TheSunnah Jāmi'ah, pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and theTaḥrīmof Yathrib: analysis and translation of the documents comprised in the so-called ‘Constitution of Medina’

For almost a decade I have taught the ‘Constitution of Medina’ at Cambridge as the eight distinct documents it comprises, issued on various occasions over the first seven years or so, of Muḥammad's Medinan period, using a typescript text of these documents, designated A to H. My attention was first attracted to it when reviewing the late Professor A. Guillaume's translation of the Sīrah of Ibn Isḥāq/Ibn Hi sh ām, because of the astonishingly close parallels with ḥawṭah treaties from Ḥaḍramawt upon which I was working about that time. Originally I had intended to publish a typical ḥawṭah agreement together with an analysis of the ‘Constitution’ which of course is not really a constitution at all. I still intend to publish my ḥawṭah corpus and demonstrate the similarity, but it has long been time to publish the analysis and identification of the separate documents contained in the ‘Constitution’, more particularly as it has important methodological and historical implications if anything approaching a definitive modern account of Muhammad's career is to be written.