Introduction / Youseff M. Choueiri -- The formative period of Islam -- The rise of Islam / Gerald R. Hawting -- The Islamic conquests / Fred M. Donner -- The caliphate / Hugh Kennedy -- Cultural traditions and social structure -- The ʻulama:̉ function and status / Zouhair Ghazzal -- Shīʻism / Robert Gleave -- Historiography of Sufi studies in the West / Alexander Knysh -- Imperial structures and dynastic rule -- Military patronage states and the political economy of the frontier, 1000-1250 / Michael Chamberlain -- The Mamluk institution / P.M. Holt -- State and society in North Africa / Michael Brett -- A new Middle Eastern system -- Ottomans and Safavids: states, statecraft, and societies, 1500-1800 / Metin Kunt -- Urban life and Middle Eastern cities: the traditional Arab city / André Raymond (translated James McDougall) -- The Middle East and the new world order -- A different balance of power: European expansionism and the Middle East in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries / Abdul-Karim Rafeq -- Colonialism, the Qajars and the struggle for independence: the Arab world, Turkey, and Iran / Peter Sluglett -- Independence and nation building -- Zionism and the Palestine question / Emma C. Murphy -- Nationalisms in the Middle East: the case of Pan-Arabism / Youssef M. Choueiri -- Turkish and Iranian nationalisms / Ioannis N. Grigoriadis and Ali M. Ansari -- Political parties and trade unions / Raymond Hinnebusch -- Political life and the military / Gareth Stansfield -- Political economy: from modernisation to globalisation / Simon Murden -- Modern issues and contemporary challenges -- Islamic urbanism, urbanites, and the Middle Eastern city / Michael E. Bonine -- Oil and development / Paul Stevens -- Modernizing women in the Middle East / Valentine M. Moghadam -- Politics and religion / Beverley Milton-Edwards -- Ethno-national minorities in the Middle East: Berbers, Kurds, and Palestinians / Lise Storm -- Civil society in the Middle East / Tim Niblock -- The states-system in the Middle East: origins, developments, and prospects / Simon Bromley.