Throughout the history of Iran, a country where religion has been a predominant element in the life of its inhabitants, spiritual restlessness and social malaise expressed themselves in various revolts which were religious in character. From pre–Islamic Iran to nineteenth–century Babism a series of radical sects, considered as heretical and consequently ruthlessly suppressed by the ruling authorities, came into being.

The literary activity of Ya'qûb Sanû' and the birth of popular Egyptian drama constitute an important phase in the growth of modern Arabic literature, particularly worthy of our attention because Sanû‘’s work was to a high degree representative of his nation's spirit and sentiment.

Indigenously sponsored private schools appeared in many, if not most, countries which experienced a period of colonial rule. The instruction given in these schools was usually confined to the elementary level, and the language of instruction varied according to local circumstances. While these schools have been known under a variety of names, the designation that is perhaps most widely used is ‘free school’.

United States diplomatic historians have traditionally claimed that American foreign-policy makers employed the Open-Door principle in the Middle East after World War I merely to defend American rights from the Allied efforts to achieve economic hegemony over Turkey and other parts of the old Ottoman Empire. However, William Appleman Williams — supported by the works of several younger scholars — has asserted that Woodrow Wilson used the, Open Door to promote American economic expansion. Williams maintains that the Open Door was not an ad hoc policy, fashioned simply to meet the immediate postwar challenge of the Allies — as the traditional historians have alleged. Nor was it British-inspired, idealistic policy that received only sporadic support during the twentieth century, as George F. Kennan has asserted. According to Williams, the Open Door was an American-designed tactic that diplomats used continuously throughout the first half of the twentieth century for the express purpose of promoting American expansion, with a view to creating an American economic empire, a process that resulted in the extension of American political and economic influence.

No historical treatment of the first decade of the British occupation of Egypt overlooks the abortive mission of Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff to Cairo and Istanbul from 1885 to the spring of 1887. Most, however, fail to discuss the diverse political interests within Egypt itself, which, in one fashion or another, stood to be affected by the mission and its objectives. Consequently, an entire segment of the negotiations which led to the 22 May 1887 convention setting the conditions for withdrawal, including an original draft article covering the future status of the capitulatory and mixed court regime in Egypt, has all but disappeared from the record. The circumstances behind this forgotten article demonstrate in capsule form the degree to which the issue of judicial reform indirectly dominated London's Egyptian policy in stages from 1876 to the Montreux Convention on the capitulations concluded by Nahhas Pasha in 1937.

Juristically speaking, ‘amal means the practice of the courts, and in Mâlikî doctrine it has a regulative force. As it developed in North West Africa, and especially in Morocco, ‘amal represents a unique instance of Muslim case-law. A wealth of Maghribî legal literature bears witness to the paramount importance and the success that ‘amal has acquired as an official source of the law in Morocco. This literature includes collections of ‘responsa’ (fatâwî), ‘opinions’ (ajwibah), ‘precedents’ (nawâzîl), and ‘formularies’ (wathâiq). But besides these general works, there exist special collections of judicial precedents with critical and analytical commentaries. These were designed to serve as practical ‘amal manuals for the qâdîs, who, in Mâlikî doctrine, are required to follow the judicial practice even when it runs contrary to the predominant opinion (mashhûr) of the school.