THE QUESTION OF CONTINUITYsocial change may be of some help. Gerth and Mills proposed treating
social change under six categories: (1) what changed, (2) how it changed,
(3) the direction of change, (4) the rate of change, (5) causes or condi-
tions for change, and (6) the causal importance of individuals and
ideas.^16 Ginsberg gave conquest as an example for two of the eight
causative factors that have been used to explain social change: (4)
external influences and (7) fortuitous eventsY Change is also regarded
as a result of social conflict. Conflict between societies creates larger
social units, establishes or reinforces social stratification, and diffuses
social and cultural innovations. Conflict between groups within a so-
ciety is considered to be a major cause of innovation and change.
Continuity is preserved by force or by social controls such as education.
The difference in the rate of change between the rapid transformations
caused by technological innovation and the slower changes in social
and political institutions and in former ideologies has been called
"culturallag."18 Although such contructs may not be entirely suitable
for the seventh century, a modified form of lag theory seems to be one
of the best explanations for continuity.
. The same reservations apply to metropolitan theories of cultural
diffusion that are widely used to explain cultural history. In their
simplest form they are based on the assumption that all significant
cultural change or innovation occurs at political capitals around the
courts of rulers whence they are diffused to other places. Even though
the Sasanian imperial capital was located in Iraq, it could be argued
that this was because of the economic and strategic importance of this
region to the Sasanians and not vice versa. The early Islamic imperial
capital was located outside of Iraq at Madina in western Arabia and
then at Damascus in Syria. The importance of the developments that
were taking place in Iraq in the early Islamic period was unrelated to
the location of the imperial capital which eventually returned to Iraq
under the 'Abbasls.
The object here is to strike a balance between those approaches that
are all description with little or no interpretation and those that are
all assertion with little evidence. The goal is to present enough evidence
to justify the summaries and generalizations and to generalize without
16 H. Gerth and C. Mills, Character and Social Structure (New York, 1953), pp. 377-
79.
17 M. Ginsberg, "Social Change," British Journal of Sociology 9 (1958),214, 218.
18 T. Bottomore, Sociology: A Guide to Problems and Literature (New York, 1971),
pp. 297-300.