Encyclopedia of Islam

umma

  

687  J

---

that they are united into a single community, or 

umma, by a shared system of Islamic beliefs and 

practices concerning a single, all-powerful and 

merciful god—a

llah

, who revealed himself in the 

q

Uran

, the holy book delivered by the prophet 

Muhammad in the seventh century 

c

.

e

. They view 

the  umma as a joining of all believers, without 

regard to sect, caste, class, ethnicity, gender, or 

nationality. The Muslim umma stands in contrast 

to communities that are founded on such social 

divisions, and it is opposed to those founded on 

disbelief (kufr) and 

idolatry

 (shirk). It is close, 

however, to other communities believed to be 

founded on prophetic revelation—the p

eople

 

oF

the

 b

ook

, among whom the Jews and Christians 

are foremost.

The concept of the umma was been formed 

during three phases of Islamic history: (1) the age 

of the first community in m

edina

 under Muham-

mad’s leadership; (2) the age of the caliphates and 

their successor states; and (3) the modern age of 

European 

colonialism

 and nation-states. Of these 

three, that of the Medinan phase is the one that 

has been most idealized by Muslims. Indeed, it 

is so significant that the year of the creation of 

this original umma in Medina under Muhammad’s 

leadership in 622 

c

.

e

. was selected to be year one 

on the Islamic lunar 

calendar

. The exemplary 

nature of this community is conveyed by the 

Medinan chapters of the Quran, the 

hadith

, and 

the biographies of Muhammad and his Compan-

ions. Much of what the 

Ulama

 determined to be 

the 

sUnna

 (body of precedents) of Islam is based 

on traditions (the hadith) about what Muhammad 

and his followers said and did in that era.

In the Quran the word umma occurs 62 times 

in chapters dated to both the later Meccan and 

Medinan periods of Muhammad’s life. It is used 

with reference to all humankind (Q 2:213) and 

to different groups and subgroups, including 

the People of the Book, who have in one way or 

another gone astray (for example, Q 23:52–54). 

Above all, however, it refers to Muhammad’s 

community, the Muslims. It is called a “middle” 

community (Q 2:143) and the “best” community, 

whose members are obliged not only to believe in 

God, but also to uphold his laws, “commanding 

the right and forbidding the wrong” (Q 3:110). 

Aside from the Quran, another important early 

source for information about the umma is a col-

lection of documents known as the Constitution 

of Medina, found in early Islamic sources such as 

m

Uhammad

 

ibn

 

lshaq

’s Sirat rasul Allah (Life of the 

Prophet of God, mid-eighth century). This docu-

ment, issued after the h

iJra

 in 622, establishes 

the community in political terms, affirming social 

solidarity among the Meccan e

migrants

 and the 

Arab clans of Medina (a

nsar

), and regulating 

relations with outsiders. It also set forth terms for 

peaceful coexistence with the Jews of Medina.

During the era of the caliphates (seventh 

to 13th century), and in the ensuing centuries 

of Islamic empires and states, the ideal of the 

exemplary Muslim community of Medina became 

firmly established, particularly among Sunni Mus-

lims. The initial pluralism of the Medinan com-

munity reflected in the Constitution of Medina 

became even more pronounced and diversified 

after Muhammad’s death, with the extraordinary 

expansion of Islamic rule outside the Arabian 

Peninsula toward Spain (a

ndalUsia

) in the west 

and the i

ndUs

 River valley in the east. The impe-

rial umma came to include not only Arab Muslims, 

but also clients and converts from many different 

ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds. Among 

the converts were former Jews, Christians, and 

Zoroastrians, as well as members of diverse eth-

nic groups such as Persians, Africans, Kurds, 

Turks, Circassians, Asians, and various European 

peoples. Required Islamic ritual practices—the