drjamorrow

The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai:

The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai:
Issues of Historicity, Authenticity and Reliability

Dr. John Andrew Morrow

27/01/2015

The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai is attributed to the Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah, the Messenger of Allah. The document was written in the handwriting of Imam ‘Ali during the fourth year of the Hijrah which would place us approximately around 625 CE. Assuming the possibility that such dating was a later attribution, it is conceivable that the document was issued, or re-issued, during the Year of Delegations, which took place approximately in 630 CE. Not only have the monks from St. Catherine’s Monastery consistently upheld its authenticity since the early days of Islam, so have the Jabaliyyah Arabs of the Sinai. Although Islamic Tradition has been passed down almost exclusively by Muslims, this is one of the rare cases in which a Sunnah and a Hadith have been transmitted consecutively by both Muslims and Christians.

According to the historical record, the freedoms granted by the Prophet to the monks of Mount Sinai, along with other communities, were honored by Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali, as well as the Umayyads, and the ‘Abassids. The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai is next attested by Muhammad ibn Sa‘d al-Baghdadi (784-845), the early Muslim historian and scribe of al-Waqidi (748-822 CE), one of the earliest historians of Islam and biographer of the Prophet, in a document called the Treaty of Saint Catherine which is cited in his Ṭabaqat or Book of Major Classes. While it is shorter than the existing copies of the famous charter of rights, protections, and privileges, it contains all of the major provisions, virtually word for word.

If Ibn Sa‘d simply provided a summary of the major points, Isma‘il ibn Kathir (1301–1373), the hadith scholar, Qur’anic commentator, jurist, and historian, describes the document in meticulous and minute detail, paraphrasing every single article. Speaking of the period right after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, he relates the following in his Qisas al-anbiya’ or Stories of the Prophets:

It was about this time [after the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah] that the Prophet granted to the monks of the Monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai, his liberal charter by which they secured for the Christians noble and generous privileges and immunities. He undertook himself and enjoined his followers, to protect the Christians, to defend their churches and the residences of their priests and to guard them from all injuries. They were not to be unfairly taxed; no bishop was to be driven out of his diocese; nor Christian was to be forced to reject his religion; no monk was to be expelled from his Monastery; no pilgrim was to be stopped from his pilgrimage; nor were the Christian churches to be pulled down for the sake of building mosques or houses for the Muslims. Christian women married to Muslims were to enjoy their own religion and not to be subjected to compulsion or annoyance of any kind. If the Christians should stand in need of assistance for the repair of their churches or monasteries, or any other mater pertaining to their religion, the Muslims were to assist them. This was not to be considered as supporting their religion, but as simply rendering them assistance in special circumstances. Should the Muslims be engaged in hostilities with outside Christians, no Christian resident among the Muslims should be treated with contempt on account of his creed. The Prophet declared that any Muslim violating any clause of the charter should be regarded as a transgressor of Allah’s commandments, a violator of His testament and neglectful of His faith. (np)

Apart from historical works, firmans of political authorities contain direct references to the ashtiname. The earliest of these were issued by the Fatimids (r. 901-1171), and include decrees dating from 965, 1109, 1110, 1134, 1135, 1154, and 1156 CE. Case in point, the Fatimid Caliph al-Hafiz commanded his governors to respect the Sinai Covenant in 1134 CE. At the time, the document is said to have been several centuries old. The Ayyubids (r. 1174-1249) renewed the Covenant with the Sinai Monks in 1195, 1199, 1201/02, and 1210/11 CE. Both the Fatimid and Ayyubids issued medieval decrees with the monks of Mount Sinai that referred to the sijillat al-nabawiyyah or “Prophetic Decrees” (see 1169 Fatimid decree and 1505 Mamluk decree).

The Mamluks (1250-1517) confirmed it repeatedly in 1259, 1260, 1272, 1268/69, 1280 and 1516 CE. The Ottomans, who brought the ashtiname to the Royal Treasury for safe keeping in 1517, provided the monks with a certified copy which has served as the source of copies ever since, endorsing its authenticity either every year, every couple of years, or every few years from 1519 to 1818/19. In keeping with the spirit of the Covenant of the Prophet, the Sultan of Egypt made a treaty with the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in the year 1403 CE.

Prior to 1517, the original prophetic decree was stored at the Monastery of St. Catherine; it was this primary source document that was renewed by the Fatimids, the Ayyubids, and the Mamluks. Not only was the Covenant of the Prophet recognized and respected by the political and religious establishment, it was independently verified on a regular basis by the five schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The Monastery of St. Catherine’s possesses nearly 2,000 fatwas from Isma‘ili, Maliki, Shafi‘i, Hanafi, and Hanbali scholars from 975 to 1888 CE both implicitly and explicitly acknowledging the rights that they received from the Messenger of Allah.

The ashtiname was widely attested, mentioned, cited, and fully translated by many Western pilgrims, travel writers, clerics, and scholars from the 16th century to the present. Jean Thenaud, the guardian of the Convent of the Cordeliers of Angoulême, mentioned the ashtiname in his Voyage d’outremer (Égypte, Mont Sinay, Palestine) which describes his 1512 pilgrimage to St. Catherine’s Monastery. This debunks the claims of critics who allege that the Covenant of the Prophet was produced by the Sinai monks as a pre-emptive measure to protect them from the Ottoman conquerors. If the ashtiname was at Mount Sinai in 1512, then that proves that it existed prior to the Ottoman conquest of 1517. As Affagart noted during his 1533 trip to St. Catherine, the monks refused to separate themselves from the Covenant of the Prophet (191). Copies of the Covenant of the Prophet, dating as early as 1517 to the 19th century, also serve as proof of continuous and accurate transmission of its content, not to mention the 1517 firman of Selim the First which confirms that he took the Covenant, presented it to a committee of scholars who found it to be trustworthy, and replaced it with a certified copy. The event is also confirmed by Ioannis Tsernotas, alias Tsernotabey, a Greek soldier of the Christian Spahis cavalry of the Ottoman army, who participated in the campaign in Egypt with 2,500 Christians. A trusted advisor to Selim I, he was a witness to events that took place during the conquest.

Although it has almost fallen into oblivion, a work by Feridun Ahmed Bey (d. 1583 CE), known as Majmu‘a munsha‘at al-salatin was published in the 16th century and republished in the 19th century, namely, in 1857/58. It consist of a collection of letters to and from the Prophet, the Caliphs, and the Sultans, as well as letters to and from the sovereigns of Europe, along with the treaties they signed, all compiled by the head of the Ottoman Chancellery. The individual in question was an influential preacher who served Sokollu Mehmed (1565-1579) who appointed him Secretary in 1570 and Chancellor in 1573. Atai (d. 1635) relates that he was trained in the household of the treasurer, ‘Abd Allah Çelebi. After Sultan Selim II (1566-1574) came to power, Sokullu Mehmed fell from favor, and Feridun Bey was dismissed in 1576. After the assassination of the former, Feridun Bey was recalled to Istanbul, married into the royal family in 1582 and was reappointed Chancellor. According to Virginia H. Aksan,

The Münseat was presented by Feridun Bey to Murad III when he ascended to the throne in 1574… According to Ahmed Resmi, Feridun Bey collected the registers and decrees and put them in good order while he was Reisülküttab, and then added the letters and other documents of former Ottoman rulers because he was inspired by a dream to present them. (6)

Famous for his historical works, Feridun Bey’s Munsha‘at al-salatin is simply priceless. Most importantly, and most revealingly, it contains a copy of the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai drawn from the Treasury of Topkapi. As one dynasty followed another, the relics of the Prophet, the Companions, and the previous Caliphs and Sultans were inherited by their successors, which explains, quite logically, why virtually all of the most ancient objects and manuscripts ended up in the collection of the Ottoman Sultan. Some were lost. Some were stolen. And some were misplaced. However, the Museum of Topkapi remains a rich repository of artifacts that confirm the historicity of Islamic accounts. Muslims are entitled to doubt purported letters of the Prophet passed down by Christian authorities. However, such skepticism cannot extend to the archives of the Caliphs and Sultans. The ahdname can indeed be tracked down through official Muslim channels on the authority of a man described as “a grave and distinguished individual, in whom were contained all the moral qualities” (qtd. Aksan 6). The Arabic original cited by Feridun Bey is identical to the dozens and dozens of copies of the Covenant of the Prophet found at Saint Catherine, Simonopetras, and elsewhere. Rendered into English by D.S. Margoliouth, it reads:

This is the certificate written by Mohammed son of ‘Abdallah, the Prophet of God, and His messenger unto all mankind, delivering both promises and threats, and having in his keeping the deposit of God unto His Creation, that men might have no plea after the coming of the Messengers. And God is mighty and wise. This he wrote unto the people of the Christian religion, and to such as profess the Christian religion in the East and West, near and far, clear-speaking and barbarous, known and unknown. He wrote it for them as a charter, and whosoever violates, alters, or transgresses the covenant that is therein, shall have violated the covenant of God, broken His promise, ridiculed his religion, and earned His curse, whether he be a sovereign or any other Moslem. If any monk or pilgrim entrench himself in mountain, valley, cave, township, level, sand or church, I shall be behind them defending them from any that shall envy them, by myself, my helpers, my people, my sect, and my followers, inasmuch as they are my subjects and the people of my covenant. And I exempt them from the vexation in victuals which is endured by the people of the Covenant in that they have to pay the tax, save so far as they themselves of their free will offer it, and there is to be no compulsion nor force employed. No Bishop is to be removed from his diocese, nor monk from his monkdom, nor ascetic from his cell, nor pilgrim from his pilgrimage, neither is any of their assembling-places or churches to be pulled down, neither shall any of the wealth of their churches be employed for the building of mosques or houses for the Moslems; and whoever doeth this shall have violated the charter of God and the charter of His Prophet; neither shall there be taken from monks, bishops, or ministers any poll-tax or fine. I shall maintain their security wheresoever they be, whether on land or sea, east, west, north, or south. They shall at all times and in all places be under my protection and within my covenant and immunity from all mischief. Likewise the hermits in the mountains and blessed places shall not have to pay land-tax nor tithe on that which they sow, nor shall a portion be taken from them seeing that it is only enough for their own mouths, nor shall they have to render assistance at harvest-time, nor shall they be forced to go out on service in time of war, neither shall more be demanded of them that pay the land-tax and the owners of property and estates and those that engage in merchandise than twelve dirhems altogether once a year. None of them shall be made to pay more than is due, neither shall they be striven with save in kindly dealing. They shall guard them under the wing of mercy by keeping off them the vexation of all mischief wherever they be and wherever they dwell. And if Christians dwell among Moslems, the Moslems shall satisfy them, and suffer them to pray in their churches, and shall not interfere in any way with the practice of their religion. And whoso violates the charter of God, and does the contrary thereof, shall be counted a rebel against His covenant and against His Apostle; further, the Moslems shall aid in repairing the Christian churches and places, which shall remain in keeping of the Christians on condition that they abide in their religion and act according to the charter. None of them shall be compelled to bear arms, for the Moslems shall protect them. And none shall violate this charter for all time, even unto the Day of Judgment and the end of the world. (qtd. Zaydan 123-124)

The tradition of Muhammad’s travels to the Sinai and the history and background of the composition of the ashtiname is also detailed in Balthasar de Monconys’ Le voyage en Egypte, 1646-1647, in which he claims to have seen the content of the Prophet’s firman engraved in stone (92). Further evidence in support of the authenticity of the ashtiname comes from Epitome tes hierokosmikes historias [The Epitome of Sacred World History] which was one of the first works of a Sinai monk to be published. The work was written by Nektarios (1605-1680), a monk from St. Catherine’s, known variously as Nektarios the Cretan and Nektarios of Jerusalem, based on the Arabic historical works that were available at the monastery at the time, many of which have now been lost. This work, written in 1660, and published in Venice in 1677, confirms the Prophet’s contact with the Sinai monks on the basis of early Arabic sources. Originally from Crete, he became archbishop of the Sinai, and eventually Patriarch of Jerusalem. Written in simple Greek, the Epitome provides an overview of the history of the Sinai and St. Catherine’s Monastery from the times of Moses to the conquest of Egypt. The final two sections deal with the history of Egypt and its conquest by Sultan Selim in 1517. The work confirms that the monks from Mount Sinai “had secured a deed of coexistence (ahtiname) from the Prophet Muhammad himself” (Merry 288).

