Living together: agreements between groups

This lesson asks you to describe why different groups in an early society worked together or fell into conflict, and to describe attempts to settle conflict and build cooperation. The curriculum asks for a few societies, including a First Nation and an Inuit society; the museum links only the medieval Islamic examples, so your class will add the others. One clause of the Jerusalem deed, as al-Tabari's text gives it, keeps Jews from living in the city; a teacher should read the card before assigning it. ¹

Look at the expectations: they ask why groups cooperated or came into conflict, and what they tried in order to settle it. Compare what each side gained or gave up in an agreement you find.

In the Constitution of Medina, as The Sealed Nectar summarises it, one clause says the believers unite against whoever transgresses or seeks injustice, sin or aggression, even if he is one of their own sons ^{2 3}. The book mentions sixteen clauses, so this is one of them ². In the deed for the people of Iliya, as a book on Bayt al-Maqdis quotes it from al-Tabari, they get security for their persons, property, churches and crosses, and no one is coerced in religion ⁴.

The Medina clause says the believers stand against a wrongdoer even if he is one of their own sons. Is that fair to everyone in the town, and why?

• The Constitution of Medina: the clauses the book mentions, and the note that it summarises the text.
• Umar's covenant with the people of Jerusalem: what the book quotes from al-Tabari, and its named witnesses.

Read the two agreements the lesson links, The Constitution of Medina and Umar's covenant with the people of Jerusalem. Make a two-column chart: what each promised the other groups, and what was asked in return.