Chapter 14
MUSLIMS: THE FORMATION OF
THE COMMUNITY
THE major religious change in Iraq in the seventh century was the
arrival of Muslims who replaced Magians as the ruling minority. Mus-
lims brought with them the foundations of their own religious law
and doctrine, a form of congregational worship, and a place for wor-
ship (the masjid). The continuing development of their own vocations
of religious leadership, education, legal administration, and forms of
piety combined their own background with local patterns of organi-
zation and practice. Muslims also brought with them the concept of
a religious community, replacing the bonds of kinship with a bond of
faith.
Every first-generation Muslim was a former pagan, Magian, Jew,
or Christian. Because of the mixed composition of the Muslim pop-
ulation, it was inevitable that the ideas and attitudes brought by con-
verts from their former religious traditions would affect the way they
dealt with religious issues as Muslims. At first the Muslim population
was virtually identical with the army and its dependents who settled
in the garrison towns. It consisted of Arabs who had migrated from
the peninsula; local Iraqi Arabs who had been attracted to the army
by prospects of booty and a desire to be on the winning side, especially
after the Battle of Qadisiyya; Persian soldiers such as the lfamra' and
the Asawira, who joined the Muslims in Iraq after the early victories;
captive Arab and Persian children who were raised as mawalz; and
members of the native landed aristocracy. As a society of converts,
Muslims were encouraged to establish their own identity and dis-
couraged by the Qur'an itself (Sura 5:56) from having friendly rela-
tionships with Jews and Christians. Nor could Muslims inherit from
non-Muslims. When the aunt of al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, Warda bint
Ma'dikarib, who had married a Jew, died without children, 'Umar I
is said to have refused to let al-Ash'ath inherit from her, saying "There
is no inheritance between people of two different faiths."1
Communal solidarity was expressed publicly in daily or weekly
1 Ibn Rustah, A '[iiq, p. 205.