Features of International System in Medina Charter

Muslims generally believe that the first and the best ideal example of Islamic government was Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) government in Madinat Al-Nabi. Although there is no consensus on the nature of this government, no one has denied it as the first political system in Islam. A few months after entering Yathrib (Medina), the prophet (PBUH) developed coexistence with Jewish tribes residing there and established a big confederation consisting of these tribes and Arab Muslim tribes. Then he drafted a charter that included the framework for the two important issues of domestic and foreign policies. From a foreign policy perspective, a framework for a system can be derived from the contents of this legal document that clearly defines the basic elements of a relatively modern international system or policy with its specific components. This paper asks the question “ What are the coordinates of the international system based on the first public treaty in Islam?” and tries to explore the four coordinates of players, structure, process, environment and environmental results as they are reflected in the charter. Content analysis and systems theory methods have been utilized in the research.