The Charter of Medina (Arabic: صحيفة المدينة, Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah; or: ميثاق المدينة, Mīthāq al-Madīnah), also known as the Constitution of Medina (دستور المدينة, Dastūr al-Madīnah), was drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad shortly after his arrival at Medina (then known as Yathrib) in 622 CE (or 1 AH), following the Hijra from Mecca.
Contents
The preamble declares the document to be "a book [kitab] of the prophet Muhammad to operate between the believers [mu'minin] and Muslims from the Quraysh tribe and from Yathrib and those who may be under them and wage war in their company" declaring them to constitute "one nation [ummah wāḥidah] separate from all peoples". The constitution established the collective responsibility of nine constituent tribes for their members actions, specifically emphasising blood money and ransom payment. The first constituent group mentioned are the Qurayshi migrants, and then eight other tribes. Eight Jewish groups are recognized as part of the Yathrib community, and their religious separation from Muslims is established. The Jewish Banu Ash shutbah tribe are inserted as one of the Jewish groups, rather than with the nine tribes mentioned earlier in the document. The constitution also established Muhammad as the mediating authority between groups and forbids the waging of war without his authorization.
The constitution formed the basis of a multi-religious Islamic state in Medina.
The constitution was created to end the bitter inter-tribal fighting between the rival clans of Banu Aws and Banu Khazraj in Medina, and to maintain peace and cooperation among all Medinan groups. Establishing the role of Muhammad as the mediating authority between these two groups and all others in Medina was central to the ending of Medinan internal violence and was an essential feature of the constitution. The document ensured freedom of religious beliefs and practices for all citizens who "follow the believers". It assured that representatives of all parties, Muslim or non-Muslim, should be present when consultation occurs or in cases of negotiation with foreign states. It declared "a woman will only be given protection with the consent of her family", and imposed a tax system for supporting the community in times of conflict. It declared the role of Medina as a ḥaram (حرم, "sacred place"), where no blood of the peoples included in the pact can be spilled.
The division of the constitution into numbered articles is not in the original, and therefore numbering of clauses differs in different sources. There is general agreement on the authenticity of this document.
Background
In Muhammad's last years in Mecca, a delegation from Medina, consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina, invited him as a neutral outsider to Medina to serve as the chief arbitrator for the entire community. There was fighting in Medina mainly involving its pagan and Jewish inhabitants for around a hundred years before 620. The recurring slaughters and disagreements over the resulting claims, especially after the Battle of Bu'ath in which all the clans were involved, made it obvious to them that the tribal conceptions of blood-feud and an eye for an eye were no longer workable unless there was one man with authority to adjudicate in disputed cases. The delegation from Medina pledged themselves and their fellow-citizens to accept Muhammad into their community and physically protect him as one of themselves.
After emigration to Medina, Muhammad drafted the Charter of Medina, "establishing a kind of alliance or federation" among the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca, which specified the rights and duties of all citizens and the relationship of the different communities in Medina (including that of the Muslim community to other communities, specifically the Jews and other "Peoples of the Book").
Quraysh in the document
Muhammad's Quraysh (or Quraish) tribe appear in the document as both a principal constituent of the community and as the enemy. This is because in some places the Quraysh referred to are the followers of Muhammad, referred to as "migrants" or "believers", while in other places Quraysh refers to those members of the tribe who expelled Muhammad and his followers from Mecca (the Qurayshi capital).
Analysis
Bernard Lewis claims that the charter was not a treaty in the modern sense, but a unilateral proclamation by Muhammad. One of the constitution's more interesting aspects was the inclusion of the Jewish tribes in the Ummah because although the Jewish tribes were "one community with the believers," they also "have their religion and the Muslims have theirs."
L. Ali Khan says the Charter of Medina was a social contract derived from a treaty and not from any fictional state of nature or from behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance. The contract was built upon the concept of one community of diverse tribes living under the sovereignty of one God.
The Charter of Medina also instituted peaceful methods of dispute resolution among diverse groups living as one people but without assimilating into one religion, language, or culture. Welch in Encyclopedia of Islam states: "The constitution reveals Muhammad's great diplomatic skills, for it allows the ideal that he cherished of an ummah (community) based clearly on a religious outlook to sink temporarily into the background and is shaped essentially by practical considerations."
Tom Holland writes "The Constitution of Medina is accepted by even the most suspicious of scholars as deriving from the time of Muhammad. Here in these precious documents, it is possible to glimpse the authentic beginnings of a movement that would succeed, in barely two decades, in prostrating both the Roman and the Persian Empires."
Significance of the Ummah
Another important feature of the Constitution of Medina is the redefinition of ties between Muslims. The Charter of Medina sets faith relationships above blood-ties and emphasizes individual responsibility. Tribal identities are still important, and are used to refer to different groups, but the "main binding tie" for the newly created ummah is religion. This contrasts with the norms of pre-Islamic Arabia, which was a thoroughly tribal society, although Serjeant postulates the existence of earlier theocratic communities. According to Denny, “Watt has likened the Ummah as it is described in the document to a tribe, but with the important difference that it was to be based on religion and not on kinship”. This is an important event in the development of the small group of Muslims in Medina to the larger Muslim community and empire.
Rights of non-Muslims
The non-Muslims had the following rights on the condition they "follow" the Muslims:
- The security of God is equal for all groups,
- Non-Muslim members will have the same political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion.
- Non-Muslims will take up arms against the enemy of the nation and share the cost of war. There is to be no treachery between the two.
- Non-Muslims will not be obliged to take part in religious wars of the Muslims.