The Treaty of Madinah, The Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah

❧The Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah: Document and Source

The Treaty of Madinah, known in Arabic as the Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah (صَحِيفَةُ الْمَدِينَة) or Wathīqat al-Madīnah (وَثِيقَةُ الْمَدِينَة), and in Western scholarship as the "Constitution of Madinah", is one of the most significant political documents in early Islamic history. It formalised the political structure of the new Muslim city-state, defining the rights and obligations of Muslims, Jews, and pagans living together in Madinah.

Primary source: The document is preserved almost entirely through Ibn Isḥāq's Sīrat Rasūl Allāh (~150 years after the events), later edited by Ibn Hishām. Ibn Isḥāq introduces it with the cautious phrase "ḥaddathanī man lā attahim", "someone whom I do not blame has narrated to me", indicating no complete chain of narrators (isnād). A fragment also appears in Imam Aḥmad's Musnad with an actual isnād, corroborating its general content (that the Prophet ﷺ wrote a document between the Muhājirūn and the Anṣār establishing mutual care and iṣlāḥ).

Authenticity: The absence of a full isnād has led some scholars to doubt the document's precise wording. However, the strongest evidence for its authenticity is its archaic language, language that was already unusual by Ibn Isḥāq's era and would not be naturally produced by a later forger:

- The document uses the name "Yathrib" (يَثْرِب), the pre-Islamic name the Prophet ﷺ disliked and replaced with "Madinah." No Muslim composing a forgery a century later would have used the old name.

- The grammatical constructions are consistent with early 7th-century Arabic, not the refined classical Arabic of Ibn Isḥāq's time.

- The document lists 40+ sub-tribal names, mostly obscure or forgotten by Ibn Isḥāq's era, a forger would not have invented them.

Dr. Yasir Qadhi concludes: the archaic language is the strongest internal proof that the document is genuine even without a complete isnād.

It is also worth noting that many early classical scholars (al-Dhahabī, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn Saʿd, al-Wāqidī) barely mention this treaty. Only Ibn Isḥāq records it in full. This reflects that its broad significance was not fully appreciated in medieval scholarship, perhaps because its impact on minority rights and constitutional governance is most visible through a modern lens.

❧The Prophet's Sequence Upon Arriving in Madinah

The Treaty of Madinah did not come first. Dr. Qadhi outlines the Prophet's ﷺ sequence of actions after the Hijra:

1. Building Masjid Qubāʾ, the first masjid in Islam (see: story-masjid-quba-building)

2. The First Jumuʿah, prayed at Banū Sālim ibn ʿAwf on the way into the city (see: story-first-jumah-khutbah)

3. Settling in Madinah, residing in Anas ibn Mālik's household

4. Building Masjid al-Nabawī, the Prophet's Mosque

5. Instituting the Muʾākhah, brotherhood pairings between Muhājirūn and Anṣār (see: story-muakhah-institution)

6. Formulating the Ṣaḥīfah, the Constitution of Madinah

The treaty came after the internal Muslim community was already organised through the Muʾākhah. The Muʾākhah built bonds between individuals; the Ṣaḥīfah built bonds between communities and groups.

❧Why Did the Jews and Pagans Accept?

The Jewish tribes and the remaining pagans of Madinah were not obligated by faith to accept the Prophet's ﷺ authority, yet they agreed to the treaty. The explanation lies in the political exhaustion of Madinah. The Aws and Khazraj had fought decades of brutal civil war, culminating in the catastrophic Battle of Buʿāth (~617 CE, ~5 years before the Hijra). The Jewish tribes had also been drawn into these tribal conflicts and were equally war-weary.

When the Prophet ﷺ arrived with a reputation for wisdom and a track record of fair judgment, backed by the near-total support of the Anṣār, accepting him as neutral arbitrator was the rational choice for every party. The Quran of the early Madani period also reflected this atmosphere of optimism: Allah addressed the Jewish community with reminders of their honoured status ("Faḍḍalnākum ʿalā l-ʿālamīn", We exalted you above all peoples), hoping they would recognise the Prophet ﷺ as the fulfilment of their own scriptures.

