Global Affinities Beyond the State: Lessons From the Historical Structures of Muslim Society

As a universalist religion Islam is already part of a very old formula of globalization. Many commentators have already sought to outline how global process were fostered historically through precepts of the faith, religious affiliations, and political systems brought about by Islam1. My aim in this essay is not to argue again that Islam has historically encouraged expansive processes with strong affinities to contemporary globalization, nor to suggest, as many have, that contemporary Islamic resurgence, in its various forms, is itself promoted by the globalization of economic, political, and cultural networks. These are of course valid points, but what is sorely missing from much of the discussion on Islam in the global order is an answer to the question as to whether the historical experience of the former informs the latter. In other words, does the historical career of the Dar al-Islam teach us something about basic structures which any humane global system would be expected to adopt as its operational logic? This is the question to which I orient this essay. The argument presented here is that the Muslim world, or Dar al-Islam as it was historically known to Muslims, could function as a unit only to the extent that it adhered to three fundamental principles, one political, the other social, and the third cultural. They wer