Having heard about the mission of Muhammad, and after meeting with him on two occasions, the Arabs of the rich but self-destructive city of Yathrib invited the Prophet to settle in their midst as their religious and political leader. In the estimation of Michael Lecker, some unusual reports suggest that a treaty might have been concluded between the Quraysh and the Ansar, the early Muslims of Medina, which aimed at preventing bloodshed (2000: 157-167). With his presence, the inhabitants of the trouble city, divided between warring Arab tribes and their Jewish allies, came to believe that the Prophet could act as an efficient arbitrator. The Jews were not clients, as so many have claimed, but powerful and influential allies of the Arabs (Lecker 2000: 67). After arriving in Yathrib in 622 CE, the Prophet presented a pact known as the Constitution of Medina or the Charter of Medina. The document explicitly contained the rights and obligations of all members of the community.
Although the sirah, the orthodox biography of the Prophet, claims that this took place immediately upon his arrival, Francis E. Peters (b. 1927 CE) believes that “the provisions likely date from within a few months after Muhammad’s arrival in Medina” (200). This makes sense as Muhammad would need time to assess the socio-political situation in the oasis. Hence, scholars like John L. Esposito (b. 1940 CE) believe it dates from between 622-624 CE (80). The document may even date from a later period since it fails to include the names of the Banu Qurayza, the Banu Nadir, and the Banu Qaynuqa‘. Either it was written after the expulsion of these aggressively hostile Jewish tribes or their names were removed from the original document since it seemed redundant to include tribes that were no longer covered by the terms of the covenant. There also exists the possibility that these three Jewish tribes were not from Medina, but rather from Khaybar, as stipulated in early Islamic sources (Scholler 30, note 44).
Michael Lecker (b. 1951 CE), however, has shown that greater Medina was actually a combination of Yathrib and a cluster of nearby towns. While the Banu Nadir and Banu Qaynuqa‘ lived in the towns of al-Quff and Zuhra in what is now eastern Medina (2010: 66, 70), the Banu Qurayza lived in the southeast (65). Not only did they prevent the spread of Islam into parts of Medina, they engaged in actions that were detrimental to the Muslim community’s social and economic interests. As Michael Lecker has made clear, “The main Jewish tribes [of] Nadir, Qurayza, and Qaynuqa‘ are not listed among the participants [in the Constitution of Medina] for the simple reason that they were not part of it” (68). While they may not have been included in the Charter of Medina, perhaps because they lived in communities in the outskirts of the city, al-Waqidi (748-822 CE) insists that
[w]hen the Messenger of God arrived in Medina, the Jews, all of them, were reconciled with him, and he wrote an agreement between him and them. The Prophet attached every tribe with its confederates and established a protection between himself and them. He stipulated conditions to them, among which it was stipulated that they would not help any enemy against him. (87)
If this is indeed the case, then this treaty or series of treaties must have been distinct from the Charter or Constitution of Medina. In any event, the Sahifat al-Madinah stipulates the following:
[The Constitution of Medina]
In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
[Preamble]
This is a document from Muhammad, the Prophet [governing the relations] between the believers and Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib, and those who followed them and joined them and labored with them. They are one community [ummah] to the exclusion of all men. The Quraysh emigrants according to their present custom shall pay the blood wit within their just number and shall redeem their prisoners with the kindness and justice common among believers.
[1: The Blood-Wit]
1.1 The Banu ‘Awf according to their present custom shall pay the blood wit they paid in heathenism; every section shall redeem its prisoners with the kindness and justice common among believers. The Banu Sa‘ida, the Banu al-Harith, the Banu Jusham, and the Banu al-Najjar likewise.
1.2 The Banu ‘Amr b. ‘Awf, the Banu al-Nabit, and the Banu al-‘Aws likewise.
1.3 Believers shall not leave anyone destitute among them by not paying his redemption money or blood wit in kindness.
[2: Loyalty and Unity of the Ummah]
2.1 A believer shall not take as an ally the freedman of another Muslim against him. The God-fearing believers shall be against the rebellious or him who seeks to spread injustice or sin or enmity or corruption between believers; the hand of every man shall be against him even if he be a son of one of them.
2.2 A believer shall not slay a believer for the sake of an unbeliever, nor shall he aid an unbeliever against a believer.
2.3 Allah’s protection is one: the least of them may give protection to a stranger on their behalf.
2.4 Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders.
2.5 To the Jew who follows us belong help and equality. He shall not be wronged nor shall his enemies be aided.
[3: Rules of Engagement]
3.1 The peace of the believers is not divisible. No separate peace shall be made when believers are fighting in the way of Allah. Conditions must be fair and equitable to all.
