During their rule in Egypt and Syria (1250–1517), the Mamluks showed a certain ambiguity in their attitude toward the sultanate including its rules of succession and the ruler's source of power. This ambiguity has led to a variety of opinions about the nature of the Mamluk Sultanate in scholarly works on Mamluk history. David Ayalon implies, in “The Circassians in the Mamluk Kingdom,” that the principle of heredity was recognized to various degrees in the Mamluk state, although it was weak during the Bahri period and altogether abandoned during the Circassian period. In “From Ayyubids to Mamluks,” Ayalon confirms that when the Mamluks came to power they had not “ever dreamt of creating a non-hereditary sultan's office” because most of the Bahri period was ruled by the Qalaʾunid dynasty. When nonhereditary rule came about, at least in the Bahri period, it was without any form of planning. In his “Mamluk Military Aristocracy: A Non-Hereditary Nobility,” Ayalon stresses that even during pre- and post-Qalaʾunid times the sultan's office was only nonhereditary to a certain extent and that “throughout the history of the Mamluk Sultanate there is not the slightest mention of the non-hereditary character of the sultan's office, or of the intention of turning it into such.”

A key characteristic of inter-Arab politics since World War II has been seemingly ever-shifting alliances. In attempting to explain patterns in Arab state behavior, Arab and Western analysts alike have generally attributed the sources of alignment decisions, implicitly or explicitly, to the personalities of the leaders or to ideological positions. Although such explanations may be intuitively appealing, the historical record is replete with examples that challenge such an analysis: Syria and Iraq's rapprochement in 1979, secular Syria and theocratic Iran's alliance during the Iran–Iraq War, and conservative Jordan's honeymoon with Iraq during the 1980s. These are only a few of the numerous, significant examples of alignments that suggest a rethinking of the bases of Arab interaction may be in order.

The number of studies on the status of women and their changing condition in recent times has increased internationally in the past decade, and this is bound to make the development of a comprehensive theoretical methodological framework for the study of women in particular regions or socioeconomic structures easier. In the Arab world, especially the oil-dependent Arabian Gulf states, a concern with the mechanisms of the socioeconomic and political structure of society and the dynamics of its rapid changes has also grown tremendously. A large number of scholars have provided field and theoretical studies on social change and development and its manifestations in the fields of women's studies, labor, education, and industrialization, among others. From this relatively large body of literature, most of it in Arabic, some consensus seems to have emerged. Since research is being done in all regions of the Arab world, from the Maghrib to the Gulf, both the heterogeneity of Arab society and some common denominators have emerged from it.

My aim here is to revise a common view of the development of Sufi organizations and practices. Sufis have generally been contrasted with the ulema to suggest that Sufism and law were incompatible and even hostile to each other: the elaboration and guardianship of Islamic law (fiqh) was the concern of the ulema; the inner, experiential dimension of Islam the concern of Sufis. In their quest for knowledge of God (maʿrifa) Sufis often bypassed and at times even flouted the shariʿa, until reconciliation between law and Sufism became necessary and was effected by Ghazzali in the 11th century. This supposed reconciliation allowed the spread of Sufism and the development of Sufi institutions, including in the late 12th and 13th centuries the Sufi brotherhoods (ṭarīqas). Until then, Sufis had formed loose circles or groups that had no institutional structure or affiliation. In the 12th and 13th centuries, these groups crystallized and autonomous Sufi institutions and practices emerged. The Sufi brotherhoods spread Sufism until it became part of Muslim social and devotional life.

From its outset, Shiʿi Islam has been associated with Iraq. In 661 ʿAli ibn Abi Talib was assassinated in a mosque in Kufa. ʿAli's son Husayn, who laid claim to the caliphate, was killed with his companions in a battle that took place in the plain of Karbala in 680. Many of the twelve Shiʿi imams spent at least part of their lives there. The four most sacred Shiʿi shrine cities—Najaf, Karbala, Kazimayn, and Samarra—are in Iraq. Since the early stages of Islamic history, much of Shiʿi learning was centered in Hilla, Baghdad, Najaf, and Karbala. And, finally, Iraq was also once a territory ruled by Shiʿi dynasties, notably the Buyids (945–1055).

