ABSTRACT
This chapter reexamines the importance of the concept of mulk – both ‘dominion’ and ‘kingship’ – in early Islamic political thought and its relationship to the institution of the caliphate, especially as deployed by various social actors in the Umayyad period. It questions a common historical trope that mulk conceived as kingship was merely counterpoised to the caliphate and argue, instead, that mulk carried a broader spectrum of signification that encompassed both positive and negative meanings. Elites of the early Islamic polity and the Umayyad caliphate regarded prophetic, Abrahamic mulk as being the basis of their claim to legitimate, divinely sanctioned rule.
