Study Analyzes Authenticity of Prophet's Treaty with Najran Christians

Journal of Islamic Studies 27:3 (2016) pp. 273–354 doi:10.
1093/jis/etw027
THE PROPHET’S TREATY WITH THE

CHRISTIANS OF NAJRAN: AN ANALYTICAL
STUDY TO DETERMINE THE AUTHENTICITY
OF THE COVENANTS
A H M E D E L - WA K I L
Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies
The Chronicle of Seert is an ecclesiastical history of the Assyrian Church

of the East composed in the tenth century ce. Three documents allegedly
dating back to early Islam can be found within its pages: 1) an exordium
which the Prophet sent to the Najrani Christians, 2) the Covenant of the
Prophet with the Christians of Najran, and 3) the Covenant of 6Umar
with the Christians of Mesopotamia. These texts have generally been
dismissed as forgeries or of dubious origins, alike by Muslim and
Christian scholars. Addai Scher, editor and translator of The Chronicle
of Seert clearly states in a footnote that the Covenant with the Najrani
Christians ‘is certainly apocryphal. It was forged by Christians so that
the Muslims would spare them. Every Christian nation in the Orient
possesses a copy more or less different from the other’.1
The first Muslim scholar to reprint the three documents in The
Chronicle of Seert was Muhammad Hamidullah back in 1956.2 He too
questioned their authenticity as no evidence of them is found in the Islamic
sources, which he considered to be far more reliable in their preservation

Author’s note: I would like to thank: Mohammed Kiram for his spiritual
insights into the veracity of the covenants; Ali Khalili for reading the original
Persian manuscript of ‘The Covenant of the Prophet MuAammad with the
Assyrian Christians’ and for discussions that we held about the Islamic lunar
calendar; and Dominic Majendie for reading parts out of the Latin manuscript of
The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus and his most helpful suggestions in
preparing the final manuscript. I would also like to thank Ajarat Bada for proof-
reading prior to submission. All remaining errors are mine.
1
Addai Scher, Histoire Nestorienne Inédite: Chronique de Séert, Deuxième
Partie (Patrologia Orientalis, Tome XIII, Fascicule 4, No. 65, 1918), (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1983), 602 [282]. My translation, from the French.
2
Muhammad Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya li-l-6ahd al-
Nabaw; wa-l-khil:fa al-r:shida (Beirut: D:r al-Naf:8is, 6th edn., 1987).
ß The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Oxford Centre for Islamic
Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
274 AHMED EL-WAKIL
of the correspondences of the Prophet and the four rightly guided Caliphs.
The issue of authenticity was recently (2013) taken up by John Andrew
Morrow in The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad,3 in which he
collected all the covenants that he could find, including, importantly, the
hitherto unpublished 1538 recension of ‘The Covenant of the Prophet
MuAammad with the Christians of the World’. Despite his efforts, the
authenticity question remains unresolved, with scholars continuing to
dismiss them after only cursory examination as pious forgeries.
At first sight the covenants do seem to be most unconvincing. Despite
efforts to quote from the Qur8:n, to include long lists of witnesses from
among the Companions, and to show familiarity with the s;ra, they
seemingly fail to record the basic accepted historical data correctly. The
authors make no particular effort to render the forgeries plausible by, for
example, basing them on historical communities the Prophet could have met.
Thus, apart from the Christians of Najran, we find covenants with
communities the Prophet seems never to have encountered, most notably
the Monks of Mount Sinai. Moreover, the dating of some of these covenants
is early (4 ah or even 2 ah) instead of a later and more plausible date such as
9 ah, well known as the ‘Year of Deputations’. Finally, the names of some of
the ‘witnesses’ are problematic as a number of them could not, for various
reasons, have been present when the covenants were purportedly written.
Morrow invites us to question this accepted view. He explains how
throughout the centuries the covenants were presented to Muslim
authorities who appear to have recognized them as legitimate. For this
reason alone, a thorough study of the covenants needs to be undertaken
before they can be summarily dismissed as fabrications. In this paper,
source-critical methods are applied to argue that these documents are
indeed authentic and can be traced back to the Prophet. Although this
may raise a number of problems in the study of Islamic origins and
Muslim historiography, the covenants nevertheless provide important
insights into the Prophet’s political philosophy and social tolerance.
The Treaty with the Christians of Najran is the only document sent to a
Christian community that has two recensions, as a Christian Covenant and
as a Muslim Compact, permitting us to compare them. The Covenant with
the Christians of Najran is also the only one preceded by an exordium
written by the Prophet wherein he discusses particular events in his life
enabling us to examine its details and compare its contents to the s;ra. If the
Exordium comes to be recognized as authentic, it would provide some
important revisions to what we know of the life of the Prophet. The
principal Muslim sources used for comparison are the s;ra of Ibn IsA:q, the
3
John A. Morrow, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the
Christians of the World (Tacoma, WA: Angelico Press, Sophia Perennis, 2013).
THE PROPHET’S TREATY WITH THE CHRISTIANS 275
s;ra of Ibn Kath;r, and Kit:b Fut<A al-buld:n by al-Bal:dhur;. A survey of
the Aad;th literature reveals few reports and no substantive information to
supplement the above sources which discuss the interaction between the
Prophet and the Christians of Najran at some length.
The earliest works that reference the Compact are the Tafs;r of Muq:til
b. Sulaym:n al-Balkh;4 (d. 150/767); Kit:b al-Amw:l of Ab< 6Ubayd5
(d. 224/838); al-Fabaq:t al-k<br: of Ibn Sa6d6 (d. 230/845); Kit:b al-
Amw:l of Ibn Zanjawayh 7 (d. 251/865); and most famously, Kit:b Fut<A
al-buld:n of al-Bal:dhur;8 (d. 279/ 892). The recension of the Compact
which Muhammad Hamidullah reproduced in his Majm<6at al-wath:8iq
al-siy:siyya was taken from Kit:b al-Siyar of MuAammad b. al-Easan al-
Shayb:n;9 (d. 189/805), which is the most elaborate early version that we
possess. Analysis of the Muslim traditions makes it very difficult to
determine a ‘common-link’ based on the available isn:ds even though the
Compact is generally accepted as legitimate by Muslim scholars.
Given the differences in the text of the sources, this paper will refer to
the ‘Treaty of Najran’ as the ‘Compact’ when quoting from the Islamic
sources; and the ‘Najran Covenant’ or simply the ‘Covenant’ when
quoting from The Chronicle of Seert. The same terms will also be applied
to any other treaty attributed to the Prophet or the second caliph 6Umar
b. al-Kha33:b so that, when quoting from a Muslim or a Christian
source, the document in question will respectively be referred to as a
‘Compact’ or a ‘Covenant’.
A COMPARISON OF THE TERMS

AND CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT
AND THE COMPACT
The Najran Covenant, in common with all other covenants, stresses the
theme of protection after which the main terms and conditions that the
4
‘Tafs;r’ of Muq:til b. Sulaym:n al-Balkh;, Tafs;r, Aad;th no. 13, online: https://
library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=1736&hid=13&pid.
5
Ab< 6Ubayd, Kit:b al-Amw:l, Aad;th no. 432, online: https://library.
islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=73&hid=432&pid.
6
Ibn Sa6d, al-Fabaq:t al-k<bra, Aad;th no. 713, online: https://library.
islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=82&hid=713&pid=35147.
7
Ibn Zanjawayh, Kit:b al-Amw:l, Aad;th no. 567, online: https://library.
islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=134&hid=567&pid.
8
al-Bal:dhur;, Kit:b Fut<A al-buld:n, Aad;th siy:siyya no. 151, online: https://
library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=197&hid=151&pid=125767.
9
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 175–6.
276 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Prophet stipulated to the Christians of his time are listed. These may be
summarized as follows:
1. The Muslims would protect the churches and monasteries of the Christians.
They would not demolish any church property either to build mosques or to
build houses for the Muslims;
2. All ecclesiastical property of the Christians would be exempt from every tax;
3. No ecclesiastical authority would ever be forced by the Muslims to abandon
his post;
4. No Christian would ever be forced by the Muslims to become a convert to
Islam;
5. If a Christian woman married a Muslim, she would have full freedom to
follow her own religion.10
The language and tone of the Covenant are undoubtedly more tolerant
and diplomatic than that of the Compact. The Covenant emphasizes the
Prophet’s pledge to defend and protect the Christians as his first priority
while making little mention of their financial commitments to the
Muslims. Unlike the Compact which begins by stipulating the financial
obligations that the Christians owe the Muslims, and which take up the
bulk of the document, the Covenant focuses instead on the obligations
owed by the Muslims to the Christians.
As will be elaborated later, the Compact was derived from the
Covenant but modified to the Muslims’ advantage while trying to
accommodate the stipulations of the original document. While the
Covenant was intended as a bilateral agreement whose language is
characterized by that of cooperation between people, the Compact has
the tone of an authoritative edict issued by a Muslim ruler engaged in
statecraft. Despite this disparity in tone there are a number of similarities
and subtle differences between the two documents that will here be
summarized.11
10
Sayyid Ali Asghar, A Restatement of the History of Islam and Muslims (UK:
World Federation of KSI Muslim Communities), online: http://www.al-islam.org/
restatement-history-islam-and-muslims-sayyid-ali-ashgar-razwy/expedition-
tabuk (last accessed: 18 January 2015). Although Asghar summarizes the terms
of the Covenant with the Monks of Mount Sinai, these also apply to all the other
covenants.
11
The English translation of al-Shayb:n;’s recension of the Compact is quoted
from Adil Salahi’s book Muhammad: Man and Prophet (Leicester: Islamic
Foundation, revised edn., 2002), 751–2. Salahi does not provide a reference for
his translation of the Compact, but having compared it to al-Shayb:n;’s
recension, it is obvious that it is a translation of that same document.
a) Protection of their livelihood, land and property
The protection of the Christians is emphasized in the Covenant in the
strongest of words:
I hereby declare that my horsemen, my foot-soldiers, my armies, my resources,
and my Muslim partisans will protect the Christians as far away as they may be
located, whether they inhabit the lands which border my empire, in any region,
close or far, in times of peace as much as in times of war.
I commit myself to support them, to place their persons under my protection, as
well as their churches, chapels, oratories, the monasteries of their monks, the
residences of their anchorites, wherever they are found, be they in the mountains
or the valleys, caves or inhabited regions, in the plains or in the desert.
I will protect their religion and their Church wherever they are found, be it on
earth or at sea, in the West or in the East, with utmost vigilance on my part, the
People of my House, and the Muslims as a whole.
I place them under my protection. I make a pact with them. I commit myself to
protect them from any harm or damage; to exempt them for any requisitions
or any onerous obligations and to protect them myself, by means of my
assistants, my followers and my nation against every enemy who targets me
and them.12
The Compact expresses those same rights but in a very condensed and
abridged form:
Najr:n has the protection of God and the pledges of Muhammad, the Prophet, to
protect their lives, faith, land, property, those who are absent and those who are
present, and their clan and allies. . . They are not required to be mobilized and no
army shall trespass on their land.13
b) Prohibition to remove their ecclesiastical authorities

The Covenant reads:
It is not permitted to remove a bishop from his bishopric, a monk from his
monastic life, or anchorite from his vocation as a hermit. Nor is it permitted to
destroy any part of their churches, to take parts of their buildings to construct
mosques or the homes of Muslims. Whoever does such a thing will have violated
the pact of Allah, disobeyed his Messenger, and become estranged from the
Divine Alliance.14
12
Morrow, Covenants, 297–8.
13
Salahi, Muhammad: Man and Prophet, 752.
14
Morrow, Covenants, 298.
278 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Similarly, the Compact states:

They need not change anything of their past customs.15 No right of theirs or their
religion shall be altered. No bishop, monk or church guard shall be removed
from his position. Whatever they have is theirs, no matter how big or small.16
c) Guaranteeing the right of asylum to Muslims

The people of Najran were entrusted to give asylum to the Muslims. The
Covenant informs us that:
They must host for three days and three nights any Muslims who halt among
them, with their animals. They must offer them, wherever they are found, and
wherever they are going, the same food with which they live themselves
without, however, being obliged to endure other annoying or onerous burdens.
If a Muslim needs to hide in one of their homes or oratories, they must grant
him hospitality, guide him, help him, and provide him with their food during
the entire time he will be among them, making every effort to keep him
concealed and to prevent the enemy from finding him, while providing for all of
his needs.17
The Compact expresses the same stipulations in slightly different terms

extending the period of 3 days to 20 days but not exceeding one month:
The Najr:n are also required to provide accommodation and expenses for my
messengers, for up to 20 days. None of my messengers shall be kept in Najran
more than one month.18
d) Support for the Muslims’ war efforts

The Covenant absolves the Christians from any participation in war
efforts unless it be of their own free will. It even prohibits the Muslims
from using them as spies to avoid endangering their lives:
No Christian is to be constrained to provide equipment to a single Muslim,
in money, in arms or in horses, in the event of a war in which the Believers
15
The expression ‘They need not change anything of their past customs’
cannot be found in al-Shayb:n;’s recension. It can however be found in the
recension of the Compact that exists in al-Bal:dhur;’s Kit:b Fut<A al-buld:n
(Aad;th no.151) and which reads: l: yughayyar m: k:n< 6alayh; wa-l: yughayyar
Aaqq min Auq<qihim.
https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=197&hid=
151&pid=125767.
16
17
18
Salahi, Muhammad: Man and Prophet, 751
attack their enemies, unless they contribute to the cause freely. . . In matters
of war between them and their enemies, the Muslims will not employ
any Christian as a messenger, scout, guide or spy or for any other duty of
war.19
Even though the Compact does not request them to fight, it does
however require the Christians’ logistical support:
They are also required to give, as a loan, 30 shields, 30 horses and 30 camels, in
case of any disorder and treachery in Yemen. If anything is lost of the shields,
horses or camels they loan to my messenger, it will remain owing by my
messenger until it is given back.20
e) Taxation
The level of taxation imposed on the Christians in the Compact is not
one which they seem to have any say in. In the Covenant, the Prophet
states that ‘I forbid any conquerors of the faith to rule over them
during their invasions or to oblige them to pay taxes unless they
themselves willingly consent’.21 The Compact stipulates that the
Christians of Najran need to pay 2,000 Aullas every year.22 The
Covenant requires that ‘a limit set of four dirhams per year’23 be paid
by all Christians who are not clerics, monks, or hermits and 12 dirhams
by landowners, merchants and owners of mines.24 The amount of
4 dirhams or its equivalent is agreed upon by both sources but they
differ on how many times a year the jizya should be paid. In any case
the tax stipulations in the Covenant are more conciliatory than in the
Compact.
19
20
Salahi, Muhammad: Man and Prophet, 751–2.
21
22
23
24
Bar Hebraeus describes the terms and conditions of the Najran covenant as
being the same as those given in The Chronicle of Seert, including the jiziya rate
of 4 dirhams for the ordinary folk and 12 dirhams for the wealthy. See Gregorii
Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum (eds. Joannes Baptista Abbeloos and
Thomas Josephus Lamy; Parisiis: Apud Maisonneuve / Lovanii: Excudebat Car.
Peeters, 1877), iii. sec. 2, 118.
280 AHMED EL-WAKIL
DATING THE COVENANT AND THE

EXORDIUM
The Compact is not dated but is believed by al-F:bar; to have been formulated
in 10 ah.25 That date is contested by modern scholars such as Ja6far al-Suj:n;
who believes it was written in 9 ah,26 in the Year of Deputations.27 The
Chronicle of Seert does not provide a date for either the Covenant or the
Exordium but does tell us that al-Sayyid Ghass:n;, the Prince of Najran, visited
the Prophet in the 18th year of Heraclius’ rule, the same year that Kavadh II
died and was succeeded by his son Ardashir III,28 6 September 628/1 or 2
Jum:d: al-Ūl: 7 ah. The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus links al-Sayyid
Ghass:n;’s visit to historical events that took place in the same year, and the
later editors of his Chronography go to some length to confirm that a visit to
Madina by Najrani Christians did indeed take place in 7 ah.29
The absence of a date in the Covenant and the Exordium is problematic and
can be interpreted in a number of ways. The first possibility is that both
documents were issued in 7 ah, perhaps to ratify an existing treaty. The second
possibility is that one of the documents was issued in 7 ah and the other before
or after that date. In order to shed some light on when the Covenant and the
Exordium could have been issued, we will begin by identifying the possible
date of the Prophet’s first encounter with the Christians of Najran.
WHEN DID THE CHRISTIANS OF NAJRAN

FIRST VISIT THE PROPHET?
Ibn Eajar al-6Asqal:n; relates that the Najranite Christians visited the
Prophet on two separate occasions.30 Ibn Kath;r gives details of these
25
MuAammad b. Jar;r al-Fabar;, The History of al-Fabar;. Vol. 9: The Last
Years of the Prophet (The Formation of the State A.D. 630–632/A.H. 8–11)
(transl. Ismail K. Poonawala; New York: State University of New York Press,
1990), x1740, 98.
26
Ja6far al-SubA:n;, Sayyid al-Mursal;n (Qum: M<8assassat al-Nashr al-
Isl:miyya al-T:bbi6a li-Jam:6at al-Mudarris;n, 1412–13 [1991–92]), ii. 619.
27
The ‘Year of Deputations’ (9 ah) is the year, as claimed in the Islamic
sources, that deputations from across Arabia came to visit the Prophet in Madina
to embrace Islam and pledge allegiance to the Prophet.
28
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 600 [280].
29
Bar Hebraeus’ annotated text demonstrates a high degree of meticulousness
in the dating of historical events: Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, iii. 113–14.
30
Ibn Eajar al-6Asqal:n;, FatA al-bar; SharA 4ah;A al-Bukhar;, K. al-Magh:z;
(Cairo: D:r al-Ray:n li-l-Tur:th, 1986), 696; online: http://library.islamweb.net/
two visits, dating the first visit to 9 ah, the Year of Deputations, but not
dating the second.31 According to Ibn IsA:q, a deputation of Christians
from Najran arrived in Madina before the battle of Badr, i.e., around 2
ah.32
Ibn IsA:q relates that after some debate with the Prophet over the
nature of Christ, the beginning of the third s<ra of the Qur8:n, 2l 6Imr:n,
was supposedly revealed and they were challenged to a mub:hala—or
imprecation (Q. 3. 61). According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet had
summoned his daughter F:3ima, his cousin and son in-law 6Al; b. Ab;
F:lib and their two children al-Easan and al-Eusayn for this impreca-
tion which according to the Shi6a is usually thought to have taken place
on 24 Dh< al-Eijja. They then gathered under MuAammad’s cloak and
came to be known as ahl al-kis:8 or ‘the People of the Cloak’.33 If we are
to accept the general gist of this account, then it could only have taken
place after 4 ah, for al-Eusayn, the Prophet’s youngest grandson, is
supposed to have been born on 3 Sha6b:n 4 ah / 7 or 8 January 626.
In the notes to his translation of the Qur8:n, Muhammad Asad says
that 2l 6Imr:n was ‘the second or (according to some authorities) the
third [s<ra] to have been revealed at Madina apparently in the year 3
AH’.34 While generally confirming Ibn IsA:q’s early date for 2l 6Imr:n,
Asad notes that ‘some of its verses, however, belong to a much later
period, namely, to the year preceding the Prophet’s death (10 AH.)’.35
Because the revelation of the mub:hala passage does not fit Ibn IsA:q’s
date for the Najranis’ visit, Asad argues that Q. 3. 59–63 was revealed in
10 ah.36 This exception, however, is not warranted: since the mub:hala
was revealed in the context of the debate on the nature of Christ, it seems
newlibrary/display_book.php?idfrom=7894&idto=7898&bk_no=52&ID=2260
(last accessed: 18 January 2015).
31
Ibn Kath;r, The Life of the Prophet MuAammad: al-S;ra al-nabawiyya
(transl. Trevor Le Gassick, reviewed by Muneer Fareed; Centre for Muslim
Contribution to Civilization; Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2000), iv. v–vi, 71–6.
Ibn Kath;r places the visit of the delegation of Najran after the expedition of
Fabuk in 9 ah.
32
Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s
S;rat Ras<l All:h (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), x401–11, 270–7.
33
For a detailed Shi6a account of this event, see Shaykh al-Muf;d, Kit:b al-
Irsh:d: The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams (transl. I. K.
A. Howard; Qum: Ansariyan Publications, 2004), 116–19.
34
Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur8:n (Bitton: The Book
Foundation, 2003), 78.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid, 90, n. 48.
282 AHMED EL-WAKIL
more plausible that Q. 3. 59–63 was revealed relatively early in

MuAammad’s prophetic career rather than later.
The Exordium describes the relationship between the Prophet and the
Christians of Najran as one of trust, mentioning that ‘the bishops and the
monks showed an unshakable loyalty’.37 Such a relationship must have
taken time to develop, which opens the possibility that these Christians
visited the Prophet in Makka before the Hijra. Ibn IsA:q tells us that
‘some twenty Christians’38 came to visit the Prophet in Makka,
presumably prior to Ab< F:lib’s death in 619, while he still enjoyed
some degree of protection there. Ibn IsA:q believed this Christian
delegation to have been from Abyssinia but he then adds that ‘It is said
that these Christians came from Najran, but God knows whether that
was so’.39 If Ibn IsA:q is correct, an early encounter in Makka before 619
would certainly support the long-term relationship indicated in the
Exordium.
THE NAMES AND NUMBERS OF THE

DELEGATES FROM NAJRAN
The Exordium provides the names of ‘al-Sayyid [Ghass:n;], 6Abdu

