Constitution of Medina

9 Key excerpts on "Constitution of Medina"

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  eBook - ePub

  Muhammad in History, Thought, and Culture

  An Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God [2 volumes]

  • Coeli Fitzpatrick Ph.D., Adam Hani Walker, Coeli Fitzpatrick Ph.D., Adam Hani Walker(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  sira (biography). The intertextual disparities between the two documents relate to slight differences in the structure of phraseology and vocabulary, which do not impact upon general content and meaning.

  The importance of the Constitution of Medina as a historical document cannot be underestimated. Gil (2004, 21) goes so far as to describe the document as “one of the most remarkable and fundamental of ancient Islam. It should be seen as no less than the first formulation of the principles that were to guide the Muslim community on the verge of its ideological struggle.” The document sought to regulate and rectify not only some of the main obstacles that the Prophet was confronted with but also tribal issues that had long played a divisive role across southern Arabia and impacted Jews, Muslims, and pagans alike. Although the document contains numerous religious references, it was very much a practical document that sought to address the immediate issues of that period and vicinity. The document more specifically sought to define issues such as the distribution of power between the signatory tribes, blood money, and matters pertaining to warfare, such as its funding and the treatment of prisoners.

  A brief summary of some of the clauses included in the Constitution of Medina will now be discussed. There are several translations of the Constitution of Medina, each varying in the total number of articles depending on how the translator deciphered the document. The articles mentioned in this entry will be taken from Lecker’s (2013) translation printed in the Encyclopaedia of Islam Three , totaling 64 articles.

  The Constitution of Medina begins with the affirmation of those groups who are a party to it, namely the Mu’minun (believers), Muslimun (Muslims) of the Quraysh and Yathrib, and anyone who joins, or fights, with them. This clause, according to Arjomand, is what he terms as the “Covenant of Unity,” which binds each party to the constitution. Within this context, Mu’minun would mean “Faithful Covenanters” and refers to all parties of the constitution rather than just the Muslims, who are explicitly mentioned thereafter (Arjomand 2009, 556). Gil (2004, 28) is of a similar view on this point, translating Mu’minun as “those who provide security” or actually “those who joined the security pact.”

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  The Concert of Civilizations

  The Common Roots of Western and Islamic Constitutionalism

  • Jeremy Kleidosty(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  It also accounts for the possibility of an Islamic pluralism that allows for peaceful religious coexistence within a Muslim state. Due to its longstanding existence as a document independent of the Qur ʾ an and hadith, yet one which nonetheless is compatible with them, the Constitution of Medina can potentially serve as an exemplary and foundational constitutional text for even those Muslims for whom their religious identity is more cultural and historical. 13 It can accommodate a wide variety of interpretations, as to who can be included in the umma, what the rights and duties of the ruler and ruled are, and what the fundamental role of the state is. In other words, just as the Magna Carta serves a mythical role in Western jurisprudence that far outstrips the particularities of its provisions, so too might the Constitution of Medina provide a model of basic societal values, customs and institutions for Muslim societies. One important caveat about the Constitution of Medina must be made before further discussion of its features. The works of Uri Rubin and R.B. Serjeant show that to call it a constitution at all is simply a convenience rather than an accurate descriptor. Furthermore, there is debate amongst scholars as to whether the “Constitution” was written as a unitary document. Documentary evidence supports the contention that it originates from the period just after the hijra to Medina, when Muhammad became judge and arbiter of that city. Furthermore, much of the text finds echoes in the Qur ʾ an itself, with many passages being nearly identical. However, in his 1978 journal article, R.B. Serjeant lays out the original composition and discusses the authenticity of the Constitution of Medina in great detail. He makes the following claims: The eight documents of which it is formed are doubtless traditional in pattern and diction, not at all novel to the age, and comprise the following distinct elements. A. The confederation treaty B

