On the night of 9–10 July 1980, several hundred active-duty and retired Iranian paratroopers made their way to the Nuzhih air-force base near the city of Hamadan to initiate a coup d'état against Iran's fledgling Islamic regime. The Iranian government had learned of the plot, and many of the paratroopers were arrested as they arrived at the base. Several hundred additional participants in the plot were arrested in the following days. Those arrested were soon put on trial, and many were executed. Fearing that other military personnel were linked to the plot or sympathized with it, the government carried out an extensive purge of the armed forces in the following months. Hundreds of other participants in the plot were never apprehended, however, and many continued to plot against the Islamic regime, though they never again posed a serious threat to it.

In recent decades historians specializing in the Middle East and North Africa have studied endemic and epidemic diseases as well as evolving medical and public health knowledge and policy to better understand major historical transformations. The study of gender and empire, class and ethnicity, and civil society and government in the determination of medical and public health policy has yielded new insights into questions of state power, colonialism, imperialism, nationalism, modernity, and globalization. Historians have asked why, when, and how Western medicine took root in Muslim societies, which had their own complex and longstanding medical traditions.

A synthesis of Ottoman administrative history has yet to be written, and it is unlikely that one will appear in the near future. The task is enormous, and more glamorous subjects continue to receive priority. Even now the field of administrative history exists largely as an ancillary to the study of Ottoman diplomatic instruments or as a foundation for the study of the moderization of traditional society. In the latter case it has fallen under the spell of institutional history, where three theses and at least one ‘antithesis’ scurry in their murine way across the tiles of the Ottoman edifice. Despite the fact that a developed literature is lacking, speceialists in other disciplines have used the Ottoman example for broad comparative studies of bureaucratic empires. Their premature attempts have perpetuated the notion already endemic in Islamist circles that what we know of Islamic government is all there is to know and need be known. Several themes, however, have dominated the study of governing institutions in the Middle East with a force that has surely impeded progress and fresh thought. Our first results from the four theses referred to earlier are terribly outdated at worst or in need of modification at best. New source materials in the Ottoman archives and new readings of older materials long subject to scholarly scrutiny call for a reexamination of those leading themes and the theses they inspire before any attempt at synthesis and comparison is made.

The poet known as Bâkî (d. 1600), the “King of Poets” of Sultan Suleiman I (1520–66), is generally acknowledged as the leading figure of the so-called “classical age” of Ottoman poetry (roughly from the mid-15th to the beginning of the 17th century), while the poet known as Nâʾilî (d. 1666) was a pivotal figure in the break between this classical age and the “post-classical age,” roughly the early modern era extending from 1600 to 1800. On the broadest level this break was signaled by a change in the use of metaphorical language. This paper will contrast the treatment of one series of metaphors common in the lyric gazels within the divâns of both poets, although further examples could be found within other poetic genres, especially the panegyric kasîde. It will also attempt to interpret the significance of these metaphors in Nâʾilî's poetry and to demonstrate their distance from the usage of the classical Ottoman period, exemplified by Bâkî.

The following is a report of a pilot study on nomad-sedentary relations viewed in terms of exchange. The study was conducted in the Zagros Mountains of Iran and in the central Hazarajat of Afghanistan during the summer of 1971. The research involved the application in a field situation of a theoretical framework that links exchange and social structure. In previous research we had investigated the relationship between social structure and exchange in societies having a particular kind of exchange system—the potlatch. Utilizing Levi-Strausss approach to structure, we have taken certain kinds of rules, preferential marriage rules or rules of succession, and built models of social structure on the basis of such rules (Levi-Strauss, 1963). These were related to other models based upon the analysis of exchange behavior. In an earlier volume, Feasting with Mine Enemy, we demonstrated the applicability of this approach in our analysis of six Northwest Coast societies by relating their different forms of social structure to the variations they exhibited in their potlatch activity (Rosman and Rubel, 1971). The purpose of the pilot study reported on here was to apply our conceptual framework relating exchange and social structure to more complex social systems.

