Abstract: After the 'oil boom' of October 1973, the major oil-exporting countries of the Persian Gulf had to deal with a complicated dilemma: what to do with the extremely vast revenues from oil export. It seems that they decided to invest in three major economic and social fields. The first was the development of infrastructure and power stations as well as governmental ministries and services. The second field was the development of the industrial and agricultural sectors. The authorities of the GCC countries realized that there were no guarantees for the continuation of high prices of oil and that they would have to diversify their economies in order to maintain long-term high levels of per capita income and GNP. The third field was the substantial improvement in the area of social services, including the health care and education systems as well as other social services. However, these projects required an extensive work force of a quality and quantity which could not be supplied by local sources. There were two main reasons for the shortage of the national work force in the GCC countries. The first was small national populations. In 1975, the total national populations of the GCC countries were estimated to be little more than 6 million. The largest national population was in Saudi Arabia - about 4.6 million - and the smallest in Qatar, with only 60,000 (see Table 1). The second reason was very low rates of labour force participation (due to high rates of natural increase): about 20-23 per cent;' as compared with 50 per cent, and even higher, among the developed countries.2 These trends forced the GCC countries substantially to increase the number of their foreign workers. One of the distribution characteristics of proven oil reserves in the Arab world is that they are greatest in the countries with relatively small populations. As a result, those countries with the larger populations and the greatest need for additional work opportunities have little, if any, oil.3 Since the beginning of the 1970s, the authorities of the labour-exporting countries realized the benefits that could be reaped from inter-Arab labour movement, with the main benefits deriving from the financial remittances transferred by workers to their home countries and the reduction of pressure for work opportunities. In 1989, the last year before the Gulf crisis, the total of workers' remittances sent from the rich Arab oil-producing countries to Egypt, Jordan and Yemen reached $5.190

Abstract: David Ben Gourion a tente d'imposer un cadre spatial et temporel au judaisme. Il a voulu ancrer le nationalisme juif moderne dans la Bible, mais il a echoue parce que ce souhait allait a l'encontre des sentiments instinctifs de la plus grande partie des Juifs dans la seconde moitie du XX e siecle. Pour cette plus grande partie de la population, les symboles mythiques n'etaient pas en contradiction avec leur relation directe a l'histoire juive recente, mais formaient plutot un supplement a cette identite. C'etait l'histoire recente qui devenait la base de leur relation avec l'Etat

Abstract: The historical-Islamic background of the 1979 revolution in Iran and the populist character of the Islamic Republic have received careful scrutiny in the literature.' However, the impact of Navvab Safavi and the Fada'ian-e Eslam on shaping a distinctly populist-utopian dimension in the Islamic revivalist movement in the revolution has received little attention.2 Mojtaba Navvab Safavi (1924-55) was the founder of Fada'ian-e Eslam, a militant, fundamentalist Islamic organization in Iran. This organization was active from the early 1 940s to the mid- I 950s, when Iran enjoyed a brief period of democratic freedom. In December 1955 Navvab Safavi and the other leaders of the Fada'ian-e Eslam were executed. Fada'ian-e Islam's principal objective was to establish an Islamic social order. Navvab Safavi, in his Barnameh-ye Enqelabi-ye Fada'ian-Eslam (1950) and in a series of articles in his weekly newspaper, Manshor-e Baradari, outlined an ideal Islamic social system. The historical significance of Navvab Safavi's thought is in the impact that he and his organization had on the development of the Islamic character of the Iranian revolution. Ayatollah Khomeini himself had a close affinity with Navvab Safavi, whose political career began with the assassination of Ahmad Kasravi in the spring of 1945 in response to Khomeini's condemnation of his call for an Islamic reformation. A number of influential personalities in the Islamic Republic and some important Islamic political organizations (Hey'at-ha-ye Mo'talefeh Eslami) had some background in the Fada'ian-e Eslam. But more important, Navvab Safavi and his organization, by formulating the detailed plan of an Islamic utopia, established the vision, discourse and the cultural tone for a popular social movement that led to the Islamization of the Iranian revolution. This article studies Navvab Safavi and Fada'ian-e Eslam's utopia. Seyyed Mojtaba Navvab Safavi was born in Tehran in 1924, about the same time that Reza Khan was establishing the reign of the Pahlavi monarchy. Navvab Safavi's father, Seyyed Javad Mir-Lohi, was a cleric who, according to Navvab Safavi's biographer, put the clerical robe aside under Reza Shah's anti-clerical campaign and practised law, 'defending the

Abstract: (1997). The Shah's Lebanon policy: the role of SAVAK. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 66-91.