Yash<8 [Abd;sh<], Ibn Eijra, Ibr:h;m the monk, and 6Īs: the Bishop’40 as
members of the delegation that came to visit the Prophet. The Covenant
was written at the request of and addressed to al-Sayyid Ghass:n;, the
Chief (sayyid) of the Ban< al-E:rith b. Ka6b ‘the dominant tribe in
Najran in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries’.41 A footnote in The
Chronicle of Seert identifies al-Sayyid Ghass:n; as the Sayyid of the Ban<
al-E:rith b. Ka6b.42 Bar Hebraeus confirms his high-ranking position by
telling us that al-Sayyid Ghass:n;, or ‘Said’ as he is referred to in his
Chronography, was the Prince of Najran.43
According to Ibn IsA:q the three prominent members of the Najrani
delegation were their political leader (i.e., their 6:qib) 6Abd al-Mas;A, their
37
38
Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, x259, 179.
39
Ibid.
40
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 605 [285]. See also Morrow, Covenants, 294;
303. I have here departed from Morrow’s translation, which is incorrect as he has
mistakenly omitted the particle ‘wa’ from the original Arabic text.
41
Irfan Shahı̂d, Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century (Washington,
DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1989), 400.
42
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 605 [285], Arabic n. 5.
43
Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, iii. sec. ii, 116.
bishop Ab< E:ritha b. 6Alqama, and al-Ayham (a.k.a. al-Abham)44 who
was their sayyid, in charge of their administrative affairs. Ibn Kath;r also
mentions ShuraAb;l b. Wad:8a, another prominent leader of theirs.45 At no
point do the names of ‘the fourteen principal men among the sixty riders’
provided by Ibn IsA:q match any of those mentioned in the Exordium. This
is particularly striking considering they had established a long-term political
relationship with the Prophet. The possibility that both the Islamic sources
and The Chronicle of Seert were referring to the same individuals, only
differing over their names because of differences in the use of titles and
epithets instead of proper names, is not one supported by the texts.
Finally, the Exordium informs us that the delegation consisted of ‘forty
horsemen from Najran’46 but this number is not corroborated by the
Islamic sources which give us figures of around 20 Christians visiting the
Prophet in Makka, and 14 or 24 of their leaders and notables47 from
among 60 riders coming to see him in Madina. Shaykh al-Muf;d tells us
that the delegation consisted of 30 Christians48 and although none of the
figures in the Islamic sources are far-off from the number 40 found in the
Exordium, they do not at any point match.
THE WITNESSES TO THE TREATY OF NAJRAN
A major point of contention between the Compact and the Covenant is

how none of the names of the witnesses match. The witnesses to the
Compact are Ab< Sufy:n b. Earb, Gh;l:n b. 6Amr, M:lik b. 6Awf from
the Ban< NaBr, al-Aqra6 b. E:bis al-EanCal; and al-Mugh;ra b. Shu6ba. It
was either written by 6Abdullah b. Ab; Bakr49 or 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib.50
Another variant of the Compact lists 6Uthm:n b. 6Uthm:n and Mu8ayq;b
b. Ab; F:3ima as witnesses.51 Interestingly, the list of witnesses comprises
of individuals who mostly converted to Islam in 8 ah (Ab< Sufy:n b.
Earb, Gh;l:n b. 6Amr, M:lik b. 6Awf) or in 9 ah (al-Aqra6 b. E:bis
44
Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-nabawiyya, iv. 75.
45
Ibid, 71–2.
46
47
Ibn Eajar, FatA al-bar;. This author reports the number as 24, not 14. Ibn
Kath;r mentions both numbers but the Arabic text is incomplete at just this point,
so we do not get additional details about who the 14 or 24 actually were. See Ibn
Kath;r, al-S;ra al-nabawiyya, iv. 75.
48
Shaykh al-Muf;d, Kit:b al-Irsh:d, 116.
49
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 176.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid, 179.
284 AHMED EL-WAKIL
al-EanCal;). Ibn Kath;r notes that a compact was drawn for each of the
two visits of the Christians of Najran52 to Madina. This implies that a
first Compact was drawn in 9 and a second in 10 ah.
Regardless of whether we give the Najran Covenant a relatively early,
intermediate, or late Madinan date, we are still confronted with a host of
problems, evident when we compare this Covenant to the others. To
begin with, Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n is supposed to have written it down.
However, Mu6:wiya is usually regarded as a late convert to Islam. Ibn
Eajar’s biographical entry on Mu6:wiya tells us that he was ‘the Caliph
and Companion who embraced Islam before the conquest of Makka and
who wrote [parts of] the revelation’.53 Muslim scholars place his
conversion at the earliest in 7 ah after the Treaty of Eudaybiya.
However, this conflicts with some of the covenants that clearly name
Mu6:wiya as their scribe as early as 2 and 4 ah respectively.
Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib is mentioned as a witness to the Najran Covenant but
also to the two other covenants dated to 4 ah. Now, Ja6far was supposed
to have led the Muslims to Abyssinia and returned to Madina in 7 ah after
the battle of Khaybar. He then remained with the Prophet until his death
at the battle of Mu8ta in 7 or 8 ah:54 nothing in the Islamic sources
indicates that he was living in Madina from 4 ah onwards.
A similar difficulty arises with Ab< Eurayra. His conversion to Islam,
according to Islamic sources occurred in 7 ah. Even if we accept an
earlier date for his conversion as Usman Ghani has proposed,55 there is
no evidence that he was living in Madina before 7 ah. Yet, Ab< Eurayra
is named as a witness to two earlier covenants—that with the Monks of
Mount Sinai56 and that with the Armenian Christians57 written in 2 ah,
and that with the Christians of the World written in 4 ah.58 This would
52
Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-nabawiyya, iv. 73–5.
53
Ibn Eajar al-6Asqal:n;, Taqr;b al-tahdh;b (Riyadh: D:r al-62Bima, 1421 ah),
954, entry no. 6806.
54
For the problems in dating the battle of Mu8ta, see: David Roberts,
MuAammad Is Not the Father of Any of Your Men: The Making of the Last
Prophet (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, [2009] 2014), 72–93.
55
Usman Ghani, ‘ ‘‘Abu Hurayra’’ a Narrator of Ead;th Revisited: an
examination into the dichotomous representations of an important figure in
Ead;th with special reference to classical Islamic modes of criticism’ (PhD diss.,
University of Exeter, 2011), 36–41.
56
The first study of the Covenant with the Monks of Mount Sinai was done by
AAmad Zak; B:sh:. To read the entire covenant in Arabic, see Hamidullah,
Majm<6at al-Wath:8iq al-Siy:siyya, 561–6; for the dating, 563.
57
Ibid, 559.
58
Gabriel Sionita, Testamentum et Pactiones Initae inter Mohamedem et
Chritianae Fidei Cultores (Parisiis: Vitray, 1630), 14. Ab< Eurayra’s name may
mean that he was an early convert to Islam who spent a great deal of
time with the Prophet in Madina, which might explain why so many
Aad;ths were narrated on his authority.
It is interesting that the name of the ‘Chief of the Martyrs’ Eamza b.
al-Mu33alib does not appear in the Najran Covenant though it does
appear in the covenants with the Christians of the World59 and the
Assyrian Christians.60 Both these covenants name him as a witness in 4
ah when he was supposed to have been martyred in UAud in Shaww:l 3
ah. Could this mean that UAud took place in 4 ah rather than in 3 ah,
and the reason why Eamza’s name does not appear in the Najran
Covenant is because he was martyred by that time? One narration, on
the authority of the traditionist Qat:da b. Di8:ma (61–118/680–736),
reported by Ibn Kath;r tells us that the battle of UAud ‘took place on
Saturday, 11 Shaww:l’.61 A Hijri to Gregorian conversion for this date in
year 3 ah returns either a Tuesday62 or a Wednesday.63 However, for the
year 4 ah, it returns either Saturday64 or Sunday. Could this mean that
the battle of UAud occurred on Saturday, 11 Shaww:l 4 ah?
According to J. M. B. Jones, some Muslim scholars did believe UAud
occurred in 4 ah: he notes that ‘al-Zurq:n; refers to but refutes those
who put it in the year 4’.65 A report in the s;ra of Ibn IsA:q records that
the Judeo-Muslim Rabbi Mukhayr;q ‘on the day of UAud, which fell on
the sabbath. . . reminded the Jews that they were bound to help
also be on the Covenant with the Assyrian Christians: see Appendix A,

WITNESSES.
59
Ibid.
60
61
Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-nabawiyya, iii. 11.
62
According to the date converter on the ‘Al-Islam.com’ website, 11 Shaww:l
3 ah would have been on Tuesday 26 March 625: http://www.al-islam.com/
Loader.aspx?pageid=918 (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
63
According to the date converter on the ‘IslamiCity.com’ website, 11 Shaww:l
3 ah would have been on Wednesday March 625: http://www.islamicity.com/
prayertimes/hijriconverter1apartner.htm (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
64
There is always a one-day margin of error in the conversion of Hijri to
Gregorian dates. The date converter from the website ‘Al-Islam, for 11 Shaww:l
4 ah, returns Saturday 15 March 626: http://www.al-islam.com/Loader.
aspx?pageid=918 (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
The website ‘IslamiCity.com’ returns Sunday 16 March 626: http://www.
islamicity.com/prayertimes/hijriconverter1apartner.htm (last accessed: 7 November
2015).
65
J. M. B. Jones, ‘The Chronology of the ‘‘Magh:z;’’—A Textual Survey’,
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 19/2 (1957), 245–80, at
248 n. 16.
286 AHMED EL-WAKIL
MuAammad. They objected that it was the sabbath’.66 This appears to

confirm that the battle of UAud did indeed take place on a Saturday,
which, for 11 Shaww:l, happened in 4 ah, not 3. Thus, the presence of
Eamza’s name in the covenants with the Christians of the World and the
Assyrian Christians conforms to the historical data. The Najran
Covenant, for which he is not named as a witness, was then most
probably written later than Eamza’s death.67
THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE COVENANTS

WITH THE CHRISTIANS
In addition to the Najran Covenant, Morrow has collected in his book

five others. Given the similarity of language in all six, we may reasonably
propose that if one can be proven to be authentic, then the reliability of
the others is strengthened. At first sight the names of the witnesses that
we find in these covenants may lead us to dismiss them as forgeries
replete with factual errors that blatantly contradict known facts about
66
67
Ibn IsA:q says (ibid, x588, 389) that ‘[t]he battle was fought on the sabbath
in mid-Shaww:l; and on the morning of Sunday the 16th of the month the
apostle’s crier called to the men to go in pursuit of the enemy. . .’. According to al-
Fabar; ‘the expedition of the Messenger of God to UAud. . . is said to have been
on Saturday, 7 Shaww:l, in Year Three of the Hijrah’. See MuAammad b. Jar;r al-
Fabar;, The History of al-Fabar;. Vol. 7 (The Foundation of the Community:
Muhammad at al-Madina AD 622-626/Hijrah–4 AH). (transl. and annotated by
Michael V. McDonald and William Montgomery Watt; Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1987), x1383, 105. Al-Fabar; explains (ibid,
x1387, 108) that the ‘Quraysh camped at UAud on Wednesday and remained
there on that day, Thursday, and Friday’ later adding that battle was ‘joined on
Saturday, halfway through Shaww:l’ (ibid). The 15 Shaww:l 3 ah returns as a
Saturday according to the ‘Al-Islam.com’ date converter while 7 Shaww:l 3 ah
also returns as a Saturday according to the ‘IslamiCity.com’ date converter. Both
of these Saturdays cannot be accurate for the same month of the same year for
they are both derived from two separate calendars. If the battle of UAud was
fought on Saturday 15 Shaww:l 3 ah then the UAud expedition on the 7
Shaww:l 3 ah would have been on a Friday, not a Saturday. Perhaps one way of
reconciling the sources is to suggest that the expedition of UAud took place on
Tuesday 7 Shaww:l 4 ah, as per the ‘Al-Islam.com’ date converter; that the
Quraysh camped at UAud from Wednesday 8 to Friday 10 Shaww:l 4 ah; and
that the battle was fought on Saturday the 11 Shaww:l 4 ah. See: http://www.al-
islam.com/Loader.aspx?pageid=918; http://www.islamicity.com/prayertimes/hij
riconverter1apartner.htm (last accessed 7 November 2015).
early Islamic history. This however becomes more difficult when we
carefully analyse and cross-compare the covenants with the Christians of
the World, with the Assyrian Christians and with the Christians of
Persia.
The Covenant with the Christians of the World which was first
reproduced by Gabriel Sionita and published in 1630 ce states that
‘Mu6:wiya transcribed it from the Messenger of Allah on Monday just at
the closing of the first four months of the fourth year of the Hijra in
Madina (yawm al-ithnayn tam:m arba6at ashhur min al-sana al-r:bi6a
min al-hijra bi-l-Mad;na)’.68 The translation of the Covenant with the
Assyrian Christians, reproduced by George David Malech in 1910, states
that it was ‘written down by Moavijah Ben Sofian, according to
the dictates of Mohammed, the messenger of God, in the 4th year of the
Hegira in the city of Madina’.69 Malech failed to correctly translate the
precise dating of the covenant which in fact also reads as ‘on Monday at
the end of the fourth month of the fourth year of the Hijra in Madina’
(r<z8i d<shanbah :khir-I m:h-i chah:rum az s:l-i chah:rum az hijrat bi-
Mad;na)’.70 It is obvious that this Persian copy of the covenant which
Malech reproduced is a translation of a now lost Arabic document. The
date when it was signed not only coincides with the Sionita Covenant
with the Christians of the World but also with the Covenant with the
Christians of Persia, which too ‘was drawn up on the Monday following
the first four months of the Fourth Year of the Hegira’.71
68
The English translation provided by Morrow (Covenants, 236), Edward A.
Van Dyck (Covenants, 232) and Sir Paul Rycaut (Morrow, Covenants, 229) are all
inaccurate. The Arabic word tam:m in this context means ‘at the end’ or ‘at the
closing’ and arba6at ashhur means ‘four months’. The meaning is quite clear: the
last day of the fourth month of the Hijra. Considering the Arabs kept a record of
the days of the week, evidenced by the keeping of the Sabbath by the Jews of
Madina and by the Friday congregational prayers, there is no reason why Monday
would not have been stipulated as a part of the date in the Covenant. See Gabriel
Sionita, Testamentum et Pactiones Initae inter Mohamedem et Christianae fidei
Cultores (Parisiis: Vitray, 1630), 15–16, online: http://books.google.co.uk/book-
s?id=sOlMAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=testamentumþpactiones&hl=
en&sa=X&ei=QMzSUYPgMqil0QXi0YHYCg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBQ#v=one
page&q=testamentum%20pactiones&f=false (last accessed: 18 January 2015).
69
George David Malech, History of the Syrian Nation and the Old
Evangelical-Apostolic Church of the East (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, [1910]
2006), 230.
70
Ibid, 222.
71
Leon Arpee, A History of Armenian Christianity: From the Beginning to
Our Own Time (New York: The Armenian Missionary Association of America,
1946), 360.
288 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Though it is theoretically possible that these three covenants were

written on the same day to be dispatched to various Christian
communities, a cross-comparison reveals that they are in fact three
different recensions of a Source Covenant (see Appendix A). Sionita’s
Covenant with the Christians of the World appears to be the most
authentic version in contrast to the two other recensions which clearly
were amended by Shi6a sympathizers (whether these sympathizers were
Muslim or Christian is unclear). Another copy of the Source Covenant
came into the hands of Louis Cheikho, a well-known theologian and
pioneer in the rediscovery of the Eastern Christian heritage. The dating
of Cheikho’s reproduction differs slightly in language from Sionita’s
though its meaning is the same. Its date reads as: ‘yawm al-ithnayn f;
khit:m [instead of tam:m] arba6at ashhur min al-sana al-r:bi6a min al-
hijra bi-l-Mad;na.’72 Disregarding the authenticity of the Source
Covenant becomes difficult when we consider that the dating provided
in its four recensions is accurate: Using modern computational tools, we
now know that the 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n;—i.e., the last day of the fourth
month of the Hijra—fell on a Monday in 4 ah, to be precise on Monday
7 October 625.73 If these covenants were forged, then surely the forgers
could have chosen any other day of the week besides Monday, but clearly
they didn’t. And if they were Christians, as is alleged, then their
backdating the covenant to a Monday is even more unlikely due to their
unfamiliarity with the Hijri calendar. Given the uncertainty of the
visibility of the moon, there is no way of knowing for sure whether at the
end of a given month the next day is the beginning of the new month or
the last day of the current month. How then did Mu6:wiya, who would
have written this covenant in daylight, before sunset and the possibility
of sighting the moon, know that this particular Monday was the last day
of the fourth month? His certainty that it was the last day of Rab;6 al-
Th:n; must have stemmed from his knowing that the previous month,
Rab;6 al-Awwal, had been 30 days. Because the lunar months alternate
between 29 and 30 days in the Hijri calendar, Mu6:wiya knew that this
Rab;6 al-Th:n; must end on the 29th day.
72
Louis Cheikho, Uh<d Nab; al-Isl:m wa al-Khulaf:8 al-R:shid;n lil-NaB:ra,
Al-Machriq: Revue Catholique Orientale Mensuelle (Beirut: Imprimerie
Catholique, 1909), 214. See also Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya,
554.
73
The website ‘Al-Islam.org’ converts 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; to Monday 7 October
625: http://www.al-islam.com/Loader.aspx?pageid=918 (last accessed: 7
November 2015). On the other hand, the website ‘IslamiCity.com’ converts it to
Tuesday 8 October 625: http://www.islamicity.com/PrayerTimes/defaultHijriConv.
asp (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
Mu6:wiya is clearly stated as the scribe for two of the four recensions
of the Source Covenant. His name however does not appear in the fourth
recension, i.e., the Covenant with the Christians of Persia. Since the
English translation of this Covenant relied on a Persian manuscript, itself
a translation of an original Arabic document, it appears, as Morrow has
suggested, that this version was effectively ‘tampered with by Shi6ite
scholars’.74 Either the original Arabic document was slightly altered in
its Persian translation to align with Shi6a dogmas or it was slightly
amended following verbal agreements between the Christians and 6Al;
(or his Companions) during his Caliphate, with the intent of clarifying
ambiguous concepts that had crept into the religion of Islam.
Consequently, the head of state is referred to as ‘the Imam’75 and the
covenant allows Christian women, of their own free-will, to wed Muslim
men ‘only for a time’,76 thereby affirming the Shi6a belief that the Im:m is
the head of the Muslim community and recognizing the Shi6a practice of
temporary marriage, which had hitherto been prohibited by 6Umar. The
Covenant with the Christians of Persia was apparently authenticated by
Im:m Ja6far al-4:diq, who was asked to do so, most probably because it
had 6Al;’s mark on it, meaning that it could have been approved and
ratified by him even though originally written down by Mu6:wiya . Shi6a
tendencies also affected the recension of the Covenant with the Assyrian
Christians (see Appendix A).
The authenticity of the Christian covenants has major implications for
our understanding of early Islamic history. For example, to this day
Muslim historians have been unable to explain how Mu6:wiya could
have been a scribe of the Prophet. Even if we accept that Mu6:wiya
embraced Islam in 7 ah, he is never depicted in the Islamic sources as a
trusted Companion, one who could have been given a responsibility as
sensitive as writing the Prophet’s diplomatic correspondence.
However, if we accept Mu6:wiya’s presence in Madina at a relatively
early period, it would explain why so many Companions trusted him and
took his side during the civil war that he fought against 6Al;. The
Covenant of the Prophet MuAammad with the Armenian Christians that
was discovered by Hamidullah in Turkey, and which is dated on a
‘‘Monday in the sacred month of Dh< al-Eijja in the second year of the
noble hijra,’’77 was written by Mu6:wiya. The authenticity of this
covenant would confirm Mu6:wiya as an early convert to Islam and a
close Companion of the Prophet. This would make it understandable
74
75
Arpee, A History of Armenian Christianity, 358.
76
Ibid.
77
290 AHMED EL-WAKIL
why 6Umar appointed him as governor of Syria during his Caliphate and
why al-Easan and al-Eusayn pledged allegiance to him and never
rebelled against his rule after their father’s death. Mu6:wiya was
considered fit to govern based on his proven diplomatic track-record, a
reputation which he no doubt earned for having written a number of
covenants on behalf of the Prophet. Interestingly, Mu6:wiya’s skilled
diplomacy is attested by the Nestorian John bar Penkaye who, writing
between 687 and 691s, remarked how the latter had successfully
implemented the Prophet’s policy as espoused in the covenants:
A man among them named Mu6awiya took the reins of government of the two
empires: Persian and Roman. Justice flourished under his reign, and a great peace
was established in the countries that were under his government, and allowed
everyone to live as they wished. They had received, as I said, from the man who
was their guide [i.e. MuAammad] an order in favour of the Christians and the
monks. . . While Mu6awiya reigned there was such a great peace in the world as
was never heard of, according to our fathers and our fathers’ fathers.78
It is unknown to whom the Source Covenant was given. Its recension

as the Covenant with the Christians of the World was found in a
monastery at Mount Carmel belonging to the Carmelites, one of the
oldest orders of Catholic monks in the Holy Land. The second recension,
the Covenant with the Christians of Persia was found in the archives of
the Armenian Bishop of New Julfa, a city located in the Armenian
quarter of Isfahan in Iran. The third recension, the Covenant with
the Assyrian Christians, was handed over by Shimon IV, Patriarch of the
Assyrian Church of the East, to Selim I (r. 1512–1520).79 As for
the fourth and last recension, Cheikho does not provide us with details of
its provenance, only telling us that it first appeared in the 13th edition of
the journal ‘Raw@at al-Ma6:rif’.80 What is clear is that this document
78
It is noteworthy that though John bar Penkaye praises Mu6:wiya, he holds
nothing but contempt for his son whose incompetence he openly criticized. He
writes: ‘When Mu6awiya ended his days and left the world, Yazid his son reigned in
his stead. He did not follow in the footsteps of his father, but he loved children’s
games and the pastimes of the idle. The strength of men declined under his weak
government; because the devil put the finishing touch to the punishment of men,
that of useless toil; but God took him soon after.’’ See John bar Penkaye, Summary
of World History, Book 15, translated by Alphonse Mingana and Englished by
Roger Pearse, reproduced online by ‘tertullian.org’: http://www.tertullian.org/
fathers/john_bar_penkaye_history_15_trans.htm (accessed November 6, 2015).
79
For a discussion of the provenance of these Covenants, see Morrow,
Covenants, 99–103, 139–62, 177–83.
80
Louis Cheikho, Uh<d Nab; al-Isl:m, 609–10.
was copied and distributed within different Christian denominations
across the Muslim world.
The Covenant with the Armenian Christians, the Source Covenant
of Monday 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4 ah, and the Covenant with the Christians
of Najran were written by Mu6:wiya and all have a comprehensive list of
witnesses to them. A cross-comparison of these names leads us to
conclude with a high degree of confidence that they are all independent
of one another, having been written for different Christian communities
(see Appendix B). The 1538 reproduction of the Covenant with the
Christians of the World also has a comprehensive list of witnesses to it
but the date when it was originally issued is lacking. According to
Morrow ‘it may represent a Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with
the Christians of Egypt’.81 This is a reasonable suggestion because of
where it was found and, as Morrow points out, ‘it contains some marked
differences’82 from the 1630 Covenant with the Christians of the World.
The differences rule out the possibility of the Prophet having dictated the
same covenant to both 6Al; and Mu6:wiya on the same day. Since the
Covenant of 1538 was written by 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib and because it can
trace its roots back to Egypt, just like the Covenant with the Monks of
Mount Sinai, the possibility arises of the latter being an abridged version
of the former. However, following a cross-comparison of the witnesses’
names, we can with a high degree of confidence make the case that it too
is an independent covenant in its own right (see Appendix C).
Cheikho has recorded two other covenants that are very similar in
style and language to all the Christian covenants we have so far analysed.
The first was supposedly written by 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib in the year 2 ah just
like the Covenant with the Christians of Mount Sinai;83 while the second
was written by Mu6:wiya and is addressed to the Copts and the Syriac
Jacobites of Egypt.84 Nothing at this point in time can be said about their
authenticity.
Based upon our analysis, the charge that the Christian covenants are
forgeries appears unconvincing. Though one cannot deny that forgeries
did occur, it seems that what was involved was not the fabrication of
documents, but rather the reproduction of authentic ones. The Source
Covenant of Monday 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4 ah is authentic and can be
traced back to the Prophet. However, it was also widely copied and
81
82
Ibid.
83
Cheikho, Uh<d Nab; al-Isl:m, 615–16. See also Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-
wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 554–5.
84
Cheikho, Uh<d Nab; al-Isl:m, 617. See also Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-
wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 555.
292 AHMED EL-WAKIL
circulated across different Christian communities in the Muslim world.

But, can we really blame the Christians for that? If they knew of an
authentic covenant granted to all Christians by the Prophet himself,
wouldn’t they have wanted a copy? Wouldn’t that have been better for
them than to forge their own defective copy for which they could face
potential humiliation before their Muslim rulers and charges of
blasphemy? Lastly, the Source Covenant was addressed to the
Christians of the World, and so the various Christian communities had
every right to keep a copy of it if they so wished.
THE CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS

IN NAJRAN
Irfan Shahı̂d has noted that a number of Christian denominations were

living in Najran prior to the rise of Islam. According to C. Jonn Block,
the majority of Najran’s population would have been Philoponian
Monophysites who adhered to a tritheistic theology.85 Following
the Abyssinian conquest of South Arabia in 525 ce Abraha became
the king of Himyar. Shahı̂d has proposed that Abraha converted to
Chalcedonianism but Block has argued instead that he ‘allowed
ambiguity in his presentation of his faith in order to gain Byzantine
support for his action against the Persians’.86
Nestorianism made its way into Najran around the beginning of the
fifth century ce but appears to have been suppressed following the
Abyssinian invasion. After the Persian conquest which overturned
Abyssinian rule in Yemen in 570, we can argue with confidence that
Najran’s Monophysite leadership was replaced by members of the E:rith
b. Ka6b who formally adhered to the Assyrian Church of the East. In the
Prophet’s time, it was al-Sayyid Ghass:n; who was appointed as the
Prince of Najran, most likely by the Sassanians, because of his Nestorian
affiliations, to be their vassal representative.
Block has argued that the delegation from Najran to the Prophet
consisted of Assyrian Monophysites.87 Although al-Sayyid Ghass:n;’s
name might suggest that he may originally have been from the Ban<
Ghass:n who were Monophysites, there is no evidence from The
85
See C. Jonn Block, ‘Philoponian Monophysitism in South Arabia at the
Advent of Islam with Implications for the English Translation of ‘‘Thal:tha’’ in
Qur8:n 4.171 and 5.73’, Journal of Islamic Studies, 23/1 (2012): 50–75.
86
Ibid, 58.
87
Ibid, 61–2.
Chronicle of Seert to suggest that he himself was a Monophysite. On the
contrary, all the evidence points to his being affiliated to Nestorianism
and having links with the Assyrian Church of the East.
Monophysitism, Diaphysitism (Chalcedonian Trinitarian theology)
and Nestorianism all had a presence in Najran at the time of the Prophet.
Shahı̂d has also added to that list Arianism, which rejected the divinity of
Christ and emphasized his humanity.88 It would seem then that the Ban<
al-E:rith b. Ka6b, the leading tribe of Najran, adhered through its
different branches to Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and even Judaism,
to which they had belonged before embracing Christianity. According to
Michael Lecker, on the eve of Islam the vast majority of the people of
Yemen adhered to Judaism and an old Jewish community still existed in
Najran. Lecker even adds that the Jews of Najran accepted the Compact
drawn up between the Prophet and Najran’s Christian population but as
the latter’s subordinates.89
The Prophet must have been aware of the importance of Najran as a
Christian province in direct contact with the three main mother-
churches. Establishing links with its political leadership and having it
as a strategic ally would have been key to successfully spreading his
message. As Bar Hebraeus notes, MuAammad was offering an eternal
pact to all Christians of the world (decretum ad christianos pertinens),90
regardless of their sect or denomination, which was to be binding upon
all Muslims of all times and places until the Day of Judgement. As the
Exordium explains:
After my death, when Allah takes me, so long as Islam will spread and my true
mission and faith will grow, this covenant will be obligatory for all Believers and
Muslims, so long as water fills the ocean floor, rain falls from the sky, the earth
produces plants, the stars shine in the firmament, and the dawn appears to the
traveler, it will not be permitted for anyone to break it, alter it, add to it, delete
from it, for such additions infringe upon my covenant and suppressions from it
will weaken my protection [to the Christians]. I am obliged to this covenant as I
have accorded it myself. Whoever betrays it from the people of my religion and
whoever breaks the pact of Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, as well as His
covenant, then the proof of Allah will be raised against him, and Allah is
sufficient as a Witness. . . I have therefore given it to them [i.e. the Christians]
myself for I desire that this protection be maintained so that it be applied by
88
Irfan Shahı̂d ‘Islam and Oriens Christianus: Makka 610–22 AD’, in
Emmanouela Grypeou, Mark N. Swanson and David Thomas (eds.), The
Encounter of Eastern Christianity with Early Islam (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 19.
89
Michael Lecker, ‘Judaism Among Kinda and the Ridda of Kinda’, Journal of
the American Oriental Society, 115 (1995): 635–50, at 635–6.
90
Gregorii Barhebraei Chronicon Ecclesiasticum, iii. Sec. 2, 116.
294 AHMED EL-WAKIL
whoever follows my path in all Arab regions, so that I and those of my vocation
be bound not to place a burden on anyone who calls himself ‘Christian’
regardless of the sect to which he adheres. This covenant is inviolable, solemn,
and obligatory for all Muslims to apply and for the Believers to follow.91
Najran’s multi-confessional identity is briefly touched upon by Ibn
IsA:q. He informs us that the Christian delegation who visited the
Prophet in Madina consisted of ‘Christians according to the Byzantine
rite, though they differed among themselves in some points, saying He is
God; and He is the son of God; and He is the third person of the
Trinity’.92 The delegation according to the Exordium consisted of
Najrani Christians ‘and with them their companions who profess the
same creed according to the Christian religion [as practised] in the
Arabian Peninsula and in foreign lands’.93 It appears then from both of
these sources that Najran made use of its links to Christian communities
outside of the Arabian Peninsula to foster diplomacy between
Christendom and the emerging religion of Islam. The geopolitics of
seventh-century Arabia made Najran the best hub for the Prophet to
relay and mediate his eternal pact to the Christians of the world.
WERE THERE JEWISH–CHRISTIANS

