MUSLIMS: DOCTRINESthem also survived. There are three outstanding examples. The first
concerns the arguments over ritual practices such as weeping anp--die
argument over silence or speech that was part of a larger conflict
between active and passive piety. The developments of the seventh
century introduced the conflict between asceticism and positive ma-
terial values among Muslims who inherited the older conflict over this
issue existing between Magians and Manichaeans, Rabbinic Jews and
the mourners for Zion, the Nestorian lay aristocracy and Christian
monks. This contributed to a continuing tension between this-worldly
practicality in religion and the super-pious ascetic or mystic renun-
ciation of the world. Second, the old conflict between royal absolutism
expressed in terms of divine kingship and representative forms of
government survived among Muslims in the conflict between the in-
fallibility of a prophetic leader and the infallibility of a community of
believers. Third, the conflict between fatalism and human responsi-
bility among Muslims was a continuation of old arguments between
Zurvanites and Mazdaeans, and Marcionites and Nestorians; it was
made available by converts and reinforced by the Qur'an. In this case,
Islam originated partly as an ethical monotheistic denial of the im-
personal mechanistic concept of fate popular in the late Sasanian pe-
riod, and it was part of a general reaction to the use of fatalism to
support absolutist policies. Fatalism had political as well as religious
uses; its reappearance as part of the Marwani restoration after the
second (itna and the Qadari objections to it parallel conditions at the
beginning of the seventh century and signify the continuation of this
issue among Muslims.
It is also possible to describe the formation and development of an
Islamic religious community in Iraq that came to resemble existing
local patterns of organization and identity. Muslims used congrega-
tional worship, education, and law to strengthen a communal identity
and prevented apostasy by force. Reciters of the Qur'an were the
bearers of a sacred liturgical tradition like the hirbadhs, and qar,lts
combined the arbitration of a ~akam with the administration of re-
ligious law by a mobadh, rabbi, or priest. Religious education was
much less formal among Muslims in this period than it was among
the other communities; but, as in other groups, exemplary behavior
was used to spread conformity among the members, and this served
as a source of status for the exemplars. But as a society of converts,
Muslims were concerned with the establishment of a separate identity
for themselves. In spite of the affinities their forms of worship, fasting,