" Christianity dates from the individual birth of a redeeming god; Islam, from the birth of a community, of a new kind of state, which did not have its basis in either blood or place. Islam differs from Christianity and Buddhism in that it became, after the Hegira, something different from a teaching propagated in the framework of a society already formed (a local or blood community). It was the establishment of a society based on the new teaching. "

― Georges Bataille , The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume I: Consumption