Islamic State before Abd Al-Malik or Not?

In order to find out whether there was an Islamic state before ‘Abd al‐Malik or only after he became the caliph in A.D. 685, we first have to define ’state’ and what makes it particularly Islamic. This essay will use the definition by Donner, namely that the state should ’rest on a concept of legal authority’, hold the power to execute force superior to the power of any other actor, and have ’some institutional structure’. Institutions needed for these purposes are ’a governing group’, ’an army and police’, ’a judiciary’, and ’a tax administration’. If we can find all these factors in place in particular time, we can say that at that time there was a state. (Donner 1986)

What then does it mean for a state to be Islamic? It is highly contestable whether it is even justified to use the term ’Islamic state’, since the idea of ’state’ is overwhelmingly Western and does not fit in the Islamic conception of politics and government. (Ayubi [n.d.]) However, for the sake of convenience this essay will use a simple definition which is satisfactory for our purposes: for a state to be Islamic ’the ideological basis of the state… [has to be] in some organic way related to the religion of Islam.’ (Donner 1986)

This essay will now proceed to examine the conditions under the rule of ’Abd al-Malik and his predecessors. In light of our evidence it will become clear that the Islamic state was formed by ’Abd al-Malik and that before him there was something better described as ’a loose confederation of Arab tribes’. (Johns 2003)

Under the rule of ’Abd al-Malik the army was professionalised, which was an important part of an Arabic polity moving towards an Islamic state. (Robinson 2005) It is clear that armed forces of some kind existed before ’Abd...

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...ards Islamic state. Common language meant more unified and centralised state.

Mu’awiya (A.D. 661-680) tried to form a state, more spesifically a monarchy. He claimed to have political control by, among other things, introducing a new coin, which didn’t have a cross on it. However, he was forced to withdraw it because of the Christian community’s disapproval. (Hoyland 2006) This failure does not only clearly show Mu’awiya’s inability to control the population of his area, but since he had to so strongly take into account the opinions of Christian minority, his unsuccesfulness in building particularly Islamic state.

’Abd al-Malik, only couple decades later, was however very succesfull in introducing a new type of coinage.

In conclusion, in this essay I examined the conditions and structures of an early Islamic period in search for an emergence of Islamic state.