The Medina Charter

The Medina Charter — Introduction

The Medina Charter first drew my attention thirty-five years ago (1991). In the time since, it has regularly surfaced in Turkey’s public agenda and entered the vocabulary of political debate. Its emergence back then was, of course, tied to the events of the day. At the respected socialist-leaning journal Birikim, Ahmet İnsel (Sorbonne) posed several questions to me; I attempted to answer them across four consecutive issues. The topic then burst forth—like a seed that had completed its germination underground—and hundreds of articles followed.

Beginning in 1991, I raised the subject in panels and roundtables involving various writers and academics, often in a testing spirit. I observed that—even when ideas and approaches of this kind were not immediately accepted—they were at least judged worthy of serious consideration. That, in turn, encouraged me to work further. Given the pace of circulation in the intellectual world, it did not take long for the Medina Charter to claim its place in the discussion. After the debate opened up in Turkey, it became a point of focus in political and scholarly circles in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and Finland; I presented papers on the Charter in each of these countries. By the grace of God, I was granted the opportunity to explain the most magnificent Charter in history—guided by the Last Prophet who was “sent as a mercy to all peoples” (Q 21:107)—from the very lectern where Stalin once delivered speeches.

In the meantime, Necmettin Erbakan, leader of the Milli Görüş political movement, argued that the monolithic, dominant character of the Jacobin political system could be overcome through the legal pluralism envisaged in the Medina Charter. He asked me and the late Bahri Zengin to draft a constitutional proposal that took the Charter as its reference. We worked on the text for months. Yet that work was later cited as a pretext for removing Prime Minister Erbakan from power in the “February 28” (1997) postmodern military intervention and for closing his party, the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP). Strikingly, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) likewise cited our proposal—limited to the civil sphere and advocating legal pluralism—as a justification for shutting down a party that had come to power with 21% of the vote.

By 2020, when I decided to compile the critiques and debates into a book, there were already hundreds of essays, articles, studies, theses, and books in circulation; the subject had firmly entered the orbit of academic interest. In addition, under the influence of Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK (sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999), the Charter became the theme of two workshops: Diyarbakır (May 2014) and Istanbul (November 2019). This was the greatest reward of my intellectual life. Because of the paper I presented at the workshop, the public prosecutor opened an investigation against me, but in 2017 the court issued a decision of non-prosecution. Key actors in Kurdish politics announced that they took the Medina Charter as a reference in seeking a solution to the Kurdish issue.

As I will show in detail below, harsh reactions did not dominate. In fact, in the first wave of debates, those who took a negative stance outnumbered those who welcomed the idea. The strongest objections came from Kemalists and radical Islamists. Since neither camp had a paradigmatic objection to the given structure of power, they perceived the Medina Charter as a threatening obstacle to their struggles for power—an attitude they still maintain today.

Even when criticisms are severe, it is beneficial that a discussion of this kind continues—out of the hope that it may offer an opening for overcoming the broad crisis we have entered at a global level. The intense interest shown both at home and abroad demonstrates that this debate is not a mere intellectual fantasy; rather, it is valued as an opportunity to view a widespread climate of chaos—marked by complex problems and, in particular, a democracy in crisis—through a “different paradigm and tradition.”

Everything has its appointed time (vakt-i merhun), and so does this subject. The seed sprouted and broke the soil, yet the social environment to protect and nourish the sapling was weak; maturation took a long time. Perhaps in this period—when humanity stands at the threshold of a new era and both traditional and modern structures are undergoing deep tremors—the Medina Charter, with its core assumptions, founding principles, and founding values, can inspire the development of a new societal organization at local, regional, and global levels, offering real, potential possibilities.

My premise is this: if something has been achieved once in history, it can be achieved again. Since the Prophet Muhammad—whom we take as our guide (hādī)—developed and implemented such a model, his Sunna and Sīraremain for us today both a point of reference and a source of guidance: “Indeed, in the Messenger of God you have an excellent example” (Q 33:21).

Called Düstûr al-Madīna by Arabs and Manshūr-i Madīna by Persians, the Medina Charter is among the most remarkable acts of the Age of Felicity (‘Asr al-Sa‘āda). In classical works such as those of Ibn Hishām and Abū ‘Ubayd, it appears as a “book.” After the German orientalist Wellhausen drew attention to the text in his Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (1899), Muhammad Hamidullah in 1938 popularized the label “Charter” (Vesika), treating it in numbered articles both in his famous The Prophet of Islam and in al-Wathā’iq al-Siyāsiyya (Political Documents). My preference for the name “Medina Charter” stems from the fact that the text known as Vesika provides both a concrete referential frame and an enduring source of inspiration for today and the future.

