11 - Emotion in Early Islamic Social Hierarchies: Affection, Threats, and Appeals to Piety in Official Documents from the Umayyad and Abbasid Periods

Summary

This paper analyses the role of emotive appeals in official Umayyad and Abbasid documents that have some persuasive function. The documents all represent power hierarchies in which one party is subject to the other’s authority. Whether they are higher or lower in the social hierarchy, the authors seek to get what they want by invoking a bond beyond the mere utilitarian. Sometimes affectionate language is used, but more frequently they speak of piety and moral goodness. This paper argues that, by invoking a shared notion of pious morality and godliness, the authors seek to create an emotional bond between people in different places in the social hierarchy. This enables us to nuance our understanding of medieval Islamic governance beyond brute power and coercion, or mere economic justice. Rather, the notion of justice also involved moral goodness, goodwill, affection, loyalty, and willing compliance with one’s role, either as a patron or a protégé.