The Formation of Islam Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800

The term “Islam,” like any other historical abstraction of comparable scope, indicates a phenomenon of great complexity and constantly evolving dimensions. This should go without saying; unfortunately, given how easily and naturally we fall back on the simple term to describe the complex organism, it bears repeating. Islam was not fully formed at the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, nor a few years later when it burst out of its Arabian homeland, nor even many decades later when it was clear that the rule of those who called themselves “Muslims” was permanent. The story of the emergence during the seventh and eighth centuries of particularly Islamic identities and patterns of religious authority can be read as a continuation of that of the focusing of religious identities which characterized the late antique Near East. The questions posed by the unexpected appearance on the scene of enthusiastic monotheists from the Arabian desert forced adherents of the older faiths to articulate more precisely those contours which defined them against their rivals. But it is also true that Islam itself only took shape through a process of dialogue with the other faith traditions. Indeed, it is misleading to speak of the “appearance” or “rise” of Islam, if those words convey a sense of unproblematic apparition as sudden as that of the Arab warriors before the bewildered Byzantine or Sasanian armies.