Over the past half century, medieval Islamic urbanism has been viewed in terms of a single and restricted model, namely the "Islamic City" concept. The essence of this paradigm, usually expressed in such terms as "cultural tradition" or "Muslim urban archetype," is that all Muslim cities share a common character derived mainly from the religion of Islam and, therefore, they could be explained only in such context. The "urban system" concept, which deals with networks of cities, is suggested here as an alternative framework which will integrate the different approaches to medieval Islamic urbanism and help clarify the place of cities in their regional settings.