Widely varied Islamic societies nevertheless shared similar education and governance.

Evidence

Many of the lands cordoned off by Italy, Poland, and Russia in the North and Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean in the South were inhabited by Islamic cultures most of the time, this being sufficient reason to speak of wide variation in social habits, social structures, customs, tastes, sensibilities, and the like. Yet, all these regions, when inhabited by Islam to any noticeable length of time, shared very similar educational practices and social institutions and were ruled, most of the time, by very similar forms of governance. One therefore can speak not only of education as the accurate embodiment of the civilization’s central domains, but also of its political governance and political constitution. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 145

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the Islamic-secular ‘expansion’-vs-‘spread’ distinction in Hodgson’s Venture of Islam and debates over whether premodern Islamic polities share a single political form. — connects to: Islam adapted flexibly to diverse societies, like Christianity did.