This paper analyzes the Qur??nic usage of the term mawl? (pl. maw?l?) to reveal the term’s fundamental importance as an expression of early Islamic community formation. While this term is commonly understood as referring to clients and clientage, I argue that its meaning in the Qur??n is far more capacious. More specifically, mawl? designates the bonds of help, support, and cooperation that united the earliest Islamic umma as a functional faith community. Indeed, by connecting the term mawl? to the creation of the umma’s social structure, the Qur??n lays the foundation for both the importance and the ambivalence of the term mawl? throughout Islamic history. In this paper, I demonstrate the significance of the Qur??nic term mawl? by performing two unprecedented tasks. First, I show how the word mawl? relates to other variations of the Arabic root WLY in the Qur??n. This exercise is inspired by the language of the Qur??nic text itself: the Qur??n sometimes uses mawl? interchangeably with other WLY variants, and at other times in close proximity to them. Thus, by exploring the meaning and usage of the root WLY in the Qur??n, I provide a semantic background against which to understand the word mawl?. Second, I show that the twenty-one attestations of the term mawl?/maw?l? in the Qur’?n form a coherent discourse about communal identity construction. This discourse culminates in the statement in verse 33:5: “if you do not know their fathers, they are your brothers in religion and your maw?l?.” I argue that, when verses 33:4¬–6 are read together as a conceptual and literary unit, they reveal a connection between the term mawl? and host of pivotal ideas, including the Qur??nic concept of Law, the proper use of language, the boundaries of communal belonging, and the role of genealogy in structuring the umma. Hence, we should read these verses as some of the Qur??n’s most explicit and highly developed statements about the relationship between religious bonds, genetic bonds, and social bonds in the Islamic community. This complex connection between religion, genealogy and wal?’ persisted into the early Islamic period, and it provides a clear conceptual link between Qur??nic rhetoric and later debates about the role and status of maw?l? in early Islamic society.