Medina Municipal Code

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The so-called municipal order of Medina or the constitution / constitution of Medina ( Arabic صحيفة المدينة, DMG Ṣaḥīfat al-Madīna ; or:ميثاق المدينة Mīthāq al-Madīna ) is an alliance treaty that the Islamic prophet Mohammed concluded after his arrival in the city of Yathrib (later: Medina ) in 622 between the emigrants from Mecca and his helpers in Yathrib. Through the second part of the treaty, various Jewish tribes are also included in the alliance. The document has comedown to usin Ibn Hishām's adaptation of Ibn Ishāq's biography of the prophet; a defective version is also contained in the Kitāb al-Amwāl of Abū ʿUbaid al-Qāsim ibn Sallām (d. approx. 837).

Designations

Julius Wellhausen coined the term “municipality order” as a name for the document . In the text itself, the document is simply referred to as Kitāb (“document”, “book”) at the beginning and as Ṣaḥīfa (“sheet”, “scroll”) several times at the end . In the secondary literature, in addition to “community order”, there are also terms such as “constitution”, “constitution”, “charter”, etc. from Medina, terms that are “not very happy because they can lead to inappropriate associations”. The question of whether it is an alliance treaty or the first constitution of the Islamic state is still the subject of intense debate among Muslim scholars and intellectuals.

Structure and content

The aim of the treaty was to end the hostilities and clan rivalries among the contracting parties and to unite them against external threats. For this purpose, a list of (not based on Sharia law ) rights and obligations for the signatories was drawn up, with which they created the basis for defining themselves as a single and united community ( Umma wāḥida ) in the future .

Wellhausen, who examined the text of the document for the first time, divided it into 47 paragraphs. In Michael Lecker's edition, the text is divided into 64 paragraphs. The surviving version of the document probably dates from the year 627.

At the beginning of the document it is stated that it is "a contract of Muhammad the Prophet, between the believers and Muslims of the Quraysh and Yathrib and those who follow them, are connected to them and fight together with them" (§ 1) acts. They are "a single ummah that differs from others" (§ 2). The nine most important contracting parties are then named. These include the Muslim "emigrants of the Quraish" (§ 3), who are viewed as a single group, and eight clans from Yathrib, which are composed of subgroups ( ṭawāʾif ) (§§ 4-11). Each group is said to maintain their tribal organization ( ribāʿa ) and to be responsible for paying blood money and ransom among their members. In the case of the clans from Yathrib, it is also noted that they are bound by their previous blood money agreements ( maʿāqilu-hum al-ūlā ). However, this duty of solidarity is restricted to the believers ( muʾminūn ) among them. In § 23 the contracting parties are asked to let Mohammed settle disputes.

The second part of the document (from § 27) deals with the relations with the Jewish tribes of Yathrib and their biṭāna (§ 39), i.e. H. their Bedouin allies. In § 49 it is declared that the valley of Yathrib is sacred for all contracting parties .

Lore

The question of who received the charter with the church rules after the death of the prophet was controversial among Shiites and Sunnis . While the former assumed that he had entrusted them to ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib , it was narrated in Sunni texts that ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb was the recipient.

