CONCLUSIONamong the members of different religious groups. In this kind of so-
ciety, group identities and cultural differences were preserved most
effectively when people kept together socially, such as the military
units of the ijamrii' and Asiiwira, the Arab clans, the Bukharans, and
the Zun. Contrary to the assumptions of cultural nationalism, the
preservation of an ethnic identity or group solidarity did not depend
on regional predominance but on cultural or social density. Groups
with a high cultural density, such as the Aramaean Jews of the central
Sawad or the Muslim Arabs of the garrison cities, were able to assim-
ilate outsiders as individuals. Linguistic, ethnic, and religious bound-
aries were all crossed by converts and captives as individuals. Cultural
assimilation was most complete for such individuals who were re-
moved from their former social contexts and integrated as individuals
into a new society. The best examples of this are provided by the
children who were taken captive during the conquest or afterwards
and were raised as Arabized Muslims.
Religious pluralism survived because it was institutionalized in the
religious communities themselves, as they worked out their relation-
ships to their rulers. The communities which were forming in late
Sasanian and early Islamic Iraq may be regarded as establishing a type
for the sectarian communities developed among Muslims in later cen-
turies and bear comparison to denominationalism in modern American
society. They also provide suggestions about the nature of such com-
munities. Ritual observance serves to individualize and internalize a
communal identity and assists in social differentiation either by mark-
ing differences in relative status among members or by symbolizing
the differences between different religious groups. Even minor details
of ritual can serve to establish such identities. Recurring group worship
and public festivals in a ritual calendar serve to reinforce a personal
identity and to enhance group feeling. The position of religious leaders
depends on the recognition of such distinctions by their followers; in
a multi faith society, a degree of tension between the realities of every-
day life and the social exclusiveness preferred by the leaders would
seem to be normal. Such a community is created, preserved, and per-
petuated through law and education. The use of law to create social
boundaries for marriage and inheritance serves to keep children (and
other members) and property within the community and enables the
leaders to secure a permanent following and an economic base for
themselves. It would be inappropriate to represent either ethnic dif-
ferences or religious-communal cleavages as amounting to stratifica-