The Constitution of Medina as a Roadmap for the Modern Muslim Polity

Craig Paschang
October 28, 2010

In his Milestones,1 Egyptian author Sayyid Qutb calls for an Islamic vanguard2 to

“[march] through the vast ocean of Jahiliyyah [ignorance] which has encompassed the entire

world.” Qutb’s vanguard was to spread Islam and convert jahili society – including not only the

West but also nearly every Muslim community – by whatever means necessary. Qutb writes that

God has given Muslims permission to fight (jihad) and that “struggle . . . is an eternal state.” For

Qutb, it was also a necessary state; he observes, “[e]ither Islam will remain, or Jahiliyyah: Islam

cannot accept or agree to a situation which is half-Islam and half-Jahiliyyah.”

Qutb, a political prisoner of the Nasser government in Egypt, may be excused for the

urgency of his arguments. The greater flaw in his philosophy is that he ignores a political treaty

drafted by the Prophet in 622 called the Constitution of Medina.3 This document, which provides

for the security and equality of both Muslims and non-Muslims living in Medina, provides a

better model for a modern Islamic polity than the anarcho-Islam4 proposed by Qutb.

The Constitution of Medina is “undoubtedly one of the most remarkable and fundamental

in the history 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.”5

1
Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, 1964.
2
See 3:104, “And from among you there should be a party who invite to good and enjoin the right and forbid the
wrong. And these are they who are successful.” Maulana Muhammad Ali’s Commentary explains that this verse
directs Muslim communities to have a group of missionaries to spread Islam and give guidance to the faithful. He
writes, “This is the most neglected injunction of the Qur’an in our day. Muslims have arrangements for all things but
have no arrangements for inviting people to the great truth revealed in the Holy Qur’an.”
3
The document is also sometimes referred to as the Medina Charter.
4
In Qutb’s “Muslim community,” there would be no law apart from Sharia, and no judges apart from God.
5
Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages 21 (David Strassler, trans., Brill 2004) (1997).
The Constitution of Medina not only “portrays the relationship of Muslims and Jews as a cordial

partnership,”6 but declares that “they form one people to the exclusion of others.”7

The Constitution of Medina is divisible into two parts. The first is a treaty between the

Muslims who accompanied the Prophet on his hijrah to Medina and the Ansar, who were Arabs

from Medina who converted to Islam. The second part is “a non-belligerency treaty” with some

of the groups of Jews living in Medina.8 Although the two parts are likely representative of two

separate treaties, the Constitution of Medina “is a unified document rather than a series of

documents.”9 As a unified document, it provides a unique glimpse into the political and social

goals of the Prophet upon his arrival in Medina in 622.

The first part of the Constitution of Medina contains a declaration of independence (§ 2)

followed by iterative declarations that each party would maintain “their tribal organization and

leadership” while co-operating on basic matters of inter-tribal affairs (§§ 3-11).10 These nine

clauses guarantee that each tribe has a measure of independence, even as they band together

under the political structure of the document. Other clauses related to blood money guarantee

that debts and ransoms will be paid, local customs respected, alliances will be honored, and

sanctions will be imposed for transgressors. This portion of the document also reflects social

policy, incorporating a clause designed to stop “the vicious cycle of killings in Medinan society

6
Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduciton to Islam 126 (Wiley-Blackwell 2009).
7
§2 (Ibn Ishaq) (emphasis added).
8
Michael Lecker, The Constitution of Medina 3 (Darwin Press 2004).
9
Lecker at 3. This statement, echoed by other scholars, is perhaps meant to say that the Constitution of Medina is
not an actual constitution, but a document that memorializes two important political treaties conducted by the
Prophet some time after arriving in Medina in 622 but before the battle at Badr in 624.
10
Lecker at 95 reports the translation of Ibn Ishaq as “regarding blood money [and related matters],” explaining that
the phrase also refers to “different aspects of the commitments undertaken by tribal groups towards their members.”
by assuring the participating parties that the old accounts were sealed.”11 Other clauses include

guarantees of security, equality for Jews who sought Muslim patronage, and cooperation during

military campaigns; stiff warnings against polytheists; and a system of arbitration for conflict

resolution. In sum, the document addresses many of the required components of statecraft:

independence, internal cooperation, external defense, sanctions for transgressions, and a

mechanism for conflict resolution.

