The Shift in the Function of Imperial Religion

Formulation of the Claim

In the imperial moment, religion shifts from a sphere in which new orientations emerge to normative customs and rites subject to the dominance of authority.

Explanation

Religion here is no longer an open field for the emergence of orientations, as in the first phase, but enters a formal system of custom and ritual organized and regulated by the state.

Its Place in the Book’s Argument

This idea falls within the description of the historical transformation that accompanies the imperial moment, when religion’s function within the public sphere changes and its formal normative form comes to prevail.

What the Atom Does Not Say

This formulation does not spell out the historical details or the forms of authority that accompanied this transformation, nor does it explain its different trajectories in each context.

Brief Evidence

By the adjective “imperial” here, we mean that vast and rapid political and economic expansion of the caliphal state beginning with the Umayyads. Previously, this state was confined to the Arabian Peninsula, but now, after the great conquests, it became almost global, extending from the borders of India and Sind eastward to the borders of Europe westward. In other words: it had become an empire in the full sense. This unprecedented historical situation led to a reconfiguration of the ties between religion and society, and between symbolic creativity and the state’s dominance over individuals and groups and its regulation of them. Thus, religion moved from a sphere in which new orientations toward the human condition emerged to a set of regulating customs and standards and specifically defined social functions from …

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