Reading the Medina Charter Differently

One of the principal factors that has shaped the Muslim world’s general philosophy of history is the distinctive historical period known as Asr al-Saʿāda (the “Age of Felicity”), conventionally dated to 610–661 CE. There is little doubt that Asr al-Saʿāda has exercised a particular and decisive influence on the formation of Muslims’ intellectual life, scholarly production, and moral consciousness—and, by extension, on the experiences and problems the Muslim world confronts today. Multiple reasons can be given for this. One is that this exceptional period possesses the characteristics of a binding and exemplary reference point. Even when it becomes the subject of polemics and speculation, the Prophet (peace be upon him), by virtue of the Sunnah and Sīrah he embodied throughout the period of Prophethood, is both the paradigmatic model (Q 33:21) and, in matters of legislation, a source.

Accordingly, every major movement in Islamic history that developed into a distinct current or discipline has felt the need to locate, alongside the Qur’an, an anchor in Asr al-Saʿāda—the period in which the lived practice of Muhammad (peace be upon him) unfolded. The fact that every consequential formation that has guided Muslim thought and conduct—from Qur’anic exegesis to jurisprudence, from Sufism to theology (kalām), and other forms of intellectual and scholarly endeavor—has grounded its roots in Asr al-Saʿāda sufficiently clarifies why this period has continually remained on the agenda as a question of legitimacy.

The same is true for political and broader models of social organization. Even under today’s conditions, those who reflect on how human societies might be organized on the basis of Islam’s general principles must find legitimate and persuasive foundations in Asr al-Saʿāda. This is so both because Islamic methodology requires it, and because it is necessary for such proposals to be received as credible by the Muslim mind and conscience.

Historically, during periods in which profound crises have coincided with far-reaching transformations, returning to an ancient past to seek inspiration and to chart a map of change has often produced fruitful results. A proximate example is the Enlightenment’s discovery of its deep roots in the philosophical inheritance of the ancient Greeks—drawing nourishment from those roots to imagine a new cosmos, a new human being, and a new society.

Texts that have acquired a referential status can be read in more than one way. What I am attempting is to try a mode of reading that—particularly in modern times—moves outside a progressive, West-centered philosophy of history. I would like to explain why, and in what sense, this constitutes a different reading.

The Medina Charter—whose socio-political historical value I do not doubt—is also a reference of high moral significance. True, among the parties who joined it and reached a consensus over its provisions were non-Muslim communities (Jewish and polytheist/pagan groups). Yet the Charter was drafted and implemented under the leadership of a prophet; God and His Messenger stood as guarantors of the pact.

In the first section, I will address not only the Charter’s historical value but also its juridical (fiqhī) value. The Charter’s historical value and its reliability (mawthūqiyyat) construct its legal value. It can, therefore, be taken as a reference. My reading of it “in a certain way,” and my effort to draw conclusions that might guide us today, is an interpretation—indeed, an exegetical act (tafsīr). But are not all texts, in the final analysis, in need of interpretation? Sacred scriptures above all, but also every form of symbolic discourse—and even human-made laws—are understood through interpretation, commentary, and elucidation. What we should seek in exegesis, interpretation, taʾwīl, or ijtihād is the criterion that it rests upon a recognized and legitimate method. One of the two higher values that preserves Islam is the muḥkamāt (the definitive and governing principles) and their protection; the other is ijtihād and tafsīr. When acceptable and legitimate methods are employed, the two do not contradict one another; on the contrary, they mutually nourish and reinforce each other, strengthening historical continuity and enhancing the capacity to respond to change.

At the most elementary level, is not the divergence between Karl Marx’s and Alexandre Kojève’s readings of Hegel an illustrative example? If we go further back, the different philosophical disciplines that developed in the West are, for some, no more than footnotes to Plato—each philosophy being, in its own way, an interpretive addition to ancient philosophy.

My interpretation is consistent with the revealed text (naṣṣ) that orients Islam’s general and constitutive principles, and with the methodological framework (uṣūl) for deriving rulings from that text; yet it stands, in many respects, at odds with the historical tradition that comprises the totality of Islam’s socio-political experience. In certain ways it is also foreign to our present condition—our given political world. Like any estrangement, this entails difficulties. Yet these difficulties are directed toward an aim: to correct the tradition, to transcend modernity, and to recover a return to the sacred.

Here I take modernity, in its well-known dominant forms, to mean the secular, profane, positivist, Cartesian, and totalizing. If we are to return—within the existing world of objects produced by our age—to life and to history, then perhaps this would become, in Nilüfer Göle’s terms, “our modernity.” If we cannot return, we will be pushed outside life and history. Many people understand anti-modernity in precisely this way.

I, however, think we can transcend modernity by returning to life and participating in history—transforming modernity through a serious confrontation with its fundamental philosophical assumptions. For this, what we need is to initiate and sustain a process of muʿārafa and muzākara (mutual recognition and deliberation).

A contract, by its nature, requires muʿārafa and muzākara. Perhaps it is precisely in this way that we can build upon our accumulated knowledge in the domains indicated by the Qur’an’s concept of taʿāruf (reciprocal and interactive cultural exchange and encounter) (Q 49:13) and by contemporary cultural anthropology, thereby arriving at far more robust and beneficial conceptual models. In my view, had Muslims in the past not entered into theological, philosophical, and intellectual debates with the Christians of Greater Syria, or with the atheists and deists of Babylon and Mesopotamia, neither the discipline of kalām could have developed, nor could the Peripatetic (mashshāʾī) philosophical tradition have formed—the tradition that cultivated luminous minds such as al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, and Ibn Sīnā. One of the factors that gave al-Bīrūnī his cultural depth and breadth was the human civilizational basin of India. His acquaintance with India granted him a founding stature in an anthropology grounded in taʿāruf and ʿirfān (recognition and cultivated understanding). Times when intellectual, cultural, and social crises and uncertainties emerge—as we are currently experiencing—are fertile wombs, producing major disciplines and schools of thought that point toward wholly new horizons.

This is a lofty ideal. It is reported that ʿAlī said: “I imagine a world in which Muslims live according to the Qur’an, Jews according to the Torah, and Christians according to the Gospel.” According to David Müller, Thomas Jefferson—one of the United States’ Founding Fathers—also “defended a religious freedom in which all religious beliefs can express themselves fully, and thought that only in such an environment of religious liberty could citizens internalize Jesus’ basic moral teachings.” If, for Jefferson, religious freedom makes it possible to internalize Jesus’ fundamental moral teachings, then for a sincere Jew, freedom is sought—and struggled for—in order to live by Moses’ teaching; and for a God-fearing Muslim, it is sought in order to live by the moral instruction of Muhammad (peace be upon him), who was “sent to perfect noble character.”[1] To each belongs their own religion; each is responsible for what they do; each stands as an addressee before God through their beliefs and way of life. Freedom is as necessary as air and water so that each person may be tested through their own religious faith or life-directing teaching. Without freedom, a person or community cannot be tested; and if they cannot be tested, they cannot be held responsible.

Islam endured thirteen years in Mecca under pressure, able to exist only as a small community; it found the possibility of spreading across the entire Arabian Peninsula and into three continents in the free environment of Medina. If a person will believe, let them believe through their own free will and choice; if they will not believe, let them render account to their Lord through their own beliefs and deeds. This is the essential spirit of the Medina Charter.

[1] al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, “Ḥusn al-Khuluq,” 8.