ABSTRACT
The decentralization of the Islamic empire began as early as the tenth century. The economic basis of the Islamic empire was, of course, quite different from that of Christian Rome. For one thing, the Muslims had taken over former Byzantine and Sasanid provinces. One of the most persistent examples of this type of dispute was that between the northern and southern Arab tribes. The principle is a mechanism whereby strict adherence to the accepted sources of Islamic law can be bypassed in certain cases determined by public well-being. Islamic unity was a moral unity, unanimous in encouraging goodness and denouncing inequity. Ibn Taymiyya believed that excessive insistence on political unity can be harmful to the Islamic community. The result of the revolutionary approach to Islamic unity was a reorientation of the nature of politics. Ibn Taymiyya described political leadership of the Islamic community as a temporal and practical matter, rather than a sacred or doctrinal issue.
