A History of Islamic Societies

The delineation of Arabic-Islamic religion and culture and Muslim identities was a centuries-long process. Its social basis was the integration of Arab-Muslim, convert, and non-Muslim populations in the cities founded or settled by the Arab-Muslims. Mecca, Medina, Damascus, Kufa, Basra, Baghdad, and other cities were the homes of new Islamic societies that integrated the cultures of Arabia and the conquered peoples. The new civilization amalgamated Arabian language, poetry, and religion and late antique imperial symbols and literary and artistic cultures, as well as Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian religious values and family and communal institutions.

Islamic identities developed only slowly, and some scholars have questioned if there was a “Muslim” identity at all in the years after the death of Muhammad. If not, when did a Muslim identity come into being? One theory is that the conquerors first identified themselves not as Muslims but as a community of believers, a coalition of peoples of faith fighting the enemies of God. They were an assembly of monotheists, and the people of each faith had their own book and their own laws. Only after a century did they accept Muhammad as their prophet and the Quran as their holy book. The idea of a multireligious community was indeed implied in Muhammad’s early teaching, but with the struggles for power in Medina and the exile or execution of the most powerful Jewish clans, it is not likely that this concept lasted even to the end of Muhammad’s life. In Medina, the revelation of new ritual and family laws and of a sacred Arabian history for Muslims already implied the beginnings of a separate communal identity.