Page:An Analysis of Prophet Muhammad’s Covenants with Christians.pdf/14

 separates culture and state whereas ethnic nationalism joins them (, p. 204). In summary, a civic nation allows individuals to define the national community rather than having the national community define the individual, which is not necessarily the case in an ethnic nation. As such, an ethnic nation abandons the idea that national belonging is a choice and not an inheritance.

The “Eastern” (ethnic) versus “Western” (civic) model for nation building is not just a historical argument; many scholars see the continuation of historical patterns in current national identities in the East versus West framework (, p. 556). According to Brubaker, the twenty or so “post-communist” states of Eastern Europe were “conceived and justified, in the nationalist movements. . . as the state of and for a particular ethno-national group” (, p. 65). As such, in Eastern Europe, understandings of nationality have become institutionalized and fundamentally “ethno-cultural” rather than “political”. However, some scholars have attacked the narrow logic that ethnic nations are simply “ethnic” in the sense of being emotionally-charged and exclusive entities based only on dominant ethno-cultural groups. Quebec and Flanders, for example, have been labeled “ethnic nations” but in actuality can be treated as “cultural nations” (, p. 126, 133). Quebec and Flanders do not restrict immigration or necessarily give preference to ethnically similar individuals. However, they do encourage assimilation into the prominent culture and give preference for “culturally similar immigrants” in terms of immigration policies (, p. 561). In this sense, a government that pursues the cultural assimilation of minorities is a “cultural nation”; cultural unity is seen as the foundation for a strong nation-state (, p. 561). The differences between the cultural and ethnic nation model is that “cultural nations” encourage assimilation whereas “ethnic nations” do not, because the latter concept demarcates culture by ancestry and “race”, which cannot be gained or learned by human effort. Another topic of interest in discussions about the nature of cultural nations is the role religion plays in relation to “national belonging”. A cultural nation can be seen as having key components such as religion, language, and tradition (, p. 559). As discussed below, Prophet Muhammad did not require Christians to convert to Islam, nor did he encourage them to assimilate into “Muslim culture”. In effect, he distanced himself from the cultural and ethnic nations and moved the ummah closer to the civic approach in terms of nation-building.

Prophet Muhammad insisted that the Muslim national group boundary is not the property of any particular religious or ethnic group. In this regard, he can be seen as being a “political pluralist” in that he desired “a political culture of non-centralised action, which endows civic centres of activity with initiative rather than imagining that the state has to license and delegate everything from the top” (, p. 40). For the state to give preference to one or more groups means devaluating citizens based upon their ethnic or cultural backgrounds. The Prophet did not want to inflict harm on Christians, nor interfere or encroach on their privacy or private property. In the Covenant with the Christians of the World, he laid down the injunction:

"The covenant of Allah is that I should protect their land, their monasteries, with my power, my horses, my men, my strength, and my Muslim followers in any region, far away or close by, and that I should protect their businesses. I grant security to them, their churches, their businesses, their houses of worship, the places of their monks, the places of their pilgrims, wherever they may be found . . . (, p. 48)"

This is the sanctity of privacy and property rights that Muhammad granted Christian citizens in an Islamic state. The rights he granted them are “not simply a claim of individuals against the state but a claim of individuals that the state itself underwrites for the good of all” (, p. 600). These rights include property rights of individuals as a basic condition for democratic citizenship ([95], p. 600). Prophet Muhammad instructed his followers to follow these commands, and stated that any Muslim that disobeys them acts against the will of God. Muslims who disrespect his ordinances are “[enemies] on the Day of Judgment among all the Muslims” (, p. 54). In the Covenant with the Christians of the World, a civic conception of the nation was developed by Muhammad in the sense that ethnic or cultural unity was not a requisite for belonging to the ummah. People in a civic nation are united by such traits as common citizenship, respect for law and state institutions, and belief in a set of political