3.2 In every foray a rider must take another behind him.
3.3 The believers must avenge the blood of one another shed in the way of Allah.
[4: Code of Conduct]
4.1 The God-fearing believers enjoy the best and most upright guidance.
4.2 No polytheistic shall take the property or person of [any of the] Quraysh under his protection nor shall he intervene against a believer.
4.3 Whosoever is convicted of killing a believer without good reason shall be subject to retaliation unless the next of kin is satisfied [with blood-money], and the believers shall be against him as one man, and they are bound to take action against him.
4.4 It shall not be lawful to a believer who holds by what is in this document and believes in Allah and the Last Day to help an evil-doer or to shelter him. The curse of Allah and His Anger on the Day of Resurrection will be upon him if he does, and neither repentance nor ransom will be received from him.
[5: The Guardianship of the Prophet]
5.1 Whenever you differ about a matter it must be referred to Allah and to Muhammad.
[6: The War Effort, Military Matters, and Support]
6:1 The Jews shall contribute to the cost of war so long as they are fighting alongside the believers.
6.2 The Jews of Banu ‘Awf are one community with the believers, the Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs, their freedmen and their persons except those who behave unjustly and sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families. The same applies to the Jews of the Banu al-Najjar, Banur al-Harith, Banu Sa‘ida, Banu Jusham, Banu al-‘Aws, Banu Tha‘laba, and the Jafna, a clan of the Tha‘laba and the Banu al-Shutayba. Loyalty is a protection against treachery.
6.3 The freedmen of Tha‘laba are as themselves. The close friends of the Jews are as themselves. None of them shall go out to war save with the permission of Muhammad, but he shall not be prevented from taking revenge for a wound.
6.4 He who slays a man without warning slays himself and his household, unless it be one who has wronged him, for Allah will accept that.
6.5 The Jews must bear their expenses and the Muslims their expenses. Each must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this document. They must seek mutual advice and consultation, and loyalty is a protection against treachery.
6.6 A man is not liable for his ally’s misdeeds.
6.7 The wronged must be helped.
6.8 The Jews must pay with the believers so long as war lasts.
6.9 Yathrib shall be a sanctuary for the people of this document.
6.10 A stranger under protection shall be as his host doing no harm and committing no crime.
[7: Rights of Women]
7.1 A woman shall only be given protection with the consent of her family.
[8. Binding Nature of the Covenant]
8.1 If any dispute or controversy likely to cause trouble should arise it must be referred to Allah and to Muhammad the Messenger of Allah.
8.2 Allah accepts what is nearest to piety and goodness in this document.
8.3 Quraysh and their helpers shall be given no protection.
8.4 If the contracting parties are bound to make peace and maintain it they must do so; and if they make a similar demand on the Muslims it must be carried out except in the case of holy war.
8.5 Every one shall have his portion from the side to which he belongs; the Jews of al-‘Aws, their freedmen and themselves have the same standing with the people of this document in pure loyalty from the people of this document.
8.6 Loyalty is a protection against treachery: He who acquires aught acquires it for himself.
8.7 Allah approves of this document.
8.8 This deed will not protect the unjust and the sinner.
8.9 The man who goes forth to fight and the man who stays at home in the city is safe unless he has been unjust and sinned.
[Epilogue]
Allah is the protector of the good and God-fearing man and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. (Ibn Ishaq 233)
The Constitution Critically Contextualized
As can be appreciated, the Sahifat al-Madinah or Constitution of Medina is one of the most important relics of early Islam and one that sheds an enormous amount of light on the foundations of the Muslim faith. As Robert G. Hoyland recognizes, “[i]ts authenticity has been accepted by most scholars” (2000: 290, note 58). He even points out that Patricia Crone (b. 1945 CE), a person with little love towards Islam and Muslims, admitted to its authenticity in Slaves on Horses (7). While his theories on the origins of Islam can and should be criticized as utterly unfounded, Donner (b. 1945) can be credited with one thing, admitting the antiquity of the Constitution of Medina. As he explains in Muhammad and the Believers,
[T]he ummah document … seems to be of virtually documentary quality. Although preserved only in collections of later date, its text is so different in content and style from everything else in those collections, and so evidently archaic in character, that all students of early Islam, even the most skeptical, accept it as authentic and of virtually documentary value. (72)
The historical value of the Sahifah al-Madinah or Constitution of Medina having been established, an analysis of its content is in order. For this purpose, a phenomenological approach is appropriate, presenting the document in cultural context while comparing its contents to practices current in the period. The political elements of the Constitution must also be duly addressed considering their implications for Islam in the world today.