IN NAJRAN?
The uncertainty of Ibn IsA:q as to whether the delegation of 20

Christians who visited Makka were from Najran or Abyssinia is telling.
Ibn IsA:q, on the authority of al-Zuhr;, links the visit of the Christian
delegation to Makka with the revelation of Q. 5. 83–4, confirmed in the
Exordium as relating to the Christians of Najran:
Among other words of praise which Allah has bestowed upon them in His Book
and His revelations, after having been convinced of the hardness of heart of the
Jews, is that He recognizes the Christians’ inclination and affection towards the
Believers and so He said: ‘Certainly you will find the most violent of people in
enmity towards the Believers those who are [‘self-proclaimed’] Jews and those
who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to the
Believers those who say: ‘We are Christians’. This is because there are priests and
91
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 608–9 [288–9]. My translation, though I have
heavily relied on that of Morrow: Covenants, 296.
92
93
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 605 [285]. See also Morrow, Covenants, 295.
My translation.
monks among them and because they do not behave proudly. And when they
hear what has been revealed to the Messenger you will see their eyes overflowing
with tears on account of the truth that they recognize. They say: ‘Our Lord! We
believe, so write us down with the witnesses [of truth]. And why should we not
believe in Allah and what has come down to us of the truth? And we hope to be
admitted by our Lord among those who are upright and do good’.94 (Q. 5. 83–4)
The reason that Q. 5. 83–4 is quoted is that these verses could have
been revealed in relation to an early visit by al-Sayyid Ghass:n; to
Makka when the Prophet had just begun his preaching. We may here ask:
could al-Sayyid Ghass:n; have belonged to a particular Christian sect
that would have recognized the message of Islam as self-evident? What
relationship or link could Christians from Najran have had with
Abyssinian Christians for Ibn IsA:q to indicate uncertainty as to whether
the first Christian delegation to visit Makka was from Najran or
Abyssinia?
It seems unlikely that Q. 5. 82–3 applied to all the Christians of
Arabia, for the Qur8:n frequently criticizes the Christians as much as the
Jews (Q. 2. 120; Q. 5. 51; Q. 9. 34). It is more plausible that Q. 5. 82–3
was not addressing Christians generally but more likely Jewish-
Christians, i.e., Christians who accepted Jesus as their Messiah but
rejected his divinity and who also adhered to Jewish Law, even if loosely.
Is it possible then that part of the Christian delegation that visited the
Prophet in Madina consisted of Jewish-Christians? Their confessional
identity seems to be hinted at in the Exordium’s reference to ‘some
Christians, who were worthy of trust and who knew the divine
religion’95 and perhaps ambiguously in the Najran Covenant when the
Prophet says: ‘I proclaim, once again, the obligations that Allah imposed
on the Children of Israel to obey Him, to follow His Law, and to respect
His Divine Alliance.’96
Whether or not Jewish-Christians existed in Arabia at the time of the
Prophet is contested among scholars. Sidney Griffith has categorically
denied their existence: ‘As for the so-called ‘‘heretical Christians’’, mostly
Jewish Christians such as the Ebionites and Nazarenes who flourished
well into the fourth century ce, while many scholars find evidence of
them or of their doctrines in the Qur8:n, the present writer is skeptical of
94
Ibid, 604–5 [284–5]. The Qur8:nic text reproduced in The Chronicle of
Seert has three minor typos, indicating that very few transcription errors were
made when reproducing the original document. The above translation relies
heavily on that of Morrow: Covenants, 293.
95
96
Ibid, 297.
296 AHMED EL-WAKIL
these claims’.97 Samuel Zinner has argued the contrary, proposing that
after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ce many Jewish-Christians fled to
Arabia and Ethiopia and eventually assimilated into Islam in the seventh
century.98 The presence of Jewish-Christianity in Arabia was also put
forward by Joseph Azzi, in a number of compelling arguments to identify
the priest Waraqa b. Nawfal, Khad;ja bint Khuwaylid’s cousin, as an
Ebionite.99
Shahı̂d has documented an Abyssinian community living in Makka,100
and the Islamic sources depict the Abyssinian Negus ABAama b. Abjar as
following some form of Jewish-Christianity.101 They report that the
Negus fought a civil war in Abyssinia, his religious views being rejected
by some of his countrymen.102 This could indicate that some form of
Jewish-Christianity existed in Abyssinia alongside Monophysitism, with
at times clashes between the two. Could then the kingdom of ABAama b.
Abjar have been a semi-autonomous province of Abyssinia that adhered
to Jewish-Christianity? This is a possibility that needs further investiga-
tion, warranted by a tradition on the authority of Qat:da who believed
that Q. 5. 83–4 was revealed in relation to a group of Abyssinians who
‘followed the religion of 6Īs: b. Maryam’.103
According to Shahı̂d, Najran was ‘the location of so many non-
Orthodox denominations which gave the peninsula the reputation of being
Arabia haeresium ferax, ‘‘Arabia the breeding ground of heresies’’.’104
Could part of that reputation have been because of the presence of Jewish-
Christianity and its conflict with the Great Church? Ibn IsA:q certainly
believed that Jewish-Christianity flourished at some point in Najran. He
wrote: ‘In Najr:n there were some people who held the religion of 6Is: b.
Maryam, a virtuous and upright people who followed the Gospel. Their
head was 6Abdullah b. al-Th:mir. The place where that religion took root
97
Sidney H. Griffith, The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the
Book’ in the Language of Islam (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2013), 28.
98
Samuel Zinner, The Gospel of Thomas: In the Light of Early Jewish,
Christian and Islamic Esoteric Trajectories (London: Matheson Trust, 2011),
102–4.
99
See Joseph Azzi [J<fiz Qazz;], Le Prêtre et le Prophète: Aux Sources du
Coran (transl. Maurice S. Garnier; Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001).
100
Shahı̂d, ‘Islam and Oriens Christianus’, 12–17.
101
Wim Raven, ‘Some Early Islamic Texts on the Negus of Abyssinia’, Journal
of Semitic Studies, 33 (1988): 197–218, at 198–201.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibn Kath;r, Tafs;r, in loco Q. 5. 82; online: http://quran.al-islam.com/Page.
aspx?pageid=221&BookID=11& (last accessed: 6 March 2015), 121.
104
Shahı̂d, ‘Islam and Oriens Christianus’, 18.
was in Najr:n . . . A Christian by the name of Faymiy<n had settled there
and converted the people to his religion’.105
Shlomo Pines has theorized that a great number of Jewish-Christians
entered Nestorianism to become clandestine members of an official
church106—in that case the Assyrian Church of the East—to which they
were theologically closest, as compared to Chalcedonianism and
Monophysitism: ‘the Nestorian community may have contained Jewish
Christians’.107 Shahı̂d has noted how ‘To them [i.e. the Nestorians of
Najran] may be ascribed the most striking phrase that described Jesus in
the Qur’an, namely 6Īs: Ibn Maryam, ‘‘Jesus son of Mary’’’.108 In that
context the presence of Jewish-Christianity in South Arabia can be
reconciled with Griffith’s observation that the Christians of that region,
and particularly Najran, had continuous ties with the Syriac-speaking
mother-churches up until the rise of Islam.109 There may after all be no
conflict between a Jewish-Christian community having existed in Najran
that was well-established within the church structure and which
affiliated itself to Nestorianism, maintaining ties with the Assyrian
Church of the East.
Moreover, there appears to be a reliable historical core within Ibn
IsA:q’s account on the state of South Arabia and Najran prior to the rise
of Islam. For instance he tells us how the Jewish king Dh< Nuw:s ‘was
called Joseph’110 and Vassilos Christides confirms this by telling us that
his full name Y<suf 6Asar is revealed in the Himyarite inscriptions.111 His
title is clearly mentioned in the Acts of Gregentius where he is called
Dounaa or Dounaan.112 Only in the Book of the Himyarites is his name
given as Masr<q, a name that Ibn IsA:q ascribes to the son of Abraha.113
Ibn IsA:q then provides an account of Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s’ defeat,
explains how Abraha eventually seized power in the Yemen, and notes
how the latter experienced a rift with Caleb, the Negus of Abyssinia,
105
106
Shlomo Pines, ‘The Jewish Christians of the Early Centuries of Christianity
According to a New Source’, The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Proceedings, 2/13 (1996): 1–74, at 37–9.
107
Ibid, 43.
108
109
Griffith, The Bible in Arabic, 14.
110
111
For an in-depth discussion of Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s’s appellation, see Vassilos
Christides, ‘The Himyarite–Ethiopian War and the Ethiopian Occupation of
South Arabia in the Acts of Gregentius (ca. 530 A.D.)’ Annales d’Ethiopie, 9/1
(1972): 115–46, at 123.
112
Ibid, 124.
113
298 AHMED EL-WAKIL
though he denies that Abraha ever claimed independence from him. In

this way, Ibn IsA:q provides us with reliable historical information,
despite the numerous embellishments and factual errors in his narrative,
which means that he should not be completely discredited as a historical
source.114 Perhaps one clue to his accuracy on events in South Arabia in
the pre-Islamic period may be his reliance on Wahb b. Munabbih as a
source.115 Not only was Wahb from the Yemen, he was also well versed
in Jewish lore (al-;sr:8;liy:t) which means that he probably knew the
history of the Jews and of South Arabia fairly well.116
Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s wanted to rid the major cities of South Arabia of
their pro-Abyssinian and Byzantine factions by cleansing them of their
Monophysite and Chalcedonian elements. According to Issam Sakhnini,
he killed 500 Abyssinains in caf:r and set out on a campaign against
Ea@ramawt.117 In 523 ce he gathered a force of 120,000 against Najran.
On the first day 300 Christians surrendered and on the second 1,000. He
then entered the city and brought with him the 1,300 prisoners. He held
them in a church where he burned them alive, along with others he had
gathered from the city. He killed approximately 2,000 men and
afterwards asked his deputy Dh< Yazin to bring the women and children
out. He gave them the ultimatum between Judaism and death, which
they valiantly refused, and so he killed them using swords and arrows. A
total of 170 women were killed with their children. Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s
finally summoned St. Arethas and threatened to kill him if he did not
convert to Judaism. St. Arethas, along with more women and men,
valiantly refused and they all were put to death. So enraged was Y<suf
Dh< Nuw:s by the women’s bravery that he ordered Dh< Yazin to kill
another 122 Christian women and their children in revenge. The corpses
were then thrown in ditches and covered up.118
Ibn IsA:q notes how Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s ‘dug trenches for them; burnt
some in fire, slew some with the sword, and mutilated them until he had
killed nearly twenty thousand of them’.119 According to Christides: ‘In
the Martyrium of Arethas and the Book of the Himyarites the martyrs
are slain by sword. A second type of death, execution by hanging, is
114
Ibid, x20–29, 14–21.
115
Ibid, x20, 14; x22, 16.
116
al-Dhahab;, Siyar a6l:m al-nubal:8 (Beirut: Mu8assassat al-Ris:la li-l-Dir:s:t
wa-l-Nashr, 2001), iv. 545. Online: http://library.islamweb.net/newlibrary/dis-
play_book.php?ID=669&bk_no=60&ID=475 (last accessed: 15 June 2013).
117
Issam Sakhnini, Maq:til al-MasiAiyy;n: Najran 523 wa-l-Quds 614
(Amman: D:r al-F:ris, 2013), 101–5.
118
Ibid, 105–12.
119
mentioned in the Book of the Himyarites but does not occur in the
Martyrium of Arethas. The Acts of Gregentius describe a third means of
the martyrs’ extermination, the use of fire’.120 Ibn IsA:q’s description of
how they were killed therefore agrees with the Martyrium of Arethas and
the Book of the Himyarites that they were slain by the sword, and with
the Acts of Gregentius that they were thrown in the trenches and burnt.
The figure of 20,000 provided by Ibn IsA:q is a gross overestimate of
those killed in Najran—the story obviously served to advance political
ends. The portrayal of the martyrs as defenders of Chalcedonian
orthodoxy was used by the Byzantines to justify their incursion and to
secure their long-term interests in South Arabia against the Persians with
whom Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s was allied. The polemics between Y<suf Dh<
Nuw:s and the Monophysite Christians, which revolved around them
being forced to renounce the divinity of Christ and to accept him only as
a man,121 also had a political dimension—allegiance to him and to
Persia. It is perhaps also for this reason, as Shahı̂d has noted, that he was
supposedly not ‘unfriendly’ to the Nestorians.122
Ibn IsA:q’s narrative of Jewish-Christians having been put to death in
the ditch by Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s is highly implausible, and the way he
describes how their leader 6Abdull:h b. al-Th:mir was killed123
suspiciously parallels the martyrdom of St. Arethas. In the aftermath
of the siege, Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s may have appointed Jews to control the
city and established some form of alliance with the city’s Jewish-
Christians because of their common allegiance to Persia. Despite all of
the upheavals that took place in South Arabia, the multi-confessional
nature of Najran seems to have remained more or less unchanged. Shahı̂d
has himself noted how, ‘After the notorious martyrdoms, and even
before, the Church of Najran had on its staff clerics from the most varied
ethnic groups’.124
Though Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s may not have actively targeted affiliates of
the Assyrian Church of the East, there nevertheless seem to be some
echoes of truth in Ibn IsA:q’s account of Jewish-Christians of South
Arabia being ‘overtaken by the misfortunes which befell their co-
religionists’ in every land.125 This is corroborated by Christides, who has
120
Christides, ‘The Himyarite–Ethiopian War’, 125–6.
121
Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, ‘Le Martyre des Chrétiens de Najran (Arabie
du Sud): à Propos des Sources Syriaques’, Revue de la Société Ernest Renan, n.s.
42 (1999): 7–18, at 13.
122
123
124
125
300 AHMED EL-WAKIL
observed how ‘Among the Himyarite martyrs of Negran mentioned by

the Book of the Himyarites are the following clergymen: two Arabs from
al-E;r:, two Byzantines, one Persian and an Abyssinian’.126 This is quite
telling: the two Arabs from al-E;r: and the one from Persia would have
been Nestorians, the two Byzantines would have been Chalcedonians,
and the Abyssinian would have been a Monophysite.
In that respect we can come to understand and contextualize the
relationship between the Jews and members of the Assyrian Church of
the East. Based on the Exordium sent to al-Sayyid Ghass:n;, we can
detect a tense, hostile relationship between the two, even if at times
patched in political alliances, most likely out of political expediency as
they would often have found themselves caught in the midst of the
killings and massacres that befell their fellow Christians.
Following the Abyssinian incursion of 525 ce, a number of Abyssinian
Jewish-Christians may have travelled to Arabia to take up residence in
Makka. If Q. 5. 83–4 was addressed in part to Abyssinian Jewish-
Christians in Makka, then it could offer us a reasonable explanation as to
why the Muslims made their first hijra to Abyssinia, for it is the
Abyssinian Jewish-Christians of Makka who would have made the
necessary arrangements. We may even speculate that ABAama b. Abjar
may have sent a high-ranking delegation of Jewish-Christians to meet with
the Prophet in Makka in order to arrange the terms and conditions of their
exile with the Makkan notables. The request to have the Muslims
extradited back to Makka would most likely have been made following
the polytheist Makkans’ defeat at Badr in 2 ah, and not before, when the
Muslims were still living in Makka. This request was refused by the
Negus, as the Islamic sources unanimously attest.127 It is even said that a
second Abyssinian delegation later visited Madina,128 demonstrating the
continued strong relationship that existed between them and the Prophet.
Like their Abyssinian counterparts, the Jewish-Christians of Najran
could have first met the Prophet in Makka. This is supported by Shahı̂d
who has noted that ‘Najr:nite missionaries are attested in ‘Uk:C, the fair
near Makka’.129 Q. 5. 82–3 may therefore refer to Abyssinian and
126
Christides, ‘The Himyarite-Ethiopian War’, 132.
127
Muhammad Hamidullah, The Battlefields of the Prophet Muhammad (New
Dehli: Kitab Bhavan, [1953] 1992), 41–2.
128
For a good discussion of the two Abyssinian delegations that visited the
Prophet, see Abu Hasan, Minhaji Fata Morgana: An examination of Prof. Tahir’s
embellished narrative of the Najran and Abyssinian delegations (n.p.: Ridawi
Press, 2011), 24–8. Online: http://www.ridawipress.org/wp-content/uploads/
2012/01/Minhaji_Fata_Morgana.pdf (last accessed: 19 January 2016).
129
Najrani Jewish-Christians who met with the Prophet when he first began
preaching in Makka. Also, it is plausible that some Arab Jewish-
Christians were formally members of the Nestorian community, even if
there needs to be more solid evidence for this theory to become readily
accepted.
DID THE COVENANT REPLACE AN

EXISTING TREATY OF ALLIANCE?
It is somewhat peculiar for the Najran Covenant to have been issued in 7

ah when the covenants with the Monks of Mount Sinai and with the
Armenian Christians were issued in 2 ah, and the Source Covenant in 4
ah. If al-Sayyid Ghass:n; knew the Prophet well from his days in Makka,
then he should have been one of the first to visit him in Madina and
receive a covenant from him. This is even more so the case if he was
involved in mediating the issuance of covenants between the Prophet and
different Christian communities.
It seems unlikely for Najran’s high-ranking delegation to have come all
the way to Madina in their first official visit (before 7 ah) without having
established some sort of understanding with the Prophet. It is impossible
to tell from the Exordium whether or not they were challenged to an
imprecation, nor can we rule out the possibility that Q. 3. 59–63 was
revealed in the context of another Christian delegation. However, if we
accept the tradition of the ‘People of the Cloak’ as authentic, and that Q.
3. 59–63 was revealed in relation to the Christians of Najran, then their
visit would have been any time after al-Eusayn’s birth which was on 3
Sha6b:n 4 ah. If the Covenant was written in 7 ah, then the commonly
held belief that Sa6d b. Mu6:dh was martyred in the battle of the Trenches,
which according to the latest Muslim estimates was in Shaww:l 5 ah,130
would need to be corrected and revised, for according to Islamic sources
he could not possibly have been a witness to the Covenant.
Assuming that the challenge to an imprecation did indeed take place, it
does not seem from the Exordium to have had a negative impact upon
the Najrani Christians. On the contrary, if anything, it would have been
directed at the Monophysite members of the delegation and convinced
them of the truth of the Prophet’s message so that, to use Uri Rubin’s
terminology, they became Christo-Muslims.131 The reason the challenge
130
Jones, ‘The Chronology of the ‘‘Magh:z;’’ ’, 251.
131
Uri Rubin, Between Bible and Qur8:n: The Children of Israel and the
Islamic Self-Image (Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1999), 131–3.
302 AHMED EL-WAKIL
to an imprecation is not mentioned in the Exordium may be because

there was no need to refer to it. Of course the Prophet may have
implicitly alluded to it and to how it convinced them of the veracity of
his mission, but this is not evident from the Exordium:
I informed them of my mission and asked them to help reinforce it, to proclaim
it, and to assist it. And since the cause of Allah appeared evident to them, they
did not turn back on their steps nor did they turn their backs. On the contrary,
they drew close, remained firm, consented, assisted, confirmed, made generous
promises, gave good advice, and assured me by means of oaths and covenants
that they would support the truth which I brought and that they would repel
those who refused and contradicted it.132
From this passage we can deduce that the Prophet and the Christians
of Najran did establish some kind of treaty. Was that treaty then, the
Covenant? If we accept the account of the ahl al-kis:8, the absence of
Hamza’s name from the Covenant because he was martyred on Saturday
11 Shaww:l 4 ah, and the death date of Sa6d b. Mu6:dh as genuine, it
would mean that the Najran Covenant was most probably written some
time in 5 ah. We could then argue that the Exordium was written later, in
7 ah, and issued as an addendum to the Covenant, not as an exordium.
This chronology is not, however, convincing from our reading of the
Exordium. A more convincing explanation may be that it wasn’t the
Covenant that was issued during the Najrani Christians’ first visit to
Madina, but rather a Treaty of Alliance. The Exordium can certainly be
interpreted in that way:
After they rejoined their co-religionists, they did not break their Treaty [of
Alliance] nor did they change their determination. On the contrary, they observed
what they had promised to me when they left me and I learned, to my great
pleasure, of their goodwill in keeping true to their alliance, in waging war against a
faction of the Jews, and how they came to an understanding with the People of the
Vocation, to publicize the cause of Allah, to support it, and to defend its apostles,
and that they had debunked the evidence which the Jews had relied upon in order
to deny and hinder my mission and word. The Christians sought to prop up my
action and waged war against those who hated my doctrine and who wanted to
rebut it, alter it, repudiate it, change it, and overturn it.133
The Najran Covenant could have been written to replace a Treaty of
Alliance which, like the Constitution of Madina, required the Muslims
and the Christo-Muslims to come to each other’s mutual aid and
132
133
Ibid, 295. I have relied heavily on Morrow’s translation. See also: Scher,
Chronique de Séert, 606 [286].
self-defence. The Chronicle of Seert tells us that it was in 7 ah that ‘the
Arabs began their conquests’.134 This perhaps indicates that the reason
for the Christo-Muslims wishing the Covenant to replace the Treaty of
Alliance was to be absolved of future military obligations. The Chronicle
may therefore have conflated the two visits: it was perhaps during their
first visit to Madina that they formulated their Treaty of Alliance with
the Prophet, pledging to ‘support him, ally themselves to him and to fight
under his command if he ordered them to’.135 And it was during their
second visit (7 ah) that the Covenant was issued, freeing them—in the
same way as the other covenants—from future military obligations:
Anyone who is under our protection will not be obliged to go to war with the
Muslims to combat their enemies, to attack them, and to seize them. Indeed,
those who are under our protection will not engage in war. It is precisely to
discharge them of this obligation that our protection has been granted to
them.136
A careful reading of the Exordium perhaps suggests an evolving
relationship between the Prophet and the various Christian denomin-
ations in Najran. Though the Jewish-Christians of Najran may well have
been among the first people from Najran to believe in his message, it
appears that they were followed by a significant number of Najran’s
other Christian denominations who, after accepting MuAammad as a
Messenger of God, became Christo-Muslims. Other Christian denom-
inations that did not recognize the prophethood of MuAammad may well
have joined the Christo-Muslims as clients to the Treaty of Alliance,
being united with them in their defence of South Arabia.
THE EXORDIUM’S INCONSISTENCY

