The author of this book has opened up the world of the Prophet and his contemporaries as few before him. Who knew that, before the Crusades, Muslims on the hajj visited Christian and Jewish sacred sites on their way to Mecca? Who knew that Christians as well as Muslims, in the time of the Prophet, were called by the title al-mu'minin, "the faithful"? Who knew that Christian knights and warriors sometimes fought side-by-side with the armies of Islam? Who knew that even Crusaders were given safe-conduct by Muslim authorities to make pilgrimages to the Christian holy sites controlled by Islam? Dr. Morrow makes a compelling case that the original intent of Muhammad was not to create a strictly Muslim state, but rather a confederation of the People of the Book. Muslims, as the founders of this confederation, would retain their pre-eminence, but all the peoples of the Islamic ummah were to enjoy the rights accorded to citizens of that confederacy—rights that were extended, under certain circumstances, even to pagan polytheists. In recent times we have heard protestations that "Islam is a religion of peace," and that "Islam was never spread by the sword"—claims that, in the absence of the kind of exhaustive scholarship provided by Dr. Morrow, have tended to ring hollow. Certainly the Islamic ummah was forged in battle; nonetheless, the principle that no-one was to be converted to Islam by force—as the Qur'an declares, there is to be no compulsion in religion (2:256)—was established by the Prophet, repeated by Caliphs, and became enshrined in the holy shari'ah. Violations of this principle, which certainly did take place, were nothing less than crimes, deserving, in the Prophet's words, the severest punishment in this world and the next.
It is nothing short of providential that The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World has seen the light of day at this precise historical moment. The covenants of the Prophet with various Christian communities of his time, which Dr. Morrow has rediscovered in obscure monasteries and collections, providing cogent arguments for their validity, uniformly state that Muslims are not to attack peaceful Christian communities, rob them, stop churches from being repaired, tear down churches to build mosques, prevent their Christian wives from going to church and taking spiritual direction from Christian priests and elders, etc. On the contrary, the Prophet commands Muslims to actively protect these communities "until the End of the World." In view of the contemporary, massively-destabilizing attacks by the Western powers on many Muslim nations, and the continued spread of the Wahhabi/Salafi version of Islam—a form of willful and militant ignorance which has been the social and ideological seed-bed for so much "Islamic" terrorism, and which is opposed in so many particulars both to the rulings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and the clear teachings of the Holy Qur'an—even making itself vulnerable, in certain instances, to manipulation by the very Western powers who are apparently dedicated to the total destruction of traditional dar al-islam—the revelation of newly rediscovered documents recording the Prophet's very words, which command Muslims to protect and defend peaceful Christian communities, not attack them, could not be more timely, more crucial, and in greater need of wide and rapid dissemination. The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World represents a type of "ecumenism" which does not arise, as so much interfaith activity apparently does today, from a weakening of religious faith and a desire to accommodate to the secular "liberal" values of an increasingly anti-liberal world, but rather one which is intrinsic to the Islamic revelation itself. In the words of the Holy Qur'an:
He has revealed unto you (Muhammad) the Scripture with truth, confirming that which was (revealed) before it, even as He revealed the Torah and the Gospel. (3:3)
Say (O Muhammad): 'O people of the Scripture: Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but God, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides God.' (3:64)
And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by what is best, except those of them who act unjustly, and say: We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you, and our God and your God is One, and to Him do we submit. (29:46)
Verily! Those who believe and those who are Jews and Christians, and Sabians, whoever believes in God and the Last Day and do righteous good deeds shall have their reward with their Lord, on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve. (2:62)
As the author himself puts it:
Although there is unity in religious diversity, there is no place for syncretism. Equality does not mean that all are identical. Each religious system is coherent within itself. Each religion is an ecosystem. Combining two ecosystems would ruin the fragile ecological balance. There are barriers in nature and the universe. There are also certain boundaries within religions that need to be respected.... While Muslims may not agree with Christians on all matters doctrinal, they must respect Christianity as a crystallization of the divine message. Although, from a Muslim perspective, certain Christian beliefs and practices are incorrect, many Christian beliefs are correct from an Islamic standpoint. The same can be said of Judaism. The similarities between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism far outweigh any differences. To disrespect Christianity is to disrespect Christ in the same fashion that disrespecting Judaism is to disrespect Moses. Muslims do not have carte blanche to denigrate divinely revealed religions and then cry bloody murder when Islam is attacked. Jews, Christians, and Muslims must defend each other from the onslaught of the secular New World Order which is deeply committed to destroying them all.
May the publication of The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad with the Christians of the World be an occasion for a new alliance between those of the Abrahamic faiths who are dedicated to preserving the divine revelations entrusted to them both from traitors within their midst, and from the unrelenting attacks of the modern world.
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