Scholars define the Islamic city by its absence of corporate institutions

Evidence

The urban ideal of Islam created no forms, no urban structure … It replaced the solidarity of a collective community with an anomalous disorganised heap of disparate quarters and elements. By a really very remarkable paradox, this religion endowed with the ideal of urban life produced the very negation of urban order. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 199 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Scholars frame Islam’s urban ideal as paradoxically producing no urban order — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 199; Islamic land grants lacked feudalism’s immunities and sub-infeudation — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 353; Orientalism treats Islam as an essentialized cultural synthesis insulated from economics and politics — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 294

Broader Connections

• Scholars frame Islam’s urban ideal as paradoxically producing no urban order #expands (0.92) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 199