The social theory of Sayyid Qutb Sayyid Qutb is one of the most famous Islamic thinkers of twentieth-century in Egypt. Because of Qutb's importance as an Islamic thinker, most researchers concern themselves with only his Islamic thought, despite the fact that he had already been a prolific writer before he became an Islamic thinker. As a result, a comprehensive picture of his ideas has not yet been fully drawn. In this paper I examine a series of articles on social problems that Qutb wrote in the first half of the nineteen-forties (that is, before he became an Islamic thinker), and clarify the three stages of his work: the non-Islamic stage, the early Islamic stage, and finally, the radical Islamic stage. As a result of this analysis, two points come to light. First, until he became an Islamic thinker, Qutb was a totalitarian rather than a liberalist as is generally believed. His discriminatory attitude toward the homeless, for example, suggests that he was not at all a liberal thinker. Second, although his ideas are often divided into his non-Islamic and Islamic periods, there are striking similarities between his non-Islamic and Islamic social thought. Furthermore, there are significant differences between his early Islamic thought and his radical Islamic thought, which suggests the need for a recategorization of his ideas.

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The Maskhadov regime relied on Islam to resolve feuds among major leaders in Chechnya after the first Chechen war ended in 1996. Taking advantage of the situation, the Wahhabi expanded their influence in the republic. The Wahhabi were comprised mainly of Arabic political Islamists, who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan and come to Chechnya to participate in the first Chechen war.
In the summer of 1998, Osama Bin Laden, a new sponsor of the Wahhabi in Chechnya, began to establish a close relationship with anti-Maskhadov leaders (field commanders) attracting them by his abundant funds and his idea of establishing a unified Islamic republic in the north Caucasus. Encouraged by Bin Laden, Chechen armed forces attempted to invade the Russian republic of Dagestan in August 1999.
As Moscow lost no time in launching a counter attack, another Chechen war commenced. The Chechen conflict posed a threat to Russia in that it might not have only undermined Russia's territorial integrity, but could have also become a pretext for western countries, including the United States, to meddle in Russia's domestic affairs. Russia tried in vain to persuade Washington that Chechen separatists were disguised international terrorists and that Russia suffered from the same terrorism as the U.S. had during 1998 with American embassy attacks in Africa. The United States continued to attach importance to the human-rights aspects of the Chechen issue. President Vladimir Putin, taking office in 2000, was not able to make the U.S. change its attitude toward the Chechen problem as his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, had likewise found impossible.
In Russia, moreover, some forces, especially the military elite, were opposed to cooperation with the United States. They alleged that none other than the U.S. had played a role in stirring up the situation in the north Caucasus. Thus, there would be no cooperation between the two countries for an anti-terrorist struggle.
The situation abruptly changed after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. U.S.-Russian relations as concerned terrorism seemed to take a 180 degree turnabout. Close analysis of the relationship, however, would show that Russia gave way more in the U.S. direction than vice versa. President Putin allowed Central Asian countries to accept U.S. military presence two weeks after the terrorist attacks, with the Republic of Georgia to follow suit during the spring of 2002 in defiance of the resistance of the political and military elite in Russia. He expected to ease their frustrations by successfully suppressing Chechen armed forces as a result of promoting cooperation between Russia and the United States. He also expected that Washington would admit Russia's war in Chechnya to be a war on terrorism. Such expectations, however, were not met.
The political forces in Russia, therefore, having assumed a negative attitude toward cooperation with the U.S., grew more frustrated. President Putin was forced to take steps to soothe their feelings. When he implied that he was ready to dispatch Russian troops to the Pankisskoye Gorge in the Republic of Georgia to eradicate Chechen fighters during September 2002, he intended to assuage the political and military elite which had not welcomed the U.S. military presence in Georgia from its inception.

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In the studies of Turkish nationalist thought we can point out some defects as follows. First, they did not minutely deal with the affairs of the period of the pre-Young Turks Revolution. Secondly, they did not compare the thought of Ottoman-Turks with that of Turks who live in the Russian Empire. In this paper, we investigate into articles of two famous nationalists, as an introduction of our study of Turkish nationalist thought. Yusuf Akcura (1876-1935), Kazan-born, published an article named "Three Policies" (Uc Tarz-i Siyaset) in March 1904. In this article he mentioned three political principles that the Ottoman Empire might follow, and examined them. The first principle is an Ottoman nation (Millet-i Osmaniyye) policy. The aim of this policy is to create a new nation like an American nation in the United States by means of assimilating all people under the Ottoman rule regardless of ethnic or religious differences. He opposes it definitely. Because this is against the will and desire of Ottoman-Turks, Islam, non-muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire, the Russian and the Balkans, and the Western public opinion. The second is a union of Islam (Tevhid-i Islam) policy. He does not oppose this policy definitely. But, he points out a fact that almost all Islamic lands are in the power of the Western states, and warns that the Western states will hinder the Ottoman Empire from performing this policy. The final principle is a union of Turks (Tevhid-i Etrak) policy. Akcura enumerates three advantages of this policy. First, Ottoman-Turks will be tied more firmly by this policy. Secondly, non-Turk subjects of the Ottoman Empire will be Turkified. Thirdly, all the Turkic nations who live in the vast continent from Asia to the east side of Europe will be unified. He admits that Russian will oppose this policy because many Turks are in the power of the Russian Empire. But he adds the other Western states will support it for the reason that this policy is against the Russian interests. And he also admits that if the policy will be performed, spirits of brotherhood between Ottoman-Turks and other non-Turk muslims will be weakened. However, he insists that in modern society a religion must not be social or public but be private. That is, he does not approve a union of Islam, and asserts a union of Turks. Meanwhile, in the Ottoman Empire, Turks regarded themselves as not Turks but Ottomans. Ziya Gokalp (1876-1924) denied nationalism expressly in the articles in a newspaper, "Oath" (Peyman) published in Diyarbakir, his birthplace, and supported an Ottoman nation policy in summer 1909. That is, it appears that the most important thing for nationalist in the Ottoman Empire was continuance and reinforcement of the Empire even after the Young Turks Revolution.

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In the arguments concerning the modern history of the Ottoman Empire and the rule of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the second decade of his reign has been often neglected. Although this period was uneventful, we can find there several factors which would be important to understand Abdulhamid's rule as a whole. In analyzing this period the author pays attention to "the Ertugrul Mission (1889-1890)". Relying upon the Turkish Naval Archives she amalyzes this event and concludes the following about the second decade of Abdulhamid II's reign : (1)Abdulhamid II confirmed his autocracy, and its influence on Ottoman governmental activity was important. (2)Abdulhamid's foreign policy changed. While the relationship with Great Britain got worse, Turkey took the first step to wards pro-Germany diplomacy. (3)Economic semi-colonization was inevitable. Under budgetary deficits, the realization of state activities became very difficult. (4)The weekness of state power and the lost of British cooperation invited the decline of the Ottoman Navy. And the inability of self-defence became one of the reasons why Turkey depended on Germany from that time on.

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