In case of Dune.
If Mu'adib's fremen were to represent the Mahdi army in Sudden, I wonder if the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV is to be Lord Kitchner and Churchill as Count Fenring. Though, it is also like the Arab invasion of Persia, notice in Dune how the the Emperor of the Known Universe has a Persian title - Padishah - which stands for the Great King or Emperor. Those events in the book also represent the spread of Islam into the world as a fire-religion. Remember the reference of the armies of Fremen drunk on Spice. The pompous Royal Court of Shaddam IV, is the pompous Royal Court at Ctisphone which could not weather the coming storm. Of the other Dune books, I could not find anything.
The Spice in Dune and the desert planet was so cool that even George Lucas stole it for his first Star Wars movie, and he almost got sued for it. 
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If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
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