The Medina Project:

Muhammad and the notion of

the ‘community-state’
Islamic state or Islamic state of
mind?
 A Brief Chronology of Medinan Career
• 622: Migration to city Yathrib which was renamed as Medina.
• 624: Battle of Badr. Expulsion of the Bani Qainuqa Jews from
Madina.
• 625: Battle of Uhud. Massacre of 70 Muslims at Bir Mauna.
Expulsion of Banu Nadir Jews from Madina. Second expedition of
Badr.
• 627: Battle of the Trench. Expulsion of Banu Quraiza Jews.
• 628: Truce of Hudaibiya. Expedition to Khaybar. The Prophet
addresses letters to various heads of states.
• 629: The Prophet performs the pilgrimage at Mecca. Expedition to
Muta (Romans).
• 630: Conquest of Mecca. Battles of Hunayn, Auras, and Taif.
• 632: Farewell pilgrimage at Mecca.
• 632: Death of the Prophet. Election of Abu Bakr as the Caliph.
 ‘Dreaming of Medina’
• ‘Dreaming of Medina’: the ‘community
state’ of the Prophet as aspiration for
modern Islamist movements
• Utopianism of political Islam
• ‘Golden age-ism’
• The reduction of Islam to the question of
governance
 Did Muhammad intend to found a
state?
• Importance of separating Divine will from
human intention
• Difference between Muhammad as
prophet and Muhammad as statesman
• Muhammad’s career in Mecca suggests
that the establishment of a state was not
his priority
• Islamic state or Islamic state of mind?
What did Muhammad actually do in
Medina?
• Intentionality: Medina as a ‘last resort’ rather
than a ‘first choice’
• Mecca as the cornerstone of the message of
tawhid or Divine unity and the development of a
‘faith community’
• Medina as the sociopolitical context in which the
new faith community was to operate
• Continuity between Mecca and Medina on a
practical level: perpetuation of the notion of the
‘sacralisation’ of everyday life.
 The theory of Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq
• Shari’a judge and academic at al-Azhar
• 1888-1966
• Main argument = Islam does not specify
any particular form of government
• Rationale = to undermine Egyptian king’s
claim to caliphate following dissolution of
Ottoman caliphate?
• Fired from job; book caused great
controversy
 Recommended reading:
Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, “Message Not
Government, Religion Not State”
in
Charles Kurzman (Ed.), Liberal
Islam (OUP, 1998), pp. 29-36
 Abd al-Raziq's theory (1)

• Muhammad = purely messenger of a

‘religious call’
• No demand for government made
• He neither ruled nor established a
kingdom in the political sense
• Did not found a state or seek political
leadership.
 Al-Raziq’s theory (2)

• The ‘message’ obliges the Messenger to

have ‘some kind of authority’ over those
who accept his message
• Prophetic authority is different from
political authority
• Leadership of prophets not to be confused
with leadership of kings
• Examples of Jesus and Moses
 Al-Raziq’s theory (3)

• Honest religious call demands personal

dynamism, spiritual perfection, social
distinction and influence
• Mission of messengers is to appeal to the
souls of men
• Authority of messenger is in actual fact
wider than that of political rulers, since
messenger is concerned with salvation of
his followers
 Al-Raziq’s theory (4)

• Prophet’s authority is over the believers who voluntarily

adhere to his teachings; his authority over them is
absolute, and more far-reaching than political authority
• Prophet’s sacred authority does not hold within it the
meaning of kingship; it does not resemble the power of
kings: it is a prophetic govt, not the govt of sultans
• Reader should not conflate the trusteeship of the prophet
with that of a king: trusteeship of prophet originates in
faith; trusteeship of king is a material one. The former is
religion; the latter is the world. The former is divine; the
latter is human.
 Al-Raziq’s theory (5)

• No denying that the Prophet founded a political unity,

e.g. in Medina, and headed it for a decade
• “Whoever disobeys God and His Messenger has clearly
lost the way…”
• Is this religious unity a state? Is this leadership a
caliphate or sultanate? This = largely a matter of
semantics.
• Fact remains that leadership of Prophet over his people
was leadership of the Message, and not kingly
leadership. His was the leadership of a religious unity,
not a political unity.
• Was he only a messenger or a king and a messenger?
 Al-Raziq’s theory (6)

• Appeal to Koran: assertion that Koran posits

Muhammad merely as a warner, not a political
leader, e.g. 4:80; 6:66-67; 6:106-107; 10:99;
10:108; 17:54; 39:41; 42:48; 50:45
• Koran prohibits Muhammad from acting as
trustee or warden over men
• No rights over people except delivery of
message -7:188
• Not incumbent on the Prophet to ensure that
people accept the message, or to coerce them
into belief or submission
 Al-Raziq’s theory (7)

• Prophetic traditions corroborate the

Koranic position, according to al-Raziq
• According to hadith, Prophet was given
the chance of being a king-prophet (in the
tradition of Solomon?) or a ‘worshipping
prophet’: Muhammad chose the latter
• “Be calm, for I am no king or subduer: I am
the son of a woman of the Quraysh who
used to eat dried meat in Mecca.”
 Al-Raziq’s theory (8)

• While the message is a religious call, it is not a

call for one world government or a shared
political union
• God has left the management of political affairs
to human intellect
• ‘Worldly’ concerns such as political organisation
are the domain of human intellect
• Q, 11: 118-119: “If your Lord had pleased, he
could have made all humanity into one
community… but they still would have differed
one from another…”
 Weaknesses in al-Raziq’s theory

• Over-simplification of the issues?