But all this by itself cannot explain how the Shiʿs came to form the majority of the population of modern Iraq. Although conversion from Sunnism to Shiʿism took place in Iraq throughout Shiʿi history, it was confined mainly to cities, where only a small fraction of the population lived. Occasionally, some Arab tribes were also converted to Shiʿism—for example, the Bani Sulama, the Tayy, and the Sudan in the marshes near Khuzistan during the Mushaʿshaʿ Arab Shiūi dynasty of the 15th to 16th centuries. Nonetheless, there is no evidence that would suggest that the Shiʿis were ever close to forming a majority of Iraq's population before the 19th or even the 20th century.

Persian literature has produced few poets who can rival Saʿdi. A powerful personality, an undisputed mastery of his art, a far-reaching influence, and an enchanting sense of humor are only a few on the long list of his widely accepted virtues. His critics have described his personality as “curious” and “captivating,” and his poetry as pure magic. As the undisputed master of eloquence he is commonly referred to as ustād-i sukhan by the lay and the expert alike. To these cherishing remarks one may easily add a multitude of others and yet they reflect little more than admiration. Curiously, the existing critical literature on Saʿdi offers little in the way of clarification or further exploration of these intriguing but ambiguous descriptions. One is tempted to ask why the “curious” and “captivating” personality of Saʿdi has not been the subject of separate studies. Along the same lines, how accessible is the personality of the poet through his poetry? Or more specifically, what would be the outcome of exploring his works in search of the way he envisioned himself? The present paper is a first step toward such an exploration in an attempt to deal mostly with this last question. If the major aim in any biographical study, as Nadel puts it, is to “discern the complexities of being without pretending that life's riddles have been answered” then much light could be shed on the complexities of Saʿdi's personality in this way.

Approximately three-quarters of a century passed between the rise, in 1501, of the Safavid state of Iran under Shah Ismail I and the coming to power of his grandson Ismail II in 1576. The first Ismail had decreed that the Ithna-ʿashari Shiʿi form of Islam and the Jaʿfarī system of law be formally established in the country. When the victorious founder of the new dynasty entered Tabriz, he ordered that the phrase containing the name of Imam ʿAli (the true successor to the Prophet Muhammad according to the Twelver Shiʿi belief) be included in the call to prayer chanted from the minarets of the mosques. Shiʿism was consolidated, especially during the long reign of the intervening monarch, Shah Tahmasb (1524–76), thanks in part to the activities of a powerful mujtahid, ʿAli ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAli al-Karaki (d. 1534). However, according to the majority of the contemporary Safavid sources, when Ismail II came to power, he seems to have had second thoughts about Shiʿism and to have exhibited a proclivity for Sunnism. The Sunni ideas of Ismail II may have been fostered by another politicoreligious figure, a certain Mirza Makhdum Sharifi. The inclination Ismail II had toward Sunnism resulted in a curious episode that is recounted by Safavid historians in detail and in various versions.

Although the Western model of education has spread worldwide, traditional Islamic education continues to have a strong influence in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. This article seeks to determine the reason it remains such a vital part of village life in the commune of Bounaamane, located in Morocco's southern Souss valley. Why do so many children attend Qurʾanic schools, even though modern education is available? Because standard sociological methodologies, with their surveys and statistical analyses, were not viable in this social and cultural setting, I approached the problem by using ethnographic and case-study methods. I will first present an overview of traditional Qurʾanic education and then try to explain the low-enrollment rates in modern schools and the relative popularity of traditional Qurʿanic ones in terms of economic factors and culture. We can better understand the continuity of traditional Islamic education if we see it as being closely bound to the popular understanding of Islam. In this respect, the most important elements are the role of the Qurʾanic teacher in the community and the discipline and punishment involved in the course of Qurʾanic training that socialize children into the accepted Islamic code of conduct.