veiled4allah: the Constitution of Medina

The Prophet Muhammad (sAas) began preaching his message in the town of Mecca. After about thirteen years, he and his followers from among the people of Mecca migrated to another town, which at that time was called Yathrib. Yathrib would subsequently be renamed Madinah an-Nabi (City of the Prophet), which is called Madinah or Medina for short.

The people of Yathrib had invited the Prophet (sAas) to come to their town because they hoped he would be able to resolve a dispute between the two major tribes that threatened to descend into civil war. When the Prophet (sAas) and his followers arrived in Yathrib (now Medina), a treaty or compact was drawn up between the Muslims and the Arab tribes that affirmed the agreement made earlier and set out the basic rules under which Medina would be governed. Because the pact served as a basis for government, it is sometimes referred to as the Constitution of Medina.

The Constitution of Medina is not a law code. Rather, it sets out in general terms the rights of various classes of citizens, their duties to each other, and the manner in which disputes would be resolved - by reference to Islamic law. A small number of the people of Yathrib were already Muslims, having converted during the period when arrangements were being made. The rest of the people of Yathrib were non-Muslims, either pagans or Jews. The pact signalled these peoples' voluntary agreement to be ruled by Islamic law. They hoped that by having this external, objective source of laws, the strife that was tearing their community apart would be healed.

The Jews in Medina were a minority group. They were clients of the two major Arab tribes, some on one side of the dispute and some on the other. The Constitution of Medina gives special attention to the rights of the Jewish citizens of Medina. Among the clauses relating to the Jews are the following:

• those Jews who join in the treaty and become part of the larger community it creates are due help and equal treatment
• the Jews shall not be wronged, nor shall their enemies be given aid
• the Jews will be treated as one community with the Muslims, but each has their own religion
• the Jews have the same status as the parties making the pact

Rather than being counted as part of the tribes they were attached to (and hence split among themselves), the Jews under the Constitution of Medina were treated as a single community of their own. This community was elevated from its previous position to a state of equality with the main parties making the treaty (the Muslims and the two Arab tribes). Its interests were given equal weight with those of the other groups, so that no party to the agreement could ally with its enemies. Most importantly, it was guaranteed the right to have its own religion. As well, individual Jews were guaranteed fair and equal treatment and to be protected from wrongdoing. In return, the Jewish community would contribute equally with the other communities to the protection and defense of Medina.

You can read the text of the Constitution of Medina online. Constitution of Medina is an older translation, Full Text of Medina Charter is a more recent translation that includes explanatory notes. The two documents use totally different numbering systems for the clauses and thus look like they are substantially different but I compared them line by line and found them nearly identical except for the explanatory notes in the more recent translation.

The Constitution of Medina is the subject of a number of articles about Islamic political systems such as The Compact of Medina: A Constitutional Theory of the Islamic State, The Constitution of Medina, Citizenship of an Islamic State, and Rights of Non-Muslims.