:

Abu ʿUbayda (d. 825) was amawlā(client) of Jewish descent who wrote prolifically about history, religion, and culture. As such, he exemplifies the well-known feature of early Islamic learning that is the Abbasid-eramawlāscholar. His grandfather was a freeborn convert, rather than the more common manumitted slave, and it happens that the grandfather's patron—his sponsor, as it were, for admission into Islamic society—was a slave trader named ʿUbayd Allah b. Maʿmar (d. ca. 665). And ʿUbayd Allah b. Maʿmar, on a conservative estimate, had purchased hundreds of slaves from ʿUmar b. al-Khattab, the caliph who, before his assassination by a slave, had presided over the explosive early phases of the Islamic conquests.