Islamic political philosophy has always been pursued in a setting where great care had to be taken to avoid violating the revelations and traditions accepted by the Islamic community, since these offer guide-lines for the secular conduct of that community, as well as injunctions about the manner in which its religious life should be conducted. Political philosophy is the search for a thorough understanding of the good or the best political regime. Thus, a Muslim political philosopher must temper his conclusions about the character of the good or the best political regime with what the Islamic community holds to be appropriate for Muslims. This statement of what a Muslim political philosopher does immediately gives rise to two questions: (i) Can a Muslim political philosopher ever really engage in philosophy? (2) If he can, is it not at the expense of Islamic precepts?

As promotion of economic growth becomes a declared aim of policy-makers in less developed countries (LDC), more and more emphasis is placed on the public sector as an essential instrument of policy implementation. The public sector is considered more capable of inducing higher rates of savings and of channeling them into development-promoting outlets than the economy can do by itself. State Economic Enterprises (SEE) financed wholly or in large part through government budgets become the instruments of such policies. In an environment where the private sector invests mainly along traditional lines and is shy of long gestation periods, the absorption of modern technology depends on an ability to amass and channel large amounts of finance capital into productive ventures with relatively little direct short-run profitability. The absence of organized markets for equity capital so prevalent in LDC also points in the direction of the state's active participation in economic activities.

In the course of a visit to Libya in 1964, the writer was informed by the Archivist at the Libyan Government Archives in Tripoli, Sayyid Muhammad al-Usta, of the existence of Ottoman documents in Istanbul concerning a sixteenth-century embassy to Turkey from the West African state of Bornu.

The revolt of the Red sailors at the Kronstadt naval base near Petrograd, 1–18 March 1921, constituted a major threat to the new, unstable, and economically destitute Soviet régime in Russia. Although other uprisings against Soviet power had been successfully suppressed, this revolt of the Red sailors, among the foremost supporters of the Bolshevik seizure of authority on 25 October (N.S., 7 November) 1917, was a severe blow to Soviet prestige at home and abroad. Because of their popularity, the government was apprehensive about depending upon regular Soviet troops to suppress the uprising. Its predicament has been substantiated, for the first time, by Soviet Marshal Ivan S. Konev in his ‘Reminiscences’, where he admits that some Soviet trainees and artillerymen refused outright to fire on their rebel comrades.

On 7 April 1971 Professor Roger LeTourneau died unexpectedly at Aix-en-Provence following routine surgery. A founding member of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Professor LeTourneau had for over a decade taken an active role in encouraging the development of Middle Eastern Studies in the United States, especially in the growth of his field of specialization, the history of North Africa. His influence, both personal and professional, and his contribution to scholarship were exceptional.

In a section devoted to the letters of appointment (tawâqî') and the commendations (wasâyâ) for the leaders of the Dhimmîs in Egypt (Subh, vol. xi, PP- 385-405). Qalqashandî notes that these are written on quarto size paper (qat'ath-thulth), with the leaders' honorific titles and an opening tahmîd. The three subsections deal respectively with the Headship of the Jews, the Patriarchate of the Melkite Christians and the Patriarchate of the Jacobite, sc. the Coptic, Christians.