RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESand burial shared with the practices of other communties in Iraq,
differences in details made them distinctly Islamic. Muslims created
their own form of religious community in Iraq that resembled the
others in many ways but had its own unique identity.
Muslims were distinct from the members of other, older religions
because of the way elements of religious organization, ritual, piety,
and belief were recombined in accordance with original Islamic as-
sumptions in Iraq. Their uniqueness was due primarily to the way
their origin and early development responded to a specific set of cir-
cumstances at a particular time. The extent of the contribution of non-
Muslim traditions to this development is indicated by the fact that the
arguments over ritual forms, attitudes and practices of piety, and
doctrinal concepts were found together with these beliefs and practices
among Muslims in the seventh century. This is central to the question
of continuity through transmission to Muslims of non-Muslim reli-
gious ideas and practices. Although Muslim Arabs showed a noticeable
resistance to accepting these ideas and practices at first, such trans-
mission was most effective when it could be justified by what was
already contained in the Qur'an.