WITH THE SĪRA
The Exordium provides an extensive survey of the Prophet’s wars with

the Jews and how they sided against him with the polytheists of Makka.
If Q. 5. 82–3 was revealed in Makka, it alludes to the possibility of Jews
having resided there and their siding with the polytheists against the
Muslims at an early point in the Prophet’s career. The s;ra does not
specifically mention any Jewish communities living in Makka. However,
134
Ibid, 601 [281]. My translation.
135
Ibid.
136
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 613 [293]. My translation, though I have relied
heavily on that of Morrow: Covenants, 298–9.
304 AHMED EL-WAKIL
as Charles Torrey has argued, there is no reason why this could not have
been the case.137 That view was taken into consideration by Hamilton
Gibb who, quoting from Q. 53. 33–56, convincingly argued ‘that the
obvious inference is that the ‘Scriptures of Moses’ were so familiar in
Mecca that one could scarcely imagine any Meccan being ignorant of
them’.138 Such familiarity with the Jewish scriptures is unthinkable in a
purely pagan environment.
According to Ibn Qutayba, there were Jewish communities among the
tribes of Eumayr, Ban< E:rith b. Ka6b and Kinda (all of whom had a
presence in South Arabia) but also among the Ban< Kin:na from whom
the Quraysh descended.139 The Exordium seems to imply that it was
Jews from Quraysh who leveraged their financial wealth to incite the
polytheists in Makka, and some of the Jewish tribes in Madina, to fight
the Prophet. The clear inference is that they funded the wars against the
Muslims and their allies in Najran through an alliance that they
established with the Jews of South Arabia. One passage in the Exordium
tells us: ‘And in their devotion they [i.e. the Christians of Najran] waged
war against the Jews and the polytheists from Quraysh and others [who
allied themselves to them].’140 Moreover, the Exordium portrays the
Jews as actively engaged in war, not as passive conspirators, as the s;ra
tends to depict them:
As such, the Jews and the polytheists of Quraysh along with others deserved to be
treated as the enemies of Allah and His Messenger due to their treacherous plans,
their enmity, the plots they devised (against me), and the fierce, intermittent war
they waged in support of my enemies. Thus did they become the enemies of
Allah, His Messenger, and the good Believers.141
What role the Christians of Najran played in being ‘united to wage
war against the Jews’142 is not clear from the Islamic sources. The most
plausible explanation is that they supported the Muslims’ war efforts
against the Jews and the polytheists from Quraysh along with their allies
137
Charles Cutler Torrey, The Jewish Foundation of Islam (New York: Ktav
Publishing House, [The Hilda Stick Strook lectures, 1933] 1967), 13.
138
Hamilton A. R. Gibb, ‘Pre-Islamic Monotheism in Arabia’ in by F. E. Peters
(ed.), The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam (Aldershot, Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004), 299.
139
Ab< MuAammad b. 6Abdullah b. Muslim Ibn Qutayba, al-Ma6:rif (ed.
Tharwat ‘Uk:sha: Cairo: D:r al-Ma6:rif, 1981), 621.
140
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 607 [287]. My translation and interpretation of
the original Arabic differs from that of Scher. See also: Morrow, Covenants, 295.
141
142
Ibid, 294.
in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly in South Arabia. This leaves us
wondering to what extent the Exordium accords with the s;ra when it
tells us that, in 10 ah, Kh:lid b. al-Wal;d was dispatched to the tribe of
Ban< al-E:rith b. Ka6b in Najran and gave them three days to embrace
Islam. It is said that the Ban< al-E:rith b. Ka6b accepted the invitation
and that they were subsequently not attacked.143 Al-Fabar; tells us that
‘The first apostasy (ridda) in Islam took place in the Yemen, while the
Messenger of God was alive’,144 eventually leading Najran to being
attacked in 11 ah and the Prophet’s agents being expelled. The apostates
from Najran presumably belonged to the Jewish branch of the Ban< al-
E:rith b. Ka6b.
The Exordium alludes to fighting in South Arabia before 7 ah, and if
anything the incidents described in the s;ra would have occurred before
the Exordium was written. The Christo-Muslims of Najran had brought
the Jews of South Arabia ‘to confess to the truth with submission, to
respond to the call of Allah, by will or by force, allowing them to be
drawn [into Islam] as conquered people’.145 Their Muslim allies had at
around the same time defeated the Jewish tribes of Madina and perhaps
established some kind of truce with the Jews and polytheists of Quraysh
following the battle of Eunayn:
Verily, the people who followed the ancient religions and the ancient Books
expressed hostility towards Allah and His Messenger and loathed them by
denying the mission of the Prophet which Allah, the Most High, has clearly
proclaimed in His Book. . .
They exceeded the bounds of opposition by inciting others to do what they
themselves would never have dared to do: to deny his revelation, to reject his
mission, and to seek, through cunning, to make him succumb to pitfalls.
They targeted the Prophet of Allah and decided to kill him. They reinforced the
Party of the Polytheists of the Tribe of Quraysh as well as others in order to fight
him, to dispute his doctrine, to force it back, and to contradict it.
For this reason, they deserved to be deprived of the Alliance of Allah and His
Protection. Their behavior during the days of Hunayn, the battles against the
Bani Qaynuqah, the tribe of Qurayzah and Nadir, is well-known. Their leaders
lent support to the inhabitants of Mecca, the enemies of Allah, against the
Messenger of Allah, and supported them, by means of troops and weapons,
against the Prophet, out of hatred for the Believers.146
143
Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, x958–2, 645–8.
144
al-Fabar;, The History of al-Fabar; Vol. 9, x1795–6, 165.
145
146
Ibid, 293–4.
306 AHMED EL-WAKIL
The sequence of events described in this passage does not fit with the
Islamic sources as the battle of Eunayn was supposed to have occurred in
Shaww:l 8 ah after the conquest of Makka in Rama@:n 8 ah.147 If we
accept the dating of the Exordium to after the 1st or 2nd Jum:d: al-Ūl: 7
ah/6 September 628 and before the end of 7 ah, then the Exordium
should not have described Eunayn as having already occurred. It would
have made more sense for it to have referred to the battle of Khaybar
instead, which Ibn IsA:q places in MuAarram 7 ah,148 and al-W:qid; in
4afar or Rab;6 al-Awwal 7 ah.149 The latest estimate for the date of the
battle of Khaybar is Jum:d: al-Ūl: 7 ah.150 This would mean that,
according to Islamic sources, it fell somewhere between May and
September 628, before the Exordium was written.
The problem of chronology is still not resolved if we assume that the
Covenant was issued in 7 ah and that the Exordium was written later,
say in 9 or 10 ah. The text still remains problematic for the battle of
Eunayn was neither against the Jews nor against the Quraysh as both
these groups had already been subjugated in 8 ah when the battle is
supposed to have occurred. The s;ra recounts how it was the polytheists
from the tribe of Haw:zin who were fought in Eunayn, and it makes no
mention whatever of Jewish involvement.
If we accept the authenticity and dating of the Exordium, it implies
that the battle of Eunayn fell before 7 ah while the battle of Khaybar
occurred at a later date. The Exordium could have been written after the
Treaty of Eudaybiyya, which according to Islamic sources was signed in
the 11th month of the Islamic calendar, Dh< al-Q:6da 6 ah. This could
mean that the battle of Eunayn took place at an earlier date than 6 ah. It
should be noted that, according to Hamidullah, the classical geographers
and chroniclers were unable to indentify the location of Eunayn, and
that he himself speculated that it may have been situated north-east of
147
The Qur8:n prophesied that on the day that the Byzantines become
victorious, ‘the believers will rejoice’ (Q. 30. 4). This verse appears to coincide
Heraclius’ entry into Jerusalem where he restored the True Cross on the 21
March 630 to the day when Makka was conquered, which would instead have
been 30 Dh< al-Q:6da or 1 Dh< al-Eijja 8 ah. Alternatively, it could simply mean
that, on the day the Byzantines will be victorious, the Muslims will already have
rejoiced at the defeat of the Quraysh. See Peter Sarris, ‘The Eastern Roman
Empire (306–641)’ in Cyril Mango (ed.), The Oxford History of Byzantium
(Oxford: University Press, 2002), 57.
148
Guillaume, Life of Muhammad, x755–6, 510.
149
Rizwi Faizer (ed.), The Life of MuAammad: al-W:qid;’s Kit:b al-Magh:z;
(London, New York: Routledge, 2011), 312.
150
Jones, ‘The Chronology of the ‘‘Magh:z;’’ ’, 254.
Fa8if.151 The location of Eunayn in an area where the Muslims could
only have fought after the conquest of Makka cannot therefore be
accepted if the battle occurred before that. The implication of this for the
reinterpretation of certain portions of the ninth s<ra of the Qur8:n and
other historical incidents is well beyond the scope of this study.
DOES THE EXORDIUM CONFLICT WITH

OTHER EARLY NON-MUSLIM SOURCES?
Sebeos is recognized by scholars of early Islamic history as a reliable

authority and the Arab–Jewish alliance that he records is supported by
other early non-Muslim sources.152 Patricia Crone and Michael Cook were
the first to make an assessment of these in Hagarism: The Making of the
Islamic World, where they argued that the early non-Muslim sources
generally depict Islam as a Jewish-messianic movement aimed at the
conquest of the Holy Land. Jewish-messianic ideas, although not explicit,
are also present in The Chronicle of Seert. The Judeo-Muslim Rabbi Ka6b
al-AAb:r is reported to have attempted to incite Ab< Bakr against the
Christians,153 which Philip Wood believes was the Christians’ attempt to
highlight false Jewish doctrines infiltrating their way into Islam.154 Stephen
Shoemaker in his Death of a Prophet also makes compelling arguments to
support the claim of Jewish-messianism among the paleo-Muslims.155
According to Wood the Exordium makes ‘the juxtaposition of
Christians and Jews as good and bad dhimm;s. . . the Muslims and
their Christian allies with the tribes of Jews and pagans’.156 He also notes
how the Muslim–Christian alliance in the context of Najran is reinforced
by Christian animosity towards the Jews, whom they persecuted at the
hands of Y<suf Dh< Nuw:s.157 This for him is sufficient evidence that
the Exordium was forged.
151
Hamidullah, Battlefields of the Prophet Muhammad, 91.
152
Many of the early non-Muslim sources allude to this alliance in passing. For an
explicit reference, see Abdul Massih Saadi, ‘The Letter of John of Sedreh’: ‘ Nascent
Islam in the Seventh Century Syriac Sources’ in Gabriel Reynolds (ed.), The Qur8:n
in Its Historical Context (London, New York: Routledge, 2008), 217–22.
153
154
Philip Wood, The Chronicle of Seert: Christian Historical Imagination in
Late Antique Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 253–5.
155
Stephen Shoemaker, Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and
the Beginnings of Islam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvannia Press, 2012).
156
Ibid, 253.
157
Ibid, 253–4.
308 AHMED EL-WAKIL
His arguments appear all the more persuasive when we analyse the
early non-Muslim sources discussing Islamic origins such as Sebeos’
History. The latter describes how the Prophet was able to unite the sons
of Ishmael and the sons of Israel by commanding the Arabs and the Jews
‘to assemble together and to unite in faith’.158 Sebeos also seems to
allude to the fact that the people of Madina who pledged allegiance to
the Prophet in 6Aqaba were from ‘the Twelve peoples [representing] all
the tribes of the Jews assembled at the city of Edessa’.159 Michael
Lecker’s research supports Sebeos’ observation that the main delegation
which pledged allegiance to the Prophet in 6Aqaba consisted of Judaized
Arabs. As Lecker explains, the people of Yathrib learnt how to read and
write in Jewish schools which provides us with some indication of their
religious leanings:
At the second, or great, 6Aqaba meeting, there were reportedly twelve nuqab:8 or
tribal representatives, nine of the Khazraj and three of the Aws. A comparison
between the list of nuqab:’ and that of literate Arabs produced significant
results. . . The twelve nuqab:8 included seven literate men, three of whom were of
the so-called perfect ones. It can be argued that the literate Arabs who helped the
Prophet MuAammad obtain a foothold in Madina, where idol worship was still
predominant, were members of a monotheistic elite educated by the Jews.160
The contradiction between the Exordium’s portrayal of the Jews as
enemies of the believers and Sebeos’ description of them as having
believed in the Prophet’s message and united alongside the Muslims can
only be resolved on the basis of three main assumptions. First, that the
Exordium is not addressing all Jews but specifically those of Quraysh and
their allies in the Arabian Peninsula; second, that the Prophet’s
movement consisted of reformed Jewish and Christian ‘believers’; and
158
Sebeos, Sebeos’ History, ch. 30, online: http://rbedrosian.com/seb9.htm (last
accessed: 18 January 2015).
159
Ibid. Robert Hoyland notes how the Syriac chroniclers narrate two
incidents involving the Jews of Edessa, the first in 628 and the second in 632.
Hoyland believes that Sebeos conflated the two events, but even so, neither goes
with Sebeos’ narrative which he clearly places before the Hijra. The events
described by Sebeos may relate to an earlier time during the Byzantine–Sassanian
War of 602–28 ce. The Jews of Edessa may then have made their way to refuge
among the Jews of Yathrib. See Robert Hoyland, ‘Sebeos, the Jews and the Rise
of Islam’ in Ronald L. Nettler (ed.), Medieval and Modern Perspectives on
Muslim–Jewish Relations (Luxenbourg: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995):
89–102, at 90.
160
Michael Lecker, ‘Zayd b. Th:bit, ‘‘a Jew with two sidelocks’’: Judaism and
Literacy in pre-Islamic Medina (Yathrib)’, Journal of Near-Eastern Studies, 56
(1997): 259–73, at 271.
third, that a reconciliation with the Jews of Arabia took place after 7 ah.
We will elaborate now on these three points.
Our first assumption can be made by examining the ‘Constitution of
Madina’, which has always been regarded as a problematic document by
scholars. Though the recensions of Ibn IsA:q and Ab< 6Ubayd are
without doubt corrupted transmissions of the original document, we
may nevertheless come to some better understanding of what its initial
terms and conditions were by drawing some parallels to the Treaty of
Alliance alluded to in the Exordium. In the same way that Jewish-
Christians from Najran were some of the first people to believe in the
Prophet, it was most probably Jews from Yathrib who were the first to
offer him shelter and to invite him to rule over Madina, even though they
were most likely a minority among Arabian Jewry.
Ab< 6Ubayd’s recension of the Constitution of Madina clearly states
that the Jews recognized MuAammad as a Messenger of God and it
explicitly lists the Jews as ‘a community of believers’ (ummatun min al-
mu8min;n [x28])161 The Jewish tribes who were signatories to the
Constitution were regarded along with the Muslims as ‘believers’ and it
may very well be that the Constitution of Madina was in fact a Treaty of
Alliance between the Muslims, the Christo-Muslims of Quraysh (i.e., the
Jewish-Christians of Makka) 162 and the Judeo-Muslims of Yathrib. The
opening clause of the Constitution could therefore be understood as:
‘This is a writing of MuAammad between the [Jewish and Christian]
believers and the Muslims—of Quraysh and Yathrib. . .’ [x1]. As for the
Jews, Christians and polytheists who did not recognize MuAammad as a
prophet but who nevertheless joined the believers as their clients, they
would have been given special recognition and granted equal rights [x18].
There is no record of the Judeo-Muslims having ever fought against
and been unfaithful to the Prophet or been exiled from Madina. The
Judeo-Muslims therefore ranked differently from the Ban< Qaynuq:8,
the Ban< Na@;r and the Ban< QurayCa who all signed a non-belligerency
agreement with the Prophet but were never a part of the Constitution.163
161
See Uri Rubin, ‘The ‘‘Constitution of Medina’’: Some Notes’, Studia
Islamica, 62 (1985): 5–23, at 19–20.
162
The reason some of the Prophet’s followers may have emigrated to
Abyssinia, while others not, may be that those who did were Jewish-Christians
who joined their co-religionists there while those who remained were polytheists
who had converted to Islam.
163
See Michael Lecker, ‘Did Muhammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish
Tribes Na@;r, QurayCa and Qaynuq:6?’ in Uri Rubin and David J. Wasserstein
(eds.), Israel Oriental Studies XVII—Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians
and the World of Classical Islam (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997): 29–36.
310 AHMED EL-WAKIL
The original Constitution may therefore have included non-belligerency

clauses, of which only clause x23 remains, stating that ‘A polytheist will
not grant protection to any property or to any person of Quraysh; nor will
he intervene between them and a m<8min’.164 Similar non-belligerency
clauses could have applied to the Jewish tribes who did not wish to join
the believers as clients.
Our second assumption is that after having accepted the Prophet’s
religious reforms, the believers regarded themselves as followers of the
religion of their father Abraham (Q. 22. 78).165 Although the Muslims
and the Jews were perceived as belonging to two distinct religious
communities, they may have nevertheless observed common rites which
united them as one, for as Sebeos explains, they ‘turned toward the living
God, who had appeared to their father, Abraham’.166 A saying by the
Judeo-Muslim Rabbi Ka6b al-AAb:r seems to allude to this unity yet
diversity of faith when he said: ‘I adhere to the religion of Moses, and [at
the same time] I have followed MuAammad’s religion’.167 By following
the creed of Abraham, the Muslims along with the Jewish and Christian
believers, or Judeo- and Christo-Muslims, would have believed in the
One God, done the pilgrimage to Makka, eaten ritually slaughtered
meat, prayed, fasted and paid the zak:t. However, in spite of these
commonalities, they would have adhered to their own religious law (d;n)
which would have consisted of divinely inspired legal regulations
(shir6atan) and of particular religious rites (minh:j:n) as per Q. 5. 48.
Some of the believers may even have abandoned their old law for the new
Islamic law, but for the most part, the believers would have followed the
call to adhere to the creed of Abraham while keeping to their own
religious tradition.168
Our third assumption is that it was only after the Exordium was written
in 7 ah that a reconciliation followed with the bulk of Arabian Jewry in the
same way as it had occurred with the polytheists after the fall of Makka.
164
Michael Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’: MuAammad’s First Legal
Document (Princeton: Darwin Press, 2004), 34. All clauses of the Constitution
listed in this paper derive from Lecker’s translation of Ibn IsA:q’s version, 32–9.
165
‘And strive hard in Allah’s cause as you ought to strive. He has chosen you
and not laid upon you any hardship in religion, it is the religion of your father
Abraham (millat ab;kum Ibr:h;m) . . .’
166
Sebeos, Sebeos’ History, ch. 30.
167
Uri Rubin, Between Bible and Qur8:n, 18, quoting Ibn 6As:kir.
168
See Appendix D. The Jewish convert who was also a Companion of the
Prophet appears to have abandoned the Halaka for the Shar;6a. The Muslims
stood out because of their book, the Qur8:n, and for fasting during the month of
Rama@:n. The Jews on the other hand stood out because of the Torah and their
observance of the Sabbath.
Unlike the s;ra, which does not at any point recount a reconciliation
between the Muslims and the Jews of Arabia, and which therefore cannot
be harmonized with the early non-Muslim sources, the Exordium’s
criticism of the Jews can on the other hand be contextualized as having
taken place before the reconciliation. As we shall see, our third assumption
is strongly supported by the Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and
Maqn: and its exordium, and to a lesser extent by the Covenant of 6Umar
with the Christians of Jerusalem, both of which require some examination.
THE COVENANT WITH THE JEWS

OF KHAYBAR AND MAQN2
The Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn: or for the sake of
brevity, the ‘Jewish Covenant’, along with its ‘Jewish exordium’, was
retrieved from the Cairo Geniza and studied by Hartwig Hirschfeld
back in 1903 (see Appendix D).169 The importance and significance of
Hirschfeld’s research seems to have been somewhat neglected. Hirschfeld
argued that the Jewish Covenant is ‘so much against Moslim tendency
that it is out of the question to assume that it was a Jewish fabrication’.170
There is of course the problem of the date. The Covenant with the Jews of
Khaybar and Maqn: was supposed to have been signed on Friday, 3
Rama@:n 5 ah. Hirschfeld correctly noted that ‘the date given at the end
of the letter is, indeed, not quite correct, Ramadhan, A[H]. 5, having been
a Monday’.171
Like the Najran Covenant, the Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar
and Maqn: has its counterpart as a Compact recorded by al-Bal:dhur;.
A comparison of the two is quite revealing. Both are closely worded in
such a way as it appears that the Compact was derived from the
Covenant (see Appendix D). Hirschfeld did not fail to point out that al-
Bal:dhur;’s preamble to the Compact was ‘prefaced by the following
most remarkable statement: ‘‘A man from Egypt (MaBr) has informed me
that he saw their (the Jews’) letter with his own eye, on red leather, with
the writing worn. He copied it, and dictated his copy to me’’.’172 The find
169
To read the Arabic version of the Jewish covenant, see Hamidullah,
Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 121–4.
170
Hartwig Hirschfeld, ‘The Arabic Portion of the Cairo Genizah at
Cambridge’, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 15/2 (1903): 167–81, at 174.
171
Ibid, 172. The Hijri–Gregorian converter on the website ‘IslamiCity.com’
returns the date as a Monday, while that on ‘Al-Islam.com’ returns it as a Sunday.
172
Ibid, 173.
312 AHMED EL-WAKIL
in the Cairo Geniza seems to confirm that the original covenant was in
the possession of the Jews of Egypt.
More significantly, the Jewish Covenant is worded in a similar manner
to the Christian covenants. It declares: ‘Return in safety, in the protection
of All:h and that of his Messenger’; ‘Yours is the safeguard of All:h and
that of his Messenger with regard to your persons, belief, and property,
slaves, and whatever is in your possession’; ‘You shall not have the
annoyance of land-tax’; ‘If you ask assistance, it shall be granted to you,
and if you want help you shall have it’; ‘You shall have no other ruler
except out of your own midst;’ ‘If any of you goes on a journey, he shall
be under the safeguard of All:h and his Messenger’; ‘There is no
compulsion in matters of religion’; and ‘Whoever reads this my letter, or
to whomever it is read, and he alters or changes anything of what is in it,
upon him shall be the curse of All:h and the curse of the cursing of. . .
and all mankind. He is beyond my protection and intercession on the day
of Resurrection, and I am his foe’. As for the phrase ‘You shall not be
hindered entering the mosques’, it was probably a reference to
synagogues which with time came to be corrupted.
Though this Jewish Covenant appears to be authentic, we must
examine the problem of its purported date. It is our contention that the
date of the Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn: has been
mistakenly corrupted with the passage of time and that the original
covenant read ‘9 ah’ instead of ‘5 ah’. Not only is this argument
supported by the dating provided in al-Bal:dhur;’s Compact, but more
importantly a Hijri–Gregorian conversion of 3 Rama@:n 9 ah results in
Friday, 14 December 630.173 By transposing the date to 9 ah instead of 5
ah, we see that the day of the week mentioned, being a Friday, matches
exactly with the computational data and fits with the wider chronology
that is emerging from this study.
The tolerance and humanity that the Prophet showed towards the Jews
is clearly expressed in the Jewish exordium and Covenant, which,
contrary to the Islamic sources, appear to make every attempt at
reconciliation. The lenient attitude of the Prophet towards his enemies is
expressed through his following instructions:
Now [I say that] He has revealed unto me that you are about to return to your
cities and to the inhabitants of your dwelling-place. Return in safety, in the
protection of All:h and that of His Messenger. Yours is the safeguard of All:h
173
IslamiCity.com, online: http://www.islamicity.com/PrayerTimes/defaultHijri
Conv.asp (last accessed: 7 November 2015). The date that is returned on the
website ‘Al-Islam.com’ is Thursday, 13 December 630 ce. See http://www.al-islam.
com/Loader.aspx?pageid=918 (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
and that of His Messenger with regard to your persons, belief, and property,
slaves, and whatever is in your possession. (Appendix D)
The reference to slaves is somewhat odd, and it may initially have been
a reference to prisoners of war who were to be returned to the defeated
enemy, echoing the stipulation in Q. 47. 4. A Jewish Companion of the
Prophet who had embraced Islam tells us in the Jewish exordium that he
‘has detached himself from the sons of Eunai b. Akhtab b. Ean;n: of
Kheibar, whom we came and overpowered, [to whom] our foot made
war, and [whom] our horses carried away. We freely gave up our persons
and provisions six days in the lustrous week’. He goes on to inform us
how, in the aftermath of the war, the Prophet ‘married 4afiyya, the
daughter of our uncle, and gave her her freedom and marriage gift’ (see
Appendix D). The Islamic sources place Euyayy b. Akh3ab’s death after
the siege of the Ban< QurayCa in 5 ah and inform us that 4afiyya’s
emancipation was her wedding gift.174 However, according to the Jewish
exordium, Euyayy appears to have still been alive in 9 ah and it is clear
that 4afiyya had been given both her freedom and a wedding gift.
The relatively late date of 9 ah indicates that, despite the fighting that
took place between the Jews and the Muslims, a reconciliation eventually
had happened before the Prophet died. Both the Jewish exordium and
Covenant demonstrate how the Prophet had done his best to preserve the
dignity of his defeated adversaries. The Jewish Covenant’s stipulation
that the Jews may have a ruler either from among themselves or ‘from
the family of the Messenger of Allah’ denotes a strong, familial bond
between both communities which came to be established through the
Prophet’s marriage to 4afiyya.
Finally, the Covenant is addressed to the people of Khaybar as well as
those of Maqn:, but this too has been suppressed in the Compact, which
only mentions the people of Maqn:. This is quite significant when we
consider how the Exordium to the Najran Covenant fails to mention
anything about the battle of Khaybar. The issuance of this Jewish
Covenant at a relatively late date in the Prophet’s life therefore supports
our earlier observation that the reason why the battle of Khaybar is
not mentioned in the Exordium is that it did not occur in 7 ah, but rather
in 9 ah.
174
This tradition appears in the 4aA;As of Bukh:r; and Muslim, as well as other
famous Aad;th compilations. For the earliest record of it, see Sa6;d b. ManB<r,
Sunan, Aad;th no. 871, online: https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_
hbook.php?bk_no=70&hid=871&pid=32605.
314 AHMED EL-WAKIL
THE COVENANT OF 6UMAR WITH THE

CHRISTIANS OF JERUSALEM
The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (695–785 ce), along with later