The treaty was also mutual: every party received something. The Jews kept full internal autonomy. The pagans retained religious freedom. The Muslims gained official political recognition. It was a negotiated settlement, not a surrender.

❧Category 1: Clauses for the Muslims

The treaty opens with an explicit statement of community identity:

> "inna lladhīna āmanū min Quraysh wa Yathrib wa man tabiʿahum fa laḥiqa bihim wa jāhada maʿahum innahum ummatun wāḥidatun min dūni n-nās"

"Those who believe, from Quraysh and Yathrib, and those who follow and join them and fight alongside them, they are one Ummah (أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً) to the exclusion of all mankind (مِنْ دُونِ النَّاسِ)."

Note the name "Yathrib" used in the original document, a mark of its early composition.

The document then lists 40+ sub-tribes by name: the Muhājirūn from Makkah, and each subtribe of the Anṣār from both Aws and Khazraj. Most of these names are no longer known today.

❧Key Muslim clauses:

1. Tribal financial responsibility maintained: Each sub-tribe handles its own blood money (diyah), ransoming of prisoners, and care for its own poor, preserving pre-Islamic tribal economic systems within the new Islamic framework. Blood money (100+ camels) is too great for any individual; it was the tribe's collective responsibility.

2. United against ẓulm: If any Muslim commits ẓulm (injustice/oppression), the entire Ummah stands against that person, echoing the pre-Islamic Ḥilf al-Fuḍūl to which the Prophet ﷺ had belonged. Tribal loyalty does NOT override justice.

3. The dhimma clause: The dhimma (protection/guarantee) of the Muslims is one and equal across the community. Even the lowest and most powerless Muslim, even a slave, even a child of discernment, can grant dhimma (safe passage, visa) to any outsider, and the entire community is bound to honour it. In the old tribal system, only a chief could grant such protection. The treaty democratised this completely.

4. Mutual support: Believers do not leave any Muslim overwhelmed by debt or hardship without supporting him.

❧Category 2: Clauses for the Jews

This is the most sophisticated, and most misunderstood, section of the treaty.

> "wa inna Yahūda Banī ʿAwf ummatun maʿa l-muʾminīn"

"The Jews of Banū ʿAwf are an Ummah alongside the believers" (أُمَّةٌ مَعَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ)

The phrasing is deliberate and precise. The Jews are maʿa (alongside) the believers, partners in the political community, but NOT min (from within) the Muslim Ummah. Their distinct religious identity is preserved. Dr. Qadhi highlights this as a 7th-century formulation of what modern political science would call multi-communal federalism.

❧Key Jewish clauses:

1. Full internal self-governance: The Jews handle their own affairs, blood money, care for the poor, internal disputes. The ʿurf (customary law) of each Jewish tribe is accepted within the framework: al-ʿurfu muḥakkam (الْعُرْفُ مُحَكَّمٌ, "custom is authoritative"). This is, in effect, communal legal autonomy.

2. Shared external defense: In the event of an attack on Madinah, Jews contribute to the shared defense fund alongside the Muslims. Internal welfare is separate; external security is shared.

3. Freedom of religion explicitly guaranteed: "Lil-Yahūdi dīnuhum wa lil-muslimīna dīnuhum", "Unto the Jews their religion, and unto the Muslims their religion." This is among the most remarkable clauses in any 7th-century political document.

4. No unilateral departure from Madinah: No Jew may leave without the Prophet's ﷺ permission. This is the standard citizenship clause of the era, departing without permission meant renouncing membership in the city-state and voiding one's protections. It is not punitive; it is the standard framework of belonging.

5. Right to convert: If a Jew converts to Islam, he is fully protected and welcomed into the Muslim community.

6. The ʿurf principle codified: Al-ʿurfu muḥakkam (الْعُرْفُ مُحَكَّمٌ). The Sharīʿah does not abolish existing customs; it absorbs and validates them unless they explicitly contradict revelation. This became one of the five major principles governing the entirety of Islamic jurisprudence.

