Islam emerged as the monotheistic faith of Arab tribesmen, who, under Muhammad unified the Arabian Peninsula, and then, under his successors, conquered the entire Middle East. In the process, the Byzantine empire was severed from its richest provinces and Sassanid Persia was destroyed entirely. The polities that rose and fell over the centuries in the wake of these conquests were similar to those in the Europe in that religion played a key role in legitimizing authority. However, a key difference is that, unlike most of the states we have discussed so far, polities in theMiddle East never went through the transition from identity rules to general rules. This fact is reflected in the institutions and policies of states in the Middle East today.

From its inception, Islam was a religion associated with empire. It was therefore shaped by a pragmatism unusual in nascent religious faiths, as it was intended to bind together the Arab people and to inspire their conquest of new lands to the north, west, and east. The practice of offering toleration for Jews and Christians began in the Arabian Peninsula itself and, as Arab armies expanded into new territories, they continued this policy.

The Islamic Caliphate was pluralistic for pragmatic reasons. Even within the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad and the early caliphates received support from Jews, and later Christians and Zoroastrians, who “stood firm over their own faiths but were friendlily disposed toward the Prophet and his new creed” (Bosworth, 1982, 41–42). What was later known as the Pact of Umar – a “contract in which the non-Muslims agree[d] to a host of discriminatory regulations in return for protection” – was in fact a rationalization of these ad hoc arrangements (Bosworth, 1982; Cohen, 1994). The pact of Umar was a preeminent example of conditional toleration. Indeed, there was actually a distinct term under Muslim rule for a community that was granted special or separate status – dhimmi.

As Arab armies continued to conquer new regions, their political leaders found themselves extending conditional toleration first to “people of the Book,” then to Zoroastrians, and then, during the conquest of northern India in the eighth century, to polytheistic Hindus.