Christian chronicles that relied upon it as their common source, inform
us that, after the conquest of Palestine, a discriminatory clause against
the Jews was added to the Treaty of Jerusalem. We find therefore Agapius
of Hierapolis telling us that ‘6Umar gave to him [i.e. Sophronius the
Patriarch of Jerusalem] the peace agreement and he drew up for him a
document (stating the terms of the agreement). In the document (it was
written that) protection was withheld from any Jew that we found in
Jerusalem from this day onwards; any (Jew) that we find will be punished
in respect of his life and his property.’175 Michael the Syrian writes: ‘He
(Sophronius) took a guarantee for the whole country and he (6Umar)
wrote a document for him, including that it was not permitted for a Jew
to live in Jerusalem.’176 The anonymous Syriac Chronicle of 1234 ce
mentions a similar clause: ‘He (6Umar) gave a covenant and pledges and
wrote for them a document, as they requested, (giving protection for
their churches and laws), and for the whole of Palestine they received a
guarantee and pledges, including that no Jew live in Jerusalem.’177 This
same clause prohibiting the Jews from living in Jerusalem can also be
found in al-Fabar;’s recension of the Compact of 6Umar with the
Christians of Jerusalem.178
The Chronicle of Seert informs us that the Christians of Jerusalem
allowed 6Umar to enter the city on the condition that the Jews would not
reside in Jerusalem or at the very least be allowed to purchase homes
there.179 Maher Abu-Munshar has correctly argued that the clause of the
Jerusalem Compact is not authentic, but he has failed to mention that it
echoes a historical truth. The Christians probably feared that the
admission of Jews into Jerusalem would pose a threat to their livelihood,
and so it appears that 6Umar had to set a policy to have the two
communities live in separate quarters to manage and contain the
175
Robert Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle and the Circulation of
Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool: University
Press, 2011), 115.
176
Ibid, 115–16.
177
Ibid, 117.
178
Maher Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of
Christians in Islamicjerusalem at the Time of Umar Ibn al-Khatt:b and Sal:h
al-D;n with Special Reference to the Islamic Value of Justice’ (PhD diss.,
University of Abertay Dundee, 2003), 146–9.
179
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 623–4 [303–4].
animosity between them and prevent the deterioration of inter-commu-
nal relations. Some Jews were nevertheless allowed to take up residency
in Jerusalem and Moshe Gill has mentioned how some people from
the Children of Israel returned to Jerusalem alongside 6Umar’s conquer-
ing army. A fragment from a Jewish chronicle in the Cairo Geniza tells
us how the Jews made a request for 200 families to return to Jerusalem
which the Patriarch Sophronius refused. In the aftermath of the nego-
tiations 6Umar settled for 70.180
It is evident from Sebeos that the Jews were never banned from Jerusalem.
Sebeos tells us how after gaining ‘support from the Hagarenes’,181 the Jews
decided to build the temple of Solomon, thereby fulfilling their messianic
aspirations which they could not have done had they been prevented from
entering Jerusalem altogether. The Chronicle of Seert accords with Sebeos in
telling us that 6Umar ordered the construction of the Dome of the Rock and
the al-Aqs: mosque and that the Jews were consulted in this manifestly
Jewish-messianic endeavour.182 This clearly demonstrates that even though
there may have been a limit on the number of Jews allowed to reside in
Jerusalem and that the latter were designated quarters separate from the
Christians, there never was a clause in the original Treaty of Jerusalem to
prevent their access to the Holy City. Even after conceiving of an evil plot ‘to
fill Jerusalem with blood from end to end, and to exterminate all the
Christians of Jerusalem,’ Sebeos tells us that the Arab prince governing the
city ‘permitted the other [Jews] to return to their places’183 after the culprits
were punished. Sebeos’ testimony clarifies that, despite the criminal activity
of some individual Jews, the Jewish community as a whole still continued to
have access to Jerusalem and were never barred from the city.
More significantly, Abu-Munshar was able to reproduce the Covenant
of 6Umar with the Christians of Jerusalem, or the ‘Jerusalem Covenant’
for short. He explains that the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of
Jerusalem published for the first time in 1953 the Arabic translation of
the Greek text held in the Greek Orthodox library in the Phanar quarter
of Istanbul in Turkey.184 A careful reading of the Jerusalem Covenant
180
Moshe Gill, A History of Palestine, 634-1099 (transl. Ethel Broido;
Cambridge: University Press, 1997), x84, 70-71.
181
Sebeos, History, ch. 31, online: http://rbedrosian.com/seb9.htm (last
accessed: 18 January 2015).
182
183
Sebeos, History, ch. 31.
184
Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’,
153–4.
316 AHMED EL-WAKIL
reveals that its style of writing is very close to that of the covenants of the
Prophet.185 For example, the emphasis on protection is stated, and the
following expressions are all reminiscent of the covenants of the Prophet
by which 6Umar was undoubtedly inspired: ‘it is incumbent on us the
believers and our successors, to protect the dhimmis and help them
achieve their needs’; ‘They will be protected whether they are on sea or
land’; ‘All praise to Allah Lord of the World’; and ‘Whosoever reads this
Assurance from the believers and opposes it from now and till the Day of
Judgment, he is breaking the covenant of Allah and deserving the
disapproval of his noble messenger’. Al-Fabar; records that Mu6:wiya
b. Ab; Sufy:n attested to it,186 which leads us to suppose that he was
the one who transcribed it. A link can thus be established between the
covenants of the Prophet and the Jerusalem Covenant to explain the
similarity in language between them—namely that Mu6:wiya, the scribe
of the Prophet, was also the one who wrote the Jerusalem Covenant on
behalf of 6Umar.
There are definitely a number of problems in the transmission of the
Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Jerusalem. The oldest Arabic
copy that we possess which Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi investigated is an
Arabic translation of a Greek copy which is itself a translation of an
original, now lost, Arabic document.187 The Covenant provides a more
accurate date than the Compact recorded by al-Fabar;, which is an
unlikely hallmark of a forgery. The Covenant was supposed to have been
written down on the ‘20th of the month of Rabi al-Awal, the 15th year of
the Prophet[’s] Hijra’188 while the Compact merely states that it ‘was
written and prepared in the year 15 (ah)’.189 The date of the Jerusalem
185
For an English translation of the Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of
Jerusalem including the Arabic version translated from the Greek, and from
which the author quotes, see ibid, 154–5. See also Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi,
6Umar’s Assurance of Aman to the People of Aelia (Islamicjerusalem): A Critical
Analytical Study of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate’s Version’, World Journal
of Islamic History and Civilization, 2, 3 (2012): 128–36, at 132–3; and Morrow,
Covenants, 337.
186
Ibid.
187
El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 133–5; Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical
Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’, 154–5.
188
El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 133. This date is either the
equivalent of Wednesday 1 May 636 (http://www.al-islam.com/Loader.aspx?pa-
geid=918) or Thursday 2 May 636 (http://www.islamicity.com/prayertimes/
hijriconverter1apartner.htm).
189
To read an English translation of the Compact of 6Umar along with its
original Arabic, see Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of
Christians’, 142–3. Also see El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 131;
Covenant is either the equivalent of Wednesday 1 May190 or Thursday 2
May 636 ce.191 The names of the witnesses are not all listed in either
document—the Compact lists Kh:lid b. al-Wal;d, 6Amr b. al-62B and
Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n, while the Covenant lists 6Abdullah (?), 6Uthm:n
b. 6Aff:n and Sa6;d b. Zayd ‘among the remaining companions’
brothers’.192 The only Companion whom both documents name as a
witness is 6Abd al-RaA:an b. 6Awf.
Clearly if one is to accept that the Compact recorded by al-Fabar; is a
reliable transmission of the Treaty of Jerusalem, then the Covenant,
despite its defects, should be considered as the most accurate and
authentic recension. El-Awaisi has criticized the mention of different
Christian denominations mentioned in the Jerusalem Covenant, but this
should not be considered odd, for the early Muslims were most probably
familiar with the different religious denominations of their time.193 The
word ‘Franks’ (al-ifrinj) used in the Jerusalem Covenant could have, in
the original Arabic document, been a different word, such as ‘foreigners’
(al-6ajm) to allude to Christians from foreign lands. This would certainly
make sense if 6Umar’s policy was to permit all different religious
communities, wherever they may have been, access to Jerusalem. The
same can be said about the naming of Jerusalem as al-Quds al-Shar;f
which in the original Arabic document would have been referred to as
Aelia, as al-Fabar; has recorded. The difficulties noted by El-Awaisi are
bound to arise with the translation back into Arabic, after an interlude of
centuries, of an original Arabic document. Such minor difficulties of
diction, on which El-Awaisi and Abu-Munshar base their view that the
Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Jerusalem was fabricated
during the Ottoman period, are of negligible import, and their judgement
unwarranted.194
One other discrepancy, not picked up by El-Awaisi, but which still
does not support the claim that the Jerusalem Covenant was forged, is
that the honorifics ‘the servant of Allah’ and ‘Commander of the
Morrow, Covenants, 193-194; Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya,

488–9.
190
Al-islam.com, http://www.al-islam.com/Loader.aspx?pageid=918 (last ac-
cessed: 7 November 2015).
191
IslamiCity.com, online:http://www.islamicity.com/PrayerTimes/defaultHijri
Conv.asp (last accessed: 7 November 2015).
192
Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’,
155; El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 133.
193
Cheikho, Uh<d Nab; al-Isl:m, 617. Also see Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-
wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 555.
194
El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 135. See also Abu-Munshar, ‘A
Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’, 97–122, 155–60.
318 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Believers’ are missing. Both titles are found in the Covenant with the
Mesopotamian Christians195 and the Compact reproduced by al-Fabar;,
though in the latter 6Umar’s father’s name, ‘Ibn al-Kha33:b’, is lacking, as
also is the word kit:b.196 The Jerusalem Compact states: ‘This is what
has been granted by the servant of Allah, 6Umar, the Commander of the
Believers, to the people of Aelia as an assurance of safety (am:n).’197 The
Jerusalem Covenant reads ‘This is a writ (kit:b) from 6Umar b. al-
Kha33:b’,198 omitting the honorifics. This may lead one to think that it is
a defective copy. The existence of the expression ‘the servant of Allah,
6Umar’, in both al- Fabar;’s Compact and in the Covenant of 6Umar with
the Christians of Mesopotamia, is indicative of a link between the two.
This most likely means that the original Treaty of Jerusalem may well
have used the same opening clause as the Covenant with the Christians
of Mesopotamia, namely, ‘This is a writ (kit:b) from the servant of
Allah, 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b, Commander of the Believers’. It also suggests
that 6Umar’s Covenant with the Christians of Mesopotamia in The
Chronicle of Seert may in fact be a very accurate replica of the original.
Moreover, the Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Mesopotamia
accords with the Jerusalem Covenant in its emphasis on protection and
the following expressions: ‘Whoever violates or alters any of its [i.e. the
Covenant’s] terms and conditions has severed himself from the protec-
tion of Allah and His Messenger’;199 and the Covenant should be
respected ‘until the Day of Judgement and the world comes to an end’.200
If we accept either of the covenants of 6Umar as authentic, then there is
no reason to reject the other. The commonalities of expression and tone
of these covenants with the covenants of the Prophet strongly suggests
that al-Fabar;’s version is in fact the more defective transmission, as
compared to that of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem,
despite the problems of back-translation after a lapse of centuries. What
is important to note here is that 6Umar’s Compact with the Christians of
Jerusalem, as reported in the Islamic sources, does not in any way
contradict, but rather validates, the terms and conditions listed in his
Covenant with the Christians of Mesopotamia and the Jerusalem
195
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 620 [300]. My translation.
196
See El-Awaisi, 6Umar’s Assurance of Aman’, 130; Maher Abu-Munshar, ‘A
Historical Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’, 142.
197
My translation of the Arabic from Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-
siy:siyya, 489.
198
My translation of the Arabic presented in Abu Munshar, ‘A Historical Study
of Muslim Treatment of Christians’, 154–5.
199
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 623 [303]. My translation.
200
Ibid. My translation.
Covenant. The infamous ‘Pact of 6Umar’ certainly does not align with
any of these documents, and its authenticity has been questioned by
scholars201 or, if accepted, then it has been contextualized to specific
conditions of war at a particular time and place.202 After all 6Umar was
known to have been a very tolerant man and his legacy is still evident to
this day in Jerusalem as the mosque of 6Umar stands outside the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in which he refused to pray so that future
generations of Muslims would preserve its sanctity. His tolerance is
further attested in the eighth-century Syriac manuscript, The Life of
Gabriel of Qartmin, which recalls how M:r Gabriel, Bishop of T<r
6Abdin, received a covenant from 6Umar according to the terms and
conditions stipulated in the covenants, meaning that this narrative
(despite Hoyland’s reservations about it203) must contain an authentic
historical core.
Finally, the Jerusalem Covenant makes no mention of the Jews being
excluded from the Holy City, bringing it in harmony with Sebeos, The
Chronicle of Seert and with the fragment from the Jewish chronicle
found in the Cairo Geniza. Moreover, a tradition recorded by Ibn 6As:kir
mentions how 6Umar wrote a compact to the Jewish Chief Y<suf b. N<n
in J:biya, to protect the lives, wealth and synagogues of 20 Jews from
Jerusalem which could not have been the case had ‘Umar agreed to the
clause found in al-Fabar;.204
If we go back to the reconciliation that took place between the Prophet
and the Jews of Arabia as outlined in the Jewish Covenant, we may
derive from this latter document that the Jews eventually came to ally
themselves with the Muslims as they were heading out towards Palestine.
This would certainly explain why Sebeos and all the other early non-
Muslims sources mention the presence of Jews among the Arabs in the
conquering armies. Furthermore, their participation in 6Umar’s army
provides context to the negotiations 6Umar undertook with Sophronius
regarding their fate. The Jews’ desire to relocate to the Holy Land means
201
For a good discussion of its authenticity, see: Abu-Munshar, ‘A Historical
Study of Muslim Treatment of Christians’, 97–122.
202
For an excellent treatment and analysis of the ‘Pact of 6Umar’, see Albrecht
Noth, ‘Problems of Differentiation between Muslims and non-Muslims: Re-
reading the ‘‘Ordinances of 6Umar’’ (al-Shur<3 al-6Umariyya)’ in Robert Hoyland
(ed.), Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Aldershot, Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004), 103–24.
203
Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of
Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, NJ:
Darwin press, 1997), 123–4.
204
Ibn 6As:kir, T:r;kh Damashq, vii. 309, online: http://lib.eshia.ir/22014/7/
309 (last accessed: 19 January 2015).
320 AHMED EL-WAKIL
that there was in fact no expulsion of Jews from the Arabian Peninsula,
and as we shall see, this was a political manoeuvre that later developed to
suit the purposes of empire.
THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS AND

CHRISTIANS FROM THE ARABIAN PENINSULA
While the Exordium to the Najran Covenant depicts a friendly relation-

ship between the Prophet and the Christians of that region, this state of
affairs is unfortunately not reflected in the s;ra or in any of the Islamic
sources which, instead, relate how the first correspondence between the
Prophet and the Najrani Christians was rather aggressive in tone:
From MuAammad the Messenger of Allah to the bishop of Najran: In the name
of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. To proceed: I call you to the worship of
Allah from that of His creation and I call you to the sanctity of Allah instead of
the sanctity of His creation. If you refuse, then the jizya is binding upon you, and
if you refuse then I warn you of impending war. Peace.205
Muslim scholars who consider the above letter as historical and as

representing the first point of contact between the Najrani Christians and
the Prophet agree with al-SubA:n; that it was written in 9 ah.206 They
have come to this conclusion because the letter mentions payment of the
jizya, which according to Islamic sources was revealed in Q. 9. 29 in 9
ah. However, even if we were to accept Ibn IsA:q’s account that the
Christians of Najran may have visited the Prophet in Makka, the Islamic
sources, in contrast to the Exordium, do not at any point depict any kind
of close friendship between them and the Muslims. The confrontational
tone found in the letter is maintained when they supposedly arrived in
Madina—because of their ostentatious clothing, the Prophet initially
refused to address them,207 and despite having allowed them to pray in
205
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 174. My translation.
206
Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-Nabawiyya, iv. 71. Ibn Kath;r has a report which
states that the Prophet wrote to the Christians of Najran before the 27th s<ra of
the Qur8:n (al-Naml) was revealed. According to most Qur8:nic authorities, al-
Naml was revealed in Makka. How then could a confrontational letter warning
of impeding war have been sent to them when the Prophet was in Makka? This
discrepancy is conveniently ignored by Ibn Kath;r who still places their visit in
the year of deputations in 9 ah.
207
MuAammad Ibn Sa6d, Waf:d:t ahl al-Yaman, al-Fabaq:t al-K<bra, online:
http://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=82&pid=
35295 (last accessed: 18 January 2015).
his mosque and having spent quite some time in their company, the
Prophet nonetheless challenged them to a mub:hala that, as Ibn IsA:q,
Ibn Kath;r and Ibn Sa6d all agree, they turned down.208
Ibn Sa6d informs us that two leaders of their delegation—their political
leader 6Abd al-Mas;A and their sayyid—returned to meet with the Prophet
and embraced Islam.209 Ibn Kath;r narrates how Bishr b. Mu6:wiya (a.k.a.
Ab< 6Alqama), half-brother of their bishop Ab< E:ritha b. 6Alqama, came
back to Madina to embrace Islam following the delegation’s first visit
there.210 Ibn IsA:q and Ibn Kath;r name Kurz b. 6Alqama, the brother of
Ab< E:ritha b. 6Alqama, as also having accepted Islam after their second
visit to the Prophet.211 Clearly there is a marked contrast between a few
individuals from Najran having accepted the new faith after the mub:hala
and the entire delegation eagerly defending the cause of Islam upon their
return to Najran as depicted in the Exordium.
The semi-hostile attitude found in the Islamic sources is maintained up
to the time of 6Umar when a group of Najrani Christians was sent into
exile. According to al-Bal:dhur;, this was because they engaged in usury
which they were prohibited from doing according to the Compact.212
This however is a practice not mentioned in the Exordium, which instead
states that it was the Jews who ‘seek and yearn by practicing usury,
looking for money, and selling the law of God for a miserable price’.213
One letter from 6Umar to them during his rule accuses them of apostasy,
208
For a comprehensive account of their visit that provides additional details to
that of Ibn IsA:q, see Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-Nabawiyya, iv. 71–6.
209
Ibn Sa6d, al-Fabaq:t, online: http://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_
hbook.php?bk_no=82&pid=35295 (last accessed: 18 January 2015).
210
Ibn Kath;r, al-S;ra al-Nabawiyya, iv. 74.
211
Ibid, 76. The accounts of Bishr b. Mu6:wiya and Kurz b. 6Alqama’s
conversions are so similar that it is obvious that one of the accounts has been
used as a prototype for the other. It is highly unlikely that the Christians of
Najran visited the Prophet a second time after the Compact was issued to request
another Compact to be drawn reiterating the same terms and conditions. It is
more plausible to argue from the Islamic sources that only one of Ab< E:ritha b.
6Alqama’s brothers did convert following the one visit that took place in 9 ah and
in which the terms of the Compact were drawn up. See also Guillaume, The Life
of Muhammad, x401, 270.
212
al-Bal:dhur;, The Origins of the Islamic State: Being a Translation from the
Arabic Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the
Kitâb FutûA al-Buldân (transl. by Philip Khuri Hitti; New York: Cosimo Classics,
2011), x66, 102. Their exile for practising usury is also mentioned in Ab< 6Ubayd
and Ibn Zanjawayh’s Kit:b al-Amw:l following their reproduction of the
Compact.
213
322 AHMED EL-WAKIL
which may present an alternative explanation as to why they were

allegedly exiled.214 Al-T:bar; states that it was only the Jews of Najran
who were expelled215 though al-Bal:dhur; maintains that it was both the
city’s Christian and Jewish populations who were exiled as they were
equally subject to the terms of the Compact.216
This enmity between the Muslims and the Christians is not anywhere
present in The Chronicle of Seert which reports how, as soon as
Isho6yahb II (a.k.a. Ish<6yab al-Jadal:n;) became the Catholicos of the
Assyrian Church of the East in 7 ah,217 he sent al-Sayyid Ghass:n; to
meet with the Prophet. After the Prophet’s death, he sent Gabriel, the
bishop of Mais:n—a district in south-eastern Iraq also known as
Charax—to meet with Ab< Bakr. Al-Shayb:n; somewhat confirms this in
his Kit:b al-Siyar where he has recorded the text of a compact that Ab<
Bakr granted to the Christians of Najran.218 After the latter’s death
Isho8yahb II met 6Umar in person, who then drew up the Covenant with
the Christians of Mesopotamia in 27/648.219 These interactions demon-
strate how, whenever a new Catholicos or head of the Islamic state was
appointed, steps were taken to renew diplomatic ties on both sides.
Although the Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Mesopotamia
does not specifically address the Christians of Najran, it is clear from its
terms and conditions that it would have applied to them as he simply
continued the policy of the Prophet towards the Christians of the world.
In a similar fashion to the covenants of the Prophet, 6Umar had only one
stipulation for the Christians of Mesopotamia: that they would not aid
any of the Muslims’ enemies.220 If all the Christian denominations of
Najran willingly agreed to come under Muslim hegemony, then what
crime could they have committed to cause them to be exiled from Najran
214
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 192–3. Hamidullah notes
Ibn Zanjawayh’s Kit:b al-Amwal and Ibn al-Qayyim’s AAk:m ahl al-dhimma as
his sources.
215
al-F:bar;, The History of al-T:bar;, vol. 13: The Conquest of Iraq,
Southwestern Persia, and Egypt (The Middle Years of 6Umar’s Caliphate A.D.
636–642/A.H., 15–21) (transl. by Gautier H. A. Juynboll; New York: State
University of New York Press, 1989), x2595, 177.
216
al-Bal:dur;. The Origins of the Islamic State, x66, 102.
217
218
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyyaSiy:siyya, 191–2.
219
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 620 [300]. According to Scher the areas referred
to in the Covenant of 6Umar are Seleucia and Nahr Bir. Scher believes the latter to
be Nehargour, the region between Mais:n (i.e. Charax) and Ahwaz. These areas
are part of modern-day Iraq and Iran. To read the full covenant in Arabic, see
Scher, Chronique de Séert, 620–3 [300–3]. See also: Morrow, Covenants, 338–9.
220
Ibid, 622 [302].
and for what credible reason would they have jeopardized a perfectly
reasonable agreement with the Muslims? If they did suddenly betray the
Muslims, then one is left wondering which of the Muslims’ enemies they
aided and what they hoped to gain from this, particularly at a time when
the Muslims were in a much stronger political position.
Ibn Zanjawayh reports how the Najrani Christians had in their midst
40,000 fighters and how 6Umar was afraid that they would rebel against
the Muslims. 6Umar considered exiling them but they came to him
requesting relocation in Syria. 6Umar accepted, but it was a decision they
would later regret.221 Ibn Zanjawayh’s report seems very dubious. It
would be far more sensible to argue that 6Umar never coerced them to
relocate. It is significant that in spite of the relocation being labelled an
‘exile’, the terms which 6Umar stipulated for the Najrani Christians are
indeed very favourable: they were to be given land in Iraq and Syria and
were exempted from paying the jizya for two years. The text of 6Umar’s
letter to them does not read like an expulsion order at all but rather as
provisions of assistance for a voluntary relocation for which they had
requested 6Umar’s support.222 Just like the Jews of Khaybar and others in
the Arabian Peninsula who desired to relocate to the Holy Land, 6Umar
was doing his best to facilitate the Najrani Christians’ voluntary
relocation to the newly conquered territories.
The exile of the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula is not
in any way supported by the available sources, whether this be in the
Exordium, the Najran Covenant, or the Covenant with the Jews of
Khaybar and Maqn:, all of whose terms and conditions are stated to be
valid until the Day of Judgement. It is also, to a lesser extent, not
supported by the Jerusalem Covenant and 6Umar’s friendly attitude
towards the Jews after the conquest of Jerusalem. The mounting evidence
is therefore in direct contradiction to the following Aad;th which
purports an alleged expulsion of Jews from Khaybar and Christians from
Najran:
YaAya related to me from M:lik from Ibn Shih:b [al-Zuhr;] that the Messenger
of Allah said: ‘Two religions shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula’. M:lik
said that Ibn Shih:b said: ‘6Umar b. al-Kha33:b searched for information about
that until he was absolutely convinced that the Messenger of Allah had said
‘‘Two religions shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula’’ and he therefore
expelled the Jews from Khaybar.’
221
Ibn Zanjawayh, Kit:b al-Amw:l, Aad;th no. 331, https://library.islamweb.
net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=134&hid=331&pid=63625.
222
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 193–4. Hamidullah’s main
source is al-Shayb:n;’s Kit:b al-Siyar.
324 AHMED EL-WAKIL
M:lik said: ‘6Umar b. al-Kha33:b expelled the Jews from Najran and Fadak.
When the Jews of Khaybar left, they did not take any fruit or land. The Jews of
Fadak took half the fruit and half the land, because the Messenger of Allah had
made a settlement with them for that. So 6Umar entrusted to them the value in
gold, silver, camels, ropes and saddle bags of half the fruit and half the land, and
handed the value over to them and expelled them.’223
The accounts of alleged expulsions of Jews and Christians from major
centres in the Arabian Peninsula were, it seems, fabricated by tradition-
ists. A survey to identify the originators of these traditions reveals the
Successor Ab< al-Zubayr al-Makk;224 as a common-link who allegedly
narrated it from the Companion J:bir b. 6Abdull:h. As M:lik most
probably did not forge traditions from Ibn Shih:b al-Zuhr;, the latter
should be considered as the originator of the tradition recorded above
where his name appears. A more comprehensive isn:d elucidates that al-
Zuhr;’s informant was 6Ubaydull:h b. 6Abdull:h b. 6Utba b. Mas6<d who
allegedly obtained his narration from 628isha.225 A comparatively later
‘trusted’ authority named Ibr:h;m b. Maym<n, the client of the family of
Samura b. Jundub, is also a common-link.226 Other traditions to the
same effect comprising of single-stranded isn:ds have been excluded as
their originators can only be identified by speculation.
223
M:lik, Muwa33:, Book 45, Aad;th no. 18. My translation. http://sunnah.
com/urn/416781. See also: Aisha Bewley, Muwa33:, Book of Blood Money, 43.5;
https://bewley.virtualave.net/muw17.html.
224
AAmad b. Eanbal, Musnad, Aad;th nos. 203, 221, 1440, 1627; respectively:
https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=121&hid=203&
pid=60219;=60219;=60289; /hadithServices.php?type=2&cid=747&sid=30002.
6Abd al-Razz:q, MuBannaf, Aad;th nos. 9752, 32299, 18726; respectively:
https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=60&hid=9752&-
pid=28755; &hid=18726&pid=30973; &hid=32299&pid; Ab< 6Ubayd, Kit:b al-
Amw:l, Aad;th nos. 244, 245; respectively: https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/
display_hbook.php?bk_no=73&hid=244&pid; =245&pid.
225
Ibn Eanbal, Musnad, Aad;th no. 25758, Ibn Eanbal, Musnad, Aad;th no.
25758, https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=121&hid=
25758&pid=62379
226
al-Fay:lis;, Musnad, Aad;th no. 223, https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/
display_hbook.php?bk_no=52&hid=223&pid=18165. Ibn Eanbal, Musnad,
Aad;th nos. 1624, 1632; respectively: https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/dis-
play_hbook.php?bk_no=121&hid=1624&pid=60233; =60233. 6Abd al-Razz:q,
MuBannaf, Aad;th no. 32295, https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.
php?bk_no=96&hid=32295&pid; Ab< 6Ubayd, Kit:b al-Amw:l, Aad;th no. 249,
https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.php?bk_no=73&hid=249&-
pid; al-Eumayd;, Musnad, Aad;th no. 83, https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/
display_hbook.php?bk_no=68&hid=83&pid=31239.
If, as we have seen, the Prophet had a very different attitude to
the Christians and Jews, we must conclude that the policy to clear the
Arabian Peninsula of its non-Muslim population was developed in the
period of the Successors who projected it back to an earlier time to secure
for it some sort of legitimacy.227 This however brings into question the
Aad;ths on which this policy is based and we should examine the
motivation for such an important reversal of attitudes. Al-Zuhr;’s link to
the 6Umayyads is well-known and has been a subject of controversy.228
Ab< al-Zubayr al-Makk; was a client of Eak;m b. Eiz:m,229 another
pro-Umayyad figure, supposed to have been a nephew of the Prophet’s
beloved wife Khad;ja. Since Samura b. Jundub took the side of Mu6:wiya
in his war against 6Al;, Ibr:h;m b. Maym<n’s link to his family would
immediately place him as a pro-establishment figure as well. Looking
closely, what we see are pro-Umayyad figures with links to the political
elite, who years after the reign of Mu6:wiya, forged traditions of the
Prophet by projecting them back to disparate authorities to support the
policies of their political masters. This would mean that the common-
link did not always obtain his information from a Companion but rather
that he agreed to forge Prophetic and other traditions by ascribing these
to different Companions for the sake of political expediency.
227
The subversion of the authentic covenants of the Prophet, the ‘Pact of
‘Umar’ and the alleged exile of the non-Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula all
reflect a latter-day shift in policy by the Muslim political elite. Future research
may perhaps shed light on when exactly these policy changes were effected, by
whom and for what motives. It appears that 6Umar b. 6Abd al-6Az;z was the first
Muslim ruler officially to promulgate these new discriminatory practices against
the non-Muslims. This is made very clear in Theophilus’ Chronicle: see Hoyland,
Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle, 215–17. Marion Holmes Katz (The
Emergence of the Sunn; Law of Ritual Purity [Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 2002], 253) has also observed how 6Umar b. 6Abd al-6Az;z ‘does
seem to have been involved in the dissemination of the idea that the Arabian
Peninsula should be exclusively Muslim’. The notorious ‘Pact of 6Umar’ and the
edict evicting non-Muslims from the Peninsula was therefore most probably
issued by 6Umar II and then ascribed to 6Umar I.
228
For an overview of some controversial aspects of al-Zuhr;’s character, see
Michael Lecker, ‘Biographical Notes on Ibn Shih:b al-Zuhr;’, Journal of Semitic
Studies 41/1 (1996): 21–63; and Farahnaz Vahidnia, Hasan Naqizadih,
Gholamrida Raisian, ‘Shi6a Rijali Views of Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab
al-Zuhri’, Journal of Shi6a Islamic Studies, 7/1 (2014): 7–8.
229
Ab< 6Umar Y<suf b. 6Abdullah b. MuAammad Ibn 6Abd al-Barr, al-Tamh;d
li-ma f; al-Muwa33a8 min al-ma6:n; wa-l-as:n;d, sec. 12 (Rabat: Ministry of
Islamic Affairs, 1983), 143; http://library.islamweb.net/newlibrary/display_book.
php?idfrom=613&idto=613&bk_no=78&ID=338 (accessed 19 October 2015).
326 AHMED EL-WAKIL
THE COVENANT WITH THE SAMARITANS
The Kit:b al-T:r;kh of Ab< al-FatA b. Ab; al-Easan al-S:mir;, which is a

