In 622 or a few years later, the Constitution (or Charter) of Medina (full text) was put in place establishing equal justice and freedom of religion for Jews and Muslims alike and declaring Muhammad the final arbiter of all disputes.
Abd al-Hussein Shaban in his book Fiqh al-Tasamuh fi-l-Fikri-l-Arabi-l-Islami (The Understanding of Tolerance in Arab and Muslim Thought), Beirut: Dar an-Nahar, 2005, 102-104) presents this seventh century constitution as a pioneering example of democracy in the world. The constitution underscores the following principles:
- The residents of Medina - Muslim and non-Muslim - are a unity with no partiality or discrimination among them, and with full equality of rights for low born and high born alike.
- Full partnership, collective responsibility, especially in the area of defending one another’s rights.
- The obligation to respect the collective polity and common social bonds especially the duty to refrain from accepting aid from outside the polity so as to affirm and preserve commitment to and responsibility for the collective whole.
- Defense of minorities: accepting their right to live peacefully among Muslims, and refraining from treating them unjustly.
- Freedom of belief and the right of non-Muslims to own property, no forced conversions, and no seizure of wealth or property belonging to non-Muslims.
- The responsibility of non-Muslims living in a Muslim state to join in warding off dangers, attacks, and challenges from enemies of the state. This includes non-Muslims participating in paying the expenses of running the state.
- The duty of the Islamic state to help in the struggle against those who persecute non-Muslims, as in the case of a Muslim who wishes to convert to Christianity and who faces hostility for doing so. The operative principle is justice for all without regard for religion, ethnicity, color, point of view, and place of origin.
- Punishment on an individual basis only – no collective punishment of persons for the wrongs committed by others, no demonizing of whole groups of people because of the crimes committed by single members.
- Defending freedom of movement, freedom to change residence, freedom to travel inside the Islamic state and outside its borders. This freedom is the duty of the Islamic state to uphold and defend.