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The development and strengthening of intelligence organizations is imperative for states with large territories and the managers who decided to take on major political roles. The establishment of central administration and administrative infrastructures in every corner of the country, prevention of external threats, the other things to one side, depend on the power and the functioning of internal and external intelligence. The intelligence network in the Zangids and Ayyûbids period improved as a result of these processes. During the Zangids and Ayyûbids, the struggles against the Crusaders necessitated the strengthening of the intelligence agency. Atabeg Imâdaddin Zangi, his son Nuruddin Mahmud, and Saladin Ayyûbî, benefited from all sources and communication means that provided internal and external intelligence information. During the Saladin Ayyûbî period, the Ayyûbids spies played a crucial role against the crusader threat and the Ismailî assassinations and conspiracies of Fatimid statesmen. This study aims to evaluate the importance of the sources, duties, and procedures of intelligence, mostly through the periods of Atabag Zangi, Nureddin Mahmud b. Zangi and Saladin Ayyûbî, during the Zangids and Ayyûbids period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In all the Islamic and Turkish states and societies, colours have a special significance. When the sources are analyzed, we see that colours, in Islamic and Turkish state traditions, are generally used as symbolic element and are not simply arbitary. Because of being a specific matter and existing in a range of scattered historical sources, this topic, which has a long tradition in Islamic/Turkish state and society, hasn't been emphasized enough and then only in political meanings. However we see that colours have in places social and intellectual meanings, even used as a communication tool. It is important to clarify this historical tradition because many of our habits about colours today are based on these. So, in this article I touch on the political, social, spiritual and representative meanings of colours in Islamic/Turkish states and socities in the light of the sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]