That Selim I brought back the Covenant of the Prophet from St. Catherine’s Monastery is not fiction: it is historical fact backed up by an official document from the Sultan himself which dates from the same year. Of the numerous surviving copies of the ashtiname, there are some as early as 1517 and others as late as 1858 CE. They are all identical in content.

In 1697, M.LM.D.C. published a short defense of the Covenant of the Prophet (Morrow 75). This was followed by Eusèbe Renaudot who wrote that the document was beyond dispute (Morrow 153). Even Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693-1755 CE), whose attitude towards the ashtiname was not favorable, admitted that: “[it] is …certain, that the Mahometans unanimously acknowledge it to be genuine” (1765; 330).

That Selim I brought back the Covenant of the Prophet from St. Catherine’s Monastery is not fiction: it is historical fact backed up by an official document from the Sultan himself which dates from the same year. Of the numerous surviving copies of the ashtiname, there are some as early as 1517 and others as late as 1858 CE. They are all identical in content. They confirm that the Covenant of the Prophet was passed down unadulterated from the early 16th century to the 21st century. There is no reason to assume that the transmission occurred otherwise from the 7th century to the 16th century. In fact, the fact that St. Catherine’s Monastery had been protected by the Prophet has a paper trail that dates from Fatimid times in the 10th century to the end of the Ottoman times in the 20th century. Year after year, for over a millennium, the Sinai covenant was confirmed.

In fact, the fact that St. Catherine’s Monastery had been protected by the Prophet has a paper trail that dates from Fatimid times in the 10th century to the end of the Ottoman times in the 20th century. Year after year, for over a millennium, the Sinai covenant was confirmed.

Although the achtiname or Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai was known to educated French readers, it was popularized among English speakers by Richard Pococke (1704-1765), an English prelate and anthropologist, in his Description of the East (1743) which features a rough translation of the text along with an account of its origins. The French invasion of Egypt in the late 18th century brought even more French leaders, linguists, and Orientalists in direct contact with the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai. On November 10, 1798, the Courier d’Egypte reported that:

Brumaire 17 (November 7th), General Bonaparte granted an audience to twenty-four deputees from the Arab tribes that lived in the land of Mount Sinai and al-Tur… The caravan was accompanied by a monk from Mount Sinai who acts as its interpreter… (2)

On Saturday, December 29, 1798, a detailed account of the meeting between the delegation from Mount Sinai and the new French rulers appeared in the Courier de l’Égypte. It reads:

The monk from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai who accompanied the caravan of Arabs from al-Tur (see issue number 16) was entrusted by the monks of his monastery with the task of asking for the protection of the Commander in Chief and to ask him to confirm the privileges granted to their monastery by different Muslim rulers from the time of Muhammad to that of the ruling Sultan. He presented on that occasion some of the decrees that attest to the concessions that were made to them.

The first of them was a copy of the one that ‘Ali, who was the fourth of the Caliphs, wrote with his own hand upon the order of Muhammad. It contains provisions that are favorable to the monks of Saint Catherine and concludes in the following fashion:

“‘Ali ibn Abu Talib wrote this covenant with his own hand in the mosque of the Prophet, upon whom be blessings and peace, on the third day of the month of Muharram of the second year of the hijrah (year 623 of the Christian calendar.”

The authenticity of this firman could be called into question for during the second year of the Hijrah the success of Muhammad was far from being foretold. He had barely obtained success against a handful of Qurayshis. It is difficult to believe that the monks from Saint Catherine has renounced the protection of Heraclius, their emperor, at such an early stage, in favor of that of the Prophet who probably still appeared as some obscure trouble-making zealot.

When he conquered Egypt, Selim the First took hold of the original document and had a copy delivered that he signed and to which he added the following words: “this covenant, to which the Prophet had placed his seal, has been deposited in the Treasury of the Sultan; it is written on a piece of leather from Ta’if; blessed be he who abides by its dictates!”

The other firmans shared by the monk from Mount Sinai were given to his monastery by the reigning sultan, Selim III, in the year 1214 of the hijrah (1789), by Sultan Ahmet I in the year 1126 (1714) of the hijrah; and by the conqueror of Egypt, Selim I, during the year 923 of the hijrah (1517).

After the standard formulas, we read in this firman: “It is our desire, and in accordance with the divine precept, ‘do good in proportion to the bounties that you have received from the All-Powerful,’ to shower upon them the benefits of our powerful protection. Among those who deserve to be treated the most favorably on our behalf are the monks located in the monastery of the Sinai, that venerable mountain where God spoke to our lord Moses, upon whom be peace.”

After reviewing the various favors granted to the monks from Saint Catherine, by the Prophet himself, the first Caliphs, and several sultans, Selim confirms their privileges and expressly orders the magistrates from the city of Tur, to whom he addresses his firman, to refrain from demanding any contribution from the monks. He guarantees to the latter the enjoyment of their home, their gardens, and their corrals which are attached to them. He also forbids the Arabs to enter into the monastery, to impose taxes of any sort, not even one drachm, to ask even the slightest of gifts, to camp on their territory, unless they are merely passing through in which the law of hospitality, which was been practiced since the dawn of time, would apply, and he also forbids them from troubling those who visit their monastery.

“We grant these various favors to the monks of Mount Sinai,” states Selim, “in accordance to the honorable concessions that were made to them by our Prophet and his successors, in consideration of the commands that were granted to them by the sultans and, in light of the fact that they are our subjects, that they followed a divinely-revealed law, and that they are faithfully bound to our empire.” (Courier de l’Égypte 23, Le 9 Nivose, VII Année de la République)

The audience between Napoleon and the delegation from Mount Sinai is documented in further detail by a contemporary witness, Jean-Joseph Marcel (1776-1854), an Orientalist from the Société Asiatique, who worked as an administrator in the famous French expedition to Egypt, and who happened to be friends and neighbors with Shaykh Muhammad al-Mahdi, the secretary to the Ottoman Divan. In Les dix soirées malheureuses, Marcel provides us with the following inside information:

On the 17th of Brumaire of the year 7 (November 7, 1798), which corresponds to the 28th of Jamadi al-Uwwal of the year 1213 of the hijrah), a caravan of Arab tribes who inhabit the territory of al-Tur, arrived in Cairo: it was made up of approximately five hundred men and an equal number of camels. They stopped at approximately ten minutes walk from Cairo and set up camp around Fort Dupuy. From there, they send twenty four deputies to the Commander in Chief to announce their arrival and to ask permission to sell their merchandise in the city. According to Oriental custom, they brought gifts; their offering consisted of raisins, pears, apples, and other fruits from their land… The deputies were accompanied to the audience by a famous monk from Saint Catherine’s monastery which was established during the early centuries of Christianity on Mount Sinai.

This monk was entrusted by the monks of his monastery to ask for the protection of the Commander in Chief and to request the confirmation of the privileges that had been granted to the monastery by different Muslim rulers from the time of Muhammad until that of the Sultan currently ruling in Constantinople. He presented on that occasion some of the decrees that attest to the concessions that were made to them.

The first is the one that ‘Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet of Islamism, wrote with his own hand upon the order of Muhammad himself. It contains provisions that are favorable to the monastery, and finishes in the following fashion: “‘Ali ibn Abi Talib wrote this covenant with his own hand upon the order of the Prophet, upon who be the peace and blessings of God, on the third day of the month of Muharram in the second year of the Hijrah.”

This date corresponds to Thursday, July 7th, of the year 623 of the Christian calendar. If this decree is real and authentic, as it appears to be, and which the erudite Venture seems to believe that it was, it is the most precious document that exists from the early years of Islamism.” (162-164)

The authority invoked above, Jean Michel de Venture de Paradis (1739-1799), was Napoleon’s chief interpreter of Oriental Languages. Translator, interpreter, professor of Arabic and Turkish, and member of the Egyptian Institute, he was a man renowned for his erudition. He was one of many French scholars who believed that the Covenant of the Prophet was a faithful transcription of the original 7th century document. Jean-Joseph Marcel was himself a scholar to be reckoned with. A savant who served as a member of the Commission des Sciences et des Arts, a corps of 167 technical experts, who accompanied Napoleon’s 1798 campaign in Egypt, he was a gifted linguist who made important contributions to deciphering the Rosetta Stone. Appointed director of the Imperial Press in 1803, he had the Lord’s Prayer translated into one hundred and fifty languages in the presence of the Pope. As the publisher of an Arabic-French dictionary in 1830, his expertise in Arabic is unquestioned. His contributions to the French Republic were so impressive that he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In his capacity as linguist and Arabist, Marcel concluded that the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai appears to be authentic. This was not only his conclusion: it was the consensus of Napoleon’s Commission des Sciences et des Arts. It was as a result of this scholarly assessment that Napoleon recognized the claims of the monks from Saint Catherine.

In his capacity as linguist and Arabist, Marcel concluded that the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai appears to be authentic. This was not only his conclusion: it was the consensus of Napoleon’s Commission des Sciences et des Arts. It was as a result of this scholarly assessment that Napoleon recognized the claims of the monks from Saint Catherine.

As J. Gordon Melton reports in Faiths across Time: 5,000 Years of Religious History, Napoleon placed St. Catherine’s Monastery under his protection and granted recognition of its traditional status and privileges (1367). The decree reads:

ORDER
Cairo, 19th December [1798]
Bonaparte, General-in-chief, wishing to favor the convent of Mount Sinai
1st. In order to transmit to future races the traditions of our conquest;
2nd. Through respect for Moses and the Jewish nation, whose cosmology retraces the earliest ages;
3rd. Because the convent of Mount Sinai is inhabited by well-educated and polished men, living in the midst of the barbarity of the desert;
Orders, &c, &c. (239)

Not only did Napoleon grant religious and commercial privileges to the monks, and afford protection against the Bedouins, he signed his name on the ashtiname alongside that of Muhammad (239; Lockhart 124). In other words, Napoleon himself ratified the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai.

A full translation of the Covenant of the Prophet with the Monks of Mount Sinai appeared in Histoire de l’Égypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, ou Récit des événements politiques et militaires qui ont eu lieu depuis le départ des Français jusqu’en 1823 by Félix Mengin. He presented the piece as factual and described it as extraordinary (277-280). By 1835, word of the Covenant of the Prophet had reached the [National] Geographic Society who gathered to discuss it. In its “Proceedings of Societies,” The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal reported the following:

The convent on the mount was founded by Justinian who endowed it with the whole peninsula of Sinai. When Mahomet was spreading his religion with fire and sword over the East, he is said to have spared this convent in gratitude for an opportune supply of water and provisions; and, as the monks assert, gave them a firman, written by Ali, which confirmed to their order Justinian’s grant of the peninsula. Not being able to write, Mahomet spread ink over his hand, and laid it on the paper as his signature. The firman was sent to Constantinople, where Sultan Selim collected all the relics of the prophet; and the monks received another to the same effect, which, they say, is now at Cairo. (257-258)

In his 1844 Voyage au Mont Sinaï, Louis de Tesson describes coming face to face with the Covenant of the Prophet:

We were shown the firman of Muhammad that was granted, not only to the monks of Sinai, but to all Christians. For a long time, the Monastery of the Transfiguration was the home to the original written in Kufic characters on the hide of a gazelle and covered with the signature of the Prophet; namely, the ignorant law-giver of the Arabs placed the print of his hand soaked in ink on it, the very hand that did not know how to hold a pen. In 1517, the precious document was vindicated as a sacred relic by Selim the First and deposited in the treasury of his place; the monks received a copy on a parchment, certified by the sultan himself, which they preserve with care; it serves them as a safeguard during their travels. (168-169)

