Urban Populations in Early Islam. Self-Identification and Collective Representation

International audienceThis chapter examines how urban populations in early Islam identified themselves and understood their role in the administration of their cities, especially in the regions of modern-day Egypt and Iraq. After investigating the ways in which these civic bodies expressed their belonging and the place occupied by cities in self-representations, I consider the participation of Muslim in the management of local affairs. It turns out that Muslims primarily identified themselves as belonging to tribal groups, and that they rarely expressed their sense of belonging to cities before the third/ninth century. Furthermore, although jurists and theologians never theorized any system of popular representation, Muslims participated at an early stage in the governance of collective interests, both through permanent and temporary institutions such as the judiciary and delegations, and through their elites’ capacity to speak on behalf of individuals or groups