Explains the success of the early Islamic empire as not purely the result of military might but rather as the product of the cohesion achieved through social relationships and local power dynamics, especially between different linguistic and religious communities. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Preface and acknowledgements; Notes on transliteration, names and dates; Introduction: the ties that bound the societies of the Islamic Empire Edmund Hayes and Petra Sijpesteijn; Part I. Personal Ties: 1. Ties of unfreedom in Late Antiquity and early Islam: debt, dependency and the origins of Islamic law Robert Hoyland; 2. The local clergy and 'ties of indebtedness' in Abbasid Egypt: some reflections on studying credit and debt in early Islamicate societies Cecilia Palombo; 3. 'Return to God and the brotherhood of good and excellent people': Bringing the prodigal son back home in Ayyubid Egypt Oded Zinger; 4. Aloneness as connector in Arabic papyrus letters of request Petra Sijpesteijn; 5. Swearing Ab¿ al-Jaysh into office: the loyalties of ¿¿l¿nid Egypt Matthew Gordon; Part II. Institutions: 6. Messengers in Byzantine and early Muslim Egypt - small cogs, but systemically relevant. With some remarks on the dossier of Menas, strati¿t¿s Stefanie Schmidt; 7. The epistolary imamate: circular letters in the administration of the Shi¿i community Edmund Hayes; 8. Early Arabic decrees on papyrus from the Abbasid period Naïm Vantieghem; 9. A state letter from a Marwanid caliph to his governor of Iraq: a historiographical investigation into Kh¿lid b. ¿Abd All¿h al-Qasr¿'s downfall Noëmie Lucas; 10. Between the Arabs and the Turks: household, conversion and power dynamics in early Islamic Bactria Said Reza Huseini; 11. The affective connection in early Islamic social hierarchies: affection, threats, and appeals to piety in official documents from the Umayyad and Abbasid periods Karen Bauer; Part III. Communities: 12. Local elites during two periods of civil strife: Al-Ash¿ath b. Qays, Müammad b. al-Ash¿ath, and the quarter of Kinda in seventh-century Kufa Georg Leube; 13. Rulers, ¿an¿bila and Shi¿is - the unraveling social cohesion of fourth/tenth century Baghdad Nimrod Hurvitz; 14. Resistance to and Acceptance of the Fatimids in North Africa: A Shi¿i dynasty in negotiation with both adherents and enemies Paul E. Walker; 15. Boundaries that bind? Pagan and Christian Arabs between Syriac and Islamic strategies of distinction (late first century AH) Simon Pierre; 16. 'Peace be upon you': Arabic greetings in Greek and Coptic letters written by Christians in early Islamic Egypt Lajos Berkes; 17. Tied to two empires: the material evidence of the Islamic conquest of Sicily Joanita Vroom; Index.