The second half of the document incorporates many of the same principles of cooperation

and interdependence into a treaty between the umma of the first treaty and several groups of Jews

in Medina. For example, the Jews are called on to support the Muslims in battle, and are

rewarded with a share of the loot (§ 27). There is also an iterative recognition that the various

groups of Jews are “secure” from the Muslims, allowed to keep their own religion, and granted

equal rights among themselves (§§ 28-33). The treaty also recognizes the rights of sub-tribal

groups and allies, and forces the signatory Jews to adopt lex talionis as a way to bring them into

conformity with the community of believers. The treaty also made Medina a holy place (haram),

ensuring that certain places of vital importance could not be appropriated by any single group.12

Dr. Muqtedar Khan argues that “the compact of Medina serves the dual function of a

social contract and a constitution.”13 He delineates the two functions, noting that a social contract

(in the tradition of Rousseau and Locke) is an “imaginary agreement between people . . . that

leads to the establishment of a community or a state.” The social contract is a means of

abdicating individual sovereignty in exchange for creating a government designed to pursue the

11
Lecker at 114 reports that this clause had the opposite effect, “enhanc[ing] division rather than accord.”
12
See Lecker at 168.
13
M. Khan, The Compact of Medina, available at http://www.ijtihad.org/compact.htm.
interests of the people who created it.14 Khan defines a constitution as “the document that

enshrines the conditions of the social contract upon which [the] society is founded.” Indeed, Dr.

Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has drafted a version of the Constitution of Medina replete with

enumerated articles and accompanying headers, cloaking the document in a modern vesture that

makes it almost indistinguishable from contemporary constitutions. Khan, however, recognizes

that the Constitution of Medina “would be quite inadequate” as a modern constitution, “since it is

a historically specific document and quite limited in its scope.” Nevertheless, “it can serve as a

guiding principle to be emulated rather than a manual to be duplicated.”

There is other support for the notion that the Constitution of Medina represents an ancient

solution for the modern problem of establishing a Muslim community in a world that has been

carved into nation-states. Mohamed Talbi, a Tunisian jurist, describes the Constitution of Medina

as “an Islamic model for the good society in which – among other things – inter-religious

relations may flourish.”15 He also notes that the model provided by the Constitution of Medina is

well-suited “for the modern world.”

In addition to the “federal” political structure provided by the Constitution of Medina,

Talbi argues that the document’s fundamental values of “freedom of belief, equality in rights and

obligations, social solidarity, justice and the admission of pluralism” create a social order

indistinguishable from federalism. Talbi’s “Islamic federalism” would promote equal inter-

religious relations and fulfill Islam’s “earliest (and frustrated) social and political impulse.”

As a social contract, the Constitution of Medina represents a careful compact between

different ethnic and religious groups who took the rare opportunity to forge a novel political
14
Dr. Khan recognizes that these events are admittedly rare, and compares the Constitution of Medina to the
Mayflower compact.
15
Ronald L. Nettler, For Dialogue Between All Religions, in Muslim-Jewish Encounters: Intellectual Traditions and
Modern Politics, Studies in Muslim-Jewish Relations 171, 193 (Ronald L. Nettler & Suha Taji-Farouki, eds.,
Harwood Academic Press 1998).
structure designed to provide security and prosperity during a period of sweeping political,

social, and religious changes. As a “constitution,” the document memorializes the obligations,

commitments, arrangements, and compromises made between those diverse groups of people

nearly 1400 years ago. Despite its antiquity, the Constitution of Medina provides a roadmap for

social cooperation and religious tolerance that Muslims should feel comfortable emulating,

adapting, promulgating, and adopting in a modern world. Such a polity would avoid Qutb’s

temptation to rage against the West while providing the opportunity to live and thrive in a

political system originally devised by the Prophet himself.16

16
“O mankind! We . . . made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each
other).” 49:13 (Yusuf Ali).