Nationalism insists on the uniqueness of each nation. So, too, does the study of nationalism. For example, Ernest Renan, a cheerleader of nationalism, used the imagery of each nation “hold[ing] one note in the concert of humanity.” Elie Kedourie, who abhorred the excesses of nationalism, similarly identified its essence as a commitment to “the excellence of diversity.” Whether focused on political borders or social solidarity, the concept of the nation necessarily marks insiders with a special status, distinct from all others.

An essential principle of health posited by the modern Iranian middle class since its rise at the dawn of the 20th century was a strong link between a healthy body and a sound mind. This thesis was built on a reinterpretation of the maxim, aql-i salīm dar jism-i sālim ast (a sound mind lives in a healthy body), which drew on modern Western biomedical sciences, specially neurophysiology. Rather than mirroring a simple history of transfer of knowledge (from a creative West to a passive East), this maxim tells a fascinating, multifaceted story of acculturation. Indeed, the general thesis at the base of the present text holds that biomedical sciences were adapted in interaction with problems seen to be created by, and conditions believed to be necessary for, Iran's modernization (tajaddud). Shifting the focus of modern Iranian medical history to the intricate interplay between global and internal contexts and forces, this thesis maintains that these interactive patterns were directed at physical, mental, and moral health and disease. They thereby formed a strategy to “medicalize” modernization, addressing its central problem: how to accelerate it without causing social order to collapse, and thus to propel Iran into the ranks of the “civilized nations.” This novel strategy rose in the context of the modern middle class's distress about the chaos surrounding the Constitutional Revolution (1905–11) and the failure of its political focus to advance progress—that is, the belief that change is conditioned on science-driven sociocultural reforms. It was embedded in international colonial structures of scientific knowledge and political power yet, at the same time, was decisively shaped by internal problems. The content of biomedical sciences and medicine was adopted from Western countries. But their contextual objective—the management of modernization—though drawing on late-19th-century Western “medical model(s) of cultural crisis,” was decisively geared to meet Iran's specific circumstances.

On 15 July 1935, a group of residents in the small port town of Aqaba sent a rough handwritten petition to the prime minister of Transjordan. Its clumsy script betrayed the humble origins of its signatories. Inscribing their destitution in virtually every clause, the petitioners wrote: Because we, the common people and notables of Aqaba and its bedouins (ahālī wa-wujūh al- al-Aqaba wa-urbānuha) are in a state of poverty, our town being very poor, and since our poverty and our wretched conditions are not hidden from Your Eminence, our desire is for the cancellation of the municipality of Aqaba. Our town does not merit a municipality because it is poor and small, and many of its people have migrated over the past two years to Maan for the sake of making a living, and only the very poor remain in it. And the municipal administration of Aqaba has cut off from us the bedouins and others we depend on. Last year, they estimated the municipal budget at £P 60 [Palestine pounds] and it was not collected justly. Therefore we ask the mercy of Your Eminence in cancelling the municipality.

The tribe was the main solidarity group in Transjordan on the eve of the establishment of the modern state in 1921. As in many tribal societies in the Middle East, the creation of the state system in the aftermath of World War I brought about dramatic changes in the lives of tribespeople, and nomads in particular. The emergence of colonial governments with centralizing ambitions; the creation of international borders; rapid economic changes; and the spread of national ideologies were among the factors that threatened the survival of old tribal order and indeed put enormous pressures on tribespeople everywhere. Nevertheless, in the case of Transjordan, twenty-five years after the process of state-formation and modernization had been launched, tribal identities had not disappeared. Rather, tribes remained important social and cultural categories, having adapted to new realities and transformed in the face of them. Moreover, in the course of this process, the tribal population of Transjordan became the backbone of the Hashemite regime and among the most enthusiastic supporters of the kingdom. Even today, tribal identities, though significantly modified since the days of the Mandate, continue to play a major role in Jordanian politics. Scholars of modern Jordan have acknowledged the special relations between the tribes and the Hashemite monarchy. They have also emphasized the centrality of tribes and tribal political culture in contemporary Jordan. The historical roots of these phenomena, however, deserve further exploration.

For more than a decade, post-Islamism has been at the center of a major debate in French academia regarding the historical evolution of Islamism. The concept was put forth in the early 1990s as an attempt to apprehend the apparent crisis within many Islamic movements of the Middle East. In Iran, the increasingly authoritarian character of the Islamic republic, as well as the predominance of the mullahs' discretionary powers, seemed to undermine the credibility of the Islamist alternative. Elsewhere, as in Egypt and Algeria, the advent of an Islamic order never came to pass and appeared illusory. Islamists were unable to cope with the repression and the containment policies of secular states. Therefore, a number of French scholars argued that Islamism—that is, the holistic, populist, and often revolutionary ideology whose goal is the establishment of an Islamic state and the governance of all aspects of society according to Islamic principles—had reached a dead end. Ruhollah Khomeini, Sayyid Qutb, and Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi were passé. An era of post-Islamism was dawning.