compilation of the Samaritans’ history from the earliest sources, narrates
how the Samaritan community had sent 4arm:sa, one of their leaders, to
meet with the Prophet who then provided him with a covenant of
protection for the Samaritan community.230 It reads:
I, MuAammad b. 6Abdullah b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib, have commanded that a
covenant of protection and security be written to the Samaritan community for
their persons, their children, their property, their wealth, their places of worship,
their financial endowments, and to be binding in all the provinces and places in
which they reside. We also pledge to behave with them and the people of
Palestine in the best possible manner.231
It is said that the Covenant was subsequently re-written by 6Al; b. Ab;
F:lib according to the same terms and conditions.232 Interestingly, al-
Bal:dhur; records how the Prophet’s close Companion ‘Ab< 6Ubayda
ibn-al-Jarr:A made terms with the Samaritans in the provinces of Jordan
and Palestine, and they acted as spies and guides for the Moslems,
stipulating that they pay tax on their persons but nothing on their
lands’.233 Just like the Najran Covenant and the 1538 reproduction of
the Covenant with the Christians of the World, the Samaritan Covenant
lists the Prophet’s full name, ‘MuAammad b. 6Abdullah b. 6Abd al-
Mu33alib’. This also gives it some similarity to the Covenant with the
Monks of Mount Sinai where the Prophet’s name appears as
‘MuAammad b. 6Abdull:h’.
The Kit:b al-T:r;kh notes how the Muslims charged 4 dirhams and a
measure of barley as jizya and that ‘MuAammad did not wrong anyone
who followed a divine law’.234 The amount of 4 dirhams is not only
stipulated in the Najran Covenant, but also in the 1538 Covenant with
the Christians of the World,235 the Covenant with the Armenian
230
For a good study of the Samaritan tradition about the Prophet, see John
Macdonald, ‘An Unpublished Palestinian Tradition about Muhammed’,
Australian Journal of Biblical Archaeology, 1/2 (1969): 3–12.
231
Annales Samaritani: quos ad Fidem Codicum Manu Scriptorum
Berolinensium Bodlejani Parisini Abulfathi b. Ab; al-Easan al-S:mir;, Kit:b al-
T:r;kh mim: taqaddama 6an al-ab:8 (ed. Eduardus Vilma; Gothae: Friderici
Andreae Perthes, 1865), 174. My translation.
232
Ibid, 174–5.
233
al-Bal:dhur;, The Origins of the Islamic State, x158, 244.
234
Ibid, 180.
235
Christians, and in the Covenant with the Christians of Persia. The latter
document seems to have mistakenly listed the amount as ‘Four
Dinars’236 for later on it states that ‘Of those who are not of the
Christian faith, neither conduct worship according to the Christian rite,
Four Dirhems shall be exacted’.237 As for the Covenant with the
Christians of Armenia, it stipulates that the jizya rate should be 4
dirhams in addition to the provision of a garment.238 Leon Arpee has
related a tradition that was repeated by Giragos Vartabed, an Armenian
writer of the second half of the thirteenth century, ‘to the effect that the
Prophet of Islam granted the Armenians freedom to hold the Christian
faith on the condition of a tribute from each household of ‘ ‘‘four dirhems
of money, three measures of wheat, a saddle-bag, a rope of hair, and a
towel’’ ’.239 A similar tradition has been recorded by the twelfth-century
Armenian historian Samuel of Ani:
Then Mahmet stayed the sword, and by the word of his instruction they
subjected to themselves the greater part of the universe. With an eternal oath he
sealed a deed for the land of Armenia, (that) they could freely observe
Christianity. And he sold (vačareac’) them their faith, taking from every
household four drachmas, three bushels of xorbal, one nose-bag, one cord of
hair, and one gauntlet. But from the priests, nobles and cavalry he ordered no tax
to be taken.240
The tax stipulation mentioned in the Kit:b al-T:r;kh that was

supposedly affixed to the Samaritan Covenant is the strongest available
evidence that we have to suggest that the original covenant wasn’t forged
but that it too can be traced back to the Prophet.
LIBERATION OR CONQUEST? A
RECONSIDERATION OF THE MOTIVE OF
WARFARE IN EARLY ISLAM
The gathering evidence that the covenants are in fact authentic opens the
door for us to reconsider the concept of warfare in Islam. There is no
236
Arpee, A History of Armenian Christianity, 357.
237
Ibid, 357–8.
238
239
Arpee, A History of Armenian Christianity, 355. My translation.
240
Robert W. Thomson, ‘Muhammad and the Origin of Islam in Armenian
Literary Tradition’ in Thomson (ed.), Studies in Armenian Literature and
Christianity (Aldershot, Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1994), 829–58, at 843.
328 AHMED EL-WAKIL
evidence from the covenants or any of the non-Muslim sources that

the Prophet ever oppressed any religious community. The testimony of
the Nestorian writer John bar Penkaye is quite telling as it validates the
tolerant policy of the covenants, indicating that the Muslims’ tolerance
was extended indiscriminately to all religious communities. Bar Penkaye
tells us that ‘Of each person, they required only tribute (madatta),
allowing him to remain in whatever faith he wished’.241 The issuance of
covenants of protection by the Prophet to the different religious
communities of his time is also confirmed by the tenth century
Christian writer Agapius of Hierapolis who may have relied on The
Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa. Agapius writes:
‘The Arabs mobilised at Yathrib. Head of them was a man called Muhammad
son of ‘Abdallah and he became their chief and king. . . Christians from among
the Arabs and other (peoples) came to him and he gave them a guarantee of
safety and wrote documents for them (to that effect). All the peoples in
opposition to him did likewise, I mean the Jews, Zoroastrians, Sabaeans and
others; they gave allegiance to him and took from him a guarantee of safety on
the condition that they would pay to him the poll-tax and land tax.’242
If this was indeed the case, the conquest of Jerusalem may have initially
been driven not by a desire to conquer but rather by a need to liberate or
to open up the city to all three faiths. Sebeos records how the Prophet had
sent a letter to Heraclius Emperor of the Byzantines, telling him ‘God gave
that country [Israel] as the inherited property [i kaluats zharhangut’ean] of
Abraham and of his sons after him. We are the sons of Abraham. It is too
much that you hold our country. Leave in peace, and we shall demand
from you what you have seized, plus interest’.243 Sebeos then adds that
Heraclius was supposed to have answered: ‘The country is mine. Your
inheritance is the desert. So go in peace to your country’.244
Both Sebeos and the Islamic sources agree on the historicity of written
exchanges between the Prophet and Heraclius but there is clearly no
agreement on the details. The messianic fervour present in Sebeos’ account
is not related in any of the Islamic sources, which instead focus on
religious debates between the two leaders in their first written exchanges.
241
Quoted from Fred Donner, ‘Visions of the Early Islamic Expansion:
Between the Heroic and the Horrific’ in Nadia Maria El Cheikh and Shaun
O’Sullivan (eds.), Byzantium in Early Islamic Syria (Beirut: American University
of Beirut and University of Balamond, 2011): 9–29, at 26–7. See also John bar
Penkaye, Summary of World History, Book 15.
242
Hoyland, Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle, 87-88.
243
Sebeos, History, ch. 31.
244
Ibid.
In his second letter to Heraclius, the Prophet apparently gave the Emperor
three choices: to embrace Islam, to pay the jizya, or not to interfere with
his subjects if they desired to embrace Islam or to live under the protection
of the Islamic state by paying the jizya.245 Although it is quite obvious that
the Prophet’s demand for him to pay the jizya bears some similarity to
Sebeos’ narrative of Heraclius being requested to give ‘interest’, the
differences between the two accounts—just like all Muslim and non-
Muslim historiographical sources on early Islam—are quite evident.
If Islam was indeed a tolerant religion at its inception and open to the
inclusion of Christians and Jews in particular, then it seems very odd for
it to have preached war and conquest. The covenants and the letters to
Heraclius could indicate that these wars may have in fact begun to
defend various religious communities from persecution, perhaps because
they had asked the Prophet for protection. This is hinted in the Covenant
with the Armenian Christians in which the Prophet states: ‘I have been
given permission to write it [i.e. the covenant] at the request of a party of
the Armenian sect after they established their covenant with me,
245
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 110–11. The letter repro-
duced by Hamidullah states (my translation): ‘If you do not accept [to pay the
jizya] then do not intervene between your subjects and Islam, if they desire to
embrace it [i.e. Islam] or give the jizya’. Hamidullah also reproduced another
variant (my translation), which reads: ‘If you refuse [to pay the jizya] then do not
intervene between your subjects so that they may either embrace Islam or give the
jizya’. The letter seems to indicate that if Heraclius’ subjects wished to sever their
allegiance to Byzantium by paying the jizya and becoming part of the Islamic
state then Heraclius should accept this. The Prophet’s demand is one that no head
of state could ever have accepted. However, it is probable that the communities
who sought protection from the Prophet had suffered enormously as a result of
the Byzantine–Sassanian War of 602–28. They were tired of constantly being on
the receiving end of it and perhaps felt that the Byzantines and Persians had lost
their legitimacy as their allies and protectors. When a ‘new’ alternative was
presented to them, it seems that they accepted with little hesitation. Perhaps the
Prophet knew that a clash with the Byzantines and the Sassanians was inevitable
because there was obviously little likelihood that they would forgo any parts of
their territory. The covenants written before Islam’s expansion outside of the
Hijaz in approximately 7 ah represent part of the ongoing negotiations with the
religious communities living under Byzantine and Sassanian control, with whom
the Muslims would have interacted, and who would refrain from actively fighting
the Muslims when the inevitable confrontation with the imperial powers
occurred. The reason that many local populations did not oppose the Muslims
during the early conquests could perhaps have been because of negotiations and
shuttle diplomacies that took place between the Prophet and the different
religious communities of his time years before Islam’s expansion outside of
Arabia.
330 AHMED EL-WAKIL
[willingly] entering under the protection of Islam.’246 The Christians to

whom the Prophet was referring were the Armenian Christians of
Jerusalem as attested by an ecclesiastical Armenian text:
‘I, MuAammad b. ‘Abdullah, Prophet and Messenger of Allah, to Abraham,
Patriarch of Jerusalem and to the Armenian bishops of Damascus and to all those
who are located in other Muslim lands, and those dependent on them—meaning
by this the Ethiopian, Copt and Syrian inhabitants of Jerusalem—I have
conceded to them their convents, churches, schools, dwellings and lands.’247
It is reported by another ecclesiastical Armenian text that a decree very

similar to the one just quoted was also issued by 6Umar to Abraham, the first
official Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem.248 6Al; too wrote a covenant to the
Armenian Christians which it appears was either written or translated in the
month of 4afar in 40 ah by a certain ‘Háshim, the son of Athap, the son of
Valas.’249 Like the ecclesiastical Armenian texts ascribed to MuAammad
and 6Umar, the name of Abraham appears but he is referred to as a ‘priest’,
not ‘Patriarch of Jerusalem.’250 As 6Al; was never made governor of Syria or
Palestine, it is difficult to say whether this covenant was addressed to the
Armenian Christians of Jerusalem or to others. ‘Al; explains that ‘the
Christian nation requested of me and desired to possess’251 this covenant
and ‘solicited me’252 to write it. ‘I have entered’ he writes ‘into a Covenant
246
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 556. My translation.
247
Maxime Yevadian, ‘Le Catholicos arménien Sahak III Dzoroporetsi et
l’Église de Chine’ in L’Apôtre Thomas et le Christianisme en Asie: Recherches
Historiques et Actualité (Paris: AED and Enjeux de l’Étude du Christianisme des
Origines, 2013), 162–3. The author is quoting R. P. Paylaguian, Histoire
Ecclésiastique Arménienne (Paris, 1914), 79–80. My translation, from the
French.
248
Astrig Tchamkerten, Les Gulbenkian à Jérusalem (Lisbon: Fondation
Calouste Gulbenkian, 2006), 17, online: http://www.gulbenkian.pt/media/files/
FTP_files/pdfs/LIVRO_CSGulbenkian2012/JerusalemFR/#/17/zoomed (last ac-
cessed: 3 March 2016).
249
Johannes Avdall, ‘A Covenant of 6Alı́, fourth Caliph of Baghdád, granting
certain Immunities and Privileges to the Armenian nation,’ Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, 1/39 (1870): 60–4, at 60. 6Al;’s death date does not match in
the Muslim and non-Muslim sources. It is possible that he had already passed
away in 40/660. See Andrew Palmer, Sebastian Brock, and Robert Hoyland, The
Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles. Vol. 15 (Liverpool: University
Press, 1993), 30, n. 134. The Covenant of 6Al; with the Armenian Christians was
also reproduced by Morrow: Covenants, 195–7.
250
Ardall, ‘A Covenant of 6Ali’, 61.
251
Ibid, 62.
252
Ibid, 61.
with them, because they requested and solicited it from me and from all my
friends.’253 The language of 6Al;’s covenant bears too much of a resemblance
to the covenants of the Prophet and to the exordium written to the
Christians of Najran for us to doubt its authenticity.
The picture that emerges, it seems, is that the concept of jihad as
understood by the Prophet and his close Companions was to build the
kingdom of God on earth by defending the weak, protecting the innocent,
ending persecution and tyranny, and guaranteeing freedom of religion for
all by ushering in a new age of universal justice and peace. This sentiment
is somewhat echoed in the Qur8:n when it says: ‘And what is [the matter]
with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and for the oppressed
among men, women and children who say: ‘Our Lord, rescue us from this
city whose people are oppressors and appoint for us a protector and helper
from Yourself’ (Q. 4. 75)’. The word ‘fatA’ in the Qur8:n, from which the
plural ‘fut<A:t’ (lit. ‘openings’) derives, does not mean ‘conquest’, as
usually translated, but rather ‘liberation’, which may reflect the true
nature of the zeal that drove the early Muslims to expand into foreign
territory. Future research is necessary to validate this hypothesis but it
appears as a viable alternative to the violent conquest model, which, as
Fred Donner has convincingly demonstrated following his analysis of the
early non-Muslim sources, is proving to be historically untenable.254
CONCLUSIONS
The evidence presented in this paper should provide us with sufficient

grounds to reassess the view that the covenants of the Prophet are mere
forgeries. Their authenticity has of course far-reaching public-policy
implications when it comes to the rights of minorities in Muslim-majority
countries and in the development of a human rights tradition within Islam.
We may here present four main arguments that support their legitimacy:
1. The strongest piece of textual evidence is the exact dating of two covenants.
The Covenant of the Prophet with the Christians of the World, with the
Assyrian Christians, with the Christians of Persia and that discovered by
Cheikho all agree on the date of Monday 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4 ah/7 October
625. This date has proved to be accurate using modern computational
calculations. The year when the Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and
Maqn: was signed was incorrectly transcribed and an analysis of the
recension in al-Bal:dhur; reveals that it was drawn up in 9 ah, not in 5 ah.
The 3 Rama@:n 9 ah/14 December 630 falls on a Friday, exactly as it would
253
Ibid., 62.
254
See Fred Donner, ‘Visions of the Early Islamic Expansion’, 9–29.
332 AHMED EL-WAKIL
have been in the original Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn:. To
have an exact date match for two covenants—albeit on two different Hijri–
Gregorian converters, reflecting the margin of error of approximately one day
when dealing with such conversions—is highly implausible of a forgery.
2. The similar tax stipulations between the covenants. The Covenant with the
Samaritans states that the Prophet agreed that he would levy 4 dirhams from
them. Though this covenant originates from a non-Christian religious commu-
nity, the amount of 4 dirhams is fully consistent with the Najran Covenant, the
Covenant with the Armenian Christians and the 1538 reproduction of the
Covenant with the Christians of the World. It is also partially consistent with the
Covenant with the Christians of Persia. Though these Christian covenants all
agree that the Muslims would not collect from the non-Muslims more than 12
dirhams, the amount of 4 dirhams is not always stated.255 It appears that this
rate was a standard rate for the ordinary folk but that some sort of flexibility
may have existed based on each community’s financial capabilities.
3. The consistency of phrasing in all of the covenants. The covenants with the
Jews of Khaybar and Maqn:, with the Samaritans and with the various
Christian communities of the time, are all consistent with one another with
regard to their main terms and conditions. As it is unlikely that unrelated
Christian, Jewish and Samaritan authorities from different localities in the
Middle East would have conspired together to forge such covenants with such
a high degree of precision, we can only conclude that the covenants stem from
a common and authentic source.
4. The existence of a date and a list of witnesses to the covenants. The Covenant
with the Monks of Mount Sinai, the Covenant with the Armenian Christians,
the Source Covenant written on Monday 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4 ah, the Covenant
with the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn:, and 6Umar’s Covenant with the
Christians of Jerusalem all have a precise date of the month and year to them,
along with a list of witnesses (even though it is at times abridged). The
covenants with a comprehensive list of witnesses to them but no date are
the Covenant with the Christians of Najran and the 1538 reproduction of the
Covenant with the Christians of the World. It seems highly unlikely in all these
cases that non-Muslim communities would include a precise date of the month
along with a fictitious list of witnesses when producing forged documents.
We may here summarize by stating that the covenants of the Prophet

with 1) the Christians of Najran, 2) the Monks of Mount Sinai, 3) the
Armenian Christians, 4) the one written on Monday 29 Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4
255
These rates that the Muslims imposed are the same as those that Khusraw I
Anushirwan extracted from his Sassanian subjects. See Victoria L. Erhart, ‘The
Church of the East during the period of the Four Rightly-Guided Caliphs’,
Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library, 78 (1996): 55–71, at 60.
ah, 5) the 1538 reproduction with the Christians of the World, 6) with
the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn: and 7) with the Samaritans—are all
essentially authentic. The same applies to the covenants of 6Umar with 7)
the Christians of Jerusalem and 8) the Christians of Mesopotamia, as well
as 9) 6Al;’s covenant with the Armenian Christians. This gives us a total of
seven authentic covenants that can be traced back to the Prophet and two
that can be traced back to 6Umar, and one that can be traced back to 6Al;.
The reliability of the Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Jerusalem
deserves special mention here. We can strongly assert that the Jerusalem
Covenant is a more accurate transmission of the original treaty agreed by
6Umar and Sophronius than the Compact recorded by al-Fabar;. This is
because it provides us with a more precise dating than the Jerusalem
Compact and because it makes no mention of the Jews not being allowed
entry into Jerusalem, bringing it in line with Sebeos and the Fragment from
the Jewish chronicle discovered in the Cairo Geniza allowing 70 families to
resettle there. Furthermore, the Jerusalem Covenant is of a similarly tolerant
nature as the Covenant of 6Umar with the Christians of Mesopotamia,
meaning that if we are to accept one as authentic, then there is no reason to
reject the other. Finally the reason why the language of the Jerusalem
Covenant is very close to that of the Christian covenants is most probably
because it was written out by the same scribe, Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n.
The arguments presented in this paper for the authenticity of the
covenants cannot be applied to the Exordium addressed to the Christians
of Najran, whose contents cannot be verified by any other source. The
differences between the Exordium and the s;ra narrative negate Wood’s
assertion that the Exordium ‘was composed by an author who was
familiar with the accounts of the Life of Muhammad’.256 Clearly, had that
been the case and the intent was to convince the Muslims of the validity of
the Exordium and of the Najran Covenant, then a better job could have
been done, which would have omitted the numerous inconsistencies that
we find in the Exordium. It is safe to say that the Exordium was not
influenced by the s;ra or any of the sources consulted by Ibn IsA:q, Ibn
Kath;r or any of the other s;ra or Aad;th collectors. Though the possibility
of interpolations during the transmission of the Exordium cannot be
categorically ruled out, it nevertheless seems highly unlikely.
If The Chronicle of Seert was able to preserve an authentic covenant of
the Prophet and an authentic covenant of 6Umar, then there seems to be no
valid reason for the author of The Chronicle to have forged the Exordium.
Since the Covenant of the Prophet with the Christians of Najran agrees in
its terms and conditions with other covenants, and because the Prophet’s
interaction with them is a historical fact, there is no reason to deny its
256
Wood, The Chronicle of Seert, 245.
334 AHMED EL-WAKIL
authenticity. The Exordium may well be the only document recounting

contemporary events by the Prophet himself to come down to us.
The Chronicle of Seert attests the authority of both the Exordium and
the Covenant as faithful replicas of original documents presumably bound
together:
This copy [of the Exordium and the Najran Covenant] was made on a notebook
that was found in 265257 in Birmantha with Eab;b the Monk. According to the
latter, it [was copied from the original that] was in Bayt al-Eikma. He [i.e. Eab;b the
Monk] used to [work there] as a keeper of manuscripts before he became a monk. It
[i.e. the Exordium and the Najran Covenant] was written on oxhide that had
become yellowish, stamped with his [i.e. the Prophet’s] seal, peace be upon him.258
Generally speaking, the Islamic sources embody distinct historical

divergences to all the secondary sources that have become available to us,
whether it be the covenants or in the early non-Muslim sources, the like of
Sebeos. The Exordium and the covenants have raised critical questions over
the integrity of the Islamic historical source material and left us wondering
to what extent the Muslim sources have been faithful in recording the
emergence of Islam and the biography of the Prophet. More disturbing to
Muslims however, is the fact that a comparison of the Covenant with the
Jews of Khaybar and Maqn: and al-Bal:dhur;’s Compact demonstrates that
there was a deliberate manipulation of early Islamic history to suit the
powers that be and this despite the clear, staunch warning of the Prophet
not to alter the covenants. In the same way that he claimed the Jewish
Compact was an exact replica of the Jewish Covenant, al-Bal:dhur; also
claimed about the Najran Compact, that it was handed down to him from
‘Al-Eusain from YaAya ibn-2dam who said:–‘‘I copied the statement of the
Prophet to the people of Najrân from that of a man who took it from al-
Easan ibn-4âliA’’.’259 This, no doubt, lends support to the argument that the
Compact with the Christians of Najran was a corruption of the original
Covenant given by the Prophet to the Christians of that region.
APPENDIX A
The Covenant of the Prophet MuAammad that was issued on Monday 29