Abstract: (1997). The marja'iya in Iran and the nomination of Khamanei in December 1994. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 777-787.

Abstract: (1997). Myth in the desert, or not the Great Arab Revolt. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 267-312.

Abstract: This article will shed light on the question of Palestines absorptive capacity as a geographic economic and political issue from the time that Zionism took in interest in the subject until the establishment of the State of Israel. It will examine the methods that were employed to evaluate the question the problems attendant upon these methods and how these methods were modified over the course of time. (EXCERPT)

Abstract: L'A. presente et compare les principales caracteristiques des universites arabes et turques

Abstract: The signing of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Govemment Arrangements (DOP) and the Letters of Mutual Recognition exchanged between Israel and the PLO in September 1993 marked a new era in the history of the Middle East. The PLO accepted United Nation Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, recognized the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security, committed itself to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and renounced the use of terrorism and other acts of violence. Its leader, Yasser Arafat, called for an end to the Intifada and affirmed that the articles of the Palestinian Covenant that are inconsistent with his commitments are inoperative and invalid. These developments turned a new page in the PLO-Israeli relationship and in the PLO's own political status as well. For the first time in its history, the Palestinian national movement, recognized by Israel, would administer Palestinian people and land. Moreover, Israel would withdraw from Palestinian territories, beginning with Gaza and the Jericho area, and continuing with the eventual redeployment of its military forces outside the populated areas throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority (PA) is initially limited in its authorities to spheres such as education and culture, health, social welfare, direct taxation, tourism and the public order, including the ability to establish a strong police force. However, since the transitional period is limited to five years, beginning with the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho area but not conditional upon reaching any further agreements, the way has been opened for the Palestinians to lay the foundations of their own state. In the DOP both sides agreed to 'view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit', and the document stipulated that direct, free and general political elections will be held for the Council of the PA. According to the DOP these elections will 'constitute a significant interim preparatory step toward the realization of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and their just requirements'. I Other indications of emerging statehood can be seen in the following facts: The PA has an international dialling code of its own and its own checkpoints, adjacent to those of Israel, on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt

Abstract: The fiscal system of Palestine under Ottoman rule was divided into two: the autonomous Sanjaq, or District of Jerusalem, came under the direct control of the Ministry of Finance at Constantinople, whilst the Sanjaqs of Acre and Nablus were administered from Beirut.' There were three direct rural taxes: the Werko, the Tithe, and the Animal Tax. The Werko rate was 4 per mille of the capital value of Miri, or State Land, as it had been assessed 25 years previously; the Tithe was collected at 12.5 per cent rather than 10 per cent on the gross yield of the land; and the Animal Tax was a tax per head of sheep, goat or pig, and those camels and buffaloes not used for ploughing.2 With time, large estates had been formed in Ottoman Palestine through the farming out of tax-collection. Here, the collection of tax especially meant the 'ushr tax, or the yearly tithe due on agricultural land.3 Taxcollection was farmed out for short periods in exchange for large payments to the government. The 12.5 per cent tithe of gross yield was a heavy burden for the peasantry as it translated to approximately 35 per cent of the net yield which rarely exceeded the minimum subsistence needs of the fellah,4 who was already at the mercy of the tax-collector. Partly to cover his own costs, and partly to make a gain, the multazim, or tax-collector, often exacted over half of the peasant's produce and so:

Abstract: The objectives of this article are first to identify the scale of the migration from Syria to the oil-producing countries of the Middle East....The article also examines the consequences of the migration of workers on the Syrian economy. Another focus of this research is to identify the policy of the Syrian authorities toward the migration of Syrian workers....Did the Syrian authorities encourage the migration of workers to the oil-producing countries and if they did what were the reasons? Perhaps they enforced limitations on those who wanted to migrate and if they did why? The final objective of this study is to examine the influences of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...on the extent of the foreign populations in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries particularly as related to the Syrian migrants. (EXCERPT)

