Perhaps because of the distinctive ecology of the Near and Middle East, where agrarian society played second fiddle to long-distance trade, Islam was strikingly cosmopolitan. Muslims were first of all members of the umma, the great body of Islamic faithful, and only secondly subjects of their territorial ruler.

because it did not empower a priesthood as the intermediary between the faithful and their god, Islam did not bind the individual so tightly into an ordered religious community. Its clerical elite, the ulama, were teachers, judges and scholars, not priests. Sufis and pirs, or holy men, exerted spiritual leadership, not religious authority.