❧Category 3: Clauses for the Mushrikūn (Pagans)

At the time of this treaty, not all members of the Aws and Khazraj had yet converted to Islam. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salūl and others were still mushrikūn, they would not nominally "convert" until after the Battle of Badr, when the Prophet's ﷺ military success made remaining pagan politically untenable. The treaty explicitly addresses this pagan minority:

❧Key Mushrikūn clauses:

1. Neutrality regarding Makkah: No mushrik of Madinah may offer protection to the Quraysh, not for money, not for life, nor may they interfere in the Muslim-Quraysh conflict in any way.

2. Freedom of internal practice: The pagans are permitted to remain in Madinah and practise their religion internally. The Prophet ﷺ did NOT demand conversion as a condition of residence.

Significance: Even as head of state in the city he had built, the Prophet ﷺ allowed pagans to remain pagan, worship their idols, and live according to their customs, subject only to political neutrality. This directly contradicts the accusation that Islam spread by forced conversion.

The Ḥanafī madhhab cites this clause as evidence that even idol-worshippers (Mushrikūn) may live permanently in an Islamic state, with the full spectrum of rights enjoyed by any religious minority. Other madhāhib are stricter on this specific question, but the presence of pagans in the Prophet's ﷺ own Madinah under his own treaty is a powerful precedent.

❧Category 4: General Clauses

❧Madinah is a Ḥaram (inviolable sanctuary):

> "wa inna jawfa Yathrib ḥaramun li-ahli hādhihi ṣ-ṣaḥīfah"

"The interior of Yathrib is a Ḥaram for the people of this treaty."

The Prophet ﷺ delineated Madinah's boundaries in multiple narrations:

> "الْمَدِينَةُ حَرَمٌ مَا بَيْنَ عَيْرٍ وَثَوْرٍ وَمَا بَيْنَ لَابَّتَيْهَا"

"Madinah is a Ḥaram between ʿAyr (عَيْر) and Thawr (ثَوْر), and between the two volcanic plains (lābbatayhā, لَابَّتَيْهَا)."

The four markers: ʿAyr (a mountain north, beyond Uhud) and Thawr (a mountain south, beyond Qubāʾ) define the north-south axis. The two lābbatayn, the ḥarratayn (volcanic rock plains) to the east and west of Madinah, define the east-west axis. Together they demarcate a Ḥaram region comparable in concept to the Ḥaram of Makkah. Within this boundary: no wild trees may be felled, no game hunted, no weapons brandished.

❧All disputes go to the Prophet ﷺ:

Any disagreement between treaty parties, Muslim, Jewish, or pagan, is referred to Allāh and His Messenger. This formally established the Prophet's ﷺ arbitration authority over the entire city by mutual consent of all parties.

❧The oath of consequence:

Whoever violates the treaty, commits murder, or causes fasād (corruption) in Madinah: upon him is the curse of Allāh, His angels, and all people. No good deed will be accepted from him. The entire community is obligated to stand against the criminal, no one may shelter a murderer or wrongdoer, regardless of which community they belong to.

❧Safe movement:

Whoever enters or leaves Madinah is safe, unless they have committed a crime. And Allāh will protect the righteous, and Muḥammad ﷺ is His Messenger.

❧The Concept of Ummah: Etymology and Significance

Dr. Qadhi pauses on the word ummah (أُمَّة), which appears repeatedly and centrally throughout the treaty.

The etymological chain:

- أَمَّ (Amma), the root verb: to head toward something; to strive toward a goal or direction. Allāh uses this in the Quran: "Āmmīna l-Bayta l-Ḥarām" (آمِّينَ الْبَيْتَ الْحَرَامَ, Q 5:2), "those who are heading toward the Sacred House." To amma is to have a destination.

