It is not easy to sum up, and considerably harder to assess, the life’s work of a scholar as influential and prolific as Albert Hourani. It is harder still to do with any precision when he was a man whose influence was exercised as much through his teaching, his lectures and his erudite conversation and commentary as it was through the broad range of his scholarly writings on the modern Middle East.

That Hourani was prolific is evidenced by the eight books he wrote, seven works he edited, the 157 articles and shorter pieces and over 100 book reviews he produced over a scholarly career spanning nearly five decades. Among them were writings of great importance to the field. These included the seminal Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1789–1939, which has gone through two editions and numerous reprints, and may be one of the most widely read works in modern Middle Eastern history. Among his articles, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of the Notables,” originally published in the volume Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century in 1968 and reissued in 1981, has provided a concept—that of “the politics of the notables”—which has helped a generation of historians to better understand the society and politics of the modern Middle East.

Slavery and its effects will probably long remain among the most contentious of topics. Outlawed universally only recently, the institution is one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread forms of domination. It still exists, despite laws to the contrary, in some societies around the world. Social disabilities suffered by former slaves and their descendants are important legacies. And the lessons which the history of slavery can teach us have still not been fully elucidated or absorbed. It thus remains a topic of importance to teachers and researchers in every branch of humanities and social science.

The literature on slavery has been dominated by the study of plantation slavery in the Western world, especially the Caribbean, Brazil and the United States. Studies of slavery in other areas and times have often been colored by biases and preconceptions based on American chattel slavery. Even when the intent of a scholar has been to contrast slavery in other societies with that in the Americas, the questions posed and the methods used have too often been shaped by the questions and methods of scholars working in the Americas. This has vitiated attempts at comparison.

Until recently, the Qur’ān has been treated in the curricula of Western universities and colleges as a historical and literary document. Little attention was paid to the Qur’ān as a sacred scripture and the vital role it continues to play in the spiritual, social and cultural lives of millions of men and women around the world. Even scantier attention was paid to the place of the Qur’ān in the development of the art of music.

As interest is growing in the impact of the Qur’ān on the devotional and cultural life of the Muslim community, greater attention is given to the various sciences of the Qur’ān, including the highly developed art of Qur’ān recitation. This brief essay introduces students of Islamic and religious studies to four well-known modern representatives of this art whose recitations are readily available on audio cassettes, disks or compact disks. A few introductory remarks on the development of this art may provide a useful background for the discussion.