The question of orthodoxy and religious authority in the study of Islam has produced an array of results and perspectives which have not always been in accord with one another. In an attempt to dismiss the question altogether, many have claimed that Islam is simply best understood as a religion of orthopraxy—a tradition concerned with proper practice rather than proper belief (orthodoxy). Indeed, advocates of this perspective point to the large amount of intellectual activity in the Islamic tradition that has been concerned with the formulation of proper interpretations and applications of Islamic law, shariah. Observers of the first centuries of Islam, however, have pointed to the vibrant theological debates that took place alongside the development of jurisprudence. However, these two approaches, which focus on the scholarly discourse of theologians and jurists fail capture the social and political dimensions of orthodoxy, power, and authority in Islam. Another approach has been to study the formation of Sunni Islam as discrete communitarian sensibility. From this perspective—Sunnism as orthodoxy—the question of religious authority fully enters the realm of imperial politics as opposed to remaining in the more insular, but not apolitical, arena of clerical discourse (theology and jurisprudence). However, while most historians of Islam can attest to the fact that a distinctly Sunni set of legal and theological practices did not come into existence until, at the earliest, the period between the late-ninth and early-tenth century, few can describe the way in which this protracted development of community identity unfolded. This paper addresses the old problem of orthodoxy and authority in the Islamic tradition through an analysis of the concept of al-jam?‘a as a discourse of collective identity. It argues that theological, jurisprudential, and Sunni sectarian discourses rely upon a pervasive, yet opaque, foundational myth regarding the solidary nature of the early Muslim community. This myth ultimately provides the basis for the articulation of the idealized political community and allows for the demarcation of heresy and heterodoxy. By analyzing the discourse of al-jam?‘a and its ancillaries al-??‘ and al-sam‘ in the political rhetoric of Umayyad caliphs, in the scholarly milieu of the ahl al-hadith, and then finally in various Sunni creedal statements in the 10th century, it becomes clear that the articulation of religious authority in Islam is best understood not in terms of jurisprudence or theology but rather through the paired discourses of historical imagination and community identity.