The treaties of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ with the Jews in the context of the Charter of Medina and their da'wah and political objectives

Abstract

Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) had a great deal of contact with the people of all sorts of religions because his mission of preaching Islam was not for a particular area or region. This contact helped Him to get the fame worldly. After Hijrah he formed a new society with the residents of Madina which was consisting of three types of people Muslims (Muhajreen e Makkah, Ansar), Jews and few Christians. For the formation of a new society which was consisting of inhabitants with different religious beliefs there was the need to make such laws that should be followed by all the people so that the state could work centrally. Muhammad (SAW) signed a treaty among the residents of Madina. This treaty is called “Meesaq e Madina”. This treaty was giving full rights to the inhabitants to live lives according to their religious beliefs with full freedom. In this way an exemplary society can be existed but all the three tribes (Banu Qanqa, Banu Nazeer and Banu Quraiza) breached the covenant due to which some of them were forced to leave Madina and some of them have to face the punishment that their warriors were killed and women and children were made slaves. In fact, treaties with these tribes were the best source to establish such a state in which people of every religion could be able to survive with their own beliefs by obeying the conditions they signed in the treaty.]