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  Islamic History

  A Framework for Inquiry - Revised Edition

  • R. Stephen Humphreys(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  On this text, after all, hinges our understanding of the last ten years of the Prophet's career, and indeed of the origins of the Islamic state. In regard to these matters almost everyone has some axe to grind. Thus it is disputed whether it is a single document or a collation of several, at what point it (or its component parts) was drawn up, whether it is a unilateral edict or a negotiated settlement, who the principal parties to it were. It is not even clear how it should be translated, so obscure or ambivalent are many of its key terms. Finally, because the rest of the tradition regarding Muhammad's life (including the Qur'an itself) is so bitterly con-tested, we do not have an agreed-upon documentary context within which the Constitution might be interpreted. Given such a level of disagreement, we cannot deal here with every aspect of the Constitution; rather, we will focus on the ways in which recent scholar-ship has handled two major problems. The first study to define clearly the issues raised by this document was Julius Wellhausen, Muhammads Gemein-deordnung von Medina, already cited. His conclusions were essentially taken EARLY HISTORICAL TRADITION 93 over and placed in a broader context by (a) Leone Caetani, Annali dell'Islam, 1,391^108, and (b) A. J. Wensinck, Mohammed en de Joden te Medina (1928), 73-98 (translated together with Wellhausen's contribution by Wolfgang Behn as Muhammad and the Jews of Medina [1975]). Study of the Constitution was given new impetus by the translation and discussion in W. M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (1956), 221-260. R. B. Serjeant devoted many years to the elucidation of this text, drawing in particular on his knowledge of tribal custom in South Arabia; see (a) The 'Constitution of Medina', Islamic Quarterly, viii (1964), 3-16; (b) The Sunna Jamiah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-called 'Constitution of Medina', BSOAS, 41 (1978), 1-42.

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  Revolution

  Structure and Meaning in World History

  • Saïd Amir Arjomand(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  l] on the path of God—and that only as a just and equitable decision by them. And all raiding parties shall fight with us one after another. And the covenanters shall execute retaliation on behalf of one another with respect to their blood shed on the path of God” (CM A.9–11).

  Elsewhere, I have argued for the division of this composite document into three parts, as each part has its formal coherence as a legal deed (Arjomand 2010). The first part is interpreted as the deed of foundation of Muhammad’s umma, not yet a community of individual believers but a confederation of clans and their clients unified in the struggle on the path of God. The second part of the Constitution of Medina guaranteed religious freedom to Jewish confederates, thus laying the foundation of the later Muslim system of religious pluralism; it created the first Muslim sanctuary (ḥ aram) and introduced elements of individual responsibility. The third part, considered a supplement to the second, concerned the defense of the city of Medina against the Quraysh and added one new Jewish clan to the confederation. Taken altogether, the Constitution of Medina thus transformed pagan tribal vengeance into holy warfare and amounted to a pact of tolerance that allowed Jewish covenanters of the united community to have their religion, as Muslims had theirs, as long as they paid the war levy and refrained from treason.

  The Unification of Arabia and the Emergence of a Composite Muslim Polity

  The decade of struggle and warfare on the path of God had set sons against fathers and kinsman against kinsman. Muhammad’s followers were each other’s avengers of blood on the warpath of God, ignoring tribal customary law and family attachment (Wolf 1951). The Constitution of Medina displaced, desacralized, and subordinated the old ties of kinship. This was duly confirmed in the Qurʾā n: “Verily, they who have believed and fled their homes and spent their substance for the cause of God, and they who have taken in the Prophet and been helpful to him, shall be near of kin to the other” (Q. 8.73). It also brought Muhammad’s own migrant community in line with the earlier Qurʾā nic conception of a new community of salvation. When the term umma regained currency after the death of the Prophet, however, it no longer meant the unified political community of Medina but the Islamic community of believers. Each umma was now a community of salvation constituted by a divine messenger. The Jews and Christians were the ummas of Moses and Jesus, respectively, as the Muslims were the umma of Muhammad. Furthermore, the peace and security of God eliminated the legitimacy of violence by clans as autonomous segments of Arabian tribal society. The near monopoly of the legitimate internal and external use of violence was in principle invested in the united community under the authority of “Muhammad the Prophet.” Muhammad’s authority thus instituted was, however, not developed by him or in the Qurʾā

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  Islam, Constitutional Law and Human Rights

  Sexual Minorities And Freethinkers In Egypt And Tunisia

  • Tommaso Virgili(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  29

  In sum, ‘it would be an exaggeration to claim that constitutional values or constitutionalism are inherently a part of the Islamic tradition’.30 De facto , the idea of constitutionalism as a set of man-made procedures limiting the power of the ruler is a relatively recent acquisition for the Islamic world,31 as it did not take root until the cultural contacts with Europe in the 19th century.32