After the Munsha‘at al-salatin was republished in Istanbul in 1848, the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai started to circulate in diplomatic circles, and translations of its original Arabic commenced to appear in various European sources. In 1888/1889, Philippe Gelat cited it in French in his Répertoire de la législation et de l’administration égyptiennes (105-106). Yet another translation surfaced in 1907 in Des patriarcats: les patriarcats dans l’Empire ottoman et spécialement en Égypte by Sésostris Sidarouss and was also treated as historically sound (506-508). In 1858, award-winning poet Henry Day, published Sinai; a Poem, which refers to the presence of the Prophet at Mount Sinai:

High on the sovereign Rock, the Convent still
Rears its colossal form, and guards the site
Where sainted Catherine, angel-wafted, sleeps.
See! from its towers the standard of the Cross
Gives to the wind its blazoned folds, while far
The solemn cymbals sound the hour of prayer!
Hard by, communion strange! the glittering shrine
Of Yemen’s Prophet rises, he who came
Boy-pilgrim hither, and whose simple heart
Recked not of coming guile, or Hera’s grot
Delusive. (19)

In a note to the poem, we read that:

The mosque of Mahomet rises close by the Church. Tradition relates that Mahomet, whilst yet a camel-driver in Arabia, wandered to the great convent, then not a century old. “As he rested,” so the story has with slight variations been told from age to age, “as he rested with his camels on Mount Menejia, an eagle was seen to spread its wings over his head, and the monks, struck by this augury of his future greatness, received him into their convent, and he in return, unable to write, stamped with ink on his hand the signature to a contract of protection, drawn up on the skin of a gazelle, and deposited in the archives of the convent. (19, note 21)

In 1861, the Reverend Joseph Wolff published an account of his travels which confirmed that the monks St. Catherine showed the hand and firman of Muhammad after which he granted protection to the monastery (488). In 1887, Samuel Sullivan Cox, who served as a diplomat in Turkey, provides a positive description of the Muhammad’s travels to the Sinai and an honest assessment of the content of the Covenant of the Prophet. In his words:

Mahomet was a driver of camels. While following this avocation he made the acquaintance of a monk from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The monk, it is said, foretold to Mahomet the great eminence to which he would attain. In consequence of the revelation, he asked, in advance, for Mahomet’s indulgency in favor of the Christian community and certain privileges for the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Mahomet gave the promises.

According to Turkish tradition, Mahomet, acting under a sacred inspiration, abandoned his trade of camel-driver. He retired to a secluded hostelry. There he spent his time in prayer, religious meditation and fasting. It was while thus engaged that an angel appeared to him one night, and delivered to him the Koran. Mahomet, in his turn, communicated its precepts to his disciples, whom he called Houlifaï. These followers, in a very short time, swelled in numbers to such an extent that they soon constituted a powerful and well-disciplined, if not properly organized, army. At the head of this army Mahomet started on his religious expedition, proclaiming the new faith. This comprised a belief in one God, and in Mahomet as the prophet and emissary of that God.

In the course of his conquests and triumphal march through Arabia and Syria, Mahomet came to Mount Sinai; there he again met his old friend the monk of the monastery of St. Catherine. Having reminded Mahomet of his former promise, the monk obtained from him an “actinamen,” or official act. This conferred upon the monastery in question the promised privileges, and upon the Christians in general the free exercise of their religion. The actinamen was dictated by Mahomet himself. It was taken down by one of his followers, Ali Amboudalip. As Mahomet could not write, he made his mark on the document. He dipped his hand in the ink and brought it down on the paper, leaving thereon the impression of his five fingers. This incident is commemorated in the “toughra” or Imperial ensign, which may be seen on every Turkish official document and coin up to the present day…

The document was kept at St. Catherine’s monastery in Mount Sinai until A.D. 1517. Then the Sultan, Selim I, took it into his own possession as a sacred relic. He gave in exchange for it an authenticated copy, certified by himself. This is still preserved. It bears the following heading:

“This paper has been written by Mahomet, the son of Abdullah, and Emissary of God, the Guardian and Preserver of the Universe, to all of his nation and religion, to be a true and sacred grant for the race of the Christians and the offering of the Nazerites.” Is not this the fountain and origin of the “Capitulations” and toleration toward the Christian and other sects?” (210-212)

If the latest official copy of the Covenant of the Prophet was issued in the late 19th century, it started to circulate among scholars during the same time. In fact, in the late 19th century, Naufal Effendi Naufal published a Turkish translation of the Arabic text. Syed Ameer Ali (1849–1928), the distinguished Muslim jurist, may be the first scholar to expound upon the Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai in the English language. He provided a detailed paraphrase of its content in 1819 in his admirable book titled The Spirit of Islam:

It was about this time that the Prophet granted to the monks of the monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai, and to all Christians, a Charter which has been justly designated as one of the noblest monuments of enlightened tolerance that the history of the world can produce. This remarkable document, which has been faithfully preserved by the annalists of Islam, displays a marvelous breadth of view and liberality of conception. By it the Prophet secured to the Christians privileges and immunities which they did not possess even under sovereigns of their own creed; and declared that any Moslem violating and abusing what was therein ordered, should be regarded as a violator of God’s testament, a transgressor of His commandments, and a slighter of His faith. He undertook himself, and enjoined on his followers, to protect the Christians, to defend their churches, the residences of their priests, and to guard them from all injuries. They were not be unfairly taxed; no bishop was to be driven out of his bishopric; no Christian was to be forced to reject his religion; no monk was to be expelled from his monastery; no pilgrim was to be detained from his pilgrimage. Nor were the Christian churches to be pulled down for the sake of building mosques or houses for the Moslems. Christian women married to Moslems were to enjoy their own religion, and not to be subjected to compulsion or annoyance of any kind on that account. If Christians should stand in need of assistance for the repair of their churches or monasteries, or any other matter pertaining to their religion, the Moslems were to assist them. This was not to be considered as taking part in their religion, but as merely rendering them assistance in their need, and complying with the ordinances of the Prophet which were made in their favor by the authority of God and His Apostle. Should the Moslems be engaged in hostilities with outside Christians, no Christian resident among the Moslems should be treated with contempt on account of his creed. Any Moslem so treating a Christian should be accounted recalcitrant to the Prophet. (79)

There are a few things that strike the erudite reader: 1) he places the Sinai Covenant after Muhammad’s conflict with the Jews, namely, in and around the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah, which is consistent with the account of Ibn Kathir; and, 2), most important of all, he affirms that “[t]his remarkable document…has been faithfully preserved by the annalists of Islam” (79).

Within a few years of the publication of The Spirit of Islam, the Covenant of the Prophet with the Monks of Mount Sinai appeared in French (and presumably in Arabic) in L’Union Islamique / al-Ittihad al-Islami in 1898 CE. The article, which includes the full text of the ashtiname, was picked up Bessarione, an Italian journal of Oriental Studies, as well as Échos d’Orient, a French publication. The article from Échos d’Orient, titled “Décret de Mahomet relatif aux Chrétiens,” simply provides a condescending summary of the original piece that appeared in L’Union Islamique. It mentions that the original decree of the Prophet was still in existence and was stored in the Sultan’s library (170). It states that the existence of the ashtiname had been mentioned a few times in the West but that its content had never been previously disclosed (170). This is clearly incorrect as many travel writers from Europe had written about it and provided translations of it. Intriguingly, the article states that the covenant “had been published in the Orient by two Arab historians” (170).

Shortly after the ashtiname was shared with Arabic, Italian, and French readers, Anton F. Haddad brought word of the Covenant of the Prophet to the Americas where he published an English translation based on the Turkish translation in 1902. Although it underwent a process of double translation, the content was accurately conveyed. Abdullah al-Mamun al-Suhrawardy (1870-1935), the Islamic scholar, barrister, and academic, also mentioned the ashtiname in his 1904 lecture on “Islam and Toleration” that was published in the Asiatic Quarterly Review in 1905. In it, he mentioned that: “We are told that about the year 6 of the Hegirah, the Prophet granted to the monks of the monastery of St. Catherine, near Mount Sinai, and to all Christians, a charter which has been designated as one of the noblest monuments of enlightened tolerance that the history of the world can produce” (156). A rather detailed commentary of the ashtiname or “Prophet’s Charter” appeared in Jurji Zaydan’s History of Islamic Civilization which appeared in English in 1907. It reads:

There are current copies of a contract supposed to have been made by the Prophet with the Christians and their monks, called the ‘Prophet’s Charter,’ which agree in purport though they vary in wording. This Charter is supposed to have been written by the hand of ‘Ali, and deposited in the Prophet’s Mosque in the year 2 A.H. Different copies were made and transferred to various monasteries. One of these was guarded in the Monastery of Mt. Sinai, whence Sultan Selim the Conqueror removed it to Constantinople at the beginning of the sixteenth century A.D., after having exhibited it to an assembly of lawyers, by whom it was translated into Turkish. A Turkish copy was then deposited in the Monastery of Mt. Sinai, with charters confirming the monks in the rights guaranteed them by the Prophet’s Charter…. (124-125)

Arabs, especially Egyptians, learned about the ashtiname in 1916 after Shuqayr published a copy of the Covenant in Arabic in his book on the history of the Sinai. In 1918, Bernard Moritz, published the ashtiname in Arabic and German, thus exposing German and Austrian academics to the topic. The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai was mentioned in the first Encyclopedia of Islam which appeared between 1913 and 1936.

The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai is also treated as a historical reality by Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall (1875-1936 CE), who wrote that “[i]nnumerable monasteries, with a wealth of treasure of which the worth has been calculated at not less than a hundred million sterling, enjoyed the benefit of the Holy Prophet’s Charter to the monks of Sinai and were religiously respected by the Muslims” (qtd. Zahoor 5). In 1946, Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins related the tradition that “Muhammad was one of those nomads who served as a camel boy for the friars and who, out of gratitude ordered that the monastery of Sinai always be respected” (99). Muhammad Hamidullah also shared the Arabic version of the covenant in al-Watha’iq in 1956.

Positive views of the Covenant of the Prophet were provided by Albert Champdor in 1963. Akram Zahoor and Z. Haq were staunchly supportive in 1990 while Nikolaos Tomadakis, Konstantinos A. Manafis, and Demetrios Digbassanis were very objective in 1990. In his 1995 work, Joseph J. Hobbs adopted a very scholarly approach, presenting all the various points of view. Brucy Merry and J. Gordon Melton presented it in factual terms in 2005. As for Reza Shah-Kazemi, his belief in the ashtiname came through clearly in 2005.

Considering that the Prophet, the Qur’an, the Shari‘ah, the Sunnah, and Muslims as a whole have come under increasing attack in the early twenty-first century, a strong contingent of scholars have come forth in support of the Covenant of the Prophet with the Monks of Mount Sinai in an attempt to counter this narrative. They include: David Dakake (2009 CE), Muqtedar Khan (2009 CE), Zia Shah (2011 CE), Ahmed Shams (2011 CE), Raj Bhala (2011 CE), Hedieh Mirahmadi (2011 CE), Helen C. Evans (2012 CE), Father Justin of Sinai (2012 CE), Pave the Way Foundation (2012 CE), the Radical Middle Way (2013 CE), Dr. Fuad Nahdi (2014 CE), and the Tabah Foundation (2015 CE) which described the Covenants as “authentic, legitimate, and irrefutable.”

