Peace to those of Faith: Political Affiliation and Belonging in Classical Islamic Thought

This chapter examines some of the central concepts of human community and belonging and their implications in a number of classical legal and exegetical works. This is done by highlighting early and classical Islamic concepts that occupied a place comparable to ideas of nation and citizenship, understood as a specific form of political status and identity, or the “need to belong to a community,” (as described in Heater 1990, 182), with an...