I Introduction: Some Thoughts on Centralization

THE HISTORICAL works of the Islamic tradition portray the early Islamic conquests as the self-conscious and centrally managed expansion of a new state in the name of the new faith of Islam. According to this view, commitment to Islam provided the motive force underlying the conquests, and the leadership of the early Islamic community, headed by the Caliphs in Medina, coordinated virtually all aspects of the expansion, from the initial recruitment of troops to the placement of garrisons of Muslims following the successful conquest of a province.

This vision of the Islamic conquests embraces what we shall call, in more general terms, the “centralization thesis.” The main components of this thesis can be identified as (1) the existence of some central concepts or mission motivating the conquerors; (2) the existence of a ruling elite dedicated to the principles of these central concepts; and (3) the existence of some plan of expansion in the name of the central concepts; and (4) the capacity of the ruling elite to realize the plan of expansion through direct and indirect commands.

The centralization thesis has been accepted in the main by many modem scholars, but it has also been challenged, sometimes fundamentally, by a variety of revisionist interpretations put forth over the past century or so. The objective of this essay is to consider the cogency of the various interpretations of the conquests that have been advanced by modern scholars, with particular reference to whether the conquests are viewed as “centralized” or “decentralized.” Before doing so, however, it will be useful to make some general observations about the notion of “centralization” that must be kept in mind when attempting to interpret the evidence for the early Islamic conquests.

Centralization means control of some process from “the centre” - in the traditional view of the Islamic conquests, control of the conquest movement by the Caliphs in Medina. In dealing with historically complex phenomena such as the Islamic conquest, however, the notion of centralization cannot be envisioned as half of a simple binary polarity, with complete “decentralization” as its opposite pole. Rather, it must be seen as a continuum. That is, we may be able to envision the Islamic conquests as falling in general somewhere along a broad spectrum of degrees of centralization. Indeed, we will probably need to draw a complex judgment on the issue of centralization, and to speak of certain aspects of the conquests as being relatively centralized, while other aspects are quite decentralized.