In recent years many authors and scholars have come forth to confirm the Covenant of the Prophet with the Monks of Mount Sinai. In his Eight Years Wandering in the High Mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, Ahmed Shams mentioned that:

Since the Arab conquest, the monastery was under the protection of the Muslims. Guarantees of protection were given to the monastery along its extended history through hundreds of trustees, starting with the one of Prophet Mohamed of the Muslims in the 7th century… Some historians have their own doubts about the trustee of Prophet Mohamed. Anyway, those doubts will not change the fact that all the Muslim kings, sultans and presidents respected the trustees. It is part of the Islamic values to protect the religious buildings of Christians and Jews. (15-16)

It is equally recognized by the following signatories to the Covenants Initiative: Feisal Abdul Rauf, Kathryn Qahira Santana, Marina (Nouria) Bouteillier, Yousef Casewit, Farah Kimball, Zachary Markwith, Charles Daines, Adam Deen, Alan Godlas, Kabir Helminski, Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, Irving Karchmar, Qaisra Ehsan Khan, John Parks, Saqib Safdar, Yusuf A.H. Salaam, Reza Shah-Kazemi, Kamal Southall, Hector Manzolillo, Aida Shahlar Gasimova, Omid Safi, Hisham M. Ramadan, Bridget Blomfield, Said Mentak, Mohamed Elkouche, Muhammad-Reza Fakhr-Rohani, Amar Sellam, Charles Upton, Rachida Bejja, Saimma Dyer, Daniel Dyer, Nigel Jackson, Cyrus Ali Zargar, Mahdi Tourage, Faysal Burhan, Safeer Siddiqui, Yasser Chaudhary, Arshad Sharif, James Parker, Baha’uddin Peter Hughes, Hesham A. Hassaballa, Sufi John Ishvaradas Abdallah, Khadija Fitzwilli Hall, Walid Radwan, Arnold Yasin Mol, Kevin Barrett, Alim Ali, Muslim Muhammad Arshad, Nebil Nuradin, Asif Merchant, Mike Mohamed Ghouse, Muqtedar Khan, Muhammed Haron, Wazir Bax, Bibi Ruqaiyah Baksh, Fazeel Mohamed Ferouz, Muhammad Yunus, Abdul-Rehman Malik, Osman Saffah, Osman Qureshi, Andrzej Ahmed Saramowicz, Latifa Chentouf, Jayde Russell, Humera Khan, Noor-Malika Chishti, Munawar A. Anees, President, Abdallah Schleifer, Shereen Williams, Bouchra Belgaid, Maged Agour, Sam Amico, Tevfirk Aydoner, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, Roger Abdul-Wahhab Boase, Rashid Patch, Salim Warda, Ryan Brizendine, Oliver S. Muhammad, Natalia Andujar, Shabbir Agha Abbas, along with other scholars and students of Islam.

Not only is its chain of narration solid, so is its content, which is in complete agreement with the Qur’an and trustworthy Sunnah. While some may argue that the Covenant to St. Catherine’s Monastery was an exceptional act limited to a particular place and people and applicable only for a specific time, the Prophet himself stipulated that its provisions applied to all peaceful Christians, who were friends and allies of the Muslims, for all time to come.

Conclusions

In terms of chains of transmission, the ‘ahd, ahdname or ashtiname granted to the monks of Mount Sinai seems to be the strongest of all of the Covenants of the Prophet. It has been passed down by Muslims and non-Muslims alike for nearly a millennium and a half. From a scholarly standpoint, it reaches the highest degree of certainty that we can expect from a document dating back from the 7th century. It would take a dangerous combination of ignorance and arrogance for any scholar to dismiss this document as a forgery when faced with its illustrious lineage of transmission. Not only is its chain of narration solid, so is its content, which is in complete agreement with the Qur’an and trustworthy Sunnah. While some may argue that the Covenant to St. Catherine’s Monastery was an exceptional act limited to a particular place and people and applicable only for a specific time, the Prophet himself stipulated that its provisions applied to all peaceful Christians, who were friends and allies of the Muslims, for all time to come. What is more, the authenticity of the Sinai Covenant can increase the credence of other surviving covenants, whose validity and chain of transmission may not be as well documented and therefore doubted. Where plants prosper and our visual sense sees nothing but green, we know that there must be water. The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai is not simply supported by a spring, like an oasis; the greenery it produces comes closer to a tropical jungle, fed by sources, rivers, lakes, and an abundance of rain. The achtiname has been a source of life for Christians and Muslims for over a millennium and a half. May this covenant of hope continue to water seeds of peace until the end of time!

Works Cited

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Dr. John Andrew Morrow is a Full Professor at Ivy Tech. In addition to receiving his PhD from the University of Toronto, he has completed the full cycle of traditional Islamic seminary studies both independently and at the hands of a series of Sunni, Shi’i and Sufi scholars. He has published a number of articles and several books, including The Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine, Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism, and The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World. Aside from his academic duties, Dr. John Andrew Morrow (Imam Ilyas Islam) is the Director of the Covenants Foundation, an organization dedicated to disseminating traditional, civilizational, Islam; promoting Islamic unity; protecting persecuted Christians; and improving relations between Muslims and members of other faiths. He regularly travels the world to promote peace and justice. For more information about Dr. Morrow and his work, visit johnandrewmorrow.com.

drjamorrow

Dr. John Andrew Morrow to SHAFAQNA: An insight into Prophet Muhammad’s life (PBUH)

Dr. John Andrew Morrow to SHAFAQNA: An insight into Prophet Muhammad’s life (PBUH)

Dr. John Andrew Morrow to SHAFAQNA: An insight into Prophet Muhammad's life (PBUH) 

SHAFAQNA- Dr. John Andrew Morrow was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1971. Raised in a multilingual family, he lived in Montreal for ten years and in the Greater Toronto Area for another twenty. The product of a Catholic education, he completed his elementary school in French, his high school in English, and his university studies in English, French, and Spanish. He embraced Islam at the age of 16 after which he adopted the name Ilyas ‘Abd al-‘Alim Islam. After completing his Honors BA, MA, and PhD at the University of Toronto, where he acquired expertise in Hispanic, Native, and Islamic Studies, he pursued post-graduate studies in Arabic in Morocco and the United States. Besides his Western education, Dr. Morrow has completed the full cycle of traditional Islamic seminary studies both independently and at the hands of a series of Sunni, Shia and Sufi scholars.

Not only is he a senior scholar, academic, and professor, he is also a respected ‘alim holding the titles of ustadh, duktur, hakim, and shaykh. Dr. Morrow has spent over a decade in the United States working at various universities including Park University, Northern State University, Eastern New Mexico University, the University of Virginia, and Ivy Tech where he was unanimously appointed to the rank of Full Professor. One of his most noteworthy and memorable experiences involved working as a professor of advanced Spanish, Islamic culture, and world literature for the Institute for Shipboard Education’s Semester at Sea Program.

Aside from his academic duties, Dr. John Andrew Morrow (Imam Ilyas Islam) is the Director of the Covenants Foundation, an organization dedicated to disseminating traditional, civilizational, Islam; promoting Islamic unity; protecting persecuted Christians; and improving relations between Muslims and members of other faiths. He regularly travels the world to promote peace and justice.

Dr. John Andrew Morrow recently published “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World,” a compilation of religious manuscripts and other sacred documents ratified by the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) which so far have seldom been studied or even made known to the public.

At such a time when interfaith relations have yielded, bent and cracked under the weight of sectarianism and religious radicalism, Dr. Morrow brought light to one of Islam’s most valued treasure – tolerance. More than just a book, “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christian World,” is a testament to Islam’s wisdom and the love it professes.

Shafaqna had the pleasure to sit with Dr. John Andrew Morrow and benefit from his invaluable insight.

SHAFAQNA – Dr. Morrow before we actually begin discussing your research and your book I’d like you to shed some light on your journey toward Islam, or should I say back to Islam.

For as far back as I can recall, I remember being immersed in the radiance of divine love. Not only did I believe in God, I felt God flowing through my every atom and I saw God in all things. I never had any doubt that Allah was everywhere and permeated all of existence. My mother, who would lead me in prayer at my beside every night, made my faith blossom. I was baptized, attended church regularly, and was confirmed. It was only after I had embraced Islam at the age of 16 that I officially changed from the church to the mosque. Unlike many others, I was fortunate enough to have been raised with faith and a strong set of moral values for which I have God, the Church, and my parents to thank. This is not to say that I was sinless: it simply means that I knew right from wrong and did not operate in an ethical vacuum. Thanks to this moral monotheistic worldview, I was able to avoid committing any mortal sins.

I have met many in the West who claim that they were infidels before they became Muslims. That is not my case. Consequently, I view my transition from the Catholic faith to Islam as progression, moving from one step to another on the path of spiritual perfection. It is not a break with the prophetic tradition of Jesus, Moses, and Abraham, but its continuation and natural culmination. It is not a move from unbelief to belief as in the case of atheists, or from polytheism to monotheism in the case of polytheists, but from one message to a more elevated message. Call it clarification and rectification. I had many influences on my journey, including the Bible and other sacred scriptures, along with activists and inspirational leaders like Malcolm X. It would take a book to summarize my journey to Islam and within Islam. I have touched upon my experiences in many articles; however, a more detailed treatment might be in order at some point in the future. It all depends on the desire of the Divinity.

SHAFAQNA – Do you feel a personal and spiritual obligation toward Islam?

I do indeed: intensively and personally. It is what drives me, nourishes me, and motivates me. Consider it a higher calling; an obligation; and a debt to be repaid. No matter how hard I work, no matter how much I research, write, and publish, it is never enough. I am never satisfied. As soon as a project is complete, I immediately launch another one and often manage half a dozen major research endeavors at a time. What can I say? “Surely my prayer, my sacrifice, my life, and my death are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the worlds” (6:162).

SHAFAQNA – What inspired you to delve into the life of Prophet Muhammad in such a manner? It feels as if you are looking to connect with the man behind the prophet.

I love, respect, and admire the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his progeny. When he is insulted, I am offended. This does not mean that I am going to kill anyone or blow something up. I strive to be among those who “restrain their rage” (3:134). I feel a deep, personal, connection to the Messenger of Allah. I attempt, to the best of my ability, considering the context in which we currently live, to be his devoted disciple.

Your question is quite intuitive. For many, the history of Muhammad started with the word: “Read!” (96:1) and the little that was known of his previous life was of little import. I, however, as intrigued by the man behind the prophet; namely, his life prior to the proclamation of prophecy. For many, this issue is trivial, irrelevant, and immaterial. However, to me, it explains many matters: we may know the “how” and the “what” but in many cases we lack knowledge of the “why.”

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World paints a much fuller picture of Muhammad’s birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and manhood until the miracle on Mount Hira. Previously, all we had were incomplete sketches. This is not to say that the information was unavailable. It was simply suppressed by early Muslim historians for polemical and dogmatic reasons and, surely, for political ones as well. They feared the implications of the information. They believed it weakened the foundations of Islam. Resultantly, they attempted to purge the Prophet of his pre-prophetic past, alleged that he knew nothing of Judaism, Christianity or other religions; feigned that he had only traveled twice out of Arabia; asserted that he was illiterate; and attempted to blot out anyone or anything that could have influenced him ideologically.

If Muhammad was well-travelled, well-cultured, and well-informed, does this make him less of a prophet? Not in my estimation. In the contrary, it makes him more of a man and more of a prophet and messenger. As much as the Ummayads encouraged this image, Muhammad was not an ignorant and insignificant man. He was the height of humanity and the Proof of Allah for all creation. Shame on those so-called Muslims who claim that he was inconsequential, that he was simply an ordinary, even flawed, man, who received a revelation that anyone else could have been given. On the contrary, he was the cause of creation, a pre-Adamic prophet, and a perfect human being who was connected to Allah throughout his life; both guarded and protected. Muhammad’s attempts to open up to the Divinity did not commence at Mount Hira: they formed a fundamental part of the first forty years of his life.

SHAFAQNA – It could not have been easy to conduct such extensive work. We are talking intellectual archeology here! Can you tell us about your research? Where your travels took you and the type of reactions you got from fellow scholars around the world?