Abstract: The volume of archival material concerning the establishment of the Agricultural Mortgage Company in Palestine is quite remarkable due to the issue being directly affected by the Arab-Jewish conflict as reflected in the economy: the relative roles played by the British, Arabs and Jews on and off the company's board; and the land problem because the mortgage laws presented a further threat to Arab tenant-farmers. In setting up the company, the Colonial Office had to juggle all the key interests and ensure that the bank's main aim agricultural development was not lost sight of. The complex and drawn out negotiations leading up to the establishment of the bank in 1935 will be analysed here, and the role the bank had in providing much-needed credit for agricultural development will be assessed. The establishment of an agricultural mortgage bank in Palestine was the outcome of the British Mandatory Government's realization that there was a lack of long-term credit for agricultural development. Those farmers seeking loans had recourse either to the moneylenders who charged usurious rates, or to commercial banks which were only willing to risk short-term loans. The problem mostly affected the Arab population as the Jews could obtain intermediate and long-term agricultural credit from a variety of sources, including Nir Company,2 the Farmers' Bank, the Workers' Bank and the Central Bank of Co-operative Institutions (the latter, established by the Jewish Labour Federation, the Histadrut, especially granted long-term loans to agricultural settlers). In 1898, the Ottoman Government passed a law establishing the Ottoman Agricultural Bank which supplied seasonal credit on mortgage loans and some long-term loans. The capital from that bank came partly from assets and accrued interests of the Caisses d'Utilite Publique, which was succeeded by the Agricultural Bank, and partly from an additional 10

Abstract: Following the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan in 1896-98, the basic aim of the new rulers of the so-called Condominium was to eradicate all traces of Mahdism and other forms of what they viewed as 'Muslim fanaticism' and to encourage 'Orthodox Islam', as propagated in al-Azhar. To do so the Mahdiyya was declared illegal and all its writings as well as its prayer book (ratib al-imam al-mahdi) were banned. Sufism was also viewed with suspicion and discouraged, since historically the Mahdiyya had emerged from sufi roots. The Khatmiyya sufi order, led by al-Sayyid Ali alMirghani, was the sole exception to this rule because it had opposed the Mahdiyya since it first appeared in June 1881 and hence was viewed favourably. The new rulers also discouraged Christian missionary activities in the Muslim north, fearing negative repercussions by the predominantly Muslim population.' The policy adopted was largely based on the one followed by the Egyptian rulers during the nineteenth century. Top religious posts, such as the mufti or the qadi al-qudat of Sudan, were reserved for Egyptian Muslim scholars. Young Sudanese, mainly sons of tribal leaders, were sent to alAzhar so as to be trained as future qadis and ulama. An additional precaution against fanaticism was the appointment of a so-called 'Board of Ulemas', to advise the authorities on matters regarding the Muslim community. However, the British authorities failed to take Egyptian influence into account. Whereas the Egyptians were excluded from top military and administrative positions, which were exclusively in British hands, the Egyptians' impact as fellow Muslims could not be eradicated through government orders. The Egyptian army, which was primarily Arabic speaking and Muslim, was stationed in the Sudan and mingled with Sudanese society on a daily basis. Many Egyptian officers and officials married Sudanese wives and became part of Sudanese society. Furthermore, news and views not necessarily complimentary to Britain penetrated into Sudan by means of the Egyptian press and through personal contacts. With the growth of Egyptian nationalism this penetration increased considerably and was viewed by Wingate and his staff as an acute danger. As early as 1907, the Sudan Political Service (SPS), consisting of British University

Abstract: The books reviewed here relate to two broad suppositions, on which they help to shed some light. One is the Arab Gulf leaders' unawareness and their States' insufficient preparations for an Iraqi invasion, despite some early warning indications. The second is the Arab Gulf states' cumbersome attempts to establish an effective and inclusive regional security strategy in the post-'Desert Storm' period, a process which was also burdened by Gulf states' various internal problems. These books can actually supply answers to several interrelated practical questions. How did the leaders of the Arab Gulf states perceive their internal and external security problems? What kind of defence strategies did they devise before and after the invasion of Kuwait? Whom have they perceived as an external foe? What kind of internal processes endangered their stability? The books reviewed here illustrate some of the Gulf leaders' discussions and perspectives. Kuwait's Foreign Policy, City State in World Politics concerns Kuwait, but may in fact represent the dilemmas and policy choices of some of the other smaller states, incorporated in the regional Gulf organization, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).' Security and regime stability is Kuwait's primary goal but, in addition, Assiri maintains that Kuwait has also continually sought to spread Islam, adhered to Arab nationalism, promoted the Palestinian issue, and exported aid (pp.1-12). Assiri does not prioritize Kuwait's foreign policy goals, but it is clear that security is its main goal and that the other 'goals' are in fact means to achieve security. Thus, Kuwait was sometimes compelled, not only to ask for British help, but to follow prestigious bon-ton regional issues, such as the promotion of Islam and Palestinian rights, as a means to gain wide-ranging friendships, sympathy for its policies and, perhaps most important, appeasement of its rivals in the region. The author, a professor of political science at the University of Kuwait, evaluates the historical ramifications of Kuwaiti security policy as successful. Emerging from a point of departure that Kuwait (like other GCC states) was a small, underpopulated state and had to devise a sophisticated foreign policy to endure, Kuwait's leaders have taken a 'centrist orientation', which included playing a non-partisan and non-aggressive role in inter-Arab disputes, and even an active, neutralist, mediating position and

