Multitudes of Islamic Civilizations Vs. Monolithic Islamic Civilization

The term "Islamic Civilization" is often used to imprecisely describe a diverse collection of governments and cultures. The civilizations generally referred to with the phrase are tenuously connected only through remnants of a common religion. Even within this shared religion, there is serious divergence in ideology from region to region, and even within localities. In the time of Prophet Muhammad, "Islamic Civilization" may have had some meaning, as Islam was concentrated in Mecca and Medina. The first Muslims shared a culture and religion and while the Prophet lived, there was little room for conflicting interpretations of Islam. However, with the death of the Prophet and the spread of Islam throughout the world, people began to interpret and practice Islam in accordance with their own cultures, making the homogeneous-sounding term "Islamic Civilization" almost meaningless.

Immediately following the death of the Prophet, the stage was set for the expansion and internal conflict that would render impossible the existence of one cohesive "Islamic Civilization." Although the original Muslims chose to live as a single community by electing the Prophet's father-in-law, Abu Bakr, as the first Caliph, the unity of the Ummah would be short-lived.

The Caliphates of Umar and Uthman, after the death of Abu Bakr, were a time of conquest and expansion. Spreading outward from Mecca and Medina, Muslims overthrew the Sasanian Empire and so took over much of what had been the Byzantine Empire. Although these early conquests were largely of other Arab populations, tribal, ethnic and geographical disparities were already becoming evident within Islamic Civilization.

The most notorious and long-lived schism, of course, came during the Caliphate of Uthman. The Sunni/Shi'a split during Uthman's reign, his eventual assassination and the Caliphate of Ali ibn Abi Talib remains a source of conflict and dissent even today. Along with the Sunni/Shi'a conflict, there formed another, less well-known sect known as the Kharijites, or seceders, who believed only an upstanding Muslim, according to their definition of the same, could be caliph and that there could be no negotiation in the matter. Members of this sect later assassinated Ali.

The never-ending Sunni/Shi'a conflict was even further complicated by internal factionalism within both groups of believers. While all Shi'a wait for the hidden imam, there was and is some disagreement as to who the last great imam was, and this led to splits within the Shi'a community. Likewise, the Sunnah split along ideological lines as certain scholars and their ideas rose to prominence and gained political and/or popular support in specific regions of the Islamic world. The Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi'I and Hanbali schools divided Sunnis as the Shi'a had already been divided. To further complicate matters, Sufi mystics arose in Iraq and Persia in the 8th Century, combining Sunni and Shi'a ideas with mystic thought. Although often persecuted in the early years, the Sufi minority managed to hold their ground and Tariqaht of various Sufi masters sprang up throughout the Islamic World . The Sufis today are well-represented in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt and Eastern Europe.

Abassids, Ummayad, Ayyubid, Ottoman; all can be accurately described as Muslim governments, but they were all radically different, in terms of politics, culture and religion. All were eventually shown to be corrupt to some degree. Some were liberal in their interpretation of Shari'ah, others unduly harsh. Most were, of necessity, tolerant of other monotheistic religions, while a few persecuted or exiled the Jews and Christians among their subjects. Musharaf's Pakistan, the Saudi Wahhabis, the Irani Shi'a , the PLO and whoever is in charge of Indonesia are all Muslim governments. Still, one could hardly lump them together under the term "Islamic Civilization."

In reality, tremendous geographical range, varying ethnicities, cultures and interpretations of religion make "Islamic Civilization" as much an impossibility as a single "Christian Civilization." Although there may have been a single, cohesive Islamic Civilization during the life of the Prophet, the inclusive nature of Islam makes such a thing logistically unmanageable.

Albanians and Yemenis, Sufis and Salafis share a powerful, but hardly a unifying belief in the one God and His Messenger. However, the similarities end there. Although the Prophet's time and that of the first four caliphs is necessary to understanding the spread of Islam, each government, culture, people and history deserves to be studied on its own terms, according to its own definitions of itself. No one would think of studying Italian and Irish history together, or of lumping their histories together under the heading "Papist Civilization."

Like the history of any other people, region, or religion, that of Islamic Civilization is messy and incoherent. The very phrase, "Islamic Civilization" is just a natural attempt to organize history so that we can better manage it.

1. John L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 13-16.
2. Ibid., 13-15.
3. Ibid., 16.
4. William H. McNeill and Marilyn Robinson Waldman, eds., The Islamic World
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983) 206-208.