either the Somali texts or the Arabic texts or in both,
because there is a divergence between the Somali script
and the standard transliteration of Arabic. In Somali
texts all words and phrases borrowed from Arabic are
transcribed in the Somali orthography if they are fully
integrated into the language. As the criterion of such
an integration, I regard their intelligibility to those
Somalis who do not know Arabic. A good example of this
16.is the Arabic phrase Yaa Nebi assalaatu wa salaamu calaykaa.
'0 my Prophet, may the blessing and peace of God be upon
you~ , As it is constantly used this phrase is understood
by every Somali. All other Arabic words and phrases,
whether they occur within Somali texts or in the descriptive
parts of the thesis, are transliterated from the Arabic
script according to the system used in the Encyclopaedia
of Islam} wi th some minor modifications. These consist
of replacing ~ and ~ by i and g respectively and of
dispensing with underlining in the case of digraphs dh,
gh, kh, and th, when this device is not necessary to
elimina te cHnb igui ties. All words and phrases trans-
literated from Arabic are written in capital letters in
order to distinguish them from the material in Somali which
is always in lower case letters, except for initial
capitals, and underlined, except in continuous text~.
When common Islamic terms, such as KHALAWAH 'spiritual
retreat' or DHIKR 'Remembrance' (i.e. the ritual of
remembrance of God, performed by the Sufis) occur in the
English translations they are given in their Arabic form
and are transliterated accordingly, irrespective of their
form in Soma11. Names of the letters of the Arabic alphabet