Firmly based on its 1000-year history, Cairo is a modern city, with all the promise and the problems that implies. No other Arab city is so alive, its partisans say, and no other has dealt as bravely and inventively with such great and sudden growth.

The American cardiac surgeon said to have "the fastest hands in the West" comes in fact from the East, and has developed transfusion-free techniques that are increasingly in demand. Now he teaches physicians abroad the beauty of his methods.

To own a house on the Bosporus shore, away from the heat and bustle of Istanbul, was fashionable in 17th- and 18th-century Ottoman society, and a few of those lovely buildings still exist. They can tell us much about the culture that treasured them.

Military power, diplomacy, generosity and siegecraft were among the ingredients that made Saladin's career possible. He unified Muslim west Asia, fought the Crusaders to a standstill and won a throne for himself—as well as a shining reputation.

Reef sharks of the Red Sea are efficient, territorial predators whose behavior can be understood by anyone willing to bet a limb on how well he understands. A top underwater photographer gets close to one of the world's most misunderstood creatures.