Abstract: The attitude of Zionism toward the issue of the Arabs in Palestine from the beginning of Zionism until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest. Among the more prominent studies are those by Alsberg, Ro'i, Hattis, Sela, Mandel, Kollat, Rubinstein, Goldstein, Haim, Caplan, Be'eri, Gorny, and Shafir.1 These works deal not just with the attitude toward the Arab issue of prestate official Zionist bodies (all constituents of the World Zionist Organization, primarily the Zionist Congress, the Zionist General Council, the Zionist Executive, and the Jewish Agency Executive), but also with the prevailing attitudes of the right and left wings of the Zionist movement.2 This research draws a broad picture of the role of the Arab issue in the Zionist movement and responds to fundamental questions such as the roots of the Zionist-Arab conflict in Palestine; the perception of Arabs among various camps of the Zionist movement - official Zionism, the Revisionists, Berit Shalom, and HaShomer HaZa'ir; Zionist efforts to reach agreement with the Arabs; the reasons for the failure to reach agreement, and so forth. However, although the foregoing studies are in general agreement that it was the mission of Zionism from its earliest stages to establish a state in Palestine, they do not examine in depth the approach of the Zionist movement to the status and rights of the Arab minority in the future Jewish state.3 This issue was relevant for official and Revisionist Zionism in particular, as neither accepted the concept of a binational state, which had been proposed by other Zionist camps such as Berit Shalom and HaShomer HaZa'ir. Indeed, the Zionist movement did not ignore the issue of an Arab minority in the Jewish state, but issued statements about it in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.4 In other words, the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 as a Jewish state having an Arab minority was not the first time that the Zionist establishment was called upon to deliberate the issue of minority rights of non-Jews. The issue seems to have been first addressed by official Zionist bodies in a comprehensive, thorough, and detailed manner, looking at all the dilemmas, in the context of the recommendation of the British Royal Commission in 1937. This Commission proposed that the JewishArab conflict be resolved by partitioning the land and founding two states in Palestine, one for the Jews and the other for the Arabs. In that era, in

Abstract: (1997). An experiment in revolutionary nationalism: the rebellion of Colonel Muhammad Taqi Khan Pasyan in Mashhad, April‐October 1921. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 4, pp. 693-750.

Abstract: It was in the period 1908-14, the years of Young Turk rule, that protonationalist and nationalist activity significantly increased in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Arab activists in Istanbul, in the Fertile Crescent, and also in the emigre communities outside the Empire established a series of nationalist societies in order to defend the rights of the Arabs in the Empire. Most of these organizations were considered illegal by the Ottoman authorities. It is the purpose of this article to investigate the modi operandi in which these societies tried to preserve their secrecy. The first element in preserving the secrecy of the societies was strict selection from among those who wanted to join them. Only those deemed appropriate, able to keep secrets, were accepted. The al-Fatat society's security measures were the most strict from this standpoint. Al-Fatat (the Young, or in full Jam'iyyat al-Umma al- 'Arabiyya al-Fatat, the Society of the Young Arab Nation) was the first of the secret Arab societies during the Young Turk period. It was established in 1909 in Paris by several Arab students studying there, for the purpose of protecting the 'natural rights' of the Arab nation and placing it within the 'ranks of living nations'.' Every new candidate to the society had to be recommended by a current member, and in most cases even this was not sufficient, and another member of the society was appointed to investigate him. After the investigation the candidate was given basic information about the society, but in such a way that retreat was still possible without affecting the secrecy of the society. Even after the member was already sworn into the society, he would only know the two members who had sworn him in (one of them the person who had recommended him), and he would receive the society's instructions through them. The programme of the society would only be revealed to him after a trial period of three months. Letters from the society's centre would reach the members from the address 'the Desert' (al-badiya). without their knowing who the senders or the members of the centre were. And as an additional security measure for preserving the secrecy of the members' identity, each member had a personal number.2 However, the fact that despite all these measures society member Mustafa al-Shihabi, who was not a senior member in the society, could relate that he knew almost all of the

