ABSTRACT
Max Weber’s views on Islam as a warrior religion, on qadi justice or on patrimonialism in Islamic societies are not so much wrong as they are inadequately developed and by themselves misleading caricatures of Islamic society and religion. This chapter discusses the institutionalization of Islam as a complex process involving a multiple formation of Islamic social structures, Islamic identities and Islamic ethos. The institutionalization of Islam at the state level—the creation of an Islamic form of Middle Eastern state—was the work of the caliphs who were symbols of the identity of the Muslim umma and bearers of the Muslim intention to transform the world in the name of the truth. The basic family and lineage structures of Arabian peoples became part of Islamic societies; pagan virtues were preserved by being vested with new meaning as Islamic ethics; and bedouin identity persisted alongside Islamic loyalties.
