The term “social sciences” (‘ulūm-i-ijtimā’ī) has gained currency in Iran only during the last fifteen years or so, but some of the disciplines falling within its purview have been in existence for a longer period. Thus the first institution for teaching political science was established in 1899, and the first chair of sociology was created in 19 35 in the University of Tehran. Besides, iike Molière’s bourgeois gentillhomme who belatedly realized that he had been making prose all his life without being aware of it, some Iranian scholars too have long been engaged in writing, translating and conducting research on social problems or using sociological concepts without being conscious of themselves as social scientists.

Since from a chronological viewpoint, political science appeared in Iran prior to other disciplines of social sciences and its studies involve problems of a distinct nature, the present paper is divided into two parts: the first dealing with political science, and the second with sociology and related disciplines.

Syria, its contemporary life as well as its long history, presents immensely rewarding possibilities for the student of the Middle East. Moreover, there is a great deal of published material on Syria’s geography, ethnography, and social and political institutions, but — as one would expect in view of the modern history of the Levant — the overwhelming majority of these studies have flowed from the pens of French scholars. Indeed, most Americans, even those highly conversant with Middle Eastern affairs, regard Syria with befuddlement if not consternation. As a result, Syria is truly a neglected area in American scholarship. There have been few attempts to investigate the country seriously even from the outside, let alone to conduct research within its borders. On the other hand, those Americans who have worked in Syria, including the present writer, have found it a good place to carry out scientific research, so long as one observes certain commonsense rules. In the following paragraphs, I shall try to sketch the areas where research is permitted, research facilities available in Syria, the varying procedures necessary to gain research permission, and living conditions. Because of the nature of my own work there, most of my comments refer specifically to Damascus unless otherwise stated. Likewise, all the data presented in this paper was gathered before the outbreak of fighting on October 6, 1973, and may thus be only partly valid as of this writing.

Every student of pre-modern Islamic political, social, economic, or cultural history is aware in a general way of the importance of numismatic evidence, but it has to be admitted that for the most part this awareness is evidenced more in lip service than in practice. Too many historians consider numismatics an arcane and complex study best left to specialists. All too often, historians, if they take coin evidence into account at all, suspend their normal critical judgement to accept without question the readings and interpretations of the numismatist. On the other hand, numismatists, in the past especially but to a large extent still today, are often amateurs, self-taught through practice with little or no formal historical and linguistic training. This is true even of museum professionals in charge of Islamic collections, no matter what their previous training: The need to deal with the coinage of fourteen centuries, from Morocco to the Philippines, means that the curator spends most of his time working in areas in which he is, by scholarly standards, a layman. The best qualified student of any coin series is the specialist with an expert knowledge of the historical context from which the coinage comes. Ideally, any serious research on a particular region and era should rest upon as intensive a study of the numismatic evidence as of the literary sources. In practice, of course, it is not so easy, but it is easier than many scholars believe, and certainly much easier than for a numismatist to become a fully qualified historian in every field of Islamic civilization.

When asked to gather information for any type of research project, books are the last place many of our students want to look, unless forced to do so because print sources are required as part of the assignment. The research tool of this “post-literate” generation is the computer, and their most frequently used source of information is the internet. In fact, using the internet seems to be the best way to keep my students engaged in any extensive, or ongoing, research project.

Until recently, the Qur’ān has been treated in the curricula of Western universities and colleges as a historical and literary document. Little attention was paid to the Qur’ān as a sacred scripture and the vital role it continues to play in the spiritual, social and cultural lives of millions of men and women around the world. Even scantier attention was paid to the place of the Qur’ān in the development of the art of music.

As interest is growing in the impact of the Qur’ān on the devotional and cultural life of the Muslim community, greater attention is given to the various sciences of the Qur’ān, including the highly developed art of Qur’ān recitation. This brief essay introduces students of Islamic and religious studies to four well-known modern representatives of this art whose recitations are readily available on audio cassettes, disks or compact disks. A few introductory remarks on the development of this art may provide a useful background for the discussion.

In a 2002 lecture at Home Works, Beirut’s contemporary art festival, writer and cultural critic Abbas Beydoun claimed that Lebanon’s internationalism had led to derivative cultural production. The well known critic’s comments evoked an angry outburst from members of his predominantly Lebanese audience of young artists and cultural workers. To varying degrees, however, this characterization of Beiruti culture repeats and prefigures descriptions of the city as a meeting point between East and West. Indeed, Beirut’s reputation as a multi-linguistic and cross-cultural Mediterranean port is traced to the latter half of the nineteenth century when the city became the capital of an Ottoman province and followed as a regional center for missionary, political, and cultural activities. Moreover, Beydoun’s characterization did not always carry such a negative connotation. This paper begins to trace the ways in which the visual arts is a field for producing, rather than reflecting, Beirut’s cosmopolitanism. To do so, I look at two historical moments pivotal in the institutionalization of the visual arts. The first is that of Daoud Corm (1852-1930), the city’s first professional easel painter whose career ran from the Ottoman period through the French Mandate (1920-1943). The second is the decades of the 1960s and 70s, the city’s heyday as a regional cultural capital when a number of artists and activists established a gallery system, further expanding the private sector’s consumption of painting and sculpture.

Praising the photographs of Francis Frith, the grocery wholesaler-turned-photographer who undertook three photographic expeditions to the Middle East between 1856 and 1860, an Athenaeum critic wrote: “Mr. Frith, who makes light of everything, brings us the Sun’s opinion of Egypt, which is better than Champollion’s, Wilkinson’s, Eōthen’s, or Titmarsh’s.” Viewed as re-creations of nature itself, unmeditated reproductions of the real world fashioned by the direct agency of the sun, photographs were extolled as truthful and unbiased representations of reality. This conviction, which ignored the input of the human operator, imbued early photography with a passionate enthusiasm and mission: to reproduce the world in its own image, to make light of everything. Photography emerged not as an art form, still less as the result of certain developments in painting as proposed recently by Peter Galassi, but as an accurate and highly efficient means of transmitting visual information.