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The article discusses the group identity of the literate, educated classes in Baghdad, Iraq in the 11th-12th centuries. It describes interactions between social classes based on textual sources written during the Seljuk empire, exploring the ways in which upper class elites interacted with lower classes. It then discusses the role of Islamic personal names in identifying an individual's social class, along with the role of clothing, headgear, and hairstyles in marking off class members. Other subjects under discussion include the role of language in class distinctions, Arabic personal names, and the ashraf class which claimed genealogical descent from the prophet Muhammad.