Arabization and Islamization are often invoked in discussions of the administrative and numismatic reforms of the Umayyads. Nevertheless, scholars have long pointed out that non-Arabic languages continued to be used well after the reforms of ‘Abd al-Malik and that non-Muslims continued to staff important administrative positions—leading some to shift the discussion to the degree of Arabization or Islamization. However, less attention has been paid to how the growing administration of the Umayyads and their reforms, regardless of the degree of its uniformity, impacted society as a means of social mobility or social reproduction. The paper argues that the term Islamization places too much emphasis on the religious identity of bureaucrats and overlooks the underlying change of bureaucratic positions and their relation to power and economics. The paper argues that attention should be focused on the changing socio-economic backgrounds of individuals, and not their religious identity. They were bureaucrats who happened to be Muslims—not bureaucrats simply because they were Muslims absent of additional social networks, economic control, or cultural capital. There were plenty of Muslims and Christians who were not bureaucrats; so, how did they achieve their positions and what were the socio-economic results of bureaucratic appointments? By tracing the changing socio-economic backgrounds of Umayyad-era bureaucrats based on tabaqat and adab al-kuttab literature (Ibn ‘Asakir’s Ta’rikh madinat Dimashq and al-Jahshiyari’s Kitab al-wuzara’ wa-l-kuttab etc.), the paper argues that appointments in the bureaucracy reflected diminishing Late Antique and emerging Islamic forms social and cultural capital. This framework allows us to examine the role of bureaucratic positions in the wider Umayyad political economy. Were positions in the bureaucracy merely apparatuses of the Umayyad caliphate aimed at preserving a growing class of Muslim elites? That is, a means to reproduce privilege, reward loyalty, or appease potential rivals? Or, on the contrary, was the access to bureaucratic positions based on meritocracy as the growing need for Arabic in the administration created opportunities of social mobility for astute or qualified individuals? Ultimately, the paper does not reject Arabization and Islamization as interpretive terms, but argues that these should be situated within a broader historiographical tradition of social reproduction in Late Antique societies and the wider Umayyad political economy in which competing social networks and cultural capital (education, religion, language, etc.) were carving out a distinctive identity and place in Late Antiquity.