Islamic Political Thought and the “Constitution of Medina”

Abstract

The present inquiry is a contribution to the study of early Islamic political thought focusing on the earliest document of Islamic political doctrine, the so-called Constitution of Medina. What particularly distinguishes the procedure followed here is the attempt to establish a link between the source-critical approach to the study of early Islamic history and the historiography of Islamic political thought. This study will argue that the “Constitution of Medina,” whose authenticity is accepted even by the most skeptical scholars, can be a source for reconstructing a historically reliable understanding of early Islamic political thought. Without making a claim about the legitimacy of the source-critical approach, the objective here is to show how an unmediated study of this classic document made possible by the rise of the source-critical approach is a fruitful procedure. This will be shown through establishing a link between this unmediated approach and two of the classic issues in the thought of Muslim political thinkers: the questions of the relationship between Islam and citizenship and of the place of religious law in a Muslim political order.