The reign of Reza Shah characterized a difficult and controversial period in the contemporary history of Iran. Properly speaking, it may be said that it represented not only the beginning of the Pahlavi dynasty which Reza Shah had founded in December 1925, but also what could be considered pioneering efforts designed to modernize a feudal system in a land that had in the past commanded a venerable culture. The scholarly literature dealing with the earlier period of Reza Shah's rule has developed almost in response to continuing interest shown in things Iranian, and particularly in the country's recent history.

The region of Mascara, Algeria in the mid-nineteenth century is an attractive terrain for one seeking to combine anthropology and history in a North African setting. It was from this milieu that the 'amīr ‘Abd al-Qādir had emerged to lead resistance to the French in the 1830s and’ 40s. And the region abounded in that quintessentially Maghribin social type best known to the Western world as “marabouts,” but known in local parlance as 'awlād sayyid. These were the descendants of walīs, saintly men whose mortal remains are sheltered by the qubbas, or small, white-washed domed shrines one sees throughout North Africa. The two subjects are closely linked, for the 'amīr himself came from a prominent 'awlād sayyid family, as did many of his most important followers.

There have been various anthropological conceptions concerning cultural minorities in the traditional Middle East. One model, the cultural mosaic (Coon 1958), stresses the cultural and religious autonomy of groups in contrast to their interdependence in the marketplace. Another view emphasizes the dominance of Islamic culture which clearly leaves its imprint on the culturally variant groups in its midst (Patai 1971). Both of these viewpoints are useful as starting points, but both oversimplify and overstate the case. The first implies extreme, and hence implausible, separation between the world of work and the rest of social life. The second views the processes of cultural influence in too mechanical a fashion, leaving little room for the dynamics of interaction and reinterpretation of cultural forms in varying milieus. Recent work on Jews and Muslims in Morocco (Rosen 1972; Bowie 1976) has given a more refined picture of the complexities of social contact but has either merged the conceptual level with the interactional, or paid little explicit attention to the intricacies of cultural form. All these views, therefore, ignore the existence of a religious interface and an arena in which cultural forms recognised by both the majority and minority are the subject of “discussion” –agreement and disagreement, negotiation and compromise. We wish to illustrate this point by presenting and analyzing a text dealing with Muslims and Jews in Tripolitania. Our emphasis is on a cultural understanding of the text, not on presenting an example of Jewish-Muslim social interaction.

The subordination of women to men in Mediterranean societies is characterized by public segregation, relegation of women to the private sphere of the home, and control of their behavior through the operation of an elaborate code of “Honor and Shame,” a code whose outstanding features are the maintenance of virginity before marriage and strict fidelity after it. The specific expression of these criteria, however, varies greatly between the Christian and Moslem sides of the Mediterranean where two distinct cultural traditions prevail. In this essay, I shall examine some aspects of the status of women in Morocco in terms of their familial roles and the patterns of domestic interactions that operate within the traditional, patriarchal, extended household.

In order to achieve socioeconomic progress in a developing society, it is important that modern technology, which is Western in genesis and has evolved over the past three centuries, be imported and applied. Modern technology requires not only the instrumentalities of technology and pure science as a body of knowledge and a dominant institution, but also a social and psycho-social structure at least compatible with, if not reinforcing of, the drive towards better technology and scientific inquiry. Developing societies, however, usually have an institutional apparatus and value system which are indifferent to, incompatible with, or hostile to, modernization. A process of modification, adaptation and reform of many social institutions and values is necessary in order for these societies to appreciably benefit from the introduction of science and technology. People and organizations must also restructure their modes of behavior in productive processes so that the full productivity of modernization can be obtained. The transfer of science and technology from modern to pre-modern societies is really a process of social change within the developing society, and not solely the physical importing of equipment and scientific-technical manpower, useful as these are in the modernization process.

The fall of Baku to combined Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces on 15 September 1918 ended the British involvement in Transcaucasia during World War I and resulted in the death of thousands of Armenian civilians. The responsibility for the fall of the city has been hotly disputed since that fateful day. One view, held by General Lionel C. Dunsterville, the commander of British troops committed to the defense of Baku, blames the local forces, especially the Armenians. The Armenians were undisciplined, uncooperative, lazy, and unreliable in battle; they abandoned their positions as soon as they came under enemy fire. In short, with some exceptions, they were cowards who expected the British to do all the fighting. Under these conditions the small British contingent could not stop the enemy indefinitely. On the night of 14 September, when the local forces showed little inclination to resist a new attack, Dunsterville brought his men back to the safety of the Persian port of Enzeli, thus saving them from certain death. Another view, held by the leaders of the Baku Armenians, ascribes the fall of the city to British perfidy. These critics of British policy claim that Dunsterville did not keep his promise of a large British force for the defense of Baku. The effective British force did not exceed one thousand men and it was secretly withdrawn from the city in the heat of the battle, leaving the local troops, who were fighting valiantly, to their fate. This, the Armenians claim, was nothing less than treachery.