The Madinah Charter as a Blueprint of Constitutional Pluralism: An Analytical Study

Abstract

Madinah Charter set by the holy prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is one of the earliest documents in the world. This constitutional common Social and political System was witnessed by the all inhabitants of Madinah including, Muslims or non-Muslims whether Jews or Christians or Polytheists; all of them lived under this system. In this research Medina Charter is represented as the best example of constitutional pluralism. The historical account with chronic and prophetic paradigm as the pivot Methodology establish general principles of the Medina charter such as Equal citizenship, Freedom of Religion, Justice, Peaceful civic nationalism, Collective self-defense and detailed mechanism of conflict resolution. The Charter has long been framed as an aspiration of global normativity from its inception, which this paper also investigates. Arguing against treating such a pluralistic framework as merely a matter of historical interest, this paper asserts that Madinah charter is an exceptional model of constitutional pluralistic livability and no less in harmony with other pluralistic traditions than western democratic traditions, providing a far deeper account of the kind of consensus the Charter embodies and a more expansive argument, while also tackling some of the profound challenges and questions the history of Islamic governance generates. This research also explains, that Madinah Charter still holds prominent guidance for modern societies in addressing the last two issues; the multicultural, minority rights problem and inter-religious issues.