A boycott may be denned as ‘The refusal and incitement to refusal to have commercial or social dealings with offending groups or individuals’.1 More specifically, international economic boycotts are devices by which one or more states (or their citizens) attempt to inflict economic hardship upon a target nation. The method of coercion takes the form of a disruption of the target state's normal foreign trade and financial flows. In the vast majority of instances, the imposition of a boycott is a political act, designed to influence the practices and policies of the offending country, utilizing economic weapons as the coercive force. A boycott may be deemed successful if it attains the ends desired by its initiators. As a rule, economic sanctions must be effective (i.e. cause economic damage) in order to succeed; however, it is quite possible, indeed, often probable, that boycotts may be effective without being successful.

It is well known that the Hashemite Dynasty in Iraq was the creation of the British in 1921. Less well known are the circumstances that led to the hasty installation of Faisal as king and the emergence of ‘Independent Modern Iraq’.The 1920 revolt forced the hesitant British to enact a solution which for thirtyseven years was maintained by force. During this time, the British were obliged to force-feed an artificial and outmoded system that was barely capable of holding primordial sentiments in check. The state apparatus that the British set up as a means of containing these sentiments was not a genuine structure developed to meet expressed needs, nor did it serve to forge the various segments of the society into an organic nation.

Persian poetry in the twentieth century is undergoing changes that would have been scarcely imaginable a century or even half a century ago. The dispute of ancients and moderns rages in Persian literary circles, and exponents of both traditional and modern styles are regarded as traitors by both sides. I should be foolhardy to join battle in this domestic struggle, and the purpose of this memoir is only that of setting on record the outlines of the life and poetical works of a poet generally regarded as the greatest Persia has seen for a long time.

The history of literature in Persian has not been sufficiently studied although it is almost twelve centuries old, and was at times in widespread use in Afghanistan, Eastern Turkestan, India, Turkey and the Caucasus, as well as in Iran and Central Asia. The comparatively late development of Iranian studies and the condition of source materials are to blame for this situation.

Islamic political philosophy has always been pursued in a setting where great care had to be taken to avoid violating the revelations and traditions accepted by the Islamic community, since these offer guide-lines for the secular conduct of that community, as well as injunctions about the manner in which its religious life should be conducted. Political philosophy is the search for a thorough understanding of the good or the best political regime. Thus, a Muslim political philosopher must temper his conclusions about the character of the good or the best political regime with what the Islamic community holds to be appropriate for Muslims. This statement of what a Muslim political philosopher does immediately gives rise to two questions: (i) Can a Muslim political philosopher ever really engage in philosophy? (2) If he can, is it not at the expense of Islamic precepts?

In a section devoted to the letters of appointment (tawâqî') and the commendations (wasâyâ) for the leaders of the Dhimmîs in Egypt (Subh, vol. xi, PP- 385-405). Qalqashandî notes that these are written on quarto size paper (qat'ath-thulth), with the leaders' honorific titles and an opening tahmîd. The three subsections deal respectively with the Headship of the Jews, the Patriarchate of the Melkite Christians and the Patriarchate of the Jacobite, sc. the Coptic, Christians.