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Islamic Treasures — The Treaties of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time
According to Jewish and Christian tradition, a thousand years after Abraham, the Jewish people were slaves, locked in perpetual servitude in Egypt until Moses led them to freedom. On their epic trek to Palestine, Moses broke the journey in the area around Mount Sinai. It was on its craggy summit that God transmitted a set of covenants, or laws etched into clay tablets. These 10 Commandments became the foundation for an existence both moral and obedient.
Over 1000 years later, in 4–6AH or 625 CE, the Prophet Muhammad wrote and granted another, distinctive covenant to the monks of the Monastery of St. Catherine, a then 60-year-old Christian abbey at the base of Mount Sinai. The treaty didn’t command recipients to honor their mother and father nor to desist in the creation of idols. Instead, the covenant from the Prophet Muhammad achieved something unheard of in the annals of history — it delivered a promise to protect the Christian monks and residents of the region from any incursions, attacks, or efforts to take over the Christian pilgrimage site. The document swore to protect the monks singularly and as a group wherever they were. Further, the contract vowed to allow all inhabitants to retain the religion of their choice. The handwritten words on parchment, signed with the Prophet’s hand-print…