Ibn Ṭufayl (d. 1185), the Spanish Muslim philosopher, is at once a scientist, a mystic, and a believer. His science-oriented spirit, his mysticism, and his religious belief fall naturally into their proper places within the framework of his philosophy. This philosophy is imbedded in his distinguished treatise Ḥayy Bin Yaqẓân. In this work, he fuses his comprehensive knowledge of various disciplines in an all-embracing view of things which bears the results of his intellectual labor and culminates in a science-based mysticism. In preparing for the presentation of his views, Ibn Tufayl writes an Introduction to his work which includes a rigorous criticism of the philosophies of his predecessors. This Introduction imbues the treatise with philosophical seriousness and systematic value, and reveals the author's metaphysical presuppositions and basic motives for writing Ḥayy Bin Yaqẓân. He also draws a fundamental distinction between naturalistic knowledge and mystical gnosis, two methods of cognition that are not, in his opinion, mutually exclusive, and the rigorous training in the first necessarily leads to the, attainment of the latter. Such a distinction determines the entire philosophic plan of the treatise which commences with Ḥayy's early scientific and conceptual development and culminates in his inevitable union with the Necessary Being. Had Ibn Ṭufayl not written this Introduction, a great amount of scholarly work and historical investigation would have been required to trace the historical and intellectual threads with which Ḥayy Bin Yaqẓân was uniquely woven.

Over the past two decades scholars have become aware of the great importance of the so-called Cairo Geniza documents as a primary source for medieval Mediterranean socioeconomic history. This awareness is due principally to the indefatigable work of S. D. Goitein. The Geniza documents also provide an important source for one aspect of the art history of the period. The some 750 trousseau lists from the Cairo Geniza, in combination with ancillary Geniza records, offer a wealth of information—hitherto unexploited—on the attire of Jewish women in medieval Egypt, and by extension, the attire of Muslim women as well. The trousseau lists dating mainly from the Fatimid and Ayyubid periods (969–1250)—and to a lesser extent from the Mamluk (1250–1517)—contain the complete wardrobe of a medieval Egyptian bride.

The growth and transformation of Middle Eastern manufacturing industry has been little studied for the period before the advent of tariff autonomy, and thus protectionism, in the early 1930s The reasons for this are various but must have much to do with the many difficult problems involved. There is an obvious lack of data, particularly about the activities of the craft or small-scale sector which, even to this day, is regularly under-counted by government statisticians. There are also serious problems of definition which hage generally been ignored by the vast majority of economic historians who remain content to analyse manufacturing activity in terms of such simple dichotomies as modern/factory/capitalist versus traditional/workshop/pre-capitalist, a method which not only masks the fact that there are a whole range of activities which do not fall into such apparently neat categories but also — to introduce the major theme of this essay — makes it impossible to examine the complex interrelationship between plants of different size and degree of capitalisation. Finally, much of what passes for a ducussion of manufacturing activity has, in fact, got muddled with the much larger debate about the whole process of industrialisation, about whether particular areas of the Middle East could have developed their own industrial base before 1930, and about why they might have been prevented from doing so.

Despite a growing literature on peasant movements in the early 20th century, the story of the peasant rebellions of the Caspian region at the time of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906–11 has been little studied.1 A close look at three sets of materials—the newspapers of the Constitutional Revolution, among them Majlis (1906–1908), Anjuman (1906–1909), Habl al-Matīn (1907–1909), and Sūr-i Isrāfīl (1907–8); British diplomatic reports; and several regional studies and memoirs of the period—reveal that, during the First Constitutional Period of 1906–1908, a number of strikes and sit-ins were carried out by the peasants, often with the support of craftsmen and workers, who had initiated trade union activity. Such revolts were considerably more sustained and prominent in the northern areas of Gilan and Azerbayjan, which were directly influenced by the flow of radical ideas from the Russian Caucasus; they also benefited from a long history of social struggle among the craftsmen and small shopkeepers (pīshahvarāns), who maintained their guilds, and a tradition of alliances among the craftsmen, the urban poor, and the poor peasants.2

On New Year's Eve, before the tumultuous events of 1978–79, President Jimmy Carter, while toasting the Shah in Tehran, referred to Iran as an “island of stability” in the Persian Gulf. President Carter's remarks reflected the consensus opinion about Iran not only among United States government officials but among most business firms operating in Iran as well. A typical U.S. corporate attitude was represented by a 1975 Business International (hereafter BI) report about business prospects in the Middle East.

