As R. H. Tawney once remarked, ‘the past reveals to the presenr what the present is capable of seeing’. Present political scientists who are interested in comparing past power structures have been the first observers to reveral methodically the fundaqmental differences between feudalism and oriental despotism. They have shown how the feudal monarchies of Europe, in their ideal form, were restricted by hereditary and independent aristocrats, by institutions representing the estates of the real, and with civil societies with corporate rights, immunities, and inalienable privileges. And they have shown how despots in the East, in their ideal form, ruled through patrimonial bureaucracies, did not contend with estate institutions, could withdraw concessions granted previously, and were unhampered by independent intermediaries between themselves and their subjects.

Iran is entering the second decade of its ‘White Revolution’. The Shâh has set forth his own account of it,2 but the scholarly community has, as yet, made no serious attempt at analysing it.3 This omission is glaring regardless of justifications. It is, in fact, an omission which verges on scholarly neglect because, if there is any validity in the propositions of this study, better understanding of Iran's contemporary achievements and dilemmas would seem to require probing the very meaning of the ‘White Revolution’ by going beyond its official label and the adumbration of its programs. The purpose of this paper is to do exactly that. And toward that end it shall seek to utilize concepts of political development as suggested in particular by Professor Gabriel Almond. We prefer these concepts because they facilitate examination of the ‘White Revolution’ within the broad and fundamental framework of the major challenges of Western civilization to Iran.

Throughout the history of Iran, a country where religion has been a predominant element in the life of its inhabitants, spiritual restlessness and social malaise expressed themselves in various revolts which were religious in character. From pre–Islamic Iran to nineteenth–century Babism a series of radical sects, considered as heretical and consequently ruthlessly suppressed by the ruling authorities, came into being.

Similar to many previous and contemporary Islamic states, the basis of classical Ottoman administration and military was a highly elaborate system of slavery. Slaves, carefully recruited and educated, made up the bulk of the central army and filled many of the administrative posts of the empire. To the traditional sources of slaves the Ottomans added a new one: the levy of children from non- urban, mostly Christian subjects of the empire (devşirme). The motive behind this elaborate system of ‘slaves of the sultan’ is obvious: to provide the sultan and the central government with an efficient, well-trained and loyal professional army. The basis of the loyalty was that theoretically they were without root and without ties.

Until recently, most works dealing with nineteenth-century Iran have had special points of view which now are hopelessly out of date. Concerned only with aspects of nineteenth-century Iran, they have treated these subjects either in connection with literature or with the rivalry of the European imperialist powers. Whatever the merits of these works, they may be said to have outlived their main usefulness. The age of imperialism is gone; and though the classical Persian literature of a thousand years may well be immortal, its creative spirit is dust. In Iran, as elsewhere, modern men have drastically altered their political, historical, and literary views. We now need histories of other kinds. It is time to explore and to research. Too much which is published on Iranian history continues to be either shallow, narrow, cliché-littered imitations of the not-so-great historians of the past, or are official glorifications of Iran's present, not always consistent with the truth. The field requires a widely extended and earnest historical inquiry into the development of modern Iranian society through the exploration of its recent past. An investigation of the social structure of nineteenth-century Persia, for instance, is absolutely essential to an understanding of the behavior of the present-day Iranian bureaucracy, which is often inexplicable to the Western observer. When the Persia of the peasants, the mullâs and the mîrzâs, is brought into clear perspective behind the Iran of the National Iranian Oil Company and the Plan Organization, we shall be in a position to understand the complexities of the present Iranian administrative machinery and the broad spectrum of motivation of its maintenance men.

At the outbreak of World War I, Lebanon was a part of the Ottoman Empire and comprised mainly the Mutasarrifîyah, or Independent Sanjaq, of Mount Lebanon and the Wilâyah, or province, of Beirut. Because of its position in international power politics, Lebanon was not under as strict Ottoman control as other provinces, with Mount Lebanon enjoying a considerable degree of local autonomy. Turkish involvement in the war, however, resulted in military occupation of Lebanon, which comprised part of the Fourth Army Command under Jamâl Pâsha, in prosecution of the war effort against the British in Egypt.

The literary activity of Ya'qûb Sanû' and the birth of popular Egyptian drama constitute an important phase in the growth of modern Arabic literature, particularly worthy of our attention because Sanû‘’s work was to a high degree representative of his nation's spirit and sentiment.

The field of education, its various components and means of putting it into effect, have not received the attention of those who have studied the history of Arabic thought. It has been only recently that Arab education has received the attention of scholars. But thus far, research has been limited mostly to histories of educational institutions and to certain fragmentary aspects of education. Theories of education, or of areas within the field of education, have not been examined.