Abstract: One of the few remaining mysteries of World War I in the Middle East is why the last Ottoman viceroy in Egypt, the Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, deposed by Britain in December 1914, remained during much of the war the object of substantial attention lavished on him by the Great Powers of Europe. The popular postwar view of Abbas Hilmi was that of an incompetent and corrupt former Muslim ruler, stripped of his power and made harmless to Britain's wartime control over Egypt, mainly because he acted during the war for no ideological purpose, but instead for his own 'personal position'.' Little doubt exists that personal and dynastic ambitions served as the driving forces for the ex-Khedive's actions. However, a study of European archives reveals that during the war the Great Powers treated Abbas Hilmi as an influential player in Middle Eastern politics. Britain, Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire nearly always viewed the Khedive as either potentially powerful or useful to them. In return, he saw the Great Powers in the same light. The example of the ex-Khedive's wartime relations to the Great Powers illustrates in a major way the different and competing interests of the Powers in the Middle East as well as the opportunity for Muslim leaders in the region to exploit such differences, even occasionally to the leaders' advantage. The Ottoman interest in Abbas Hilmi stemmed mainly from his pre-war involvement with the Arabs and from the Ottoman desire to recapture complete control of Egypt and replace him as Khedive with someone wholly loyal to the Sublime Porte. But the interest of Britain, Germany and Austria in him resulted more from their perception of his worth to them in Egypt and among Orientals exiled in Europe and from their wish to keep him from joining the enemy side in the war. Great Power regard for the Khedive long predated the world war. Historians have emphasized how the Vienna-educated Abbas, following his accession to the Khedivat as a twenty-two-year-old in January 1892, desired to rid Egypt of British control and free the country of Ottoman suzerainty. The young Khedive, who possessed no political or military means to achieve his ambition of personal autonomy from both Britain and the sultan,

Abstract: From the end of the Second World War in May 1945 until the founding of the State of Israel in May 1948, some 70,000 immigrants mainly Holocaust survivors set sail for the shores of Palestine.' Two-and-a-half thousand of the illegal immigrants successfully evaded the British man-hunt and entered the Promised Land; 4,500 passengers on the famous immigrant ship Exodus were returned to Germany; 52,000 illegal immigrants were deported to the Cyprus detention camps. The remaining 11,000 individuals were apprehended upon entry by the British rulers of Palestine and detained at Atlit until granted entry permits from the monthly quota assigned to Jewish immigrants wishing to make their home in what was known by Jews throughout the world as Eretz Yisrael.2 These 11,000 individuals belonged to the body known as the She'erit Hapletah the surviving remnant of European Jewry. They included concentration camp survivors, partisans, persons who had survived the war in hiding, Jews who survived by having adopted a false identity and those repatriated from the Soviet Union. The future of this body became a complex issue which merited much debate among leaders of world Jewry including leaders of the Jewish Yishuv (pre-State Jewish community) in Eretz Yisrael.3 During the past few years several research efforts have concentrated upon the absorption process of the She'erit Hapletah during the period of the Yishuv and the early years of the State of Israel.4 Among the issues examined are the politicization process of the She'erit Hapletah after their arrival and the means by which the abstract attitude of the She'erit Hapletah and their theories about the group's absorption were translated into practice. This absorption process was not a uniform one, as the She'erit Hapletah was not a uniform body but a variegated group changing its characteristics as time progressed. Until the autumn of 1945 most of the She'erit Hapletah in Germany was composed of concentration camp survivors who had been liberated upon German soil. In the autumn of that year partisans and survivors liberated in Poland began making their way into Germany. At a

Abstract: Parmi les divers groupes impliques en Palestine sous le mandat britannique, les missionnaires Ecossais ont ete negliges. Ils avaient ete envoyes par les Eglises ecossaises pour convertir les Juifs au christianisme. Leur travail fut largement affecte par l'etablissement de l'autorite anglaise et par l'activite sioniste visant a la creation d'un Etat juif. Ainsi, les missionnaires ont agi comme acteurs politiques tout autant que religieux. Les missionnaires Ecossais servaient souvent d'intermediaires entre les sionistes et les autorites britanniques

