Abstract
In keeping with other world religions, Islam had a universalist profile from the outset. Although the caliphate, a universalist religiopolitical institution, ceased to actually govern more than a small portion of the Islamic world quite early on, the expansion of Arabic as a lingua franca and centripetal religious impulses such as the annual pilgrimage and the search for knowledge (talab al-‘ilm) undertaken by scholars created a startlingly well-integrated society which transcended the political boundaries of the time.1 Although this society was primarily an elite one, the umma, the universal community of all Muslims, existed in the imagination of Muslims from every walk of life.
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