Sublime

The repeated cycle of mass military invasion, large-scale destruction, transient unity and imperial breakup gave the Islamic world a ‘medieval’ history starkly different from that of Europe or China.

Perhaps because of the distinctive ecology of the Near and Middle East, where agrarian society played second fiddle to long-distance trade, Islam was strikingly cosmopolitan. Muslims were first of all members of the umma, the great body of Islamic faithful, and only secondly subjects of their territorial ruler.