If we look at Islam as a political movement in 6th century Arabia, did support for the movement fall along any class/social lines?

by Drudeboy

I'm not making a statement on the religion today, I'm just curious about the political/social/class context of Islam's advent and what groups/classes would support the movement and which ones would resist it?

Did regulations concerning alcohol and beards for men have wider social implications? Did the beard regulation, for example, target a certain class or was it simply a holdover from Judaism?

I know it's hard to speak of class in tribal societies, and I know about the divisions between certain tribes, but I guess I'm speaking about divisions within tribes.

farquier

One book that looks at the social history of early Islam and how its rise was shaped by the society of 6th century Arabia and divisions within it(especially divisions between rural and urban populations) which you may want to read is Fred Donner's The Early Islamic Conquests(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).