Abstract: During the 1991 electoral campaign, Siileyman Demirel, then leader of the centre-right True Path Party (DYP) and now President of the Turkish Republic, declared that he wanted to see a 'Turkey that spoke'. In spite of the deferred sentence of imprisonmentpassed recently on the well-known novelist Yaaar Kemal, and the continued detention of a number of prisoners of conscience, Demirel's aim has, by and large, been achieved. Never before have the problems facing the country been discussed as widely as today in the press, in the multiplicity of commercial television channels, in academic institutions and professional organizations. The debate is reflected in books published inside and outside Turkey. Diagnoses of Turkey's ills and prescriptions for their cure vary. But most recent books are inspired by the liberal conviction that even where problems derive from the functioning of parliamentary government, their solution must be sought not in a curtailment, but in the extension of democracy in Turkey. This assumption is shared by Semih Vaner, who, together with two other Turkish academics working in western Europe, Deniz Akagiil and

Abstract: (1997). ‘The safety of our Indian empire’: Lord Curzon and British predominance in the Arabian Peninsula, 1919. Middle Eastern Studies: Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 494-520.

Abstract: Foreign visitors to Palestine typically relate in their travel books and memoirs the kind of welcome they received in the different places they happened to visit or pass through. Anybody reading these books is often struck by the difference in the treatment given to travellers in one place or another, namely the fact that while certain towns and villages seem to have been quite hospitable toward their visitors, others gave them anything but a warm welcome. There seems, moreover, to have been a certain recurrence in the conduct toward foreigners in particular places. While certain towns and villages seem to have been generally hospitable, or at least 'indifferent' toward their visitors, others tended to be hostile and even violent. Travellers to Palestine in the nineteenth century, and particularly during its first half, often single out Nablus and Hebron as belonging to this latter category. The literature abounds with many vivid descriptions. As related by the travellers, some of those who wished to pass through Nablus on their way to or from Jerusalem were often warned of what might befall them and advised not to travel without guards or companions. Murray's Handbook for Travellers, around the middle of the century, describes the inhabitants of Nablus as follows: 'The Muslem inhabitants have a bad character and deserve it. They have long been notorious for fanaticism and turbulence ... Travellers, and especially ladies, in passing through the streets are exposed to the most wanton insolence." Those who did pass through the town often spoke of the considerable difficulties they encountered. They were cursed, spat at, pelted with stones or sticks and were often threatened with much worse. While most of the offenders were children, their parents were far from discouraging them, and even when not molested they could feel, they said, the hostility in the eyes of the people. Women were not allowed to walk unveiled, and a visit to the important mosques of the town was prohibited. Travellers spoke extensively, and often in most unkind terms, of Nablus' bad reputation. Its inhabitants were said to be quarrelsome, rebellious, and most fanatical and bigoted toward non-Muslims. John Mills, who spent three months in Nablus during the middle of the century, was most outspoken in his impressions: 'No district in Syria', he says, 'has been more turbulent and less manageable to the Turkish government than that of Nablus and surrounding villages and no people in Palestine are so deeply

Abstract: It is usually the intellectuals who first become aware of or develop novel ideas and hence acquire a desire for social change. In order to transmit their new perceptions and desire for change to the masses, they develop a sense of mission to communicate their vision effectively to the public. To mount a social movement these change-oriented intellectuals must either adapt the existing media of public communication to their purpose or adopt suitable new ones. The aim of this article is to discuss the development of the media during the constitutional movement in Iran. Between 1905 and 1911 there was a series of protests against internal corruption, misgovernment and foreign influence, which led to the establishment of a constitutional system of government.1 Informing, agitating and guiding the public was an integral part of the movement. Contact with the West played an important part in the awakening of the constitutional leaders. The ideas of democracy and equality before the law had come from the West. After recognizing the need to arouse the people, some liberal intellectuals sought the assistance of the preachers who were trained to deliver homilies and sermons from the pulpit and in some cases were themselves liberal and pro-Western. Others tried the newspaper, a recent innovation that had come from the West. Our guiding hypothesis for the examination of both the Islamic pulpit and the newspapers during the constitutional movement in Iran is that during a social movement, the need for public communication increases. We intend to examine the adaptation that some intellectuals brought about in an existing medium of public communication, the Islamic pulpit, in response to this need. We want to know in what ways the pulpit changed as a communication medium during the constitutional movement, and how effectively it performed its function in informing, agitating and guiding the public. Further, we would like to investigate briefly the relationship between the pulpit and the new medium, the newspaper. Did the pulpit facilitate the emergence and the acceptance of the newspaper? To provide specific issues and concrete illustrations for our discussion, we concentrate on one well-known preacher of the constitutional period and a newspaper that emerged from his pronouncements from the pulpit.

Abstract: (1997) The Kurds and the lausanne peace negotiations, 1922–23 Middle Eastern Studies: Vol 33, No 3, pp 521-534