These characteristics (infrastructure development, population size and high absorptive capacity), which favorably distinguish Iran from the Arab Middle East, make the country the prime market in the area for many Western exporters. Political stability, the government's benevolent attitude toward private enterprise, and a well-protected internal market give Iran a similar edge in the eyes of foreign investors. Few international companies will thus want to stand aside as Iran races toward its goal of becoming the Japan of the Middle East.1

Three years ago, the film Nasser 56 (1996), from Muhammad Fadil, a dramatic reenactment of the Suez crisis, set unprecedented attendance records in Egypt. Opening at the end of another disappointing year marked by a steady decline in studio film production and a dearth of high-quality offerings—and held back from public screening a full year by wavering government support—the film breathed new life into the movie industry and precipitated a national discussion about the legacy of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The film has come and gone from Cairo theaters (although screenings abroad continue), but Nasser 56 will remain a historic film. In dramatic fashion, it broke a long-accepted taboo against cinematic depiction of modern political leaders. It is also the first serious attempt at film biography by an Egyptian filmmaker in thirty years.

Waqf documents in Cairo form an invaluable yet relatively unexploited source of Egyptian history for the last six centuries. In a body of records of immense value for the quality of their content as well as their number is to be found data of great significance for virtually the entire spectrum of the extended social sciences. By waqf records is meant not simply the original waqfîya, or ḥhujja establishing the waqf, but those subsidiary documents that modify the original donation in some way. Each class of these documents provides information of a unique character. Together they afford one of the most intimate glimpses into the inner functioning of Egyptian urban and rural society.

Ten years ago dissatisfaction with the state of studying Middle East politics may well have led one to believe that to a very large extent, the shortage of scholars qualified in the esoteric languages, elaborate traditions, and long history of the area was to blame. In fact, at the time there was a good deal of justification to speak of an expected shortage of experts in Middle Eastern studies, to the point where importing such scholars from abroad was considered as an alternative. Today, the problem seems to be more to find positions for fair numbers of fresh Ph.D.s in Middle Eastern history, sociology, and politics. The dissatisfaction with the state of the field, however, remains intact.

Historians have recently started listening to the past, contributing to what David Howes has described as a “sensorial revolution in the humanities and social sciences.” In the same way that all five senses are relevant to our daily understanding of the world around us, they should be vital to our understanding of historical events. Interpreting how peoples of the past sensorially experienced their world makes possible a richer, more comprehensive grasp of historical events. A sensorially grounded historical narrative is an embodied history that is connected to everyday people and lives. Historians of the Middle East, however, with few exceptions, are still largely producing soundproof, devocalized narratives of the past.

International fairs—the “folk-festivals of capitalism”—have long been a favorite topic of historians studying quintessential phenomena of modernity such as the celebration of industrial productivity, the construction of national identities, and the valorization of bourgeois leisure and consumption in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. To date, however, such spectacles occurring in the modern Middle East remain largely unexamined. This article, an analysis of the discourse surrounding the first Damascus International Exposition in 1954, is conceived in part as a preliminary effort to redress this historiographic imbalance.

Every society has subterranean fractures—ethnic, regional, racial, tribal, or sectarian. Given the right confluence of events, these can erupt and take on new life. When imperial and colonial powers produce a body of knowledge about those they rule, they often construct sociodemographic categories along these very fault lines. In the Middle East, this process has coincided with an attempted regional remapping using imagined and yet real (although newly configured) social categories. With the democracy project fading, the mosaic—in which the region is conceptualized as a multitude of discrete sociocultural units based on sect, ethnicity, and tribe—has appeared. Complex social categories are distilled into bounded categories whose correspondence to reality is problematic.

This article examines the symbiotic relationship between race and empire in British ethnographic discourse on the Arabs of Palestine. Drawing on the works of British explorers in late Ottoman Palestine, I show how native Palestinian Bedouin came to be viewed as a separate race within a hierarchy of Arab races, and how within this racial reconfiguration the Bedouin embodied not only an ideal model of racial purity, but also a racial archetype on which Arabness itself was measured, codified, and reproduced.

In most Western universities, Arabic literature is rarely studied by itself or for itself. It is subject to disciplinary traffic and intersections, on the one hand, and to what might be called a political predicament, on the other. With this in mind, I outline below some thoughts underpinned by two examples of the state of the art in Arabic literary studies, published four decades apart.

The question behind this article evolved from two separate observations. While the expansion of comparative and cross-regional research has been actively promoted by leading scholars of the Middle East (and was later encouraged by such bodies as the Middle East Studies Association and this journal), so has the incorporation of scholarly insights from area studies been urged by leading political scientists as a prerequisite for revitalizing all of the discipline's subfields and institutionally endorsed by the American Political Science Association. Viewed as interrelated, these observations prompted the question framing this text: if the aims of many Middle East scholars and institutions are compatible with the aims of many political scientists and their association, why have they remained largely parallel, as suggested by scholars within both fields?