It is perhaps premature to spell out priorities of research in the history of Libya, since bibliographies of what has already been written have not been systematically read, nor even adequately compiled and indexed. The following observations and analyses are, of necessity, based on a cursory reading in a list—compiled by the author on the history of the Arab world and Ottoman Empire (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries)—of some 500 studies done since the 1950s by Arab scholars and historians. The fifties are taken as the period which signalled the achievement of political independence by the Arab States. I realize that individual scholars will be able to make exceptions here or ther to the observations, generalizations, and criticisms which are made in this study. The very exceptions, however, point to the dearth of modern critical scholarship on the history of Libya from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. However, the exceptions which one could point out as models for research to be done, do not in and of themselves amount to trends in research. To date, available histories of Libya are, in the main, focused on political if not outright dynastic history. The focus is usually placed on the peculiarities and the anomalies of political history rather than the primary similarities which make for comparative history. In the remainder of this paper we offer a novitiate's priorities for research under five headings.

The study of women in the history of the Middle East has been subject, until recent times, to a benign neglect born of the general of scholarship in the field and common misconceptions, shared by historians of other regions as well, about the study of women. First and foremost, the general backwardness of Middle East historiography, widely attested to in periodic surveys of the state of the art, consigned women, along wiht many other groups and classes in society, to a minor, if not totally insignificant, place in history. Concentration on visible political institutions, diplomatic events, and intellectual currents of the high, as opposed to popular, culture effectively wrote all but upper-class males out of the historical process. That Middle East history remained, to a large extent, confined to this rather narrow sphere long after historians of Europe and the Far East had embarked on studies of social and economic history is related to the origins and the orientation of the field itself.

In 1898, with Great Britain and Russia vying for political and economic dominance of Iran, Grand Vizier Mīrzā Alī Khān Amīn ud-Dawlah set in motion a cycle of events that, during the early part of the twentieth century, led to the downfall of the Qājārs, a dynasty he had spent his entire professional career serving. What initiated this cycle was the negotiation for a loan from Great Britain, sought partially for governmental expenses but mostly to finance a trip by the Shah to Europe. To obtain this loan, Amīn ud-Dawlah mortgaged the revenues of Iran's two most important customs houses in the south (Bushehr and Kermanshah), and also allowed those two departments to come under the control and administration of the British-owned Imperial Bank of Persia. In return for these astonishing concessions, the Bank advanced £50,000 to Grand Vizier Amin ud-Dawlah for emergency expenditures. The remainder, a mere £200,000, was to be paid upon completion of negotiations with the British Government. British bankers and diplomats in Tehran, aware of the sensitivity of the Grand Vizier's extraordinary decision, urged London to complete the negotiations as soon as possible. In the view of British representatives in Tehran this was imperative if temporary control of the customs houses was to become “a permanent institution.” However, negotiations dragged on long enough to give Russia and the Grand Vizier's rivals a chance to successfully frustrate the negotiations. Failure to obtain this British loan forced Grand Vizier Amīn ud-Dawlah to resign.

A prominent feature of the literature on Islamic law is the absence of reference to concrete cases. The preference given to oral testimony over written evidence by the ulema may have been one of the reasons for this neglect. But a more crucial factor can be traced back to the conceptual apparatus of the researchers who made use of the blurred notion of “traditional” society. As obedience to norms in such societies was supposedly automatic, the researchers could legitimately focus on ideals instead of the complexities of concrete behavior.

Economic growth in underdeveloped countries, including Jordan, is associated with substantial social change. According to the theory of social deviance, underdeveloped societies are characterized by a traditional distribution of labor where customs and values greatly influence the manners of economic performance. These customs and values shape attitudes of people toward work in general, and the issue of participation of women in the labor force in particular.

Libya enjoyed steadily rising oil revenues after 1960 and became a significant member of the world's trading community. By 1980, oil revenues were over US $20 bn and these enabled development spending to approach US $10 bn per year as well as permitting large allocations to consumption, defence, and international ventures. The sums involved in the three sectors cannot be defined precisely as defence spending, and the cost of such military campaigns as the 1981 intervention in Chad are not available. Whether such data were precisely known or not, the spending options were limited to these three sectors, and trade-offs had to be made between them when financial resources became constrained. The first two sectors, development and consumption, were of great interest to the population in general, while defence and international ventures were of interest to the leadership as well as having appeal to that special constituency which populated the military establishment of the country.