Indigenously sponsored private schools appeared in many, if not most, countries which experienced a period of colonial rule. The instruction given in these schools was usually confined to the elementary level, and the language of instruction varied according to local circumstances. While these schools have been known under a variety of names, the designation that is perhaps most widely used is ‘free school’.

In his classic study of revolution, Crane Brinton succeeds in uncovering certain common features, or uniformities, which are present in all four of the great Western revolutions. In analysing the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the more recent Russian Revolution, he employs ‘the fever of revolution’ as a conceptual measure of social disequilibrium. This pathological analogy provides a means of focusing attention upon the key uniformities of revolution.

The relationship between religion and entrepreneurial activity has been an ongoing subject of sociological interest since Weber (1958) first identified the association between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism in Western Europe. One recent collection of papers on the subject (Eisenstadt, 1968) indicates that the topic remains highly controversial, and that the debate moves in two general directions. Some analysts challenge (or support) the factual and/or theoretical validity of Weber's analysis as it applies to Western Europe, or to Protestantism (Green, 1959). Another branch of research attempts to apply the idea on a different level, finding other religious groups for which the theory is valid, in other parts of the world. Most such studies have been made in East and Southeast Asia, but there is a scattering of articles on other countries as well (Eisenstadt, 1968). Bellah (1963) cites several studies of merchant groups in Asia which conform to the Protestant ethic pattern, but points out that they seldom transform the norms of the whole society as Protestantism did in parts of Europe. Their impact is limited to a subgroup within society. These studies suggest that the Weberian thesis might apply on an intra-societal level in cultures different from Europe. The present study attempts to support this idea by positing a relationship between religious ethic and capitalism among a group of merchants in Tunisia who are members of a distinct religious sect within Islam.

‘History’, Ernest Toller once observed, ‘is the propaganda of the victors.’ Alas, it may often be so; but in the case of the Assyrian Affair of 1933 history has been decidedly the propaganda of the victims.

United States diplomatic historians have traditionally claimed that American foreign-policy makers employed the Open-Door principle in the Middle East after World War I merely to defend American rights from the Allied efforts to achieve economic hegemony over Turkey and other parts of the old Ottoman Empire. However, William Appleman Williams — supported by the works of several younger scholars — has asserted that Woodrow Wilson used the, Open Door to promote American economic expansion. Williams maintains that the Open Door was not an ad hoc policy, fashioned simply to meet the immediate postwar challenge of the Allies — as the traditional historians have alleged. Nor was it British-inspired, idealistic policy that received only sporadic support during the twentieth century, as George F. Kennan has asserted. According to Williams, the Open Door was an American-designed tactic that diplomats used continuously throughout the first half of the twentieth century for the express purpose of promoting American expansion, with a view to creating an American economic empire, a process that resulted in the extension of American political and economic influence.

The European industrial revolution adversely affected the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century and was instrumental in its final collapse. The eastward flow of European goods grew rapidly in the years following the end of the Napoleonic era in 1815, and Ottoman lands soon became important markets for many European manufacturers. Their wares increasingly displaced traditional Ottoman products, made Ottoman handicraftsmen jobless, reduced Ottoman internal sources of taxes, and so contributed to eventual European control of Ottoman finances. These phenomena are well known and have received appropriate recognition as symptoms of an economic invasion that was aided by the diplomacy of West European consuls and ambassadors, and sanctified by largely unquestioned European arguments in favor of laissez-faire.

Max Weber's brief remarks on the nature of the Muslim city constitute a poignant example of what Bernard Lewis describes as the unfortunate division of labor which has pervaded the study of Islam: the ‘founding fathers’ of sociology and their successors have framed theoretical statements which were either elaborated or refuted by scholars more directly concerned with the Muslim world.

Few of the Egyptian schoolboys who now memorize the principles of Arab socialism have heard of Farah Antûn, Shiblî Shumayyil, or Niqûlâ Haddâd. Yet in the opening decades of the twentieth century this trio of Syrian Christians living in Egypt — along with the Coptic intellectual Salâmah Mûsâ — were among the foremost advocates of socialism in the Arab world. What was the connection between these Christian pioneers and the widespread but as yet ill-defined Arab socialism of today? The answer will fully emerge only as the roots of Arab socialism are probed. A beginning can be made by examining these writers themselves, why they were attracted to Western socialism, what they understood by it, and how they proposed to adapt and apply it to the Middle East. A correct evaluation of their positions depends to a considerable extent on understanding the precarious, but not entirely hopeless position, of the Christian minorities in a Muslim world which had long despised them.