Intellectual archeology is indeed an excellent description of the type of work in which I have been engaged. It was as a result of my research on Aljamiado-Morisco literature that I realized to what extent we Muslims had lost our legacy. I learned that there were hundreds of manuscripts, written in Spanish, but in the Arabic alphabet, which contained works that had not survived in Arabic and other languages. I have spent decades studying these lost sources and will be sharing my findings in a work titled Shi‘ism in the Maghrib and al-Andalus in the near future. From my early days of Islamic studies, I realized that there was a huge gap, spanning centuries, in which sources were missing. I was always convinced that copies of these ancient books must exist somewhere. Although he lived in the 1600s, one thousand years after the passing of the Prophet, blessed be he and his progeny, ‘Allamah Majlisi was determined to salvage as many ancient sources as possible. The result is the encyclopedic work known as Bihar al-anwar. I have attempted, in my own modest way, to replicate his example. The discovery of lost covenants and letters of the Prophet in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s inspired me as did the locating of the most ancient copies of the Qur’an in the 20thcentury. I have been traveling the world and exploring archives for decades with a very precise mission: to recover, protect, preserve, and disseminate what rightfully belongs to Islam. I have found treasure troves worth more than all the gold in the world. They would take the rest of my life to study and share. In order to accomplish this ambitious task, the Covenants Foundation needs help and funding. Consequently, I call upon philanthropists to provide an endowment to make these plans a reality. I am an independent academic with limited resources. If you are impressed by The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World and my other works, and you wish more revelations to see the light, then I cannot do it without proper funding. I call upon believers to contribute to this cause with their zakat, khums, and sadaqah, in the path of Almighty Allah.

SHAFAQNA – In your own words who is the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) I’m using the present here as I believe his legacy to be forever alive.

Muhammad was the first and last; the first prophet to be created, and the last prophet to be sent. He is the beloved of Allah and the hope of humanity. May Almighty Allah shower him will blessings ad aeternum, grant us his intercession of the Day of Judgment, and his company in the Hereafter. Not only does his legacy live on, he lives in, in the company of the Creator, watching over his followers, praying for them, and inspiring them by the will of Almighty Allah. He lives on in the Qur’an, the authentic Sunnah, and the Covenants he concluded. He is reflected in all the goodness that radiates from the Muslim Ummah.

SHAFAQNA – What is the biggest misconception Christians hold against Islam?

As an academic, I am expected to avoid generalizations. Hence, I cannot speak of Christians as a collective whole. They are not a monolithic mass. Catholics are very different from Protestants. Eastern Christians are different from Western Christians. There are differences from denomination to denomination. An Assyrian Christian is not like an Armenian Christian. A Southern Baptist is not like a Unitarian Christian. While many Muslims equate the West with Christianity, the West has ceased to be Christian for centuries. If 40% of Americans attend mass once per week, only 10% of UK citizens, 7.5% of Australian citizens, and 5% of French citizens go to church. Quite often, these statistics are propped up by immigrants from more traditional countries where Christianity is not comatose. Church attendance, however, varies greatly from country to country in the Americas. Take a good hard look at the social positions emanating from the West, which are being codified into law, treated as human and civil rights, and which are being exported abroad as part of foreign policy. Listen to 99.9% of Western music Watch 99.9% of Western movies. Survey some statistics. The West has long ceased being Christian. Although nearly half the population in the United States identifies as conservative Christians, they are only conservative politically and economically; they are certainly not conservative sexually or show any restraint militarily. They practice corporate, imperial, Christianity, which serves the selfish interests of the elite 1%.  They are on the side of Imperial Rome as opposed to the side of Christ.

As Muslims, we object when the mass media scapegoats 1.5 billion Muslims. Consequently, we must avoid doing the same when we speak of our Christian brethren. As a fan of your work, I know that you are well-aware of these distinctions; however, I want this point to be clear to all of your readers. When Charles Upton, Hector Manzolillo, and I, commenced the Covenants Initiative in 2013, we shared the Covenants of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his household, with all the Christians of the world. Patriarchs, pontiffs, abbots, and archbishops from the Greek Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian, and Catholic Churches have all expressed their gratitude at our efforts to protect persecuted Christians in the Middle East and beyond. If Western Christians are stunned and surprised when they come across the Covenants of the Prophet for the first time, some to the point of unbelief, Eastern Christians are almost universally familiar with them. While virtually all Muslims have forgotten about them, the Eastern Christians have maintained the Covenants of the Prophet as part and parcel of their collective consciousness. In fact, Eastern Christians take a particular pride in the fact that they were specifically protected by the Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Almighty Allah be upon him. As one Antiochian priest told me, I was preaching to the choir: “The Middle Eastern Christians know this already. It’s only the Christians in the West who don’t!” To be quite honest, some Eastern Christians believe that they are closer to the Prophet Muhammad that many Muslims are. They know what Islam stands for but they do not see it in the actions of some misguided and self-professed Muslims.

Although they are not free of prejudice and stereotypes, many Christians of the East understand the reality of Islam. How can they not? They have lived under Muslim domination for 1400 years. While there were some exceptions, they know full well that cordial relations were the rule. The fact that there are millions of Christians still living in predominantly Muslim countries provides positive proof that Islam protected them. The Christians of the East know full well that the “Islamic State” is really the “Anti-Islamic State.” They know full well that Salafis, Wahhabis, and Takfiris are not followers of the Prophet Muhammad, their guardian and protector, the man who described them as his flock, and who viewed himself as their shepherd. The problem resides with Western Christians.

To answer your question: what is the biggest misconception Christians hold against Islam? I would respond: the belief in the inherent injustice of the Prophet Muhammad; that the man was a fraud, a fake, a pedophile, a rapist, a mass murderer, and terrorist. It soils me to even repeat these atrocious lies and I seek refuge from Allah and turn to him in repentance for sharing them. Many Western Christians, who claim to follow Christianity, a religion of love, and who profess to follow Christ, are actually filled with hatred and are far from Christ-like. They have been duped and deceived by those who demonize the Prophet in an attempt to undermine Islam. They are oblivious to the fact that those who seek to destroy Islam also seek to destroy all revealed religions.

Ask most of these so-called Christians what they know about Islam and seek shelter from the venomous flood of vitriol that is forthcoming. All they know is what they have been told. They parrot what they have heard. They regurgitate what was fed to them. They live in an echo chamber of hate-fueled lies. Right-wing radio, right-wing television, right-wing printed media… In many cases, the left is silent; however, increasingly, the left has been promoting the same hostile attitude towards Muslims. The animosity against Islam comes down like torrent of toxic sludge, drenching all who are exposed to it, and rendering them radioactive, contaminating anyone who comes in their contact. As Almighty Allah warns: “If you follow most of those on earth, they will mislead you from the way of Allah. They follow nothing but conjecture: they do nothing but lie” (6:116).

To these people I say: Open your mind. Flush the toilet of your brain. Disinfect your heart. Purge and purify your soul. Seek knowledge of Islam from its own genuine sources. Do not be like donkeys being chased over a cliff. Learn about Islam, true Islam; original Islam. Read a reliable biography of the Prophet. Consult traditional Islamic sources on spirituality. Examine works on Islamic history, culture, and civilization. Most importantly, read a good translation of the Qur’an with an unbiased mind and peruse the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World which, as far as I am concerned, represents the quintessence of Islam.

While what I say is true, it does not mean that I am unaware of the harsh reality faced by Muslims in many parts of the world. We can talk about “how to spread true Islam” in under-developed or, shall we say, over-exploited countries, until we are blue in the face. It is hard to talk to someone about religion when he is hungry. First, you have to feed him, help him overcome his misery and then, and only then, are you well-positioned to rectify their religious views. Otherwise, everything we say is mere rhetoric that is disconnected from reality. If we want peace, we must spread prosperity.

SHAFAQNA – Radicals are persecuting religious minorities across the Middle East while claiming to hold God’s truth. How can we learn from your book? What do you want readers to take away from your book?

First of all, let us not describe these people as “radicals,” “extremists,” “fundamentalists” or similar terms. Let us call them what they really are: terrorists, murderers, and mercenaries at the service of evil. The crimes being committed by Takfiri terrorists in the name of Allah, Muhammad, and Islam are comparable in cruelty to those committed by the Nazis during the Second World War. Although their names vary, from ISIS to al-Nusrah, and from the Taliban and Boko Haram, those who are familiar with Islamic history know precisely who these people are. They are a combination of khawarij and nawasib. They do not represent the Islam of the Prophet but the Anti-Islam of the Ummayads. They are the misbegotten spawn of Yazid and al-Hajjaj. May Almighty Allah curse them in this life and in the Hereafter! They are not reviving Islam nor are they returning to it. They are resurrecting pre-Islamic paganism and heathenism. Their Prophet is the Anti-Christ and their god is Satan. You will know them by the fruits they bear. Muslims are good and sweet like the fruit of Paradise. These Anti-Muslims are as bitter as the Tree of Zaqqum. Good begets good and evil begets evil. They profess to be an Islamic State when their actions clearly manifest that they are a Satanic State. What can people learn from my book? They can learn about Islam.

Judging from the tens of thousands of mentally and spiritually-disturbed men and women who have joined the ranks of these mass murderers, rapists, torturers, mutilators, pimps and pedophiles, there is no shortage of cultural Muslims and converts who cannot tell the difference between God and the Devil. I know as much as any individual with active brain waves that the terrorists operating in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and beyond, are mostly mercenaries. They are there for the money. Were the funds to dry up, so would their ranks. There are other brainwashed zombies who believe that they are fighting for Islam when it is blindingly clear that they are pawns in a geopolitical destabilizing campaign. Far from being freedom fighters, these drop-outs, losers, criminals, ex-cons, fornicators, drug addicts, alcoholic, murderers and sexual predators—who “found Islam” at some point and “want to take revenge on the West”—are actually playing a major part in false flag operations aimed at destroying the image of Islam.

The British, the Germans, and the French have a long, well-documented, history of using “Muslim” extremists to advance their imperial agendas, turning Arabs against Turks, Turks against Armenians, Kurds against the Assyrians, Jews against Muslims, and Muslims against Muslims. Now, the capitalist imperialists of the age are actively engaged in perpetrating genocide against Shi‘ites, Christians, Sufis, and the few Sunnis who have not succumbed to the scourge of Salafism and Wahhabism. Extremists, fanatics, and sexist psychopaths have no place in any civilized society. Their violent, intolerant, rhetoric would never be tolerated in many Muslim and non-Muslim countries: Morocco, Syria, Iran, Russia, China, and elsewhere.

Many of these pseudo-Muslim monsters who are terrorizing the world are the product of the West; the product of European ghettoes; the children of immigrants who were expelled from the bowels of Capitalism. Many of these maniacs were born, raised, educated, and radicalized in the West under the watchful eye of Western intelligence services. They raise vicious pit-bulls, rottweilers, presa canarios, and Boer bulls, unleash them on innocent Muslims and Christians, and then blame the victims when some of these dogs turn against them and maul them. As Muslims, we must never apologize for the attacks committed by the canines of our enemies. We cry for the victims, but we blame the owners of the attack dogs. We do not accept the blame for what we did not do.

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World does not deal with most of these issues directly but the book should be read with this background in mind. What do I want readers to take away from my book? I want them to realize, accept, and recognize that God is good, that the Prophet is good, that Islam is good, and that all real Muslims are genuinely good. My book presents the Prophet Muhammad for what he really was: the best of examples, a divine blessing, and a mercy from God. Muslims will read, almost certainly for the first time, the words of Muhammad himself. They will learn about his vision of society and his benevolent and loving attitude towards the People of the Book. They will also see how the provisions contained in the Covenants of the Prophet were implemented by most Muslim leaders over the course of history. Most importantly, these precious documents provide a blue-print for establishing the true Islamic State, the Ummah or the Commonwealth of Islam.

SHAFAQNA – Now, why have scholars ignored the manuscripts you put together? Omission or spiritual falsification?

Since the demise of Islam as a world power one hundred years ago, and the gradual decline of Islamic civilization and culture over the course of the previous centuries, Muslim scholars have succumbed to collective amnesia or submission to the ruling elites who caused Islam to decay. There was a time when scholars were few but knowledge was great. We live in a time when there are many scholars but very little knowledge. This is not to say that there are not some great scholars in the Muslim world. It is simply an admission that we resemble the faint glow of a firefly compared to the light of the moon. The Muslim world is marred by tradition, in the worst sense of the word. It struggles against advances and innovation.

Although scholarship is supposed to be open; it is closed. Muslim scholars treat interpretations made one thousand year ago as sacrosanct and have canonized sources, thereby preventing further academic advances. They teach the Kitab of Sibawayh, the foundational work on Arabic grammar, as if it were the Qur’an or the Bible, as if no new advances have and can be made in the field of linguistics. They treat Islam as if it were fossilized or frozen. The curriculum in most religious institutions remained rigid for centuries. No improvements were made. Pedagogical methods were petrified. Students were not trained to think independently; merely to regurgitate, word for word, the opinions of others.

