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

In the medieval Islamic Near East, did “popular religion” constitute a distinctive phenomenon susceptible to analysis as such? Certainly “religion” was quite “popular,” in at least two socially significant senses: first, that religious structures and patterns such as those we have been investigating contributed decisively to shaping the social identities of the population; and second, that religious concerns permeated daily life and religious hopes provided the first line of defense against crisis. No doubt, individuals sincerely turned to God for help in times of trouble, but of greater interest were the public manifestations of pious expectations which reflect a society in which religion constituted the central organizational principle. In a typical entry, for example, the chronicler al-Dhahabi described the reaction of the population of Damascus to the approach of the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan in 1299. While the Mamluks, the ruling elite, prepared (ineffectually, as it turned out) for war, the Muslims of the city, led by the qadis and leading ulama, made a public procession, at the head of which strode a shaykh carrying a copy of al-Bukhari's collection of Prophetic hadith – and in a fit of ecumenism, they were joined by the Jews carrying the Torah and the Christians with the Gospels, invoking the mercy of the Almighty.