Traditional Islamic states divided governance between military and bureaucratic elites

Evidence

In traditional Islamic states, the business of government was carried on by two main groups, known as the men of the sword (arba¯b al-suyu¯f) and the men of the pen (arba¯b al-aqla¯m). The former were the armed forces, the latter the civilian bureaucrats. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 388

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the classical Islamic administrative dichotomy of men of the sword vs. men of the pen.
• XREF: connects to: Political and religious authority separated de facto within the early Muslim empires — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 318