  24 Grote and Röder, ‘Introduction’, 3.

  25 Grote and Röder, 4.

  26 El Fadl, ‘The Centrality of Sharī’ah to Government and Constitutionalism in Islam’, 48.

  27 An-Naʿim, Toward an Islamic Reformation , 76.

  28 An-Naʿim, 76.

  29 Hefny, ‘Religious Authorities’, 95.

  30 El Fadl, ‘The Centrality of Sharī’ah’, 55.

  31 Wolfrum, ‘Constitutionalism in Islamic Countries : A Survey from the Perspective of International Law’, 78. Grote and Röder, ‘Introduction’, 3. Lewis, Pellat, and Schacht, ‘Dustūr’.

  32 The Constitutions of the Ottoman Empire, Tunisia and Egypt were drafted following the ­Belgian model. Grote and Röder, ‘Introduction’, 4.

  For a brief historical account of the penetration of constitutionalism the Islamic world, we may distinguish three phases. The first wave began in the 19th century, under the European influx. The way was paved by the Ottoman ‘Noble Rescript’ (1839), followed by the Tunisian ‘Pledge of Security’ (1857), the Ottoman Basic Law (1876) and the Egyptian Basic Statute (1882).33 In the Sunni world, the initial raison d’être for drafting constitutional documents was to give equal rights to non-Muslim citizens, under the pressure of European powers. While fiercely opposed by traditional ulemas,34 liberal ideas started to take roots into local reformist circles – the most significant and successful being the Young Ottomans and the Young Turks in Turkey. The second phase started after the decolonization. While the first wave was essentially driven by liberal ideas, in this case constitutionalism was useful for rulers to reassert the centralization of state power and the identity they wished to confer to it – the majority being characterized by a ‘combination of socialist, nationalist and pan-Arabist ideas’;35 from this point of view, it was still a modernizer wave of constitutionalism, often influenced by the French tradition.36 The third phase, begun in the 1960s, was instead influenced by the resurgence of Islamism:37 one such example, which I will address later on, is the insertion of a reference to shariᶜa into the Egyptian constitution in 1971, something unthinkable in the Nasserist period.38

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  Human Rights Commitments of Islamic States

  Sharia, Treaties and Consensus

  • Paul McDonough(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  See also ibid art 5 (‘The law is sovereign’ and the people, through their votes and their constitutional institutions, are the source of authority). 66 Ira M Lapidus, Islamic Societies to the Nineteenth Century: A Global History (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 80. 67 Abou El Fadl (n 48) 11. 68 See, eg, Khan and Ramadan (n 60) 115 (‘constitutionalism has emerged, though not without question, as part of contemporary Islamic law’). 69 Zubaida (n 22) 136–37. ‘One ‘alim , however, the Qadiaskar Seyfeddin, consistently supported the constitution, citing verses from the Quran and prophetic hadith in favour’ (at 137) (citing Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Hurst, 1964) 228). 70 Kamali (n 3) 129–31. own supremacy. 65 The practical scope for collision is limited, however. The laws of an Islamic state operate against a background of what amounts to a supra-national common law. When multiple plausible interpretations exist, provisions would, where possible, be read compatibly with Islamic law. Only if a provision were written or applied so as to collide with a clear norm of fiqh would the supremacy issue arise in practice. Is a formal constitution permitted? Pre-modern history offers limited guid-ance. Though it did show that the Prophet was willing to govern based on a written covenant, the Constitution of Medina comprised only a small part of the polity’s law. Far the greater part was Sharia and, where Sharia was silent, Arab custom. Abu Bakr promised to rule according to the Quran and the Prophet’s words and example, 66 establishing Sharia as a further element of the constitu-tional bargain. The caliphs exercised power conditionally. The caliph had a duty ‘to apply God’s law and to protect Muslims in the territory of Islam; in return, the ruler was promised the people’s support and obedience’, although the clas-sical sources do not lay out the terms of this ‘contract’ in detail.

