Умма: понятие и значение в исламе.

Arabic term used to refer to the collective nation of Muslim people
the Islamic concept

('/ʊ//m//ə/; أُمَّة ) is an Arabic word meaning "nation". It is distinguished from (شَعْب , "people"), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra national nation with a common history. It is a synonym for (أمّةْ الإِسْلَامُ, lit. 'the Islamic nation'); it is commonly used to mean the collective nation of Islamic people. In the Quran, the ummah typically refers to a single group that shares common religious beliefs, specifically those that are the objects of a divine plan of salvation. In the context of pan Islamism and politics, the word can be used to mean the concept of a Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers (أمة المؤمنين ).

The word ummah (pl. umam ) means nation in Arabic. For example, the Arabic term for the United Nations is الأمم المتحدة , and the term الأمة العربية is used to refer to "the Arab Nation". The word ummah differs from the concept of a country or people. In its greater context it is used to describe a larger group of people. For example, in Arabic the word شعب ("people") would be used to describe the citizens of Syria. However, the term ummah is used to describe the Arab people as a whole, which includes Syrians as well as the people of the Arab World.

The phrase in the Quran (أمة واحدة, "One Nation") refers to all the Islamic world as it existed at the time. The Quran says: "You [Muslims] are the best nation brought out for Mankind, commanding what is righteous (معروف , lit. "recognized [as good]") and forbidding what is wrong (منكر , lit. "recognized [as evil]")" [3:110]. The usage is further clarified by the Constitution of Medina, an early document said to have been negotiated by Muhammad in CE 622 with the leading clans of Medina, which explicitly refers to Jews, Christians and pagan citizens of Medina as members of the .

At the time of Muhammad, before the conception of the ummah, Arab communities were typically governed by kinship. In other words, the political ideology of the Arabs centred on tribal affiliations and blood relations. Caliphates were Islamic states under the leadership of a political successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. These polities developed into multi ethnic trans national empires.

There are 62 instances in which the term ummah is mentioned in the Qur'an, The meaning of the term appears to transform throughout the chronology of the Qur'an. When it is first used in the Qur'an, it is hardly distinguishable from the term qawm, which can be translated to 'people'. The Qur'an recognizes that each ummah has a messenger that has been sent to relay a divine message to the nation and that all ummahs await God's ultimate judgment. and that their ummah (nation) of theirs is one, and God is their Lord entirely:

Initially, it did not appear that the new Muslim nation would oppose the tribes that already existed in Mecca. Despite Medina already being occupied by numerous Jews and polytheistic tribes, the arrival of Muhammad and his followers provoked no opposition from Medina's residents. Islamic historian, Tabari, suggested that Muhammad's initial intentions upon arriving in Medina was to establish a mosque, however this is unlikely. Membership to the ummah was not restricted to adhering to the Muslim faith but rather encompassed all of the tribes as long as they vowed to recognize Muhammad as the nation and political figure of authority. The Constitution of Medina declared that the Jewish tribes and the Muslims from Medina formed 'one ummah.' It deals with various tribal issues such as the organization and leadership of the participating tribal groups, warfare, blood money, ransom of captives, and war expenditures. It is at the beginning of the document that the Muslims from the Quraysh (those from Mecca) and the Muslims from Yathrib (those from Medina) are declared to be an ummah or one nation. The membership of the ummah was now based on two main principles; the first is to worship God alone and secondly, in order to worship God properly one must be in a guided nation. The essentials of the new society were the new relations between human beings and God and between human beings and one another. The society was held together by the Prophet. Feuding among Muslim clans was forbidden. Muhammad's nation was designed to transform the world itself through action in the world.