Encyclopedia of Islam

cities

  

151  J

---

(12.5 million, 2005), Karachi (Pakistan) (11.8 

million, 2005), Istanbul (Turkey) (9.8 million, 

2005), and Tehran (Iran) (8.6 million, 2005).

See also 

architectUre

; 

bazaar

; 

camel

; 

cem

-

etery

; 

colonialism

; 

hoUses

; 

madrasa

.

Further reading: Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab 

Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 

1991), 109–146; F. E. Peters, Jerusalem and Mecca: The 

Typology of the Holy City in the East (New York: New York 

University Press, 1986); Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi (al-

Maqdisi), The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions,

trans. Basil A. Collins (Reading, U.K.: Garnet, 2001); 

Paul Wheatley, The Places Where Men Pray Together: Cit-

ies in Islamic Lands, Seventh through the Tenth Centuries

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)

citizenship

The idea that identity is inextricably linked with a 

given territory or land develops with the appear-

ance of the modern nation-state of 17th-century 

Europe. Being French or Spanish, for example, 

began to reflect not only a certain lineage or a 

set of cultural habits, but most importantly the 

simple fact of having been born in a given geo-

graphic space. As the model of the modern state 

spread to other parts of the world through Euro-

pean colonization of parts of Africa, Asia, and the 

entire Western hemisphere, traditional identities 

and affiliations began to change. This is especially 

true in lands where the majority of inhabitants 

were Muslim. In fact, the effects of changing 

identities and affiliations in the Muslim lands 

brought by 

colonialism

 are still felt today, as seen 

in the transnational composition of many Islamist 

movements. Central to these changes is the idea of 

citizenship, or the bestowal of an official national 

identity on an individual by a government.

Prior to the postcolonial states found in many 

parts of the Muslim world, identity hinged on 

kinship relations and the idea of the 

umma

, or the 

community of Muslims. For the majority Sunni 

Muslims, after m

Uhammad

’s death in 632 a 

caliph

led the community, at least symbolically, until the 

office’s abolition in 1924. Regardless of where an 

individual is born or what language they speak, 

as long as they are born as a Muslim or convert 

to Islam they are part of the 

umma

. Historically, 

in most cases only members of the umma were 

subject to Islamic law, even if non-Muslims—or 

dhimmis—lived in areas ruled by Muslim lead-

ers. Otherwise, non-Muslims, and particularly 

Jews, Christians, and in some cases Hindus, lived 

according to their own legal traditions. Although 

a territorial element can be found in the Islamic 

legal designations dar al-Islam (abode of Islam) 

and  dar al-harb (abode of war), these came into 

effect only when Muslims came into contact with 

large non-Muslim populations, such as occurred 

through conquest or trade. Individual identity, 

however, depended on one’s religious affiliation. 

As bounded political territories, modern states 

of the Muslim world in general and, more par-

ticularly, the idea of citizenship, changed not only 

local political organization but also grounds for 

legal 

aUthority

 and for individual identity.

See also 

dar

 

al

-i

slam

 

and

 

dar

 

al

-

harb

; 

laW

, 

international

.

Caleb Elfenbein