Last Thursday, at the Pontifical Institute for the Study of Arabic and Islam in Rome, our fellows, Professor Ibrahim Zein and Dean Recep Senturk, both of the College of Islamic Studies, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, gave presentations at the Georgetown Lecture on Contemporary Islam 2024.
John Borelli, special assistant for Catholic identity and dialogue to the president of Georgetown University, moderated the program.
Professor Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil have authored a book, The Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad, on the historical giving by the Prophet Muhammad of covenants to respect and protect Christians and Muslims.
For his part in the Georgetown lecture, Professor Zein affirmed, after close study of multiple existing recensions of covenants given personally by the Prophet, that these documents are not forgeries. His conclusion is that we have accurate texts of covenants given by the Prophet Muhammad from which we can learn more about his religious principles, his values and his engagement with non-Muslims “under the wing of mercy,” as he said in several of his covenants.
In this connection, it is most important to note that the Qur’an opens with acknowledgement of Allah’s mercy and compassion:
In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful: Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful.
Dean Recep then spoke to the contemporary application of the values enshrined in Prophet Muhammad’s covenants with Christians and Jews (and also with Zoroastrians). Dean Recep places the Prophet’s use of covenant within the moral recognition of a universal humanity arising from God’s creation of Adam and all those who descended from him. In Arabic, this universalism of the inherent possibility of preciousness to be associated with all human persons is called Adamiyyah. (Please refer to Dean Recep’s article, “Islamic Law and the Children of Adam”.)
The common conclusion of the two presentations is that at the time of the Prophet, Islam was a more welcoming and tolerant religion than is conventionally accepted these days by many, including many Muslims.
At the conclusion of the Q&A segment of the lecture, our chairman emeritus, Lord Daniel Brennan, stated his view that the lecture had been “historic” in opening new vistas for mutual respect and inter-religious collaboration and mutuality among the faithful followers of the three Abrahamic religions.
To decide for yourself how significant it is for us today to learn about the covenants of the Prophet Muhammad and their affirmation of tolerance in religion, please do read the book by Professor Ibrahim Zein and Ahmed El-Wakil linked above.
I would also like to thank Silvano Cardinal Tomasi for his leadership and guidance these past 5 years, as the Caux Round Table has provided its good offices as best as possible to gather scholarly opinion about the provenance, historicity and textual authenticity of the Prophet’s covenants.
I write this on the day of Pentecost, a moment of remembrance for Christians of the coming of the Holy Spirit into our world. May that touch of higher justice inspire all of us to think again of just who is our neighbor and what is due to them from us.