Until the seventeenth century of our era, the Islamicate society that was associated with the Islamic religion was the most expansive society in the Afro-Eurasian hemisphere and had the most influence on other societies. This was in part because of its central location, but also because in it were expressed effectively certain cultural pressures–cosmopolitan and egalitarian (and anti-traditional)– generated in the older and more central lands of this society.

The need for social change has been recognized by most of the politically important forces in the Middle East today, but differences remain concerning its implementation. These differences are centered on the type of change and the rate at which it should take place. There are three basic social groups taking part in this conflict; the traditional elements of society, typified by organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, many of the ruling families, and large sections of the peasant population; the ‘modern’ man of the liberal era such as evolutionary–liberalist politicians, doctors, landowners, bureaucrats, merchants, and the like; and the ‘modern’ men of the era of technology (material-scientific) such as army officers, agronomists, planners and industrialists.

Iran has experienced the rare phenomenon of having two pro-Soviet Communist parties simultaneously: the Hizb-i Tudah-i Iran (Party of the Iranian Masses), known as the Tudah; and the Firqah-i Dimukrat-i Azarbayjan (Democratic Party of Azarbayjan), or simply, the Firqah-i Dimukrat.

One of the main obstacles to the development of Iran's foreign trade over the centuries has been the location of its fertile northern provinces, which are shut off from the world's open seas by vast deserts and huge mountain chains. Since these provinces produced the country's most valuable export—silk—and since, after the transfer of the capital to Tehran, they included its largest consuming centers, trade had to be conducted over long caravan routes. In the seventeenth century, much silk was shipped through the Persian Gulf ports, but with the end of the Turco-Persian wars the bulk of Iran's westward trade passed across the Ottoman Empire—through Baghdad, and thence to either the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean, or through Erzurum (Erzerum), and thence to Istanbul (Constantinople), Izmir (Smyrna) or Aleppo. However, all these routes were long, insecure, and expensive.

For many historians, liberalization and modernization are parallel and complementary concepts. Any trend to liberalization is accepted by them as a pledge to modernization whereas any restrictive measure is seen as an expression of traditionalism. Scholars in Turkey and the West who have studied the history of Turkish modernization with such a pre-conceived approach have praised the Tanzimat (1839–76), the Young Ottoman (1876–78) and the Young Turk (1908–18) periods-as modernist while they have condemned Abdulhamid II's reign traditionalist, even backwardist.

We now turn from the development of political institutions in the Islamic lands of the Middle East to the organisms and attitudes prevalent among the governed classes in Middle Eastern society. The mass of people in the area are commonly described as apolitical, or politically apathetic. This is largely true, but an even more accurate and fitting description would be that of ‘negatively political’, meaning that, since politics largely is a matter of who rules what and who collects taxes, the masses are little interested, since experience has shown them that there is little to choose between one set of rulers and another, apart from minor individual fluctuations in the severity or mildness of regimes.

The classical Muslim modernists of the nineteenth century envisaged Islamic Reform as a comprehensive venture: it took in its purview law, society, politics and intellectual, moral and spiritual issues. It dealt with questions of the law of evidence, the status of women, modern education, constitutional reforms, the right of a Muslim to think for himself, God and the nature of the universe and man and man's freedom. A tremendous intellectual fervour and ferment were generated. The liberals and the conservatives battled; the intellectual innovators were opposed and supported, penalized and honored, exiled and enthusiastically followed. Although the modernist movement dealt with all the facets of life, nevertheless, in my view, what gave it point and significance was its basically intellectual élan and the specifically intellectual and spiritual issues with which it dealt. This awakening struck a new and powerful chord in the Muslim mind because intellectual issues had remained for centuries under a state of selfimposed dormancy and stagnation at the instance of conservative orthodoxy. The nineteenth century was also the great age of the battle of ideas in the West, ideas and battles whose strong injections into Muslim society found a ready response. The character of this movement was then primarily intellectual and spiritual.

One of the most critical aspects of the efforts of nineteenth-century Ottoman statesmen to save the Empire lay, without doubt, in the field of bureaucratic reform. Within this field, moreover, the plight of the declining, traditional Empire in an age of expanding European power obviously marked the development of an effective Foreign Ministry as a matter of particular necessity. Yet, the efforts made to create such a ministry proved that here, as so often in the history of reform and development, the very changes which were most needed tended, by a fateful irony, to be those most difficult to effect.

