114 • 8 ISLAMIC CIVILIZATIONzakat, and make the hajj to Mecca? Let those who claim that Islam and its
laws are anachronistic try to answer these questions.
ISLAMIC SOCIETYIn early Muslim times, social life was far more formalized than it is today.
Every class had certain rights and duties, as did each religion, sex, and age
group. The rulers were expected to preserve order and promote justice
among their subjects, to defend the umma against non-Muslim powers,
and to ensure maximum production and exploitation of the wealth of
their realm. Over time, Sunni Muslims developed an elaborate political
theory. It stated that the legitimate head of state was the caliph, who must
be an adult male, sound in body and mind, and descended from the
Quraysh tribe. His appointment should be publicly approved by other
Muslims. In practice, though, the assent given to a man's becoming caliph
might be no more than his own. Some of the caliphs were young boys. A
few were insane. Eventually, the caliphal powers were taken over by viziers,
provincial governors, or military adventurers. But the fiction was main¬
tained, for the Sunni legists agreed that it was better to be governed by a
usurper or a despot than to have no ruler at all. The common saying was
that a thousand years of tyranny was preferable to one day of anarchy.
Abuses of power were often checked by the moral authority of the
ulama. The rulers had to work with the classes commonly called the "men
of the pen" and the "men of the sword." The men of the pen were the ad¬
ministrators who collected and disbursed state revenues and carried out
the rulers' orders, plus the ulama who provided justice, education, and
welfare services to Muslims. The Christian clergy and the Jewish rabbinate
had functions in their religious communities similar to those of the ulama.
The men of the sword expanded and defended the lands of Islam and also,
especially after the ninth century, managed land grants and maintained
local order.
Social Groupings
Strictly speaking, Muslims dislike class differentials, but the concept of
ruler and subject was taken over from the Sasanid rulers of pre-Islamic Per¬
sia. The great majority of the people belonged to the subject class, which
was expected to produce the wealth of the umma. The most basic division
of subjects was between nomads and settled peoples, with the former
group further divided into countless tribes and clans and the latter broken