ABSTRACT
Traditional polity generally developed its own personal means of exercising authority over its people and territory. The personal character of relations between the ruler and the ruled then might be based on religion, culture and other forms of ideology. Relevant to the theme of this paper, Islam emerged from its inception as raison d'etre of the community and state (umma). Even Lambton2 suggests that "[p]olitical boundaries were unknown to Islam except those that separated the dar-islam ... from the dar ai-barb .... In its internal aspect it was an assemblage of individuals bound to one another by ties of religion."J Of course, the idea of thughiir and ribii/later developed into military-religious institutions in the frontiers. Yet it remains true that borders or boundaries in Islamic polities within and without continued to be fairly fluid and open. For example, the Umawi Caliphs continued to consider and did pursue summer campaigns (sawafi) into the frontiers against the Byzantines. Indeed, summer campaigns led by Umawi Caliphs were officially conducted with the aim of enlarging the diir ai-Islam, that is to say, that the border was fluid derived partly from the pristine Islamic precept. Again, during the sixteenth century different prominent Muslim rulers in the Middle East fought battles to expand orland defend their respective territories. Indeed, during this period, control over Iraq did change hands on several occasions. Nevertheless, it is unfair to say that the idea of territory and boundary never developed in Islamic political thought. Despite the development of the idea of umma, smaller and more locally oriented polities emerged. Thus here we may discover the nuclei of borders, general and vague though they may be.