Determined to bring an end to the bitter in-fighting between the Arab war-lords of the tribe of Khazraj and their Jewish rivals, the Prophet prepared the Constitution of Medina and, in so doing, established the first Islamic State. Identity and loyalty were no longer to be based on family, tribe, kinship, or even religion: the overriding identity was membership in the ummah of Muhammad. The Constitution of Medina decreed that the citizens of the Islamic State were one and indivisible regardless of religion. Be they heathen, People of the Book, or Muslims, all those who were subject to the Constitution belonged to the same ummah. In so doing, he created a tolerant, pluralistic, tolerant, government which protected religious freedom. The importance of this is so extraordinary that it is often misunderstood.
When confronted with the clause that “The Jews of Banu ‘Awf are one community with the believers,” orientalists like Peters (b. 1927 CE) are simply startled: “If the Jews were permitted from the outset to practice their religion within the newly constituted ummah, then Muhammad’s original Medina ‘community’ was a purely secular one, and the word ummah was being used in a sense different from its Qur’anic occurrences” (201). For most people, including the majority of Muslims, the nature of the original Islamic State is outside their frame of political reference. As such, it has been referred to as a kingdom, a theocracy, or even a secular state, all of which definitions are incorrect. The Prophet Muhammad’s Community was an utterly unique system which had never existed before and which has never been seen since despite honest efforts to emulate it. As Karen Armstrong (b. 1944 CE) clearly comprehends,
In the Qur’anic vision there is no dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, the religious and the political, sexuality or worship. The whole of life was potentially holy and had to be brought into the ambit of the divine. The aim was tawhid (making one), the integration of the whole of life in a unified community, which would give Muslims intimations of the Unity which is God. (2000: 14-15)
In Greek or Athenian democracy (5th century BCE), for example, the only individuals considered to be citizens were free adult males who were natives of Athens or Sparta. Slaves, women, children, and foreigners, as well as the majority of peasants, who represented more than 50% of the population, were all excluded. In other words, more than half of the population was composed of human “objects” as opposed to human beings. What was called “democracy” or “rule of the people” was, in effect, “pro-slavery democracy” or “slave-master democracy.” And while it is true that Islam did not abolish slavery in a single stage, it established a system that would gradually eradicate it. For in Islam, slavery is not a permanent state. Not only can all slaves earn their freedom by work or conversion, all children born of slaves are free in Islam. Islam also decreed that slaves should be treated humanely and considered the freeing of slaves as a pious act. In fact, in many cases, freeing slaves was a required act of expiation for certain sins.
It could be argued in passing that the resemblance of Greek democracy to the current “liberal” democracies of the Western world is no coincidence. The Constitution of Medina can also be compared with that of the Roman Republic (509 BCE–27 BCE). The Republican Romans also spoke of the “government of the people;” however, this was more fictitious than real. The consuls — those who ruled the people — acted like kings, presided over the Senate and the People’s Assembly, which was composed of representatives of military units, and simply represented the economic elite. As for the Senate, made up of the dominant players in matters of politics, it represented the aristocracy. Common people were simply numbers to be counted. (Ironically, in some present-day democracies, the roll of the populace in the political process is similarly nullified.) As for the plebeians (from plebs or masses), which comprised of the vast majority of Romans, they could not rule, elect rulers or make use of land, all of which was reserved for the patricians or nobles. These same land-owners controlled the Senate. However, in the community created by means of the Constitution of Medina, every single member of society enjoyed equality before the law as all privileges of class were abolished. The rich and the poor; the noble and the laymen; the Arabs and the non-Arabs; the blacks and the whites; the men and the women; and the children and the adults all had the same rights. Even Muhammad, as the Messenger of Allah, was not above the law. As he himself said in a rhetorical question, even if his daughter Fatimah were to steal which, as a saintly soul is inconceivable, he would have given her the punishment for theft. Given the Constitution of Medina’s genuinely progressive mandate, one might question why this document is ignored in favor of the less democratic offerings from the “Greek democracy” and the “Roman Republic.”
