Six Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time: The Primary Documents
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"The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, by Dr. John Andrew Morrow ... is a very interesting and crucial work."--Theophilos III, Patriarch of Jerusalem
"An enlightening reference that brilliantly sheds light on the glorious and magnificent spirit of Islam as epitomized by the Prophet Muhammad."--Dr. Bouchra Belgaid, University Mohamed I
"This is one of the most important projects related to Christian-Muslim relations in recent decades."--Zachary Markwith, Graduate Theological Union
"The Holy Council of the Fathers at Saint Catherine's Monastery expresses sympathy for your work."--Father Justin of Sinai
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah
John Andrew Morrow has served as a faculty member and administrator at numerous colleges and universities, and has authored and edited many books, including the Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine (McFarland, 2011), Religion and Revolution: Spiritual and Political Islam in Ernesto Cardenal (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), and Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism (McFarland, 2013).
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Six Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time - Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah
SIX COVENANTS
OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF HIS TIME
THE PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
SIX
COVENANTS
of the
Prophet Muhammad
with the
Christians of His Time
THE PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah
Editor
John Andrew Morrow
Foreword
Charles Upton
First published by Covenants Press,
an imprint of Angelico Press, 2015
© John Andrew Morrow 2015
Foreword © Charles Upton 2015
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission
For information, address:
Angelico Press / Sophia Perennis
info@angelicopress.com
See also www.covenantsoftheprophet.com
and www.johnandrewmorrow.com
978-1-62138-002-3 pb
978-1-62138-109-9 ebook
Cover image: Turkish language copy of the Achtiname or Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai, from 1638 (by permission of St. Catherine’s Monastery, Egypt)
Cover Design: Michael Schrauzer
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai
Chapter 2: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of Persia
Chapter 3: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of Najran
Chapter 4: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World (Mount Carmel Manuscript)
Chapter 5: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World (Cairo Manuscript)
Chapter 6: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Assyrian Christians
The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World
Endorsements
The Covenants Initiative
Signatories
Map of the Sinai
Foreword
by
Charles Upton
The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was sent by Allah not only to Muslims; he was sent as a mercy to the whole world [21:107]. Those who responded to his message or made peace with him he befriended and protected; those who actively opposed his message, he himself opposed.
The two foundational sources of the Islamic tradition have always been the Holy Qur’an—the direct Word of Allah as revealed to Muhammad—and the prophetic hadith literature, the record of the sayings of Muhammad as remembered by his family, his close companions, and others who had been in his presence and heard his words. (The tradition of sirah or prophetic biography is also important, but it has never held the same pre-eminent position as these two.) When, after the Prophet’s death, his wife ‘A’ishah was asked what his character was like, she answered: It was exactly like the Qur’an
[Ahmad].
In October of 2013 a book appeared by Dr. John Andrew Morrow—Ilyas ‘Abd al-‘Alim Islam—entitled The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World. This work spearheaded the re-emergence of a third foundational source for Islam, one that is entirely in line with the first two: the written works composed by the Prophet himself during his lifetime. These documents, while they were known to scholars for many centuries, and accepted as law by Muslim leaders for over a thousand years, have been largely neglected by both traditional Muslim and modern western scholarship, and are virtually unknown to most believers. The present book contains the texts of six of them: The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai; The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of Persia; The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World (in two versions); The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of Najran; and The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Assyrian Christians.
These covenants (or treaties) were re-discovered by Dr. Morrow in obscure monasteries and libraries and books long out-of-print. He newly-translated some of them, and also provided powerful arguments for their validity, which appear in The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World. (Subsequent research, yet to be published, has only confirmed his conclusions.) These covenants uniformly command Muslims not to attack peaceful Christian communities, rob them, stop churches from being repaired, tear down churches to build mosques, prevent their Christian wives from going to church and taking spiritual direction from Christian priests and elders, etc. On the contrary, the Prophet commands Muslims to actively protect these communities until the coming of the Hour.
Through the publication of The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, Dr. Morrow has opened up the world of the Prophet and his contemporaries as few have done before him. Who knew that, before the Crusades, Muslims on the hajj visited Christian and Jewish sacred sites on their way to Mecca? Who knew that, in the time of the Prophet, Christians as well as Muslims were called by the title al-mu’minin, the faithful
? Who knew that Christian knights and warriors sometimes fought side-by-side with the armies of Islam? Who knew that even Crusaders were given safe-conduct by Muslim authorities to make pilgrimages to the Christian holy sites controlled by Islam?
Dr. Morrow makes a compelling case that the original intent of Muhammad was not to create a strictly Muslim state, but rather a confederation of the Peoples of the Book. Muslims, as the founders of this confederation, would retain their pre-eminence, but all the peoples