UC Irvine

This dissertation studies the formation of Muslim and Persianate identity in the post-caliphal world of the 10th to the 13th century. This is a study of how Muslims articulated a sense of belonging once the political and social core of the Muslim world began to fragment through the myriad imaginings of territory, space, and homeland. I trace how the emerging concept of homeland produced sentimental bonds of belonging that engendered a sense of continuity and connectivity and how the pluralistic categories of belonging simultaneously redrew the borders between communities geographically and socially, while providing the mechanism for religious and cultural conversion. This dissertation is also an examination of how these premodern histories are absorbed and reinterpreted in the modern pan-Islamist movement as they articulated the need for a territorial Muslim homeland.