In contrast to post-prophetic interpretations of Islam, in which the People of the Book are considered as kuffar or infidels, and only the best of Muslims are considered mu’minin or Believers, the Prophet created an inclusive Community of Believers which included members of all the Abrahamic faiths. In the time of the Prophet, the ahl al-dhimmah, both Jewish and Christian, belonged to the community of believers. The term kuffar was reserved for those who actively attacked and plotted to destroy Islam. This is not to say that Islam was not a distinct faith as Fred M. Donner (b. 1945) has argued (58) or that it was a Jewish or Christian heresy as some Orientalists have asserted. It simply shows that Islam, as the culmination of divinely-revealed religions, viewed Judaism and Christianity as the foundational stepping stones of God’s final revelation. While Donner is right that the Community of Believers was ecumenical and included Jews and Christians, this simply serves to show the unifying nature of early Islam. Although the early Muslims were tolerant of the People of the Book, and embraced them as fellow monotheists, they did indeed have a distinct identity. This can clearly be seen in the brotherhood that the Prophet established between Muslim Emigrants and Muslim Helpers. These bonds of brotherhood were based not on kith or kin or color or class but on the collective belief in Islam.
Donner’s claim that the words islam and muslim “did not yet have the sense of confessional distinctness we now associate with ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’” (71) demonstrates a misunderstanding of basic Arabic. When the Qur’an speaks of islam as “submission,” and muslim as “one who submits,” the words are indefinite. However, when the Qur’an speaks of Islam, as a religion, and Muslim, as a follower of that religion, they are definite. When the Qur’an says that Inna al-dina ‘inda Allahi al-Islam, it means, very much, “Verily, the religion with Allah is Islam” (3:19) and not “Verily, the religion with God is submission.” The same applies when Allah says: “This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and chosen for you Islam as your religion” (5:3). The word is al-Islam, not islam; thus, it refers specifically to Islam as a religion and not some vague state of submission. The religion revealed to Muhammad was not intolerant and exclusivist. It was a revival and rectification of the religion of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, under its final Messenger, Muhammad. As Stephen O’Shea has understood, “The message given to Muhammad, the last in a long line of prophecy, improved and supplanted all that had come before” (15). While Islam confirmed the Abrahamic religions that came before it, it came to correct them and complete them. Had they not gone astray in matters of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, there would have been no need for a final prophet and messenger. Islam was revealed in order to update, supplement, and correct pre-existing spiritual knowledge rather than depart from it. As far as Muslims are concerned, Judaism and Christianity are steps on the path to spiritual salvation. The final step, in the words of Allah, is Islam. Since it is the completion of the monotheistic message, it has essentially encompassed and fulfilled all previous revelations.
There is also no basis for Donner’s belief that the fifth Umayyad Caliph, ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (r. 685-705 CE), helped convert the Believer’s movement into “Islam” (194-224). Muhammad clearly identified himself as the Prophet and Messenger of Allah, his religion as Islam, and his followers as Muslims in the many letters he sent which still exist in museums to this date. Of the sixty-two letters said to have been sent by the Prophet Muhammad in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (Zeitlin 131), the texts of twenty-nine of them are available (Dar Rah Haqq 133-134). This, of course, does not include the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai, the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of Najran, and the Covenant of the Prophet with the Christians of the World. Hence, thirty-one letters of the Prophet appear to have survived over the course of the centuries. Donner, of course, devotes his time casting doubt on sources produced in the centuries immediately after the Prophet while completely ignoring the sources produced by the Messenger of Allah himself. If the claim that Islam, as a distinct religion, developed under the rule of ‘Abd al-Malik is false, it is nonetheless true that “[t]he relationship of mutual trust and even conviviality that characterized Christian and Muslim during the early Umayyad days began to change, however, during the reign of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (685-705 CE) and his four sons who succeeded him in turn” (Betts 9). As Ingrid Mattson (b. 1963 CE) argues, “Muslims seem to have been articulating a more distinct identity with respect to the People of the Book, while at the same time trying to reach out across a doctrinal divide that possibly could be bridged” (149).
This hardening of position, which was started under ‘Abd al-Malik, manifested itself in many ways. As part of his broader program of Islamization, the Caliph constructed the Dome of the Rock as a symbol of Muslim superiority and imposed Arabic as the official language of the administration (Foss 136). Not only did he remove the cross from coinage, in favor of religious slogans exclusively in Arabic, he also printed a couple of controversial coins (136). The first coin, numbered 89A, features the image of a man on the obverse believed by some to be the standing Caliph but said by Foss and Hoyland to be the Prophet Muhammad himself. On the reverse is another intriguing image. For some, it is a qutb or pole which symbolizes the Caliph as the center of the community (Foss 137, 142, 287 note 8). For others, however, it resembles a broken cross symbolizing the triumph of Islam over Christianity. Since the object is the mirror image that appeared in previous coins (140, fig. 65, 86A), with only the horizontal bars of the cross missing, I can only conclude that it represents a broken cross (142, 89A). Actually, it may also be an allusion to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad which asserts that Jesus-Christ would break the crosses during his second coming. Whatever it means, it marks a monumental change in the relationship between Islam and Christianity. Whether the bearded Arab with a sword is ‘Abd al-Malik or the Prophet Muhammad (142, 89 A), he clearly represents the power of Islam. Even more intriguing is the image of the man who appears on the back of coin 89c and the front of 89e. As Foss writes, “[t]he figure they portray is different from the caliph in the main series. Their inscription names Muhammad messenger of God. The conclusion seems obvious and very surprising: Could this be the image of the Prophet himself?” (137). These Standing Caliph coins, issued between 694/95 and 692/697, were the last to depict a human image. But let us return to the Prophet’s early period in Medina.
