ABSTRACT
The study of communal identities in the early Muslim-era Middle East is perhaps the most direct pathway into the heart of pressing questions about the rise of Islam. This chapter examines identity in the early Caliphate by first exploring theory in a little more detail to articulate what is mean by "social group", "ethnicity", and "ethnogenesis". It investigates early Arabic literature's own terminology for describing social groups. The terminology reveals the conceptual categories early Muslims themselves used to imagine identities, and helps us interpret the contemporary sources about the Caliphate's social composition. The chapter reviews the historical survey of social formation, employing a long view of Middle Eastern societal development from the century before the Conquests and across the Caliphate's first 150 years. In terms of Late Antique continuities, the small size of the Conqueror armies necessitated a delicate balance of power in the post-conquest Caliphate.