literature

  • Michael Lecker: Constitution of Medina . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . THREE . Brill Online, 2017. Digitized
  • Saïd Amir Arjomand : The constitution of Medina . A sociolegal interpretation of Muhammad's acts of foundation of the umma (=  International Journal of Middle East Studies . Volume 41 , no. 4 ). November 1, 2009, p. 555-575 ( journals.cambridge.org (abstract) [accessed July 26, 2014]).
  • Serdar Demirel: The Prophet Muhammad's Models of Coexistence and the Constitution of Medina . In: The Journal of Rotterdam Islamic and Social Sciences . Volume 4, Issue 1 (2014), pp. 1–10, doi: 10.2478 / jriss-2014-0001
  • Frederick Mathewson Denny: Umma in the Constitution of Medina (=  Journal of Near Eastern Studies . Volume 36 ). 1977, p. 39-47 , JSTOR : 544125 .
  • Hans Jansen : Mohammed. A biography. (2005/2007) Translated from the Dutch by Marlene Müller-Haas. CH Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56858-9 , pp. 225-229 ( The Constitution of Medina ).
  • Tilman Nagel : The Constitution of Medina , in: Materialdienst der EZW 79/4 (2016), 141-145.
  • Uri Rubin : The 'Constitution of Medina' Some Notes , in: Studia Islamica 62 (1985), 5-23. doi: 10.2307 / 1595521
  • Günter Schaller: The 'Municipal Code of Medina' - representation of a political instrument. A contribution to the current fundamentalism discussion in Islam . Augsburg, Univ., Diss. 1985. Digitized
  • Richard B. Serjeant: The Sunna Jāmi ʿ ah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Taḥrīm of Yathrib . Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in the So-Called 'Constitution of Medina'. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (BSOAS) . tape 41 , 1978, p. 1-42 , doi : 10.1017 / S0041977X00057761 .
  • Harald Suermann: The Constitution of Medina. Remembering a different model of living together . In: Collectanea Christiana Orientalia . tape 2 , 2005, p. 225-244 , doi : 10.21071 / cco.v2i.693 .
  • W. Montgomery Watt : Muhammad at Medina . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1956, pp. 221-228 .
  • Julius Wellhausen : Mohammed's municipal code of Medina. Sketches and preliminary work . Vol. IV. Reimer, Berlin, 1889. pp. 65-83, archive.org

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Julius Wellhausen : Mohammed's municipal code of Medina (=  sketches and preparatory work . Volume  IV ). Reimer, Berlin 1889, p. 65-83 ( archive.org [accessed July 23, 2014]).
  2. Abd el-Malik Ibn Hishâm : Kitāb Sīra Rasūl Allāh . The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâq. From the manuscripts of Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha and Leyden. Ed .: Ferdinand Wüstenfeld . tape  1 . Dieterichsche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Göttingen 1858, p. 341, line 4 ( archive.org [accessed July 26, 2014]).
  3. Abd el-Malik Ibn Hishâm : Kitāb Sīra Rasūl Allāh . The life of Muhammad according to Muhammad Ibn Ishâq. From the manuscripts of Berlin, Leipzig, Gotha and Leyden. Ed .: Ferdinand Wüstenfeld . tape  1 . Dieterichsche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Göttingen 1858, p. 343 f . ( archive.org [accessed July 26, 2014]).
  4. Albrecht Noth: Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . 2nd, revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-406-31488-0 , p. 32 .
  5. Ḥilmī M. Zawātī: Is Jihad a Just War? War, Peace, and Human Rights Under Islamic and Public International Law (=  Studies in Religion and Society . Volume 53 ). Mellen, Lewiston NY 2001, ISBN 0-7734-7304-1 , pp. 56 ( books.google.de [accessed on July 23, 2014]).
  6. Michael Lecker: The 'Constitution of Medina' . Muḥammad's First Legal Document (=  Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam . Volume 23 ). Darwin Press, Princeton NJ 2004, ISBN 0-87850-148-7 , pp. 7-31 .
  7. The translation follows William Montgomery Watt , Alford T. Welch: Islam I. Mohammed and the early days, Islamic law, religious life. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1980, p. 96 f.
  8. Michael Lecker: The 'Constitution of Medina' . Muḥammad's First Legal Document (=  Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam . Volume 23 ). Darwin Press, Princeton NJ 2004, ISBN 0-87850-148-7 , pp. 153-155 .
  9. Michael Lecker: The 'Constitution of Medina' . Muḥammad's First Legal Document (=  Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam . Volume 23 ). Darwin Press, Princeton NJ 2004, ISBN 0-87850-148-7 , pp. 194-200 .