Literally, the term umma means people, though within Islam, it has a few meanings. Primarily, it refers to a group of people who are a part of the religious plan or community of Islam. Historically, umma was used to describe the community of Mecca, but later with the shift of the center of Islam, the term changed to describe the community of Medina. In present day Arabic, umma can also mean a nation or group of nations, such as the United Nations.

Posted at Oct 16/2007 09:52AM:
Ian: Some questions:

1) Who decides what constititutes this "community of believers" as it is often described by Muslims? What are the criteria? This gets at the heart of how the community itself developed through arguments over this very question.

2) Does this serve as useful category for archaeology? Can we trace this boundaries of the umma in the material record?

Part of the significance for this term lies not in its actuality but in the practices that it generates for how people strive to be a part of that community or define what it is. this might translate into the building of mosques, stressing how the sunna should be applied to the things people eat or the way they dress, or the kinds of theological doctrines that they should expouse.

Posted at Oct 26/2007 11:47AM:
ian: On other aspect is that this notion of the umma marks the transition away from the kinds of tribal social orders that dominated pre-Islamic Arbaian society. Or at least that it worked to supercede it. Tribal social order was never fully disolved even in the urban contexts. Thus in building the umma we see the move away from structures such as the atam. As well we can suggest that there is a greater emphasis on developing an urban focus to the Muslim social life. But the tribal still remains in such aspects of urbanism liek the Khitta.