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This article examines the Ottoman counter-intelligence mechanism and the extent to which it succeeded in preventing enemy intelligence. In the 16th century, the length and the scope of both Ottoman – Habsburg and the Ottoman Safavid Rivalry convinced the Ottomans to establish an intelligence network that gathered information in a large geography. Nevertheless, in the war of information between the Ottomans and their rivals, the success of Ottoman information-gathering was intertwined with the efficiency of Ottoman counter-intelligence. In order to gain an advantage in “politics of information”, the Ottoman secret diplomacy successfully refused its enemies a comfort which it sought for itself: access to information about the adversary.

The economic and security significance of maritime and political interests around the world has altered with the changing international security environment, as has the importance of secure sea routes to meet global demand. Oman increasingly relies on the sea for maritime trade and exploitation of marine resources, but without a common maritime policy and strategy to align its commercial and maritime interests, its offshore resources will remain under-developed. Oman’s primary interest is to ensure national maritime security by maintaining an effective navy and other agencies to guard its sea areas, and protect its maritime trade. However, it still lacks a formal maritime doctrine to underpin its policies This study argues that a maritime doctrine will assist Oman to utilise its maritime power and protect its national interests. In the absence of archive material, this study has drawn upon personal interviews with maritime experts and practitioners, and reviewed and analyzed a wide range of official publications and secondary sources on maritime policy and doctrine. It highlights the relationship between economic growth and maritime trade in Oman, examines the role of Oman’s shipping industry and related activities, and compares the experiences and expertise of several nations that have established maritime doctrine. Oman’s need for a maritime doctrine in order to protect its national interests and sovereignty is pressing. It should connect and coordinate its maritime power, military strategy, policies, and standing operating procedures through a single maritime doctrine that will provide the basis for mutual understanding between units of the Sultan’s Armed Forces, related government agencies, and national policy-makers, ensuring operational familiarity and efficiency. In proposing a discrete administrative body to oversee the codification of principles and procedures, the study fills a significant gap in Oman’s national maritime policy and strategy, since the expression of maritime doctrine will help protect the integrity and interests of the state and its people.

The rapid economic and social development in the Sultanate of Oman has led to an increasing demand for higher education since 1970. The Government is now involved, and is encouraging the private sector to provide higher education services through colleges and universities in order to prepare Omanis with the qualifications and skills required to support the country`s future political economic development.<br/>Higher education in the Sultanate of Oman has a range of different challenges, such as educational policies and regulations, the management of universities and colleges, funding, and maintaining quality standards in higher education institutions.<br/>One of the major challenges facing the decision makers in higher education in Oman is the effectiveness of the leadership of colleges and universities. Strong academic leadership is paramount to the effective running of educational institutions, and a professional measurement is needed to analyse the current management of these institutions. There is the need for a proper policy to ensure the recruitment of suitable leaders to run these establishments in order to respond to the dynamic changes within the society.<br/>The public and the government want to maintain a balanced situation where the private higher education institutions are enjoying a good income while providing quality education.<br/>The research aims to analyse the type of leadership required in higher education in Oman by examining government policies and strategies related to higher education. More specifically, it will evaluate the performance of leadership at the level of presidents and deans and their roles in selected private higher education institutions. By doing so, different leadership theories, perceptions of leadership and possible measures for assessing the effectiveness of leadership will be interpreted and analysed.<br/>This research is inductive based on a qualitative and exploratory approach. The findings have contributed to the development of an academic leadership model applicable to the Oman higher education institutions, and have generated some recommendations to develop the performance of presidents and deans of higher education institutions to attain the level which is acceptable to the Government and Omani society.

The purpose of this study is to sample a number of disparate texts from the early Islamic cultural field to explore the shared grounds or themes that bind them together. The focus of the sampled texts and their analysis is the different relations between God and the real things of this world. The method that is applied in the selection of the texts of this research relies on Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to the study of cultural production. It assumes a relational and dynamic intellectual field which creates interlinked differences and similarities. This is the reason for sampling texts which are assumed to be reasonably marginal to the main cultural establishment. The kalām of the early stage, exemplified by the texts of the Zaydī al-Qāsim al-Rassī and the eastern Ibādīs, is found to emphasise the radical separation between the creator and the created. The development of this relation, which is explored through an intertextual reading of Qurʾānic exegesis, bridges the fissure, between creator and created, through the process of re-interpreting the terms of creation. The act of creation itself becomes an act of transformation, and the objects of creation become eternal ‘non-existent things’ that acquire the quality of existence. In the philosophical works of Jābir Ibn Ḥayyān, the things of this world are also reduced to transformations within the one substance that encompasses the intelligible and the material world. The results of this research show that there is a great degree of diffusion of ideas in this early stage of Islamic culture, from an assumed centre to the margins, and vice versa. The general tendencies in the texts considered reflect, on the one hand, a critique of multiplicity of principles, particularly dualism, and an emphasis on God’s unity, through different interpretations of tawḥīd. On the other hand, the sought unity itself established God’s radical transcendence from the real world, thus leading to another form of dualism dividing the world and the absolute other. The process of opposition to dualism seems to have eventually produced two forms of affirming and defining unity. Both forms define the existent things in terms of substance (jawhar), however, the kalām model expresses it in atomistic terms whilst the alchemical model of Jābir expresses it in terms of a hylomorphic model. One of these redefines the meanings of the existent and the non-existent things in term of subsistence, and the other, develops the idea of a single substance with different gradation in being.

In the artistic productions object of my study, Malika Mokeddem novel, Je dois tout à ton oubli (2008) and the Tunisian film director Rachida Tlatli, La saison des hommes (2000), evokes the theme of resignation and submission of women to the power of men in the North African context. The parallel analysis of the novel and film will allow me to highlight the convergent narrative structures used in both works to denounce women’s alienation and despair that some of them manifest. Similarly enunciate what are the loopholes that both the novelist and the director proposed to the heroines of their stories.