If Muslims students and scholars received a broad intellectual formation during the Golden Age of Islam, subject matters in more modern times were reduced to the rudimentary. While significant progress has been made in Shi‘ite seminaries over the past few decades, so-called Sunni institutions, directly or indirectly dependent on Saudi Arabia, solely teach Salafism and Wahhabism. Their approach is reductionist, literalist, essentialist, and fundamentalist, as well as absolutist, extremist, intolerant, and exclusionist. If anyone wonders where all these terrorists came from, simply follow the termites back to their mounds.

Unless one understands the catastrophic collapse of the traditional Islamic education model, one will never understand why Muslim scholars have ignored the manuscripts that I have uncovered, recovered, and brought into the light. Most major universities in the non-Muslim world have larger collections of Arabic and Islamic books than the best Islamic universities and seminaries in the Muslim world. One scholar, who spent three decades studying in a major center of Islamic studies in the Muslim world, wondered: “Why is it that our teachers have never taught us about the Covenants of the Prophet?” The answer may sound insolent but the truth is often a slap in the face. They never spoke about them because they themselves have never heard of them. Their predecessors, however, from the time of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, until the early twentieth century, were fully aware of these documents and their significance. What accounts for the break in transmission? It was Western interference in the Muslim World and the fragmentation of the Muslim Ummah.

The scholars at this critical juncture in Islamic history must make a choice: to reconnect with their tradition or to continue down a path that is a proven failure. So far, the Covenants of the Prophet have reached over one hundred thousand people. Tens of thousands have read them. Hundreds of scholars support them. They tend to be independent scholars who belong to Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Tasawwuf and Ahl al-Bayt. Tellingly, the vast majority of mainstream Sunni scholars, who work at the service of a certain state that occupies most of Arabia, refuse to recognize the significance of the Covenants of the Prophet because their masters, who control their sustenance, have not commanded them to do so. I have met with Imams of major mosques who support the Covenants in secret but are not in a position to endorse them publicly.

It is not as if this state, named after a single family, as opposed to its people, has not expressed interest in the Covenants. In fact, they were the first to do so, an invitation of patronage I declined, despite promises of fame and fortune, since their obvious goal was to co-opt the Covenants of the Prophet for public relation purposes while simultaneously spreading their religion of hatred, intolerance, and terror around the globe. Other influential players in the Muslim world also extended a hand, in return for absolute allegiance, something that I grant only the Universal Pivot and Axis of the Age.

Is the ignorance of the Covenants due to omission? Yes, both unintentional and intentional. Is ignorance of the Covenants the result of attempts to suppress the true socio-political and spiritual teachings of the Prophet? The facts speak for themselves.

SHAFAQNA – Muslims everywhere are in pain. Fear, mistrust and disunity have plagued the Islamic Ummah. Have we lost our way?

There is no doubt that “human beings are in loss, except such as have faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy” (103:2-3). As Almighty Allah states in a famous sacred saying: “All of you are astray except for those I have guided.” Consequently, we continually implore Allah to “Guide us on the straight path” (1:6). People cannot change unless they first recognize that they have a problem. Muslims need to stop pontificating about thegreatness of Islam in the past and face the failure of Islam in the present. Islam is merely the mirror reflection of Muslims. As followers of the Islamic faith, what we do, be it good or be it bad, reflects on our faith. Our action or inaction is projected back upon the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. As believers, our aim should be to make him proud; not to make him embarrassed and ashamed. I have no doubt that the Prophet, in all his mercy and compassion, would not hesitate to disown a whole host of so-called Muslims who have stained his name with their sickening sins. The Rope of Allah (3:103) is dangling; but who is holding on to it? The straight path is there; but who is walking it? Many Muslims, by the mere fact that they are Muslims, are on the straight path: the problem is that many of them are walking backwards on it.

Muslims are a spectrum. They come in all shades. Some are righteous and some are wicked. Some follow Imams who lead to Heaven, while others follow Imams who lead to Hell (28:41). The overwhelming majority of Muslims are apathetic. They are on the path of Islam but they are paralyzed by ignorance. I am not bashing Muslims collectively nor am I making sweeping overgeneralizations. I say it like it is. There is a great deal of good among Muslims. Islam has truly left a legacy. However, pre-Islamic and un-Islamic influences have also left their mark. We do not need an Islamic Reformation or Deformation. We do not need to return to the primitive past of pious or impious predecessors through a misreading and misinterpretation of the primary sources of Islam invented two centuries ago. We have no need for a Caliphate of the Corrupt. We need an Imamate of the Just.

The Muslim Ummah needs to undergo a Collective Awakening. If Islam is to be re-established, it will be bottom-up, not top down, from the depth of our soul as opposed to through the scopes of machine guns and mortars. The war we must wage is within ourselves. We will never succeed in Islamizing any society until we have Islamized our own lower selves. We may not be perfect, but at least we can be good, and strive for goodness. Faith, hope, and perseverance form the foundation of our spiritual and socio-political arsenal.

By Catherine Shakdam

drjamorrow

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad on Lastprophet.info

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad

From the Editor

20.01.2015, TuesdayLastprophet.info / Interviews

Can you tell us about your own path to Islam and what role the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) played in this journey?

The story of which you speak is the story of my life and would take a lifetime to recount. Even a biography could only catch a glimpse of the path I have walked. My story commences upon Creation and the call that all souls received to acknowledge Divine Unity. It continued throughout my life and the awe of Allah that I always sensed in my soul. While my Maker made me a Muslim, my parents made me a Catholic Christian, and blessed be they for doing so for I could easily have been raised as an animist, a polytheist, an agnostic, a secular-liberal relativist or even an atheist. The path was not perfect but I was indeed well advanced on the path, having been raised as a monotheist who recognized, loved, and followed Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, along with all the other prophets and messengers who came in between. My mother, may God bless her soul, would come to my room, every night, and lead me in prayer, ever since I was an infant. She taught me how to supplicate. She said that one should never go to sleep without having recited the “Our Father,” without asking for God’s mercy and forgiveness, and without praying for ourselves and others. For reasons I cannot comprehend, my mother came to lose faith, a fact that brings tears to my eyes, for she was the very person who cared for my faith, watered it, cultivated it, and helped it to grow and blossom. By the time I was thirteen years of age, I had read the Old and New Testament, the Apocrypha, and the “Lost Books” of the Bible, including Gnostic gospels of all kinds. I came to comprehend that while these scriptures contained a great deal of truth, they did not contain absolute truth; namely, scrolls had been lost, some had been reconstructed, and other had been tampered with. Consequently, I had some misgivings scripturally while, at the same time, I had some objections dogmatically. I could easily accept Jesus as the Spirit of God, the Manifestation of God, the Epiphany of God, and the Son of God, in a purely spiritual sense which conveys the most sublime of status, however, I could not, and would not, attribute divinity to Him. A being that was born and died cannot be eternal. I never, at any point in my life, accepted that Jesus was God, much less that the Holy Spirit was God. To me, God was, and will always be, the Being identified as the Father; namely, the Creator and Sustainer of the Worlds. I did not actively seek out Islam; it was Islam that sought me out. I simply responded to the call. I was never an unbeliever; I was always a believer, namely, I believed in the divine message that had reached me. Likewise, I cannot thank God enough for drawing me closer to His Light. In fact, were the water in the oceans to be turned to ink, my pen would run dry writing words of praise.

When I read the Qur’an, and learned about Muhammad and his message, I perceived the finality of divine communication. I had found answers to all the questions that I had. The role that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Almighty God be upon him, played in this process was that of a Messenger, a Proclaimer and Warner. If I were able to bless Muhammad incessantly, day and night, for the rest of my life, I could never sufficiently express my gratitude for having conveyed the Qur’an and expounded upon its meaning through his words and actions.

You are of mixed Amerindian ancestry and you have done a lot of work with Native American (First Nation) peoples. Can you tell me what these communities know about Islam and how they perceive the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)?

I am pleased that you speak of peoples as opposed to people. While we share some similarities, the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas are divided into distinct tribes and nations, speaking a multitude of different languages, and adhering to multifarious worldviews. The stereotype of idol-worshipping, human-sacrificing, polytheistic Indians is slanderous when applied to indigenous people as a whole. I make no apologies for the Aztecs, the Mayas, and other Native people who engaged in such atrocities. However, to paint us all with the same brush is unjust and unfair. Some indigenous groups were polytheists, some were atheists, and others were monotheists. My ancestors, the Indians of the Eastern Woodlands, believed in Manitou, the Great Spirit. The Iroquois also believed in the Great Spirit, whom they called Hawenneyu. To clarify, some also believed in spirits or invisible agents, but Muslims also believe in Angels and Jinn. Our God, the Creator, was very much one, and such was the case with the Lakota who worshipped Wakan-Takan, the Great Mystery. Nezahualcóyotl, the leader of the Acolhua, is also described as a proto-monotheist. The Kogui or Kágaba Indians of the Sierra Nevada practice a primordial form of monotheism. In many ways, they have maintained the ancestral religion of Adam. Many indigenous people believe in a single God, or rather, Goddess, who is manifest in all of Creation. Since they come primarily from patriarchal cultures, many Muslims are taken aback when Indians refer to God as “She.” However, this is perfectly consistent with a deeper understanding of Islam which distinguishes between the Masculine and Feminine Attributes of God and is completely compatible with the root of the name Rahman. Like all other tribes and nations, we received prophets, messengers, and holy men who taught us about the Creator and how to live our lives in balance. As the Prophet Muhammad taught, all human beings were created with a monotheistic nature.

Like all other tribes and nations, we received prophets, messengers, and holy men who taught us about the Creator and how to live our lives in balance. As the Prophet Muhammad taught, all human beings were created with a monotheistic nature.

This includes my people, the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, the majority of whom, by force or by choice, eventually embraced the Christian faith which, in some cases, namely those of polytheists, was a positive development theologically, although a catastrophe socially and culturally since so much wickedness came along with it. As for whether indigenous peoples know about Islam, most of them know nothing about Islam, the historical religion, but most of them known a great deal about islam, the perennial state of submission to the One God that predates it. In fact, many indigenous people are closer to the Creator in belief and practice than most Muslims. If an average Muslim would tell a true Indian to embrace Islam, the Indian would tell him to embrace Islam first. If a Muslim Gnostic and an Indian mystic would meet, they would immediately recognize that they walk the same inner path although its outer manifestation would vary. As for ordinary Amerindians, most of them just want to be left alone. Catholicism was forced upon them. Then, a plague of Protestant missionaries afflicted them. Now, they face the onslaught of secular immorality. If they could, many would prefer to shut the Western (and Eastern) world out. Many Indians sympathize with Muslims since they understand suffering and oppression. Hence, there is much solidarity for oppressed, persecuted, and occupied people. However, we are not blind to the faults of Muslims. I can assure you that most Indians do not view most Muslims as worthy of emulation. Muslims would first have to embody Islam if they want to have any credibility in the face of indigenous people. For there to be any possibility of success, the focus should be on Islam and when I speak of Islam, I speak of mainstream Islam, the followers of Ahl al-Sunnah, Ahl al-Tasawwuf, and Ahl al-Bayt.

How does your book, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, enrich our understanding of the Prophet?