Rab;6 al-Th:n; 4 ah has four recensions. Cheikho’s recension is very similar
257
This year is identified as 265 ah and 877/878 ce in The Chronicle of Seert,
which Scher corrects as 878/879: Chronique de Séert, 601 [281].
258
Ibid.
259
al-Bal:dhur;, The Origins of the Islamic State, x64–5, 99.
to Sionita’s 1630 ce Covenant with the Christians of the World. The
covenants with the Christians of Persia and with the Assyrian Christians do
not at first sight appear to be defective copies of this Source Covenant, but
upon closer analysis it appears that the Covenant with the Christians of
Persia is a copy that has with time been amended, while the Covenant with
the Assyrian Christians comes across as an abridged and defective
transmission. The Shi6a leanings in the Covenant with the Christians of
Persia are quite evident, while the only clue that the Covenant with the
Assyrian Christians was an abridgement done by Shi6a sympathizers is the
expression ‘6alayh; al-sal:m’ (peace be upon him) after 6Al;’s name.
We can only presume that the Source Covenant was sent to the Assyrian
Church of the East in Persia, which then made reproductions of it with
amendments and defects, and from there it was distributed to other
Christian denominations. The detailed tax stipulations in the covenants
with the Christians of Persia and with the Assyrian Christians which are not
present in the Sionita Covenant with the Christians of the World may have
been the result of different localities requiring different tax rates. Perhaps
the rate of 4 dirhams was not present in the original document so that it
could be copied and reproduced, and so that at a secondary stage, the
Christians could negotiate the tax rate with their local Muslim authorities.
The three recensions that have been reproduced below are separated by
different headings that highlight the main clauses and features of the
covenants. The language between the covenants with the Christians of the
World and with the Christians of Persia is very similar, and the author’s
own transliteration of the witnesses’ names in the covenants with the
Christians of the World and with the Assyrian Christians has been made
so that these match the original documents. A cross-comparison clearly
demonstrates that for all intents and purposes the witnesses’ names are
identical. This leaves us with very little room to doubt that these three
recensions, along with Cheikho’s, originate from the one same document.
If the Source Covenant was a forgery, why then would the Christians
have had the audacity to include random names of Companions (at times
incorrectly) and a date, and then present this document to the Muslims
knowing full well that they could potentially face repercussions? Why
would they have included so many witnesses’ names when there was a
possibility that perhaps some of the Companions could not have been
physically present or were deceased at the time of writing? Did they
really want to foster animosity with the local Muslim rulers by being
accused of blasphemy? Is it feasible to suppose that they were experts in
back-dating the Islamic calendar but were at the same time ignorant of
the Companions’ names? Until proven otherwise, scholars should
seriously consider this document as authentic, going directly back to
the Prophet himself.
336 AHMED EL-WAKIL
COVENANT OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD
WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE ASSYRIAN

THE WORLD260 PERSIA261 CHRISTIANS262
PREAMBLE
[In the Name of Allah, the Most By the will of God! In the name of God has told me in a vision what
Compassionate, the Most God Merciful! to do, and I confirm His
Merciful.] Command by giving my solemn
promise to keep this agreement.
To the followers of the Islam I say:
Carry out my command, protect
and help the Nazarene nation in this
country of ours in their own land.
It was written by Muhammad, the Be this Writ known to all in the

Messenger of Allah, the proclaimer handwriting, and the style, a
and warner [bashiran wa nadhiran], Compact firm, a Treaty that must
to all the people [al-nas kaffah], be obeyed by all Christian nations,
[Muhammad], who is entitled to the such as dwell throughout the world
protection of Allah [wadi‘at Allah] toward the eastward of Arabia and
in truth, and as a proof [hujjah] of Persia, or within the bounds of
Allah for the Christian religion [din them, whether they be in immedi-
al-nasraniyyah] in the eastern land ate contact with the Faithful or
and its west, its Arabs and non- whether they be distant, and
Arabs [fasihiha wa‘ajamiha], near or whether or not they have ac-
far, known or unknown. quaintanceship with the Faithful.
This document [kitaban], which This Covenant and Compact is

has been prepared for them, con- worthy of obedience, and it be-
stitutes an authoritative covenant hooves all Moslems also to observe
[ahdan mariyyan], a well-known its provisions. Whosoever shall
certificate [sijlan manshuran], and esteem it his bounden duty to obey
a testament [wasiyyah] from him the words of this Covenant, his
which must be respected and which faith is perfect after the manner of
will protect them. Whoever holds men who do well, as such a one
to Islam, abides by it, and whoever [who] shall be esteemed worthy of
breaks the covenant contained in a reward; but those who shall
this testament, and transgresses willfully pervert the words of this
(continued)
260
The English translation reproduced in this column, is taken from Morrow,
Covenants, 233–6.
261
This column reproduces the text in Arpee, A History of Armenian
Christianity, 355–60.
262
This column reproduces the text in Malech, History of the Syrian Nation,
228–30, apart from the witnesses’ names (in the section named ‘CLOSING’).
Continued

[khalafahu] it among the non- Covenant, annul it or do despite to

Muslims, and contradicts what I it, or shall disobey the commands
commanded in it, he has violated of this Compact, persisting in their
the Covenant of Allah [ahd Allah], contrary way, such shall be deemed
denies the Oath of Allah [mithaq nullifiers of the Covenant or
Allah] and has disdained His Compact of God. Whosoever also
Protection [dhimmah] whether he shall irreverently despise this Writ,
is a Sultan or anyone else among the same shall be held worthy of
the believers and the Muslims. punishment, whether he be a king,
or one of the people, whether he be
a pious believer (sc., a Moslem), or
only a believer (sc., a Christian).
I commit myself to grant alliances Now: to begin the words of this

[uhud] and pledges [mawathiq] to Compact, in accordance with the
those who requested them from me prompting of God vouchsafed to
and from all of my families [ahliyy] me in authentication. With a firm
from among the Muslims to give bond do I bind this Compact, the
them the covenant of Allah [ahd like of which no prophets of the
Allah] and His Pledge [mithaq] and past ever have bound, and as no
I place them under the safeguard of angels standing before God have
His Prophets, His Messengers, His found it easy to command. The
Elect, His Saints, from the Muslims words, therefore, of this
and the Believers, among the first Covenant, which I am about to
of them and the last of them. And lay down, must be obeyed by all
my protection [dhimmati] and my who are my people.
pact [mithaq] the most solid cov-
enant that Allah has given a
prophet sent or an angel [or sover-
eign] drawn near, [namely], the
right to demand obedience, to give
obligations [farida], and respect of
Allah’s Covenant [ahad Allah].
That I protect their judges in my All pious believers shall deem it Leave their places of worship in
fortified borderlines [fi thughuri] their bounden duty to defend be- peace; help and assist their chief
with my horses and my men, my lievers and to aid them whereso- and their priests when in need of
helpers, and my followers, from ever they may be, whether far or help, be it in the mountains, in the
among the Believers, from every near, and throughout desert, on the sea, or at home.
region among the regions of the Christendom shall protect the
enemy, whether they be far away places where they conduct wor-
or close by, whether they be at ship, and those where their monks
peace or at war, I safeguard them. and priests dwell. Everywhere, in
(continued)
338 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued

I grant security to their churches, mountains, on the plains, in towns

their places of pilgrimage and in waste places, in deserts,
[siyahah] wherever they are and and wheresoever they may be,
wherever they may be found, be that people shall be protected,
they in the mountains or the both in their faith and in their
valleys, in the caves or the in- property, both in the West and in
habited regions, in the plains or the East, both on sea and land.
the desert, or in buildings; and
that I protect their religion and
their property wherever they are
and wherever they may be found
in land or at sea, in the East or
West, the same way that I protect
myself, my successors [khatimi],
and the People of my Community
[ahl al-millati] among the
Believers and the Muslims.
I place them under my protection And even as they honor and Leave all their possessions alone,
from any damage or harm respect Me, so shall Moslems care be it houses or other property, do
[makruh]; to exempt them from for that people as being under our not destroy anything of their be-
any requisitions or any onerous protection, and whensoever any longings, the followers of Islam
obligations. I am behind them, distress or discomfort shall over- shall not harm or molest any of
protecting them myself, by means take them, Moslems shall hold this nation, because the Nazarenes
of my followers, my helpers, and themselves in duty bound to aid are my subjects, pay tribute to me,
the members of my religious and care for them, for they are a and will help the Moslems.
community [ahl al-millati]. people subject to my Nation,
obedient to their word, whose
helpers also they are.
Having authority over them, I must It therefore is proper for my sake

govern them, protecting them from to attend to their comfort, pro-
all damage and ensuring that no tection and aid, in face of all
harm happens to them that does opposition and distress, suppress-
not happen to me and my ing everything that becomes a
Companions who, along with me, means to their spoliation.
protect this ascribed authority.
I block from them the harm in the In the levying of taxes, it is No tribute, but what is agreed
supplies which obliges the people necessary not to exact more than upon, shall be collected from them,
of the pact [ahl al-ahd] from loan they are able to pay, but to adjust
[‘aria] and land tribute [kharaj] matters with their consent, with-
except what they themselves out force or violence.
(continued)
Continued

consent to give. They should not

be compelled in this matter.
It is not permitted to remove a Their building enterprises shall their church buildings shall be left
bishop from his bishopric or a not be interfered with; their as they are, they shall not be
Christian from his Christianity, a priests shall not be molested in the altered, their priests shall be per-
monk from his monastic life or a performance of their task; they mitted to teach and worship in
pilgrim from his pilgrimage or a shall not be persecuted for their their own way – the Christians
hermit monk from his tower. Nor faith or their customs, but shall be have full liberty of worship in
is it permitted to destroy any part allowed to pray as they will in their churches and homes. None
of their churches, to take parts of their own places of worship and of their churches shall be torn
their buildings to construct mos- according to their own rites; nei- down, or altered into a mosque,
ques or the homes of Muslims. ther shall their churches be dis- except by the consent and free will
Whoever does such a thing will mantled or destroyed, or their of the Nazarenes. If anyone dis-
have violated the pact of Allah, homes and mansions confiscated obeys this command, the anger of
disobeyed his Messenger, and be- by Moslems, for mosques or resi- Allah and His Prophet shall be
trayed the Divine Alliance. dences, without their consent. upon him.
Whosoever shall not do as is here
prescribed, but shall do contrary
to my behests; the same shall be
held a despiser of this Compact,
and a gainsayer of the word of
God and of his Prophet.
TAXATION
It is not permitted to impose a No land taxes shall be exacted The tribute paid the Nazarenes
capitation [jizyah] or any kind of from them in excess of the value shall be used to promote the
tax on monks or bishops only that of Four Dinars, or one linen sheet, teachings of Islam and shall be
which they are prepared to give which shall be applied for the deposited at the treasury of Beth
willingly. benefit of the Moslems and held as Amal [bayt al-m:l]. A common
a sacred trust for public use. man shall pay one denar (piece of
Nothing more also shall be money), but the merchants and
exacted from them (scil., by way people who own mines of gold
of a poll-tax) than what we here and silver and are rich shall pay
prescribe. twelve dienars.
The capitation [jizyah] upon Whether they be merchants and

owners of large businesses, and wealthy, or whether they live in
divers, and those who exploit the open country, whether they
mines for precious stones, gold fish for pearls in the sea, or own
and silver, and those who are mines of precious stones, or of
wealthy, and powerful, among gold, or of silver, or possess other
those who have professed rich estates, they shall not be
(continued)
340 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued

Christianity, may not surpass made to pay more than Twelve

more than twelve dirhams per Dirhems. Of those who are not of
year, so long as they are inhabit- the Christian faith [and] neither
ants of these countries or resi- conduct worship according to the
dents, and not travelers. Christian rite, four Dirhems ($50)
shall be exacted. But of those who
conform to that people and are
obedient to their word, not more
shall be demanded than the
aforementioned Twelve Dirhems,
provided that they dwell where all
their people are resident.
The traveler, or the resident whose Those who travel, and being Strangers and people who have no
place [of residence] is unknown, is without a place of permanent houses or other settled property
not obliged to pay the land tribute abode are constantly on the move, shall not have taxes levied upon
[kharaj] or the poll-tax [jizyah] shall not be subject to land taxes, them. If a man inherits property
unless he has inherited land over except that in the event any of he shall pay a settled sum to the
which the ruler [sultan] has a them shall fall heirs to property on Beth Amal treasury.
monetary right. He must pay the which the Imam has a legal claim,
money [mall] as others without, the lawful tax shall be exacted, yet
however, the charges unjustly ex- even so the taxpayer shall not be
ceeding the measure of their made the victim of violence or of
means [or strength]. unlawful exactions in excess of his
ability to pay. His mansions, his
produce, and his fruits shall not be
made to objects of avarice.
As for the labor force which the
owners spend upon to cultivate
these lands, to render them fertile,
and to harvest them, they are not
to be taxed excessively. Let them
pay in the same fashion that was
imposed on other similar
tributaries.
MILITARY PROTECTION OF CHRISTIANS
The free non-Muslims enjoying Christians shall not be asked to The Christians are not obliged to
Muslim protection [ahl al-dhim- fight for Moslems against the make war on the enemies of Islam,
mah] will not be obliged to go to enemies of the Faith, neither shall but if an enemy attacks the
war with the Muslims in order to Moslems at war with foreign na- Christians, the Mohammedans
combat their enemies, to attack tions or engaged in massacre shall not deny their help, but give
(continued)
Continued

them, and to seize them. Indeed, constrain Christians to make them horses and weapons, if they
such free non-Muslims [ahl al- common cause with them against need them, and protect them from
dhimmah] will not engage in war the enemy. But if the enemy shall evils from outside and keep the
along with the Muslims. It is pre- attack the Christians, then the peace with them.
cisely to discharge them of this Moslems shall not spare the use
obligation that this pact has been against him or their horses, their
granted to them as well as to assure swords and their spears. In so
them the help and protection on doing they will perform a pleasant
the part of the Muslims. They will deed.
not be obliged to go out with the
Muslims to meet their enemies or
be forced to give their horses, their
arms, unless they contribute to the
cause freely. Whoever does so will
be recognized for his action.
FREEDOM OF RELIGION
No Christian will be made No Christians shall be brought by The Christians are not obliged to
Muslim by force: And dispute ye force to confess Islam, and no turn Moslems, until God’s will
not with the People of the Book, disputes except over the better makes them believers.
except with means better [29:46]. things shall be envisaged in with
They must be covered by the wing them. Moslems shall extend over
of mercy. Repel every harm that the Christians everywhere the arm
could reach them wherever they of mercy and kindness, protecting
may find themselves and in any them from the exactions of oppres-
country in which they are. If a sors. If any Christian shall be found
Christian were to commit a crime inadvertently offending, Moslems
or an offense, Muslims must pro- shall deem it their duty to assist
vide him with help, defense, and him, accompanying him to the law-
protection. They should pardon courts, so that not more may be
his offense and encourage his exacted of him than is prescribed by
victim to reconcile with him, God, and peace may be restored
urging him to pardon him or to between the parties to the dispute
receive compensation in return. according to the Scripture.
The Muslims must not abandon All conditions previously named

the Christians and leave them being observed, and the capitation
without help and assistance since I tax being paid by them, no
have made this pact with them on Christians shall be tyrannized over
behalf of Allah to ensure that or oppressed by my people.
whatever good befell Muslims it Neither shall they on their part
would befall them as well and that tyrannize over Moslems or op-
whatever harm befell Muslims press them, from this time forth
(continued)
342 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued

would befall them as well. In even until such time as God shall
virtue of this pact, they have ordain.
obtained inviolable rights to enjoy
our protection, to be protected
from any infringement of their
rights, so that they will be bound
to the Muslims both in good and
bad fortune.
Christians must not be subject to Moslems shall not take the The Mohammedans shall not
suffer, by abuse, on the subject of women and maidens of the force Christian women to accept
marriages which they do not Christians by force, but only Islam, but if they themselves wish
desire. Muslims should not take with the consent of their lords, to embrace it, the Mohammedans
Christian girls in marriage against except in the event that they by shall be kind to them.
the will of their parents, nor free choice shall desire to be
should they oppress their families united to Moslems and married
in the event that they refused their to them whether permanently or
offers of engagement and mar- only for a time, when this shall
riage. Such marriages should not be permitted to them out of
take place without their desire and respect to the freewill of women
agreement and without their ap- who should be at liberty to
proval and consent. marry whom they love and
choose.
If a Muslim takes a Christian And if any Christian women shall If a Christian woman is married to
woman as a wife, he must respect marry a Moslem, it shall be per- a Mohammedan and does not
her Christian beliefs. He will give mitted to her to continue in the want to embrace Islam, she has
her freedom to listen to her [cler- Christian faith, attending the liberty to worship at her own
ical] superiors as she desires, to churches of the Christians without church according to her own reli-
follow the path of her own reli- let or hindrance, and she shall live gious belief, and her husband
gion, and he will not force her to at her pleasure according to her must not treat her unkindly on
leave it. Whoever, despite this own faith and laws. No obstacle account of her religion. If anyone
order, forces his wife to act con- shall be placed in the way of her disobeys this command, he dis-
trary to her religion in any aspect communicating with her own spir- obeys God and his prophet and
whatsoever he will have broken itual advisers; neither shall she, will be guilty of a great offense.
the alliance of Allah and will enter forcibly and against her will, be
into open rebellion against the made to forsake her own faith and
pact of His Messenger, and Allah laws. Whosoever shall do despite
will count him among the the words of this Contract, the
impostors. same shall be accounted as having
done despite God, and shall be held
guilty in the Prophet’s sight of
annulling the words of the
(continued)
Continued

Covenant of the Prophet of God.

Such a one shall be numbered
among sinners before God.
MUSLIM ASSISTANCE TO CHRISTIANS
If the Christians seek the help and Christians must attend to all re- If the Nazarenes wish to build a
assistance of the Muslims in pairs on their own churches, church, their Mohammedan
order to repair their churches and chapels and monasteries. If in the neighbors shall help them. This
their convents or to arrange interest of the benevolent Moslem shall be done, because the
matters pertaining to their affairs public, and of their faith, Christians have obeyed us and
and religion, they, [the Muslims], Moslems shall ask of the have come to us and pleaded for
must help and support them. Christians for assistance, the latter peace and mercy.
However, they must not do so shall not deny them what help, as
with the aim of receiving any an expression of friendship and
reward. On the contrary, they goodwill, they are able to render.
should aim to restore that reli- Seeing that the Christians have
gion, out of faithfulness to the submitted to us, implored our
pact of the Messenger of Allah, protection and taken refuge with
by pure donation, and as a meri- us, we deem all help and succor
torious act before Allah and His rendered to them every way
Messenger. legitimate.
If any one of them shall be sent If there be among the Christians a
as an envoy to negotiate peace great and learned man the
between Moslems and Infidels, Mohammedans shall honor him
no one shall prevent his going, and not be envious of his
and if he should prove of service greatness.
to our cause, let the service be If anyone is unjust and unkind to
accepted; but whosoever shall the Christians he will be guilty of
despise him, the same shall be disobeying the Prophet of God.
numbered among the wicked,
guilty before the Prophet of God,
and an enemy of his revealed
word.
TERMS OF WARFARE
In matters of war between them Here also follows a Treaty of

and their enemies, the Muslims Mohammed, the Great Prophet
will not employ any Christian as a of God (may the blessings of
messenger, scout, guide or spy or God rest upon him and his
for any other duty of war. posterity!), with the Christian
(continued)
344 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued

Whoever obliges one of them to people, a Treaty which His

do such a thing is an oppressor Majesty after the foregoing
[zalim], a rebel against the words commanded and estab-
Messenger of Allah, and has dif- lished with the Christians rela-
fered over his testament tive to their faith and laws,
[wasiyyah]. embracing a few command-
These are the conditions that
ments by which Christians shall
Muhammad, the Messenger of
regard themselves as being
Allah, has placed upon the
bound. Let them do nothing
Christian community [ahl al-
contrary to the previous words,
millah al-nasraniyyah], with
regard to their religion and their
and everything in harmony with
community [dhimmah]. They those following.
must hold fast to this covenant
[ahd] and respect what they have
agreed upon.
Among other things, none of them One of the commandments is this; The Christians should not shelter
may act as a scout, spy, either that they shall give no aid to an enemy of Islam or give him
overtly or covertly, on behalf of an infidels, whether openly or sur- horse, weapon or any other help.
enemy of war, against a Muslim. reptitiously, neither receive into
None of them will shelter the their houses enemies of Moslems
enemies of the Muslims in their lest at a convenient opportunity
homes from which they could they attack them. They shall not
await the moment to launch an permit enemy men to stop at their
attack. May these enemies [of the houses or churches, neither shall
Muslims] never be allowed to halt they harbor enemy troops, or aid
in their regions, be it in their them with spear, arrow, sword or
villages, their oratories or in any horse, or with aught else. They
other place belonging to their co- shall not act as guides to them, or
religionists. They must not pro- show them how to ambush the
vide any support to war enemies enemy. They shall not commit to
of the Muslims by furnishing them them their possessions for safe-
with weapons, horses, men, or keeping; they shall not communi-
anything else, including greeting cate with them, or aid them by
them. word or deed, or afford them
shelter except only under duress.
They must host for three days If a Moslem shall chance at a If a Mohammedan is in need the
and three nights any Muslims Christian’s house, he may there be Christian shall for three days and
who halt among them, with their entertained three days and three nights be his host and shelter him
animals. They must offer them, nights; more than that is unneces- from his enemies.
wherever they are found, and sary. Christians shall avert from
(continued)
Continued

wherever they are going, the Moslems the abuse and oppres-
same food with which they sions of tyrants.
live themselves without, how-
ever, being obliged to endure
other annoying or onerous
burdens.
If a Muslim needs to hide in one of In the event that it becomes ne- The Christians shall, furthermore,
their homes or oratories, they cessary for them to hide a Moslem protect the Mohammedan women
must grant him hospitality, give in their own mansions or houses, and children and not deliver them
him help, and provide him with they shall give him a place to lie, up to the enemy or expose them to
their food during the entire time and take care of him, neither view.
he will be among them, making forsaking him, nor leaving him
every effort to keep him con- without food, so long as he shall
cealed and to prevent the enemy be in hiding. Women and children
from finding him, while of Moslems shall not be betrayed
providing for all of his needs. or shown to the enemy, neither
shall Christians deviate from these
orders.
Whoever contravenes or alters the And if any Christian shall do If the Nazarenes fail to fulfil
ordinances of this edict will be contrary to this Treaty, or these conditions, they have for-
cast out of the alliance between ignore it, he shall be accounted feited their right to protection,
Allah and His Messenger. as annulling the same. Such a and the agreement is null and
May everyone abide by the trea- one is loathsome to God, and void.
ties and alliances which have been
the Prophet shall visit upon him
contracted with the kings, the
his just retribution.
monks [ruhban], and the
Wherefore let all Christians deem
Christians [nasara] from the
it both binding and proper to
People of the Book, and which I
observe the words of this Treaty
have contracted myself, and every
even until such time as God shall
other commitment that each pro-
ordain.
phet has made with his nation, to
assure them safeguard and faithful
protection, and to serve them as a
guarantee.
This must not be violated or
altered until the hour [of the
Resurrection] and the end of the
world [dunya].
CLOSING
This document [kitaban], which In witness whereof is attached the This document shall be entrusted
was written by Muhammad, the Signature that in the presence of to the Christian chief and head of
Messenger of Allah, for the the Clergy and the Lords of the their church for safe keeping.
(continued)
346 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued

