Sentence Correction

Manifestations of Islamic political militancy in the first period of religious reformism were the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, the Sanusi in Cyrenaica. the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan, and the victory of the Usuli "mujtahids" in Shiite Iran and Iraq.

A. Manifestations of Islamic political militancy in the first period of religious reformism were the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan, and

B. Manifestations of Islamic political militancy in the first period of religious reformism were shown in the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan, and also

C. In the first period of religious reformism, manifestations of Islamic political militancy were the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, of the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan, and

D. In the first period of religious reformism, manifestations of Islamic political militancy were shown in the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan,
and

E. In the first period of religious reformism, Islamic political militancy was manifested in the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, and the Mahdi in the Sudan, and in

OA:E

When you have phrase which refers to time (in this case, in the first period of religious reformism), it's usually a good idea to place it at the very beginning. Inserting this phrase between the subject of the sentence (manifestations) and its verb (were) sounds pretty awkward. This is why I'd cross out choices A and B.

Choice C fails because of parallelism: notice that the author uses "of" only twice and not for all the four examples: the rise of the Wahhabis in Arabia, of the Sanusi in Cyrenaica, the Fulani in Nigeria, the Mahdi in the Sudan.

Choice D is wrong because it distorts the meaning: all the examples are manifestations and do not show manifestations. It's actually a pleonasm: a manifestation is a "visible expression" of something, so adding the verb "show" is useless.

This leaves choice E, which keeps the time reference in its proper position and respects parallelism.

Good explanation, DanaJ.

in.... and in.... -> Parallel

Like DanaJ points out C misses out on parallelism because the sentence has of for 2 of the items in the list and not the others

D-> Out because of redundancy (manifestations <=>show)

E

) E, the best choice, uses parallel phrases for the two major coordinate members (in the rise of... and in the victory of ...) and also for the series listed in the first of these (s in t, u in v, w in x, and y in z). E's placement of the In... reformism phrase at the beginning of the sentence is direct and efficient. Choices A, B, C, and D omit and before the Mahdi, the last element in the first series; thus, they incorrectly merge the second major member (the victory of) into the series listed under the first member (the rise of). Furthermore, in A and B the in...reformism phrase has been awkwardly set between the subject and verb of the sentence. Hence, E is the answer.