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah was sent as a guide. The guidance he was given is found in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Unfortunately, most Muslims are unfamiliar with the content of the Qur’an. Consequently, many of them can easily be led astray by misguided militants who corrupt the true sense of the Scripture for paltry political and material gain in this lower life. Besides a few select sayings, the majority of Muslims has no sense of the Sunnah and lack the skills required to distinguish what is acceptable from what is unacceptable. Once again, those with soiled souls can manipulate meaning through disingenuous interpretation and turn something as beautiful as Islam into something as hideously ugly as Takfirism. Muslims are the people of ‘Iqra yet many are illiterate when it comes to true Islam. Muslims are the people of “Seek knowledge,” yet they dwell in the darkness of ignorance. In many ways, the Muslim world is in a state of modern Jahiliyyah. The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World provides a perspicacious profile of the life of Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Almighty Allah be upon him. It provides a meticulous overview of major events in Islamic history. It stresses normative socio-political relations and distinguishes them from aberrations. It brings to light and highlights the letters, treaties, charters, and covenants of protection that the Prophet Muhammad granted to the non-Muslim communities of his time. It shows us how the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, interacted with peaceful polytheists, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. It presents him as a man of peace and justice at a time when his honorable name is being slandered incessantly through the words of non-Muslims and the actions of pseudo-Muslim extremists and terrorists. We all need to reacquaint ourselves with Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, and the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad helps us to do this.

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World provides a perspicacious profile of the life of Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Almighty Allah be upon him…  It shows us how the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, interacted with peaceful polytheists, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. It presents him as a man of peace and justice at a time when his honorable name is being slandered incessantly through the words of non-Muslims and the actions of pseudo-Muslim extremists and terrorists.

Why do you think some of the documents you write about in The Covenants have been largely neglected by Muslim and Western scholarship?

Few of us realize the void in which we found ourselves after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Caliphate, the chain that connected us back to the Prophet, was broken. The hierarchy of Muslim scholars was destroyed. In many ways, we became disconnected with our own Islamic Tradition. When I commenced to call people to the Covenants of the Prophet, 99.9% of Muslims had never heard of them before. This includes most Muslim clerics. Only a minute number of them had heard about them vaguely and had the sense that they were disputed. One shaykh, who had spent thirty years in the Islamic seminary, asked in astonishment: “Why is it that our teachers never taught us about these covenants?” The sad fact is that most of the high-ranking authorities of Islam have never studied them themselves. Likewise, knowledge of the Covenants of the Prophet is virtually absent among contemporary Europeans. If we flash back one hundred years, virtually every single educated Muslim would have known about the Covenants of the Prophet. They were treated as common fact. In the same fashion, essentially every European intellectual was familiar with them. The reality is that the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad formed the basis of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims for over 1400 years. They regulated relations between Muslims, Jews, and polytheists in Medina, through the form of a Constitution. The Prophet entered into covenants with Christian communities in Arabia, in the Sinai, in Upper Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Jerusalem, in the Levant, in Persia, and even in Armenia. These Covenants of the Prophet were used as models by Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali. Although righteousness left after the four rightly-guided Caliphs, and there were instances of despotic leaders among the dynasties that followed, most of the Umayyads, the ‘Abbasids, the Mamluks, the Ayyubids, and the Safavids adhered to the principles contained in the Covenants of the Prophet, renewed them, and respected them in their dealings with non-Muslims. The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad were perfected in their implementation and reached their pinnacle under the Ottoman Empire.

The Prophet entered into covenants with Christian communities in Arabia, in the Sinai, in Upper Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Jerusalem, in the Levant, in Persia, and even in Armenia. These Covenants of the Prophet were used as models by Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali. Although righteousness left after the four rightly-guided Caliphs, and there were instances of despotic leaders among the dynasties that followed, most of the Umayyads, the ‘Abbasids, the Mamluks, the Ayyubids, and the Safavids adhered to the principles contained in the Covenants of the Prophet, renewed them, and respected them in their dealings with non-Muslims. The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad were perfected in their implementation and reached their pinnacle under the Ottoman Empire.

While there were a few ethically-challenged Sultans, most of them followed Islam faithfully. Even when some of the rulers had shortcomings, some of them serious, they were still bound to the law: they were not above it. The Ottoman Sultans provided copies of prophetic covenants to churches and monasteries throughout their vast empire. These were all posted in prominent places in religious establishments as proof of official state protection of the Christian community. The Ottomans actually gave copies of prophetic covenants to monks to use as passports thus allowing them to travel, unfettered, throughout the empire to preach to other Christians and collect religious tithes. The claim that these covenants were forged by Christians is preposterous. They were issued, produced, and distributed by the Ottoman Empire itself. They were all sealed by the Sultan and the leading religious authorities of the time. So, how is it that the Covenants of the Prophet went from common knowledge to oblivion? The answer is clear: the demise of Islam as a political power in the world. Muslims, Christians, Jews, and members of other faiths or no faith, all lived in general harmony in a traditional Islamic system. This system, which in its Ottoman manifestation worked eminently well for nearly one thousand years, collapsed as a result of Western interference. In their famished and ravenous attempt to divide the Muslim world among themselves, European imperialists started to plant the seed of discord among Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Jewish, and Arab minorities, presenting the West as a model of freedom, justice, and equality, and the Ottoman Empire as a sick, dying, entity, that practiced discrimination. Both the British and the Germans used Islam as a rallying cry in order to turn Muslims against Muslims, and Muslims against Christians, while–at the same time–planting nationalist, secessionist, and separatist ideas in the heads of Christian ethnic minorities. The Ottoman Empire, like the Ummah of Islam, was based on the sovereignty of God; not the supremacy of Man. All members of the Ummah, regardless of religion, had rights, the first of which was the right to exist. The results of Western meddling were catastrophic. The Arabs, always a tribal people, had been convinced by British spies that they deserved their own nations. The Kurds were promised a homeland as were the Assyrian Christians. The Jews were enticed to abandon Islam and Muslims, their long-time friend, allies, and protectors, in favor of European Christians. In turn, the Armenians were encouraged to annex themselves to Europe, thus depriving the Ottoman Empire of vast territory. The millet system of the Ottomans, which was directly derived from the Covenants of the Prophet, could not resist outside meddling. The fundamental flaw in the Covenant-Based Commonwealth was its tolerance and compassion for minorities, groups that could be manipulated by outside forces and used to destabilize the entire system. The Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Caliphate was abolished, Turkey became a secular republic, and nationalism of all kinds shattered the entire system. The rights promised by the West never materialized. Equality, fraternity, and liberty never manifested themselves. Radical nationalism, hatred, and racism razed the remains of the Ottoman Empire to the ground leaving nothing but conflict and discord in its wake. Muslims are blamed for the horrors that ensued when the destruction of the Ottoman Empire was orchestrated by the West. Excesses and atrocities were committed on all sides. Minorities, protected carefully by the authorities for nearly a millennium, turned treacherously against their guardians. The Turks, who were now secular nationalists as opposed to Muslim traditionalists, simply could not contain the chaos. This is our legacy and explains the loss of the Covenants.

The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World is a book that wants to do more than just present disinterested academic research. What was your higher purpose in writing the book and how is this connected to your understanding of being a Muslim?

I am a man of the people and stand with the people. Unlike some academics, I am not an elitist. I believe that scholars are obliged to share their knowledge with the masses in one form or another. Knowledge is not private property. It is public property. Were I to keep it to myself, it would be a great theft. Scholarship is like the Bayt al-Mal: it belongs to the people and not to the rulers. I am not interested in pointless research. All investigation should serve a Higher Purpose. Although they are called “masters,” scholars are supposed to be “servants.”

All investigation should serve a Higher Purpose. Although they are called “masters,” scholars are supposed to be “servants.” I view academic work as an act of ‘ibadah or worship and a desperate attempt to save my soul.

I view academic work as an act of ‘ibadah or worship and a desperate attempt to save my soul. Consequently, I am never quenched; I am never satisfied; it is never enough. All praise is due to Allah and my praise is in my publications.

Have you been surprised by any of the reactions to The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World?

I have been both surprised and not surprised. I am always pleasantly surprised when ordinary Muslims see the truth for what it is and embrace it wholeheartedly. Reason can be a veil and some intellectuals get blinded by doubt. However, when addressing average Muslims, good Muslims, with pure hearts, all I have to do is read a Covenant of the Prophet to them. You can see light emanating from their faces and tears come to their eyes. They know that they are hearing the truth. They know for certainty that these teachings and provisions are the product of divine inspiration regardless of how they may have reached us. They have no interest in minute scholarly speculation and the hermeneutics of suspicion. They operate on a universal Muslim principle: if it agrees with the Qur’an, and the authenticated Sunnah, it is in accordance to Islam. I am also pleasantly surprised that so many leading Muslim scholars, academics, intellectuals, and professionals have come forth in support of the Covenants of the Prophet. This is not something that I expected. I also found it quite encouraging that so many diplomats, politicians, and policy-makers, both Muslim and non-Muslim, have expressed such a keen interest in these Covenants, viewing them as legal precedents with modern-day applications.

I am always pleasantly surprised when ordinary Muslims see the truth for what it is and embrace it wholeheartedly. Reason can be a veil and some intellectuals get blinded by doubt. However, when addressing average Muslims, good Muslims, with pure hearts, all I have to do is read a Covenant of the Prophet to them. You can see light emanating from their faces and tears come to their eyes. They know that they are hearing the truth.

I have not, however, been surprised one iota by the resounding silence coming from certain sectors. Most Muslim leaders in Canada and the United States turned a deaf ear to the Covenants of the Prophet. Virtually every single mosque in Canada and the United States received word of the Covenants of the Prophet and was asked to sign the Covenants Initiative. Only a few took the initiative to do so. Considering the atrocious image of Islam in the mass media, one would have expected them to take advantage of such an opportunity and make such an important gesture. We never asked them to sign a decree saying that the Covenants of the Prophet are indisputably authentic; we simply asked them to confirm that they agree with the principles they contain. They refused to act. If there are those who wish to remain silent, there are also those who would like to silence us in one fashion or another. As one can imagine, the Covenants of the Prophet pose an “inconvenient truth” to pseudo-Islamist psychopaths. I am equally unsurprised that many factions have attempted to usurp the Covenants of the Prophet for their own ends. They may plot as they please, but Allah is the Best of Planners.

On the face of it, the covenants you deal with in your book were drawn up to protect Christians living in Muslim lands. However, today in Western countries some have noted a steady rise in Islamophobia and acts of discrimination targeting Muslims. How can The Covenants help Muslims living in predominantly Christian countries?

Not only do the Covenants of the Prophet have practical applications in the Muslim world, they also can serve as a model in the former Christian world, namely, the secular West. We believe in the Covenants. We believe in freedom of religion. We believe in protecting religious establishment. We believe in tolerance and compassion. The rights that we demand to be given to non-Muslims in Muslim lands we demand to receive in return in Western lands. In fact, that is exactly how it worked in the past. The Ottomans and the French entered into the Franco-Ottoman Alliance in 1536 which granted Christians special rights in the Muslim lands and Muslims special rights in Christian lands. The French King provided mosques to Muslims in France and the Turks provided churches to the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. The French and the Ottoman Caliphate were friends and allies until 1798 when the French, turned secular imperialists, invaded Egypt. So, when we see that some Europeans prohibit the Muslim headscarf, oppose halal meat, oblige Muslim girls to wear bathing suits in front of boys and men, and slander and defame the Prophet, we have the right and the obligation to object to the imposition of ideas and practices that violate the spirit of monotheistic religions. We protected your religious rights in the past. We ask that you protect our rights us in the present as we would protect your rights.

So, when we see that some Europeans prohibit the Muslim headscarf, oppose halal meat, oblige Muslim girls to wear bathing suits in front of boys and men, and slander and defame the Prophet, we have the right and the obligation to object to the imposition of ideas and practices that violate the spirit of monotheistic religions.

One of the best ways to correct misperceptions about Islam is by learning about the Prophet Muhammad. Many people of different faiths and even no faith at all who have studied the Prophet’s life have come to admire him and his achievements. However, the force of prejudice is strong and some might not see past the fact that he is the founder of a world religion and one so often associated with violence and oppression in the media. What is the best approach to presenting the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to the world?

One of the important benefits of disseminating the Covenants of the Prophet is to show to non-Muslims what Islam really teaches. Who speaks for Islam? Is it ISIS? Is it al-Nusrah? Is it the Taliban? No. The Prophet speaks for Islam and there is no better way than to spread his message than by showcasing his own words. This is one way we can attempt to counter the dominant anti-Islamic narrative coming from certain sectors in the Western world. However, words must also be accompanied by actions. We must strive, to the best of our ability, to emulate the practical acts of solidarity, the ethics, values, and morals of the Messenger of Allah; may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

We need to express the same solidarity that Muhammad showed. The Prophet also commanded us to maintain and repair the religious buildings of the Christians. As he explained, this does not mean that we endorse all of their beliefs: it is meant to open their hearts and to keep them friendly towards Islam and Muslims. Mow the lawn of a monastery. Help paint a Christian church. Shower them with love; not with bullets and bombs. The day may come when they will save the Muslims.

