For this particular assignment, I chose to read Roy Mottahedeh’s Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society because it is widely known as one of the most noteworthy contributions to the understanding of pre-modern Islamic history. To begin, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society is an updated, traditional study of the Buyid dynasty that dominated in western Iran and eastern Iraq in the 10th and 11th centuries. During the 10th and 11th century, the Abbasids endured a great social disorder as they declined and as power shifted to military groups. Moreover, these military groups did not rule in the same way as the Caliphs and as a result a new Islamic society emerged.
At this juncture, the principal interests of this new Muslim society varied greatly from the interests of the Caliph dynasty that ruled before. Although the societies differed, the book highlights that the new Islamic society successfully functioned without the presence of the political institutions that existed in the West. Therefore, many scholars and historians are interested in studying these early Islamic societies in Iran and Iraq. Among many works, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society is one that portrays Middle Eastern social structure, where the author attempts to …show more content…
Therefore, in his book, Mottahedeh approaches the Buyid dynasty by primarily focusing on the individuals in society rather than the groups. Here, the author describes the social structure of western Iran and southern Iran by exploring social ties of medieval structure. The argument of the text relies heavily on the self-descriptions of individuals’ relations and obligations to each other. Specfically, the individuals in this context refer to Mottahedeh’s argument that there were two networks of loyalties: acquired loyalties and loyalties of