If only

“The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World” is a misguided book by a Traditionalist convert to Shia Islam, John Andrew Morrow. The point of the book is to prove that true Islam is tolerant towards other religions, especially Christianity, and that the fundamentalist Salafis (known as Wahhabis in the West) have therefore distorted the Prophet's true message (the terrorist group ISIS represents a particularly virulent brand of Salafism). We can indeed discuss whether or not “authentic” Islam is different from Salafism, but Morrow's book doesn't prove his point. All the sensational “covenants” between Muhammad and the Christians reprinted in this volume are obvious forgeries probably concocted by Christians long after Muhammad's time. They are certainly only known from Christian sources. Some were circulated by Muslim diplomats in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries for public relations purposes (both the Ottomans and the Persians cultivated friendly relations with a number of European powers). The point of the apocryphal “covenants” was to convince intolerant Muslims not to persecute the Christians, citing the authority of none other than Muhammad himself. Another point, apparently, was to show the Christian powers that the Muslim empires weren't mistreating their Christian subjects. The anachronisms in the documents are so glaring that Morrow's defense of them must be regarded as apologia, not scholarship.

Take the first document analyzed and reprinted in this volume, “The Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai”, supposedly written when Muhammad and his followers only ruled the small city-state of Medina. Sinai wasn't conquered by the Muslims until 639, several years after Muhammad's death, so why would the monks at Saint Catherine's monastery need a special protective covenant with the Muslim prophet when the monastery was still safely under Byzantine suzerainty? Remember, Muhammad only controlled Medina at this point. He hadn't even conquered Mekka, let alone the rest of Arabia. Further, why did the monks at Mount Sinai need a special exemption from the Muslim poll tax and land tax? These taxes didn't even exist during Muhammad's stay in Medina, something proven by the “Constitution of Medina”. And why do the various versions of the covenant threaten any Muslim “King” or “Sultan” who doesn't follow it with damnation? Neither Muhammad nor Omar, the actual conqueror of Sinai and Egypt, used these titles. Morrow mentions (but discards) a hypothesis about the document's origin which sounds altogether more likely: it was written by the Christian monks during the Shia Muslim Fatimid caliphate to protect themselves from persecution by “the mad caliph” Al-Hakim. This would explain why the document is signed with a Shia Muslim symbol and claims that Ali was Muhammad's foremost companion and secretary (Ali plays a central role in Shia tradition). The royal titles may be even later, perhaps from the Ottoman period, when the pious monks at Mount Sinai sent the “covenant” to Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Conqueror.

The other “covenants” in this volume suffer from the same problems. Why would Christians in non-conquered territories need Muhammad's protection from non-existent taxes and other abuses? Why does one of the documents condemn the Jews while extolling the Christians, when both groups where “protected” by the Muslims? This is more in keeping with Christian anti-Semitism! Why is one of the documents written in Persian rather than Arabic? Why do all these documents surface very late in Muslim history, and always in Christian collections? Why did Muhammad's covenant with the Armenian (sic) Christians surface at the same time that a Persian Muslim shah decide to give Armenians special privileges and boast about it to European powers? And so on…

If the Traditionalists (Charles Upton has written the preface) want to reform Islam in a more tolerant direction (not a bad cause in itself) they should wrestle with Islam as it actually looks like, warts and all, instead of relying on pious frauds. Since the book is interesting, I will give it three stars, but after reading it, I can only sigh and say “if only”.