When ISIS was putting the Arabic letter ‘nun’ on Christian homes in Iraq, as a precursor to stealing their property, looting their possessions, raping, enslaving, and selling their women, and exterminating their men, Muslims should have manifested in front of churches in the West, as a show of strong solidarity with Christian believers for, by failing to do so, due to ignorance, laziness, carelessness, stupidity, cowardliness, fear or worldly interest, they justify the views of those who hold Islam and Muslims in contempt. We need to express the same solidarity that Muhammad showed. The Prophet also commanded us to maintain and repair the religious buildings of the Christians. As he explained, this does not mean that we endorse all of their beliefs: it is meant to open their hearts and to keep them friendly towards Islam and Muslims. Mow the lawn of a monastery. Help paint a Christian church. Shower them with love; not with bullets and bombs. The day may come when they will save the Muslims.

Some Westerners might be surprised to learn that Christian communities still exist today in places such as Iraq and Syria. However, since the time of the Prophet, different religious groups have lived side by side in relative peace across Muslim lands. Even critics of Islam applauded this aspect of it. Starting in the last century, the situation has begun to deteriorate, and we have seen increasing sectarian conflict. Has something fundamentally changed—ideologies, economics, political structures—that make it more difficult to enact coexistence today?

Prior to responding, please allow me to make one point: the Covenants work. They are tried, tested, and true. They are the blue-print for creating the Commonwealth of Islam, a rich mosaic of human beings, composed of various creeds, all united under the sovereignty of God and abiding by a universal code of ethics and morals. The Covenants worked until Western imperialists sprinkled the Ottoman Empire with gunpowder and started to toss matches. If the various ethnic and religious groups of the Ottoman Empire all blew themselves to pieces, who is ultimately to blame? I say, it is those who kindled the fire and doused it with gasoline. Apparently, Western imperialists have learned nothing from the lesson of the past or, perhaps, they learned the lessons perfectly well, and learned that what they did in the past was perfectly efficient. Are Western nations attempting, once again, to bring democracy, liberty, and equality back to the Muslim world as they did over a century ago? Or are they doing the same thing over again: turn Sunnis against Shi‘ites, Kurds against Arabs, Assyrians against Arabs, and Muslims against Christians? Just as Western powers used radical pseudo-Islamists to wage wars for them in centuries past, they continue to do the same thing to this day. With this said, it becomes absolutely clear that there have been profound changes that impede, to a large extent, efforts to recreate conditions of co-existence in present times since those who are materially powerful have come to control almost the entire Muslim world ideologically, economically, and politically. Co-existence can only be achieved if Muslims return to the straight path from which they have strayed. The solution to Muslim problems is not a Western one. The solution to Muslim problems is a Muslim one and that solution is to be found in the Covenants of the Prophet.

It is said European civilizations have had a hard time accepting difference. The Wars of Religion, the Inquisition, and the legacies of nationalism and imperialism are just a few historical examples. As someone who is Native American, you must be keenly aware of this. Yet today, Europe and America are perceived as beacons of tolerance and diversity, whereas Muslim-majority countries are often viewed as embodying just the opposite. How do you explain this?

In order to understand this issue better, I need to digress. World powers, particularly the Western ones, have always been able to bait and switch. Allow me to give you a clear example of the manner in which we must act. Today, in Venezuela, there is an economic war against Chavism. As a result, the country suffers from shortages of toilet paper, potatoes, meat, oil, and sugar. However, as everyone knows, there is no real shortage of such goods. Rather, large firms, who serve the interests of Western powers, have created these artificial shortages in order to soil the image of the government, in order to claim that it is a bad government, and in order to denigrate it. What a coincidence! They did the very same thing to Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s, to Perón in 1950, and to other independent leaders as well. Since the current “enemy” of the West is Islam, the same strategy is being used; however, this time, it is not by hoarding commodities to create artificial shortages but by creating groups of mercenaries who do the exact opposite of what the Qur’an teaches in order to get people to hate Islam. There is no limit to the hypocrisy and manipulation of the powers that be. It is in the nature of empires to have others cast stones while they feign to be “good people” who seek peace and harmony. Imperialists always present themselves as “good” while painting everyone else as “bad.”

Returning to your question, I tell such people: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Secular liberals, Christian Dominionists, and neo-Nazis assault Muslims with accusations of oppression, conquest, and genocide. Such people are ignorant of history. They may believe they have the “truth” but they certainly do not have the facts. Their interpretation of Islam is the very same as the one espoused by Takfiri terrorists. Consequently, these Western critics of Islam are much closer to pseudo-Muslim mass murderers than they are to mainstream Muslims who follow the true, tolerant, Islamic Tradition, and reject extremist misinterpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah. The Muslim-majority countries that exist today were created by the West. They operate according to Western models. They were built upon the ruins of the Ummah of Islam. If Westerners see things they do not like in the Muslim world, they are merely seeing reflections of themselves. They turned Muslims into nationalists and then complain about the inevitable consequences of such a racist ideology. Muslims were organized as Muslims by the Prophet Muhammad. They were not organized on basis of nation or race and they viewed non-Muslims as an integral and protected part of their community. When Muslims started to identify themselves on the basis of race, language, ethnicity, sect, and school of law, they effectively returned to the Days of Ignorance.

Muslims were organized as Muslims by the Prophet Muhammad. They were not organized on basis of nation or race and they viewed non-Muslims as an integral and protected part of their community. When Muslims started to identify themselves on the basis of race, language, ethnicity, sect, and school of law, they effectively returned to the Days of Ignorance.

As much as I criticize Europe and the Americas, there is much to be praised in the West. In many ways, they are more Muslim than many Muslims. In terms of infrastructure, social and health services, law and justice, and transparency, they rate higher on the Islamicity index than any Muslim-majority nation. They fall short in some areas of morality, both sexually, and militarily; however, Muslims also have some major ethical flaws, including corruption, oppression, exploitation, and sexism. I am not anti-West any more than I an anti-Muslim. As a Muslim, I aim to Muslimize West, East, North and South. I want to bring Europe and the Americas closer to Islam in the same way I want to bring the Muslim world back to Islam.

Can you tell us about some of your future projects?

By the grace of God, I am currently completing several major projects. The first involves a multilingual edition of Forty Sacred Sayings, a literary masterpiece and eloquent exposé of Islamic ethics that is famous in Sufi and Shi‘ite circles but needs to be rediscovered by many Sunnis. Besides the original Arabic, it includes English, French, and Spanish translations along with a commentary by Sidi Akram, also known as Charles Upton, a Sufi faqir.

The second is the first biography ever completed on the enigmatic Wallace Fard Muhammad, the mystery man who founded the Nation of Islam in Detroit in July of 1930 and who vanished several years later. Scholars and lay-people have been puzzled by this mystic from the East who taught intriguing and unusual doctrines to poor African Americans in Paradise Valley. As a result of fervent prayer, the identity of W.D. Fard was revealed to me in a vision, this vision lead me to a quest, and that quest resulted in the discovery of documents that identify the origin of a  man who, for good or bad, can be counted as the most important figure in the history of Islam in the United States. Without W.D. Fard, there would not have been Elijah Muhammad. Without Elijah Muhammad, there would not have been Malcolm X. And without Malcolm X there would not be millions of African, Latino, and Caucasian American Muslims.

The third project traces back to research I conducted while completing my doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto. Initially, my thesis was going to deal with Aljamiado-Morisco literature. Unfortunately, my early mentor, Dr. Ottmar Hegyi, retired. Since there were no other experts in that field in the department, I was required to change my topic. All of my research, however, had been completed. I continued to work on this project for a decade and a half, completing a history of Islam in North Africa and al-Andalus and an in-depth study of Aljamiado literature. Project number four is titled Restoring the Balance: Using the Qur’an and Sunnah to Refute Modern Distortions of Islam. An anthology of articles on a wide variety of timely topics, the work is the follow up to Islamic Insights: Writings and Reviews which appeared in 2010. As of early 2015, projects one through five were all in pre-publication process. Consequently, they should all be released at some point in 2015 or 2016.

By far the most important project I am involved with revolves around the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad. Thanks to the hard work of my colleagues around the world, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World has been translated into Arabic, Spanish, and Italian. This required an enormous amount of energy, time, dedication, devotion, and generosity on the part of Dr. Mohamed Elkouche, Dr. Ammar Sellam, Dr. Anna Maria Martelli, Dr. Said Mentak, and Abu Dharr Manzolillo. We are also preparing to publish Six Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of His Time, a short, 50-page booklet, featuring only the covenants of the Messenger of Allah, and excluding the critical academic analysis, in Arabic, Persian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, and Polish, along with any other languages we can muster up. The goal is to distribute these Six Covenants of the Prophet around the world in the hope that they can become the basis for peaceful relations between Muslims, Christians, and other communities.

The goal is to distribute these Six Covenants of the Prophet around the world in the hope that they can become the basis for peaceful relations between Muslims, Christians, and other communities.

As a result of the critical acclaim received by The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, my colleagues and I are currently completing a follow-up volume titled Critical Studies on the Covenants of the Prophet that should be published within the next couple of years. Besides studies by specialists in various fields, the work is also set to include over fifty copies of prophetic covenants that I uncovered in monasteries in Egypt, Syria, and Greece, and which have never been previously published. For reasons I cannot fathom, I have been called upon to convey the Covenants of the Prophet to the world at this current crossroads in Islamic history. The mission is both daunting and humbling and cannot be achieved without the support of scholars and supporters from all sides. Consequently, we call upon supporters and sympathizers to assist us in any and all ways according to their individual capacity. I invite readers to read The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World, available for purchase here, to visit our website, www.covenantsoftheprophet.com, to sign the Covenants Initiative, to view our videos on our YouTube Channel, and to share knowledge of these priceless and praiseworthy covenants to anyone and everyone. As far as I am concerned, a copy of the Covenants of the Prophet should sit side by side with the Qur’an in every mosque and Muslim home.

Dr. John Andrew Morrow is a Full Professor at Ivy Tech University. In addition to receiving his PhD from the University of Toronto, he has completed the full cycle of traditional Islamic seminary studies both independently and at the hands of a series of Sunni, Shi’i and Sufi scholars. He has published a number of articles and several books, including The Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine, Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism, and The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World. Aside from his academic duties, Dr. John Andrew Morrow (Imam Ilyas Islam) is the Director of the Covenants Foundation, an organization dedicated to disseminating traditional, civilizational, Islam; promoting Islamic unity; protecting persecuted Christians; and improving relations between Muslims and members of other faiths. He regularly travels the world to promote peace and justice. For more information about Dr. Morrow and his work, visit johnandrewmorrow.com.

drjamorrow

Seeking Scholars and Translators

The Covenants Foundation is seeking scholars or professional translators to peer-review the 450 page Italian translation of “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World.” We are also looking for qualified individuals to review the French and Portuguese translations of “Six Covenants of the Prophet with the Christians of His Time” which is approximately 50 pages. We are a…lso expecting to receive Greek, Persian, Polish, and Dutch translations shortly and will need them to have them reviewed as well. Finally, we are always looking for academic volunteers to translate the full book or the short booklet into every language imaginable. So far, “The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World” is available in Arabic, English, Spanish, and Italian. The shorter booklet, “Six Covenants of the Prophet with the Christians of His Time” is available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. As soon as our colleagues complete their task, the booklet will also be available in Persian, Polish, and Dutch. We would love to see this booklet available in Urdu, Turkish, Malaysian, Indonesian, and German, along with some African languages. If you are interested in helping us, fi-sabil-li-llah, kindly contact Dr. John Andrew Morrow at drjamorrow3333@hotmail.com