• Danger of making Islam a purely private
and personal matter?
• Reinforces the this-worldly/otherworldly
split?
• Secularism and secularity?
 Muhammad and the ‘Medina
project’
• Problem of absence of political ethos in
the Koran
• Muhammad faced with new challenges of
‘multicultural’, ‘multi-faith’ society in
Medina
• The creation of the ‘Medinan Pact’, aka
‘The Constitution of Medina’
• Provenance of ‘Constitution’ generally
accepted by Western scholars
 Essential reading:
Ali Bulaç, ‘The Medina Document’
in
Charles Kurzman, Liberal Islam
(OUP, 1998), pp. 169-178
 Medinese demographics

• Prophet began by taking census

• Population of Medina – 10,000
• 4500 polytheists; 4000 Jews and 1500
Muslims
• Physical boundaries of city delineated
• Territory marked out as ‘city-state’ or
protected area
• Jews and Muslims relatively content with
the new set-up
 Problem of the polytheists

• Polytheists of Medina unsure of their future,

particularly given rumours of future Meccan
attacks
• Muhammad attempts to gain support of all
Medinese groups
• Aim not to establish absolute rule but to assure
security of his religious community, plus
maximisation of conditions for propagation of
new religion
• Nevertheless, the principle of ‘To you, your
religion; to me, mine’ was retained
 The creation of the ‘Medina pact’

• Religious message to be propagated and

Meccan beliefs to be translated into practice, but
with no coercion for those who chose not to ‘opt
in’
• Search for ways of peaceful co-existence
between Muslims and non-Muslims
• Shortly after arrival in Mecca, the leading
muhajirun and the ansar met, drawing up the
first 23 principles of the ‘Medina Pact,
establishing the social and legal relationships of
the new society in written decrees.
• Non-Muslim groups also consulted.
Why was the document accepted?
• ‘Constitution’ was result of negotiation.
Bulaç argues that Muhammad could not
have imposed unacceptable solution on a
non-Muslim majority
• Medinese accepted because new system
meant peace for the first time in over a
century
• The Document proposes a society based
not on domination but on participation
 The ‘Document’ in brief
• In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.
• This is a document from Muhammad the prophet (governing the relations) between the
believers i.e. Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib, and those who followed them and joined
them and laboured with them.
• They are one community (umma) to the exclusion of all men.
• Those Jews who follow the Believers will be helped and will be treated with equality.
(Social, legal and economic equality is promised to all loyal citizens of the State).
• No Jew will be wronged for being a Jew.
• The God-fearing believers shall be against the rebellious or him who seeks to spread
injustice, or sin or animosity, or corruption between believers; the hand of every man
shall be against him even if he be a son of one of them.
• A believer shall not slay a believer for the sake of an unbeliever, nor shall he aid an
unbeliever against a believer.
• God’s protection is one, the least of them may give protection to a stranger on their
behalf. Believers are friends one to the other to the exclusion of outsiders.
• To the Jew who follows us belong help and equality. He shall not be wronged nor shall
his enemies be aided.
• The peace of the believers is indivisible. No separate peace shall be made when
believers are fighting in the way of God. Conditions must be fair and equitable to all.
• It shall not be lawful to a believer who holds by what is in this document and believes
in God and the last day to help an evil-doer or to shelter him. The curse of God and His
anger on the day of resurrection will be upon him if he does, and neither repentance
nor ransom will be received from him.
• Whenever you differ about a matter it must be referred to God and to Muhammad.
 The ‘Document’ in brief
• The Jews of the B. ‘Auf are one community with the believers (the Jews have their
religion and the Muslims have theirs), their freedmen and their persons except those
who behave unjustly and sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families.
• None of them shall go out to war save the permission of Muhammad, but he shall not
be prevented from taking revenge for a wound. He who slays a man without warning
slays himself and his household, unless it be one who has wronged him, for God will
accept that.
• Yathrib shall be a sanctuary for the people of this document.
• A stranger under protection shall be as his host doing no harm and committing no
crime.
• If any dispute or controversy likely to cause trouble should arise it must be referred to
God and to Muhammad the apostle of God. God accepts what is nearest to piety and
goodness in this document.
• The contracting parties are bound to help one another against any attack on Yathrib.
• Conditions of peace and war and the accompanying ease or hardships must be fair
and equitable to all citizens alike.
• This deed will not protect the unjust and the sinner. The man who goes forth to fight
and the man who stays at home in the city is safe unless he has been unjust and
sinned. God is the protector of the good and God-fearing man and Muhammad is the
apostle of God.
 Summation
• The ‘Constitution of Medina’ is undeniably
a ‘political’ document
• No dispute that the Prophet exercised
‘political’ authority
• Notion of Prophetic regime as coercive is
erroneous
• Contractual theo-polity with voluntary
contract of obedience to Prophet