- أُمَّ (Umm), mother; the origin, the centre, the one toward whom everything converges. A child's every need, attention, and emotion is directed toward the Umm. She is the direction of life itself.

- أُمَّة (Ummah), a community united by a shared direction; people who are heading toward the same thing.

The word Imam (the prayer leader) comes from the same root, he is the one toward whom the congregation orients itself. Tayammum (the dry purification) also comes from amma, it means "to intend to raise the state of ritual impurity."

Allāh calls Ibrāhīm (ʿalayhi al-salām) an "Ummah" by himself: "Inna Ibrāhīma kāna ummah" (إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ أُمَّةً, Q 16:120), he was a single person but his entire being was directed toward God, making him worth an entire community.

The revolutionary implication: An Ummah is not a race, a bloodline, or a tribe. It is a community of people heading toward the same goal. The Muslim Ummah is defined by tawḥīd and īmān, shared theology, not by ancestry. This is why Bilāl ibn Abī Rabāḥ and Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq are equal members of the Ummah. The treaty puts this in writing for the first time: belonging to the Ummah is a matter of what you believe, not who your father was.

❧Significance of the Treaty

❧1. Theology over lineage:

For the first time in Arabian history, a political community was defined by shared belief rather than shared blood. Anyone who converted could become a full member of the Ummah instantly, an idea so radical that 1,400 years later we still take it for granted.

❧2. Federalism avant la lettre:

The treaty operates on a model strikingly similar to modern federalism:

- A central authority (the Prophet ﷺ as final arbitrator for inter-communal disputes)

- Semi-autonomous communities (each tribe handles its own internal affairs, courts, and welfare)

- Shared obligations (mutual defense fund for external threats)

- Protected individual rights (freedom of religion, safe movement)

Dr. Qadhi uses the term "federalist" with appropriate qualification, these are modern concepts being applied retrospectively, but the structural parallel is genuine.

❧3. John Locke and the Ottoman Millet system:

In his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689–1690), the philosopher John Locke, whose writings were foundational to the American Founding Fathers, pointed to the Ottoman Empire's treatment of religious minorities as a model for Christian Europe to emulate. The Ottoman Millet system granted each religious community (Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish) semi-autonomous self-governance, their own courts for personal and family law, their own leadership, their own educational institutions, within the Islamic state. This system survived until the 1860s and governed millions peacefully.

Dr. Qadhi's point: this is not a claim that Thomas Jefferson read the Treaty of Madinah and wrote the US Constitution (such a claim, he says, reflects an "inferiority complex"). The intellectual chain is more indirect: Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīnah → Ottoman Millet system → Locke's citation of the Ottomans as a positive model → Locke's influence on Western political thought. The origin of the concept, however, traces back to Madinah.

The irony is sharp: Locke was criticising fellow Christians for their extraordinary intolerance, burning heretics, executing dissenters, expelling entire communities, and pointing to Muslims as the example of how to coexist. From Constantine's forced orthodoxy through the persecution of the Arians, the Huguenots, the Anabaptists, and the Wars of Religion, Western Christendom had been uniquely intolerant even of internal dissent. The Ottoman-Islamic model represented civilisational tolerance by comparison.

❧4. What the treaty did NOT contain and why:

- No Jizya: The Jizya (poll tax for protected non-Muslims) was not yet revealed. It comes in Surah Tawbah, Q 9:29 ("ḥattā yuʿṭū l-jizyata ʿan yadin", حَتَّى يُعْطُوا الْجِزْيَةَ عَنْ يَدٍ), revealed years later. At this stage, Jews were equal partners in defense, contributing the same share to the community defense fund as the Muslims. They were co-citizens, not a protected minority paying for the privilege.

- No demand for conversion.

- No subjugation: The tone throughout is of mutual partnership. The accusation that the Prophet ﷺ mistreated the Jewish tribes is directly contradicted by the text of this treaty, the same obligations placed on Muslims are placed on Jews, and the same rights are granted.