The Charter, which has drawn attention from markedly different constituencies, can be regarded as a unique example in recorded history. Concluded among distinct religious and ethnic social blocs (sociologies) in Medina, it was—in the immediate conditions of the time—context-bound; yet in spirit and in its founding principles it bears universal norms and rules.

A crucial point regarding my three principal references must be noted: I consider the subject within the framework of the Qur’an, the Sunna, and their implementation in the Age of Felicity—that is, the Sīra. From the Qur’anic angle, this work is a kind of tafsir (exegesis); from the Sunna, a commentary; from the Sīra, a distinct reading. In general, histories and Sīra works have not read the Prophet’s Medinan period (622–632) in this way. My new/different reading of this period may therefore seem unusual to many. Yet I have avoided airy, baseless speculation: every different reading or claim is anchored either in a Qur’anic verse or a reliable ḥadīth; every historical report requiring critique is tested against another historical source, with references provided. Along the way, I have also consulted the rich legacies of fiqh, kalām, and taṣawwuf in Islamic intellectual history.

There is a major obstacle to properly understanding the model I propose: the key concepts that form the main frame of the discussion have been badly eroded in everyday culture—they have become hackneyed and lost their authentic meanings. Readers will see that these concepts and issues are handled here after being cleansed of the accretions of conventional usage and restored to their original, sound meanings.

The Medina Charter is the outcome of the intellectual and political effort to which I have remained faithful throughout my seventy-five years; it is a thesis and proposal of our intellectual-political current that began in the latter half of the nineteenth century and continues to this day.

I should note that my aim is not—valuable though both are—to add another work alongside Plato’s Republic or al-Fārābī’s al-Madīna al-Fāḍila. Nor am I imagining a utopia.

Beyond the Islamic world, the contemporary global search for multiculturalism, legal pluralism, and multi-religiouscoexistence, along with the religious and ethnic conflicts generated by the modern state, all figure into these efforts at solution. Yet above all, in a world where everyone is directly and necessarily connected to everyone else, we bear responsibility to seek remedies for persistently unresolved conflicts and wars, hunger, poverty, income inequality, ecological imbalance, mass displacement, climate crisis, and the increasingly frequent natural disasters that ensue.

Of course, these views and designs cannot be presented as absolute truths. Nor can such ideas ever be substituted for Islam itself.

At Atlas Think, I will address the following topics:

• The historical context in which the Charter took shape; its emergence, authenticity, and historical value; the social and political milieu in which it was signed; the parties to the Charter and their social-political positions; the Charter’s articles and their analysis; its duration and why it broke down; its constitutional character; its comparison with the laws of Hammurabi and Solon and with the Magna Carta; its value from the perspectives of the Qur’an, Hadith sources, and the principles of Islamic legal theory; its impact on history; and whether it is the same as the dhimmi status historically applied to non-Muslims living under Muslim rule.
• I will also consider the Banū Qurayẓa affair in the broadest possible frame and critically assess the reports concerning the Prophet’s treatment of them after their defeat and surrender. I will ask: Did the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) order the execution only of a number of war criminals, or of all the men of the tribe?
• Furthermore, I will clarify what a “charter” is, why we need one, and the difference between social contract theories premised on “man in the state of nature” (as in Thomas Hobbes [d. 1679], John Locke [d. 1704], and Jean-Jacques Rousseau [d. 1778]) and the Medina Charter, concluded among real historical parties. Western democracies commonly take the Magna Carta Libertatum as a foundational reference; signed in 1215 between the English lords and the king, it remained in force for only three months. By contrast, the Medina Charter was concluded in 622 CE. The 593-year—nearly six-century—gap between the two itself lends the Charter extraordinary significance.
• From this perspective, I will argue that the Charter—written for the first time in history through a negotiated process among different ethnic and religious groups in Medina under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad—offers a model of Islamic pluralism; provides theological (kalām) and juridical (fiqh) grounds for pluralism; frames relations with non-Muslims; and develops possibilities for living together with the “other.” On a planetary scale, grounded in iḥtirām (mutual respect), it points toward a new covenantal language of the “common good and common interest” (ma‘rūf) and the “common evil and common harm” (munkar).

Finally, I will address the notion of “Islamic peace (Pax Islamica)”, whose origin and essential purpose lie in silm(peace), salāma (security), and faithfulness to covenants (adherence to moral norms and legal rules). With references to past peace projects—and especially through a critique of Kant’s Perpetual Peace—I will explore how Islam, and its concrete historical model in the Medina Charter, offers a vision of peace to all the inhabitants of the earth.