A: Reviews: General

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HADITH. By John Burton. (Islamic Surveys.) Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1994. 210 pp. £39.95 (hb); £16.95 (pb). POLITICS, GENDER, AND THE ISLAMIC PAST: THE LEGACY OF 'A'ISHA BINT ABI BAKR. By D. A. Spellberg. New York, Columbia University Press, 1995. 250 pp. $35.00. MEDIEVAL ISMA'ILI HISTORY AND THOUGHT. Edited by Farhad Daftary. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996. 331 pp. £40.00 THE THRONE CARRIER OF GOD: THE LIFE AND THOUGHT OF 'ALA' AD-DAWLA AS-SIMNANI. By Jamal J. Elias. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1995. 260 pp. $16.95 OTTOMAN SEAPOWER AND LEVANTINE DIPLOMACY IN THE AGE OF DISCOVERY. By Palmira Brummett. (SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East.) New York, State University of New York Press, 1994. xvi, 285 pp. 2 maps, 7 plates. $19.95. HAIFA: TRANSFORMATION OF AN ARAB SOCIETY, 1918-1939. By May Seikaly. London, I. B. Tauris, 1995. 284 pp. £39.50 (hb). THE FORMATION OF MODERN SYRIA AND IRAQ. By Eliezer Tauber. London, Frank Cass, 1995. 427 pp. £30.00 (hb); £15.00 (pb). IRAQ: POWER AND SOCIETY. Edited by Derek Hopwood, Habib Ishow and Thomas Koszinowski. (St Antony's Middle East monographs, 29.) Reading, Ithaca Press, 1993. viii, 400 pp. £30.00. SECRET WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: THE COVERT STRUGGLE FOR SYRIA, 1949-61. By Andrew Rathmell. London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 1995. 256 pp. £39.50. LEBANON: A SHATTERED COUNTRY. By Elizabeth Picard. Translated from the French [Liban: État de discorde] by Franklin Philip. New York and London, Holmes & Meier, 1996. xii, 202 pp. £29.95. THE ISLAMIST DILEMMA: THE POLITICAL ROLE OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS IN THE CONTEMPORARY ARAB WORLD. Edited by Laura Guazzone. Reading, Ithaca Press, 1995. 390 pp. £45.00. ISLAM AND THE MYTH OF CONFRONTATION: RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. By Fred Halliday. London and New York, I. B. Tauris, 1996. 256 pp. £35.00 (hb); £12.95 (pb). THE MIDDLE EAST IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER. Edited by Haifaa A. Jawad. Basingstoke, St Martins Press/Macmillan, 1994. viii, 154 pp. $35 (hb). CONFIDENCE BUILDING AND VERIFICATION: PROSPECTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Edited by Shai Feldman. (Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies Study, 25.) Published jointly by the Jerusalem Post and Westview Press, Boulder, 1994. 255 pp. £28.50 (hb). CHILDREN IN THE MUSLIM MIDDLE EAST. Edited by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1995. xviii, 477 pp., photographs. $22.50 (hb). THE HISTORY OF THE MAZRU'I DYNASTY OF MOMBASA