In 1795, i.e. three years before Napoleon's arrival in Egypt, Egyptian opposition to the Ottoman Wâlï and the Mamlûks brought the country almost to what might be described as a popular movement of resistance. This was climaxed in a dramatic incident in which the leaders of the Azhâr and the masses were able to secure a rare hujja from the Wâlï and the two Mamlûk leaders, Murâd Bek and Ibrâhïm Bek, which can be considered the first ‘legal document’ Egypt ever had known in its constitutional history.

France's acquisition of Syria and Lebanon as mandated territory after the First World War has often been described as the result of war-time arrangements such as the Sykes–Picot Agreement and the MacMahon–Hussein Correspondence. In fact, however, the French claim to these parts of the old Ottoman Empire was recognized internationally even before the war erupted. The nineteenth century had witnessed the tremendous penetration of French religious influence into Syria and Lebanon through the establishment of clerical schools, hospitals, asylums and orphanages.

A discussion of Turkish guild history becomes meaningless if it does not take as its point of departure that a guild is a professional organization. This means that a guild is neither an organization which is grouped according to professional criteria, nor just another name for groups of artisans or merchants about whose organization nothing definite is known. One may be justified in speaking about the existence of guilds if within a certain area all the people occupied in a branch of the urban economy constitute a unit which, at one and the same time, fulfils various purposes, such as economic, fiscal, administrative and social functions. A further condition is the existence of a framework of officers or functionaries chosen from among the members of such a unit and headed by a headman.

When the Ottoman Parliament was first elected and organized in 1876–8, surprised Europeans tended to assume that this institution was a direct result of European example and European pressure. Indeed, from that day to the present, it has been assumed that this was, in fact, the first Ottoman parliament, the first Ottoman effort at representative government, and the first experiment at involving the subjects of the Sultan in the process of rule, traditionally restricted only to members of his Ruling Class. Yet in fact this Parliament was the culmination of a century-long process of change which had been taking place in the Ottoman body politic since the early years of Sultan Selim III (1789–1807). It might well be argued that if the Parliament of 1876–8 was a failure, it was because of the failure of those who constructed it to rely sufficiently on this previous experience in representative government and legislation instead of simply imitating the European example. The representative legislative and executive institutions developed by the nineteenth century Ottoman reformers on the provincial and local levels will be discussed in a separate study. It is the object of this article to describe the same development in the central Ottoman government during the period of the Tanzimat (1839–76), to provide additional background for subsequent studies of the fate of Ottoman constitutionalism in the years which followed.

During the last decade or so, educational institutions of developing countries have attracted the attention of social scientists as the prime movers of structural changes in such societies. Furthermore, among some of those who are concerned with economic development and growth, there has emerged a common belief that a major barrier to economic development, probably, is not so much the scarcity of physical resources and capital, but rather the lack of trained manpower owing to insufficient or mismanaged investment in education.

In the late nineteenth century, when American boys were devouring the success stories of Horatio Alger and cultivating the prescribed virtues of thrift and industry in hopes of jumping from rags to riches overnight, boys on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean were dreaming similar dreams. The Christian boy of the Levant was particularly drawn to such success stories. His decision for a business career was not entirely of his own choosing, for as members of a Christian minority in a Muslim land his ancestors had long been excluded from the most prestigious official careers of the Ottoman Empire–the bureaucracy, the military, and the Muslim religious profession. Since these choice callings were reserved for Muslims, the dhimmî subjects of the Sultan had no choice but to concentrate their energies on banking and trading, shopkeeping and shipping. Making the best of the situation, the indigenous Christian of the Ottoman Empire threw himself into these business careers and sometimes amassed such a fortune that he came to occupy unofficial positions of considerable influence. Often his position as agent and protégé of a European shipping house gave him a decided advantage over Muslim merchants. Increasing the toehold given to it by the Capitulations agreements, Europe made its power increasingly felt in the Middle East during the nineteenth century, and the protégé of a European power could no longer be treated arbitrarily by Ottoman authorities.

To measure the achievement of Badr Shâkir al-Sayyâb and ascertain his place in modern Arabic poetry, the general condition of Arabic poetry up to the Second World War must be taken into consideration.