The aim of this study is to examine the way in which the Iraqi government prepares its expenditure estimates and how and why they tend to differ from the actual outturn figures. One hardly expects to see an exact matching of these two figures given the difficulties in estimation which especially exist in developing countries where data bases may be less than exact and techniques crude. In Iraq this error in estimation was first alluded to by Saadi, and it was tentatively suggested that the expectation of discrepancies should be taken into account in the planning process. Others have suggested that this and other poor estimates should be examined and followed up more closely. However, its continuation and growth have not been otherwise studied.

At the present time of resurgence in Islamic beliefs, the question of the Islamic city has once again come to the fore. In many parts of the Arab world, and especially in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, urban planners with a new found respect for the great achievements of the past are searching for ways to reproduce in today's cities some of the patterns of city building that have been identified as Islamic. They have been influenced, whether wittingly or not, by a body of literature produced by western Orientalists purporting to describe the essence of the Islamic city. The purpose of this article is, in Part I, to examine and criticize some of the basic works in that tradition and then, after deconstructing the concept of the Islamic city, to build up, in Part II, a somewhat different, and hopefully more dynamic and analytic model. The article ends with a brief discussion of whether and in what ways it would be feasible or desirable to build contemporary cities on Islamic principles.

The history of the Shi'i Muslims in the isles of Bahrain and the oases of Qatif and al-Hasa has been little studied despite the economic and political importance lent them by the large petroleum deposits in their region. The significance of this community has been further magnified by the rise in the Gulf region of Shi'i radicalism, as in the Iranian Revolution of 1978–1979 and the failed 1981 Shi'i coup attempt in Bahrain. The study of Shi'ism in the Gulf has advanced so little that even a basic chronology and overview of institutional developments are lacking for all but the most recent decades.

Despite his importance, no substantial study has been devoted to the career of Abū 'l-'Abbās Ahmad b. Idrīs al-Hasanī al-'Arā'ishī al-Fāsī (d. 1837); most accounts of him appear by way of a preface to studies of his pupils. And yet through his teachings, pupils, and family, he was undoubtedly one of the key religious figures of the early 19th century Arab Muslim world. Indeed, his influence, direct and indirect, appears to have stretched from North Africa to Indonesia. Three of his pupils from his immediate circle established major brotherhoods, the Sanūsiyya, Khatmiyya, and Rāshidiyya, from which stemmed several other orders.