❧5. The establishment of the Prophet's ﷺ political authority:

The treaty made official what was already understood: the Prophet ﷺ was the de facto leader of Madinah. His authority as arbiter was accepted not by force but by the consensus of every party, Muslim, Jewish, and pagan alike, who signed the treaty out of pragmatic wisdom and political exhaustion.

❧6. The ʿurf principle as jurisprudential legacy:

Al-ʿurfu muḥakkam (الْعُرْفُ مُحَكَّمٌ), "custom is authoritative/binding", became one of the five major governing principles of Islamic jurisprudence. The treaty's acceptance of existing communal customs within the limits of Islamic governance institutionalised this principle from the very founding of the Islamic state.

❧Q&A: Freedom of Religion and Non-Muslim Rights

❧Can non-Muslims (Ahl al-Kitāb) build churches and synagogues in an Islamic state?

By consensus of classical scholarship: yes. The People of the Book under Islamic governance have the right to maintain their existing places of worship and to practise their religion, including rituals that Muslims would consider shirk (such as venerating Jesus as divine), within their own communities. The Quran itself draws a sharp distinction between Ahl al-Kitāb and Mushrikūn: Q 9:28 ("Innamā l-mushrikūna najasun falā yaqrabū l-masjida l-ḥarāma baʿda ʿāmihim hādhā", إِنَّمَا الْمُشْرِكُونَ نَجَسٌ فَلَا يَقْرَبُوا الْمَسْجِدَ الْحَرَامَ بَعْدَ عَامِهِمْ هَذَا) refers specifically to mushrikūn (pagans) and specifically to Masjid al-Ḥarām in Makkah, not to Christians or Jews, and not to all mosques or all of Arabia.

In terms of personal law (family law, marriage, inheritance), the Ottoman Millet system extended even further: each community was governed by its own legal code internally (Halakha for Jews, canon law for Christians). Classical Islamic fiqh's guarantee of communal autonomy is, in Dr. Qadhi's words, a more substantial protection than what many modern Western states offer religious minorities, who cannot have their own family courts recognised under secular law.

❧The hadith about Jazīrat al-ʿArab:

The Prophet ﷺ said on his deathbed: "Akhrijū l-Yahūda wan-Naṣārā min Jazīrati l-ʿArab" (أَخْرِجُوا الْيَهُودَ وَالنَّصَارَى مِنْ جَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِ), "Expel the Jews and Christians from Jazīrat al-ʿArab." This is authentically narrated in Bukhārī and Muslim.

Several key points of clarification:

- The Prophet ﷺ himself maintained a Jewish population in Madinah under this treaty throughout his life. What changed was not his general policy but specific events: Jewish tribes that violated the treaty were expelled or punished as treaty-breakers, not as Jews.

- The hadith refers to permanent residence, not temporary visits for trade or business. Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who was the first to enforce this, permitted temporary entry with permission.

- Jazīrat al-ʿArab itself is disputed. There is ikhtilāf (scholarly disagreement) on its geographic scope: the Ḥanafī school understands it to mean the central Hejaz region specifically (which also explains why Yemen historically had a continuous Jewish population even after this hadith, the Prophet ﷺ himself had Jews in Yemen under his governance). Other schools take a broader definition. Even the most expansive interpretation does not remove the right of non-Muslims to live elsewhere in the lands of Islam.

- The Ḥanafī madhhab does not accept this restriction at all, citing the precedent of the pagans in the Prophet's ﷺ own Madinah under this treaty.

❧The non-Muslim in classical Islamic governance:

The picture Dr. Qadhi draws is of a system far more nuanced than popular discourse suggests. Classical fiqh granted non-Muslims the right to: practise their religion, maintain their places of worship, apply their own communal law, manufacture and sell alcohol among themselves, and live under the protection of the Islamic state. What was restricted: public proselytisation and public blasphemy. The balance reflects a political philosophy where the state acknowledges plural communities while maintaining a public Islamic character, a model that operated successfully at civilisational scale in the Ottoman Millet system for centuries.