Through analysis of the Covenants of the Prophet Mu?ammad, which pledge protection to diverse faith communities, this book makes a profoundly important contribution to research on early Islam by determining the Covenants- historicity and textual accuracy.
The authors focus on the Prophet Mu?ammad-s relationship with other faith communities by conducting detailed textual and linguistic analysis of documents which have received little scholarly consideration before. This not only includes decrees of the Prophet Mu?ammad, -Umar ibn al-Kha??ab, -Ali ibn Abi ?alib, and Mu-awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, but also of important Muslim rulers. They present their findings in relation to contemporaneous historical writings, historic testimonies, official recognition, archaeological evidence, historic scribal conventions, date-matching calculations, textual parallelisms, and references in Muslim and non-Muslim sources. They also provide new and revised translations of various Covenants issue
