ABSTRACT
Classic problems in the sociology of Islam (or of any world religion) are how to deal descriptively with the wide variations in religious belief and practice, and how to explain these variations by relating them to differences in culture and social organization. In this paper I attempt to establish a simple descriptive framework and to use it in a comparison of three tribal societies which are unrelated but similar in their environments, in their pastoral nomadic system of production, and in being non-Arab Muslims. I begin by suggesting four major descriptive categories, based on the kinds of categories commonly found in the literature.