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  Medieval Islamic Political Thought

  • Patricia Crone(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • EUP

    (Publisher)

  their case manifested itself in the form of endless feuds: they wanted peace and hoped that a man of God could provide it. They did not offer him protection as a host to a guest, but rather joined Mu h ammad’s followers to form a new community in Medina in which all members defended one another as if they were kinsmen. It could be said that Mu h ammad created a new tribe, a super-tribe of believers; but it was led by a prophet with powers unknown to tribal chiefs. “Whenever you disagree about something, the matter should be referred to God and Mu h ammad,” as Mu h ammad laid down in the document gener-ally known as the Constitution of Medina. 19 Muhammad was the ultimate decision-maker. His community was a politically organized society, if only in a minimal sense. By claiming divine authority he had created an embryonic state. Thanks to the environment in which it originated, Islam was thus embod-ied in a political organization almost from the start: the umma was a con-gregation and a state rolled together. Christians originated with dual membership. As believers they belonged to the church and were administered by the clergy; as citizens they belonged to the Roman empire and were ruled by Caesar. Islam originated without this bifurcation. As believers and as citizens they were members of the umma and ruled by the Prophet, thereafter by his successors. Thanks to Mu h ammad’s career, Muslims came to think of prophets as the paradigmatic founders of states. Far from being assumed normally to tran-scend political organization, messengers of God were assumed normally to create it. The well-known fact that pagans also had polities was not normally perceived as a problem in this connection.

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  A Sociology of Constitutions

  Constitutions and State Legitimacy in Historical-Sociological Perspective

  • Chris Thornhill(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  This early constitution acted to unify the widening territorial domains in which power was applied, to detach political power from pure private interests or prerogatives and selectively to integrate social groups who were politically weakened by the rise of statehood. In both respects, the medieval constitution made possible the early use of power as a generalized social facility. A similar process can also be identified in the kingdoms of León and Castile in medieval Spain, which possessed a particularly strong con- stitutional tradition. During the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the rudimentary beginnings of a representative tradition were already clearly in evidence in these societies. 56 In 1188, the Cortes of León, and later of Castile-León, was founded as a representative assembly, comprising, as well as prelates and nobles, elected representatives of towns with a municipal organization. This assembly possessed pronounced legislative functions, especially in fiscal matters, and it was accepted as a point of constitutional principle that no new laws or taxes could be introduced or vital political decisions taken except in a council comprising bishops, nobles and good men (Procter 1980: 51). The convocation of councils and assemblies was often, as in England, bound to the king’s commit- ment to observe customary laws of the realm, especially in respect of the equal provision of justice and consensual levying of fiscal reserves. Both the supply of taxation to the monarchy and the exercise of both statutory and jurisdictional force depended on the monarch’s respect for estab- lished constitutional agreements, and representative assemblies acted at once both to limit the private authority of royal prerogative and to support a general, more inclusionary and more immediately flexible, use of royal power across society. 57 France followed a slightly different path in this respect.

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  Ummah

  A New Paradigm for a Global World

  • Katrin A. Jomaa(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  Thus, there was a process of socialization before institutionalization. It is obvious from the Medina Constitution that the concept of socialization of norms is rendered seriously for the ummah ’s establishment and continuation. That is why there is a stress on the collective obligation of the believers in this transitional period. The Jews as a collective body are addressed differently (it is discussed later) in the decrees related to them. I assume that this difference pertains to the different ways in which Islamic and Jewish law deal with aggression in society. Of note, the Jews of Medina were not socialized in Islamic values, as were the Muslim immigrants who had been taught these concepts for a period of thirteen years before immigration. However, because any divine message in its essence represents the same values, the Prophet expected the Jews to be more aligned with Islamic ideals than Pagan Arabs. The common decree explicitly addressing both Jews and believers demands loyalty to the constitutional act. Decree 22 requires it specifically of the believers, and there will be other decrees requiring it of the Jews and whoever is affiliated with the ummah of Medina. Decree 22 invokes the concept of “choice” before requiring loyalty to the covenant between the affiliated members by saying “any believer approving the contents of this document.” This statement shows that the MC came about through the agreement and consensus of its members, and explicitly states that they have willingly chosen to be part of the covenanted ummah. Consequently, they are obliged to assume the responsibility associated with their choice by upholding their covenant with each other. Strengthening their covenant is realized by equating their covenant with each other to taking a covenant with God (as discussed in chapter 1)

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