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In recent years, the term "proto-Sunni" has become common in scholarship on the early centuries of Islam. Drawing on categories developed by Peter Berger, this study seeks to move toward a more inclusive portrait of the early proto-Sunni movement and a more organic understanding of the movement's success. It argues that owing to the erosion of several of the "plausibility structures" of earliest Islam, three tendencies emerged among the proto-Sunnis between the early 8 th and mid-9 th centuries C.E.: proto-Sunnis as traditionist 'ulamā', proto-Sunnis as pious ascetics, and proto-Sunnis as volunteer holy warriors. The prestige acquired through their activities in these areas enabled the early proto-Sunnis to "objectify" and "legitimize" new plausibility structures which would prove decisive to an eventual Sunni consensus.

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