The British Columbia Parliament Buildings, located within easy walking distance of where I\u2019m currently writing. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a second selection from an article that I wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.\u00a0 Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World<\/em>, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there also existed from the start a sense of distinct Islamic peoplehood, beyond ethnicity.\u00a0 It was compounded of both genuine reality and idealistic aspiration.\u00a0 \u201cLet there be from among you,\u201d says the Qur\u2019an, \u201can umma<\/i> summoning to good and forbidding evil\u201d (3:104; compare 3:110, also 2:143)).\u00a0 The term umma<\/i> is used several times in the Qur\u2019an to refer to ordinary ethnic groupings, both past and present. In certain passages, however, it plainly characterizes the body of Muslim believers as a new kind of supertribe, transcending family, clan, and ethnic affiliation.\u00a0 \u201cThis your umma<\/i> is one umma<\/i>,\u201d says the Qur\u2019an (21:92).<\/span><\/p>\nEven in the days of the Prophet and his immediate successors, however, old tribal and other affiliations proved resilient, as appears in early tensions between the muhajirun<\/i>\u2014the \u201cemigrants\u201d who, like Muhammad himself, had sought refuge in Medina\u2014and the ansar<\/i> or \u201chelpers\u201d who took them in.\u00a0 Longstanding tribal rivalries continued to be a factor in the early days of the Arab conquests.\u00a0 And even as Arabian tribal divisions decreased in importance, other ethnic rivalries\u2014e.g., between Arabs and non-Arabs (particularly Persians)\u2014came to the fore in such movements as the so-called shu\u2018ubiyya<\/i>.\u00a0 Moreover, the question of precisely what constituted one a believer, and of what caused one to forfeit that status, was a matter of significant controversy in the first period of Islamic thought.<\/span><\/p>\nThe survival and even flourishing of non-Muslims within areas of Islamic rule also helped adherents of Islam to refine and sharpen their own sense of identity.\u00a0 Central to this was the Qur\u2019anic Arabic term milla<\/i> (Turkish millet<\/i>).\u00a0 In the Qur\u2019an, the word milla<\/i> is essentially equivalent to \u201creligion,\u201d and it came, with the passage of time, to signify a \u201creligious community,\u201d especially the Islamic community.\u00a0 Opposed to the community of Muslims, according to a popular tradition rather dubiously ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad, was the community of unbelievers\u2014undifferentiated because their differences, like those among believers, were unimportant:\u00a0 \u201cUnbelief is one milla<\/i>,\u201d the Prophet is reported to have said.\u00a0 Nonetheless, by the time of the Ottomans in the fourteenth century, the term millet<\/i> also signified non-Muslim communities, legally recognized to be plural and varied. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nFrom at least the fifteenth century, Muslim rulers (particularly among the Ottomans) managed religious diversity in their domains through a system based on the millets<\/i>.\u00a0 A quite complex structure of semi-autonomous communities, whose religious leaders had formal relations, as such, with their Muslim overlords both promoted peaceful coexistence and minority representation at court.\u00a0 In the nineteenth century, however, under the influence of European nationalism and with grave implications for traditional arrangements, millet<\/i> came to mean \u201cnation\u201d as well as \u201creligious community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Victoria, British Columbia<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Here\u2019s a second selection from an article that I wrote for\u00a0Richard C. Martin, et al., eds.\u00a0 Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), on the subject of \u201cMuslim Identity\u201d: \u00a0 But there also existed from the start a sense of distinct Islamic peoplehood, beyond ethnicity.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"BC's](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/07\/British_Columbia_Parliament_Buildings_-_Pano_-_HDR.jpg\")
<\/a>