Christians who had written to him Nation, the Holy, Great Prophet, Signatures:
and requested from him this cov- Mohammed, affixed, confirming
enant, was witnessed by: the foregoing Treaty.
WITNESSES263
Ab< Bakr al-4idd;q Ab< Bakr 4idd;q

6Umar b. al-Kha33:b 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b
6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n 6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n
6Al; b. Ab; F:lib 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib (peace be upon him)
Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n
Ab< al-Dard: Ab< Dard:
Ab< al-Dharr Ab< Zirr
6Abdull:h b. Mas6<d 6Abdull:h b. Mas6<d
6Abdull:h b. al-6Abb:s 6Abdull:h b. al-6Abb:s
Eamza b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib Eamza b. al-Mu33alib
Fu@ayl Fa@l b. al-6Abb:s
al-Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m
FalaA b. 6Abdull:h FalaA b. 6Abdull:h
Sa6d b. Mu6:dh Sa6d b. Mu6:dh
Sa6d b. 6Ub:da Sa6d b. 6Ub:da
Th:bit b. Qays Th:bit b. Qays
Zayd b. Th:bit Yaz;d [Zayd?] b. Th:bit
6Abdull:h b. Zayd 6Abdull:h b. Yaz;d [Zayd?]
Sahl b. Bay@:8 Sahl b. Bay@:8
6Uthm:n b. Ma36<n 6Uthm:n b. MaC6<n
D:w<d b. Jubayr D:w<d b. Juba
Ab< al-62liya Ab< al-62liya
6Abdull:h b. 6Amr al-62B 6Abdull:h b. al-6Amr al-Q:B
Ab< Eurayr[a] Ab< Eurayfa
Ab< AAr;fa b. 6Usayr Ibn 6Usayr
Ibn Rab;6a Ibn Rab;6a
6Amm:r b. Y:m;n 6Amm:r b. Y:sir
H:shim b. 6Asiya H:shim b. 6Asiya
Eassan b. Th:bit Eassan b. Th:bit
Ka6b b. Ka6b Ka6b b. Ka6b
Ka6b b. Malik Ka6b b. Malik
Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib
[The names have been rearranged [The following name does not
to correspond with the Covenant match with the Covenant with the
with the Assyrian Christians. Christians of the World:]
(continued)
263
The witnesses’ names have been transliterated and revised by the author.
Continued

The following names are not Ab< Bar:h

mentioned in the latter:] [‘Ab< Eurayfa’ and ‘Ibn 6Usayr’
Zayd b. Arqam are in this covenant considered to
Earf<s b. Zayd be two different individuals but in
Us:ma b. Zayd the Covenant with the Christians
Ibn al-6Abb:s [This is most prob- of the World, it is one name ‘Ab<
ably a mistake on the part of the AAr;fa b. 6Usayr’. The name of
copyist. The original name would ‘Ab< Eurayr[a]’ is already men-
have been Fa@l b. al-‘Abb:s but it tioned once in the Covenant with
has been separated in this covenant the Christians of the World which
as ‘Fu@ayl’ and ‘Ibn al-6Abb:s’].264 could mean that ‘Ab< AAr;fa’ is a
repetition which has been mis-
takenly affixed to ‘Ibn 6Usayr’.]265
May Allah be pleased with all of God Omnipotent and Lord of All! The peace of God be over them
them! all!
Written [down] by Mu‘awiyyah In pursuance of the Command This agreement is written down
ibn Abi Sufyan, and dictated by of the Great Prophet of God, by Moavijah Ben Sofian, ac-
the Messenger of Allah on the Mohammed, the Lord’s Chosen cording to the dictates of
second day of the month of (may the blessing of God rest Mohammed, the messenger of
Rabi‘ah Ashar during the fourth upon him and upon his poster- God, in the 4th year of the
year of the Hegira in Medina.266. ity!), this Treaty was drawn up Hegira in the city of Medina.267
Allah suffices as a Witness for
on the Monday following the
what is contained in this docu-
first four months of the Fourth
ment [kitaban].
Year of the Hegira.
Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the
Worlds!
264
The Arabic names have been transliterated from Siniota’s 1630 reproduc-
tion of the Covenant with the Christians of the World. See Sionita, Testamentum,
14–15.
265
The Persian facsimile reproduced by George David Malech lists the
witnesses’ names listed in Arabic which have here been transliterated. See
Malech, History of the Syrian Nation, 222.
266
The Arabic translation is incorrect. It should read: ‘on Monday just at the
closing of the first four months of the fourth year of the Hijra in Madina’.
267
This translation is also incorrect. It should read: ‘on Monday just at the end
of the fourth month of the fourth year of the Hijra in Madina’.
348 AHMED EL-WAKIL
APPENDIX B
The three covenants written by Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufy:n, which have a

comprehensive list of witnesses to them and a date, have been
reproduced below. Unlike the Najr:n Covenant which is not dated, the
Covenant with the Armenian Christians and the Source Covenant both
have a different date to one another. Furthermore, the Covenant with the
Armenian Christians and the Najran Covenant are both addressed to
different Christian communities indicating that they too are separate
from each other. The names of the witnesses are cross-compared in the
table below, and although some of the names match in all three
covenants, it is also the case that some match in only two of them, and all
the covenants list names which are unique to one another. This lack of
complete uniformity yet obvious commonalities seems historically
plausible and not the hallmark of a forgery. This leaves little room to
doubt that these three covenants are indeed independent from one
another, suggesting that they are authentic documents that can be traced
back to the Prophet.
WITH THE ARMENIAN WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CRISTIANS OF

CHRISTIANS268 [2 AH] THE WORLD269 [4 AH] NAJR2N270 [most probably 7 AH]
[NAMES THAT MATCH]

Ab< Bakr al-4idd;q Ab< Bakr al-4idd;q 6At;q b. Ab; QuA:fa
6Umar b. al-Kha33:b 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b
6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n 6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n 6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n
6Al; b. Ab; F:lib 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib
Ab< al-Dard:8 Ab< al-Dard: Ab< al-Dard:8
Ab< Dharr Ab< al-Dharr Ab< al-Dharr
Ab< Hurayra Ab< Eurayr[a] Ab< Hurayra
Ab< al-Fa@l 6Abb:s Fu@ayl/ Ibn al-6Abb:s al-Fa@l b. al-6Abb:s
FalaA FalaA b. 6Abdull:h FalaA b. 6Abdull:h
Zayd b. Th:bit Zayd b. Th:bit Zayd b. Th:bit
Ab< al-D:liya Ab< al-62liya Ab< al-Gh:liYa
6Abdullah b. 6Amr al-62B 6Abdullah b. 6Amr al-62B 6Abdullah b. 6Amr b. al-62B
Zayd b. Arqam Zayd b. Arqam Zayd b. Arqam
Us:ma b. Zayd Us:ma b. Zayd Us:ma b. Zayd
6Abdullah b. Mas6<d 6Abdullah b. Mas6<d
Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib
Earf<s b. Zayd Earq<B b. Zuhayr
Ka6b b. Malik Ka6b b. Malik
al-Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m al-Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m
Sa6d b. Mu6:dh Sa6d b. Mu6:dh
Sa6d b. 6Ub:da Sayd b. 6Ub:da
6Abdull:h b. Zayd 6Abdull:h b. Zayd [referred to as his
son 6Abull:h]
Eamza b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib Eamza b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib
6Uthm:n b. MaC6<n 6Uthm:n b. Ma36<n
6Amm:r b. Y:sir 6Amm:r b. Y:m;n
(continued)
268
Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya, 559. To read the entire
Covenant with the Armenian Christians, see: 556–9.
269
Sionita, Testamentum, 14–15.
270
Scher, Chronique de Séert. For the list of names in Arabic, see 617–18
[297–8].
350 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued
WITH THE ARMENIAN WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CRISTIANS OF

CHRISTIANS268 [2 AH] THE WORLD269 [4 AH] NAJR2N270 [most probably 7 AH]
[NAMES WHERE THERE IS UNCERTAINTY OR NO MATCH]

6Abdullah b. 6Abb:s Ab< AAr;fa b. 6Usayr Thum:ma b. Qays
Sa6d b. H:d 6Abdull:h b. al-6Abb:s 6Amm:r b. MaC6<n
Sa6d b. 6Iy:@ Ibn Rab;6a Ab< Hudhayfa
Ansal b. M:lik Sahl b. Bay@:’ Khuw:t b. Jubayr
Mas6<d b. Ab; F:lib D:w<d b. Jubayr H:shim b. 6Utba
6Abdull:h b. Sham’<n [His name is H:shim b. 6Asiya 6Abdull:h b. Eaf:f
repeated twice. Maybe 6Abdull:h b. Ka6b b. Ka6b E:n b. Th:bit
Mas6<d was meant in one of the Eassan b. Th:bit al-6Abb:s b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib
reoccurences] Ab< Bar:h [Covenant with the MuB6ab b. Jubayr [corrected by
Assyrian Christians] Scher as ‘al-Zubayr’]
APPENDIX C
The 1538 ce Covenant with the Christians of the World, just like the
Covenant with the Monks of Mount Sinai, was written by 6Al; b. Ab;
F:lib and has its roots in Egypt which is obvious from the fact that it was
copied from the original document ‘in the last month of Ba’una’,271 one
of the months in the Coptic calendar. The Covenant of 1538 states that
there are 30 witnesses to it. This may be an approximation as we can
count 29 only (though one name may actually have been a composition
of two separate names). The list of witnesses and the differences in
language are clear indicators that we are here dealing with two separate
covenants, overruling the possibility that the Covenant with the Monks
of Mount Sinai is an abridged version of the 1538 Covenant with the
Christians of the World. However, the differences in language between
the 1538 and the Sionita Covenant with the Christians of the World
suggests that they are both independent from one another and that they
were not simultaneously transcribed by 6Al; and Mu6:wiya. This is
further confirmed by a cross-comparison of the witnesses’ names to both
of these documents. We can therefore confidently argue that the 1538
Covenant with the Christians of the World, the Source Covenant and the
Covenant with the Monks of Mount Sinai are separate covenants from
one another and that they were issued by the Prophet to three different
Christian communities.
271
Morrow, Covenants, 241; for a full English translation of this covenant, see
237–41.
COVENANT OF THE COVENANT OF THE COVENANT OF THE

PROPHET MUHAMMAD PROPHET MUHAMMAD PROPHET MUHAMMAD
WITH THE MONKS OF WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF
MOUNT SINAI272 [2 AH] THE WORLD273 [1538 CE] THE WORLD [4 AH]
[NAMES THAT MATCH]

Ab< Bakr b. Ab; QuA:fa Ab< Bakr al-4idd;q Ab< Bakr al-4idd;q
6Umar b. al-Kha33:b 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b 6Umar b. al-Kha33:b
6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n 6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n 6Uthm:n b. 6Aff:n
Ab< al-Dard:8 Ab< al-Dard:8 Ab< al-Dard:
Ab< Hurayra Ab< Hurayra Ab< Eurayra
6Abdull:h b. Mas6<d 6Abdull:h b. Mas6<d 6Abdullah b. Mas6<d
Fu@ayl b. 6Abb:s Fa@l b. al-6Abb:s al-Zuhr; Fu@ayl/ Ibn al-6Abb:s
FalaA b. 6Abdull:h FalaA b. 6Abdull:h FalaA b. 6Abdull:h
Sa6;d b. Mu6:dh Sa6;d b. Mu6:dh Sa6d b. Mu6:dh
Sa6d b. 6Ub:da Sa6;d b. 6Ub:dah Sa6d b. 6Ub:da
6Abdull:h b. 6Amr b. al-62B 6Abdull:h b. 6Amr b. al-62B 6Abdull:h b. 6Amr b. al-62B
6Al; b. Ab; F:lib [scribe] 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib [scribe] 6Al; b. Ab; F:lib [witness]
Ab< Darh Ab< al-Dharr
Eass:n b. Th:bit Eass:n b. Th:bit
6Amar b. Y:s;r 6Amm:r b. Y:m;n
al-Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m al-Zubayr b. al-6Aww:m
Zayd b. Th:bit Zayd b. Th:bit
[NAMES WHERE THERE IS UNCERTAINTY OR NO MATCH]
E:rith b. Th:bit al-6Abb:s b. 6Abd al-M:lik Mu6:wiya b. Ab; Sufyan

6Abb:s b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib Yaz;d b. Tal;t [scribe]
6Abd al-6AC;m b. Easan 6Abdull:h b. Yaz;d 6Abdull:h b. Zayd
Th:bit b. Naf;s FarB<B b. Qas;m b. Badr b. Ja6far b. Ab; F:lib
Ab< Ean;fa b. 6Ubaya Ibr:h;m [Could this be two names Zayd b. Arqam
H:shim b. 6Ubaya joined into one?] Us:ma b. Zayd
Mu6Cam b. Qurash; Im:m b. Yaz;d Earf<s b. Zayd
Sahl b. Tam;m Ka6b b. Malik
6Abd al-6AC;m al-Najash; Ab< al-62liya
6Abd al-6AC;m b. Eusayn Ab< AAr;fa b. 6Usayr
Ma6Cam b. M<s: Eamza b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib
Ab< Ean;fa 6Abdullah b. al-6Abb:s
6Ubayd b. ManB<r 6Uthm:n b. Ma36<n
H:shim b. 6Abdull:h Ibn Rab;6a
Ab< al-62zir Sahl b. Bay@:8
Hish:m b. 6Abd al-Mu33alib D:w<d b. Jubayr
H:shim b. 6Asiya
Ka6b b. Ka6b
Ab< Bar:h [Covenant with the
Assyrian Christians]
272
273
The names have been transliterated from the original Arabic manuscript
rediscovered and reproduced by Morrow. For the original Arabic manuscript,
see: Morrow, Covenants, 255–63; for the corrected Arabic typescript, see 247–
53; for the names of the witnesses as they appear in the original Arabic
manuscript, see 262–3.
352 AHMED EL-WAKIL
APPENDIX D
The distortion of the Covenant with the Jews of Khaybar and Maqn: is
extremely disturbing. Al-Bal:dhur;’s version is obviously derived from it
but it was altered against the Prophet’s instructions in order to take away
the rights of the Jews. This covenant is preceded by an exordium by a
Jewish Companion of the Prophet who had accepted Islam. It is
reproduced below:
In the name of the Merciful, Compassionate. O assembly of Moslims, and
Fugitives, and Helpers. O people of the Prophet (peace upon him), O bearers of
the Qor:n, O people of the Prophet (peace upon him), of fasters of the month of
Ramadh:n, I am a man who has detached himself from the sons of Eunai b.
Akhtab b. Ean;n: of Kheibar, whom we came and overpowered, [to whom] our
foot made war, and [whom] our horses carried away. We freely gave up our
persons and provisions six days in the lustrous week. Then out came to us our
mother, viz. the mother of Al Eunai b. Akhtab, saying: ‘Sabbath has come and
the time of prayer’. We answered her: ‘We have neither Sabbath, nor feast, nor
rest, nor sleep, until the Prophet of All:h (may Allah pray for him and greet him)
fulfil that which All:h has inspired him with.’ The Prophet of Allah (may, &c.)
accepted this, and our Sabbath was not incumbent upon us. He married 4afiyya,
the daughter of our uncle, and gave her her freedom and marriage gift. And he
wrote for us a treaty and covenant. . . Ali b. Ab< F:lib (may, &c.), that he should
take the letter out, kiss it, draw it over his face, and read it [as follows]:274
A comparison of the Covenant to the Compact reveals the extent to
which the latter has been manipulated, with the most obvious changes
having been highlighted in italics. The clauses of the Compact have been
deconstructed from their original order to permit a cross-comparison of
the two documents. If the reader wishes to read the Compact as it
appears in al-Bal:dhur;’s Kit:b Fut<A al-Buld:n, then he or she is
required to follow the numbering sequence provided below. The
translation of the Compact that has been reproduced from the original
Arabic is that of Philip K. Hitti275 while the translation of the Covenant
from the original Arabic, transcribed in Hebrew text is that of Hartwig
Hirschfeld.
274
Hirschfeld, ‘The Arabic Portion of the Cairo Genizah at Cambridge’. For
the Jewish Exordium, see 169–70; for the covenant, see 170–2.
275
al-Bal:dhur;, The Origins of the Islamic State, x60, 93–4.
The Covenant from the Cairo Genizah The Compact from al-Bal:dhur;’s Kit:b
Fut<A al-Buld:n276
In the name of the Merciful, Compassionate. 1. In the name of Allah, the compassionate,
the merciful.
This is a letter from MoAammed, the Messenger of All:h to 2. From MuAammad, the Messenger of
Ean;n: and the people of Kheibar and Maqn: and their progeny Allah, to the banu-Eab;bah and the in-
as long as the heavens are above the earth, habitants of Makna:
_
peace. I praise unto you God, save whom there is no God but he. 3. peace be with you.
Now [I say that] he has revealed unto me that you are about to 4. It has been revealed unto me from above
return to your cities and to the inhabitants of your dwelling- that ye are to return to your village.
place.
Return in safety, in the protection of All:h and that of his 5. From the time this my letter reaches you,
Messenger. ye shall be safe; and ye have the assurance
of security from Allah and from his
Messenger.
Yours is the safeguard of All:h and that of his Messenger with 8. Only to the Prophet of Allah shall
regard to your persons, belief, and property, slaves, and belong your cloth-stuff, slaves, horses and
whatever is in your possession. coats of mail, save what the Prophet or the
Prophet’s messenger shall exempt.
6. Verily, the Messenger of Allah has
forgiven you your sins and all blood for
which ye have been pursued. In your
village, ye shall have no partner but the
Messenger of Allah or the Messenger’s
messenger.
You shall not have the annoyance of land-tax, nor shall a 7. There shall be no oppression on you nor
forelock of yours be cut off. No army shall tread on your soil, hostility against you. Against whatever the
nor shall you be assembled [for military service], nor shall tithes Prophet of Allah protects himself, he will
be imposed on you, neither shall you be injured in any way. No protect you.
one shall leave his mark on you, you shall not be prevented from
wearing slashed or coloured garments, nor from riding on
horseback, nor from carrying any kind of arms. If anyone
attacks you, fight him, and if he is killed in the war against you,
none of you shall be executed for his sake, nor is ransom to be
paid for him. If one of you kills a Moslim intentionally, he shall
be dealt with according to Moslim law.
No disgraceful charges shall be brought against you, and you 10. and God’s Prophet has exempted you
shall not be as other [non-Moslim] poll-tax payers. from all further poll-tax or forced labor.
If you ask assistance, it shall be granted to you, and if you want
help you shall have it. You shall not be punished for white, nor
yellow, nor brown (garments), nor for a coat of mail, nor. . . Not
a shoe-lace of yours shall be cut. You shall not be hindered
entering the mosques, nor precluded from governing Moslims.
(continued)
276
To read the original Compact in Arabic, see al-Bal:dhur;, Kit:b Fut<A al-
Buld:n, Aad;th no. 146, https://library.islamweb.net/hadith/display_hbook.
php?bk_no=197&hid=146&pid=125763.
354 AHMED EL-WAKIL
Continued
The Covenant from the Cairo Genizah The Compact from al-Bal:dhur;’s Kit:b
Fut<A al-Buld:n276
You shall have no other ruler except out of your own midst, or 13. Ye are to have no ruler save of your
from the family of the messenger of All:h. number of the family of the Prophet.
Room shall be made for your funerals, except when they trespass
on a sacred spot (mosque).
You shall be held in honour on account of your own high station 11. Now, if ye hear and obey, it will be for
and the station of 4afiyya, the daughter of your Uncle. It shall be the Prophet to do honor to the honorable
incumbent upon the people of the house of the Messenger of among you and pardon those among you
All:h and upon the Moslims to uphold your honour, and not to who do the wrong.
touch you (?). If any of you goes on a journey, he shall be under
the safeguard of All:h and his Messenger. ‘There is no
compulsion in matters of religion’.
If any of you follows the religion of the Messenger of All:h and 9. Besides that, ye shall give one-fourth of
his command, he shall have one fourth of what the Messenger of what your palm-trees produce, one-fourth
All:h has ordered to be given to the people of his house, to be of the product of your nets, and one-fourth
given when the Qoreish receive their portions, viz. fifty din:rs. of what is spun by your women; but all else
This is a present from me for you. The family of the house of the shall be your own;
Messenger of All:h as well as the Moslims are charged to fulfil
all that is in this letter.
Whoever deserves well of Ean;n: and the people of Kheibar and 12. Whosoever of the banu-Eab;bah and
Maqn:, all the better for him; but he who does them evil, all the the inhabitants of Makna bethinks himself
_
worse for him. to do well to the Moslems, it shall be well
for him; and whosoever means mischief to
them, mischief shall befall him.
Whoever reads this my letter, or to whomever it is read, and he
alters or changes anything of what is in it, upon him shall be the
curse of Allah and the curse of the cursing of. . . and all mankind.
He is beyond my protection and intercession on the day of
Resurrection, and I am his foe. And who is my foe is the foe of
All:h, and he who is the foe of Allah goes to hell. . . and bad is
the abode there.
Witness is All:h, like whom there is no God, and Allah is Written by 6Ali-ibn-abu-Fâlib in the year 9.
sufficient as witness, and his angels, and those Moslims who are
present. Ali, the son of Ab< F:lib, wrote it with his writing,
whilst the Messenger of All:h dictated to him letter for letter,
Friday, the 3rd of Ramadhan, in the year five of the Hijra.
Witnesses: [Amm]:r b. Y:sir; Salm:n the Persian, the friend of
the Messenger of All:h; Abu Darr al Ghif:ri.

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Journal of Islamic Studies 27:3 (2016) pp. 273–354 doi:10.

THE PROPHET’S TREATY WITH THE

The Chronicle of Seert is an ecclesiastical history of the Assyrian Church

A COMPARISON OF THE TERMS

b) Prohibition to remove their ecclesiastical authorities

Similarly, the Compact states:

c) Guaranteeing the right of asylum to Muslims

The Compact expresses the same stipulations in slightly different terms

d) Support for the Muslims’ war efforts

DATING THE COVENANT AND THE

WHEN DID THE CHRISTIANS OF NAJRAN

more plausible that Q. 3. 59–63 was revealed relatively early in

THE NAMES AND NUMBERS OF THE

The Exordium provides the names of ‘al-Sayyid [Ghass:n;], 6Abdu

THE WITNESSES TO THE TREATY OF NAJRAN

A major point of contention between the Compact and the Covenant is

also be on the Covenant with the Assyrian Christians: see Appendix A,

MuAammad. They objected that it was the sabbath’.66 This appears to

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE COVENANTS

In addition to the Najran Covenant, Morrow has collected in his book

Though it is theoretically possible that these three covenants were

It is unknown to whom the Source Covenant was given. Its recension

circulated across different Christian communities in the Muslim world.

THE CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS

Irfan Shahı̂d has noted that a number of Christian denominations were

WERE THERE JEWISH–CHRISTIANS

The uncertainty of Ibn IsA:q as to whether the delegation of 20

though he denies that Abraha ever claimed independence from him. In

observed how ‘Among the Himyarite martyrs of Negran mentioned by

DID THE COVENANT REPLACE AN

It is somewhat peculiar for the Najran Covenant to have been issued in 7

to an imprecation is not mentioned in the Exordium may be because

THE EXORDIUM’S INCONSISTENCY

The Exordium provides an extensive survey of the Prophet’s wars with

DOES THE EXORDIUM CONFLICT WITH

Sebeos is recognized by scholars of early Islamic history as a reliable

The original Constitution may therefore have included non-belligerency

THE COVENANT WITH THE JEWS

THE COVENANT OF 6UMAR WITH THE

The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (695–785 ce), along with later

Morrow, Covenants, 193-194; Hamidullah, Majm<6at al-wath:8iq al-siy:siyya,

THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS AND

While the Exordium to the Najran Covenant depicts a friendly relation-

Muslim scholars who consider the above letter as historical and as

which may present an alternative explanation as to why they were

THE COVENANT WITH THE SAMARITANS

The Kit:b al-T:r;kh of Ab< al-FatA b. Ab; al-Easan al-S:mir;, which is a

The tax stipulation mentioned in the Kit:b al-T:r;kh that was

evidence from the covenants or any of the non-Muslim sources that

[willingly] entering under the protection of Islam.’246 The Christians to

It is reported by another ecclesiastical Armenian text that a decree very

The evidence presented in this paper should provide us with sufficient

We may here summarize by stating that the covenants of the Prophet

authenticity. The Exordium may well be the only document recounting

Generally speaking, the Islamic sources embody distinct historical

The Covenant of the Prophet MuAammad that was issued on Monday 29

COVENANT OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE ASSYRIAN

It was written by Muhammad, the Be this Writ known to all in the

This document [kitaban], which This Covenant and Compact is

COVENANT OF THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD

WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE CHRISTIANS OF WITH THE ASSYRIAN