As the Arabs of Medina were known to be violent and bellicose war-lords with a deeply-ingrained culture of revenge, the Prophet Muhammad sought to settle all past grievances with kindness and mercy. Since perceived past wrongs and demands for blood posed a grave danger to the fledgling Islamic State, and threatened to ignite ancient feuds at any time, the Constitution of Medina devoted great detail to the peace process and fostering stable tribal relations. If an eye for an eye was the law of nomadic Bedouins, it was not a philosophy that sedentary populations could ever follow if they wished to prosper. As such, the payment of blood money between families or tribes for the unjust slaying of individuals replaces the lex talionis. In his effort to create safety and security, the Prophet proclaimed Medina a haram or sacred place, thus barring all violence and weapons. The Prophet’s attempt at peace and reconciliation was embraced by the majority of the inhabitants of Medina. The hypocrites, however, among both the Arabs and the Jews, made every attempt to undermine the Prophet’s peace commission, hoping for a return to the time-honored ways of settling accounts through slaughter. (The term “hypocrites” or munafiqin denotes those who outwardly professed Islam but secretly held different beliefs).
Departing from the lawless tradition of tribal anarchy, in which the strong oppressed the weak and the rich exploited the poor, the Prophet Muhammad granted protection to the most vulnerable members of society including women and the destitute. Importantly, all believers were equal before the law. At a time when the wronged had no recourse before the law, as there was no law, the Prophet established a judicial system based on the teachings of Allah. The Qur’an and the Sunnah were enshrined as the sole basis for legislation. All affairs were to be referred back to Allah and the Prophet Muhammad.
Although non-Muslims shared the same rights as Muslims, and were granted autonomy in religious matters, they were not obliged to participate in the religious wars of the Muslims. In this sense, they were granted rights without obligations. Both Muslims and Jews, however, were committed to protecting one another if they were attacked by enemies. In such cases, Muslims were bound to protect the Jews from their enemies. Likewise, Jews were bound to protect Muslims. In such cases, in which both communities fought alongside each other, the cost of war was to be equally shared. Once again manifesting a merciful nature, the Prophet Muhammad extended protection to both combatants and non-combatants so long as they had not engaged in any crimes or atrocities.
In the newly-formed ummah of Muhammad, loyalty was no longer to tribe or kin. Loyalty was to the law. All believers were brothers to one another. By way of putting theory into practice, the Prophet instituted brotherhood between the Emigrants [muhajirun], those Muslims who followed the Prophet on his hijrah from Mecca to Medina, and the Helpers [ansar], pairing the rich with the poor, the black with the white, and the noble with the commoner. This was the dawn of a new day and the birth of a new culture and civilization. What the Prophet had created was unprecedented: a Free State, “the first of its kind in the intellectual and political history of human civilization” founded “more than thirteen hundred years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)” (Khan 1).
Considering the unprecedented level of rights, freedoms, and protections that the Prophet was prepared to provide, integrating into the Islamic ummah was particularly appealing to the pagan Arabs, a few Jews, and an important number of Christians. Pluralistic in nature, the Consitution of Medina was, very much, a call for peaceful co-existence. It provided rights to non-Muslims and encouraged their participation in the broader Muslim community.
In view of the Constitution of Medina, authored by Muhammad himself, it is clear that Takfiri ideology is a direct violation of the Prophet’s wishes and his Sunnah. Therefore, the first necessary step toward combatting pseudo-Islamist terrorism is to reject this ideology in no uncertain terms, on every level, in every conceivable way, through all available venues. If we are not willing to take this step, all future efforts against such terrorism will be essentially useless.
*Dr. John Andrew Morrow is a professor, author, and research scholar of Foreign Languages at Ivy Tech Community College, Canada.
