In this third section, the perspective is broadened to look beyond the dynamics of conflict and competition within networks of military and political power. Interactions between the majority of the empire's population and its new ruling classes and other longer-term processes of social and economic change are the concerns of its three chapters. Chapter Ten begins with the environmental context, surveying the 8,000km-wide band of territory between North Africa and al-Andalus in the west and Sogdia and Sind in the east which the Umayyads’ armies occupied or contested. From there, it turns to the economic foundations of empire – land use and resources, settlement patterns in the towns and countryside, and commerce and exchange. While there are many deep continuities in the economic and social life of the Mediterranean and the Middle East, the Umayyad era emerges as a turning point, when new and lasting economic and social formations took shape.

Chapter Eleven turns to the social significance of religious community and the impact of the conquests and the formation of the empire on the religious groups among the conquered populations. Religious belief and practice had become crucial markers of belonging and political affiliation in Late Antiquity. This was perpetuated and developed by the Arabian conquerors, whose leaders saw themselves as agents of God's rule on earth on the basis of which they made ‘a covenantal pact’ (‘ahd or bay‘a) with military allies and supporters, while tax-paying populations received covenantal ‘guaranteed protection’ (dhimma). With the end of Roman and Sasanian state power, new relationships were negotiated between religious leaders and the Arabian conquerors. In many cases, this led to competition for patronage by the new rulers as well as an expanded role for religious leaders in the context of the transformation of the structures of state power.

Chapter Twelve addresses structures of governance, organisational power and taxation. The military administration established by the conquering armies concentrated power in the hands of the armies’ commanders (umarā’, sing. amīr), among whom the most senior became the leading political figures in the territories they had conquered (whence the other translation of amīr, as ‘governor’).