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Islam · Source book

Table Covenant Law

Batch 7 — The Table, covenant & law (Medinan)

N=1 distillation. Source: Rodwell (1861), Gutenberg #3434. Quote anchors pending Phase 7 char-for-char audit. Methodology & tags: ../00-methodology.md. Suras covered: 5 (The Table), 9 (Immunity), 47 (Muhammad), 48 (The Victory), 58 (She Who Pleaded), 60 (She Who Is Tried), 65 (Divorce), 66 (The Forbidding).

Batch role

The legal-covenantal layer of Medina: fidelity to covenants and oaths, justice toward enemies, the sanctity of life, lawful and unlawful food, and the completion of the religion. (Sura 9 contains the well-known warfare verses; these are context-flagged below and not extracted as family-compass inputs.)

Atomic statements

B7-C1: Be faithful to your engagements/covenants. (OPERATIONAL / ETHICS)

  • Q 5:1 (The Table): "O BELIEVERS! be faithful to your engagements."
  • Stance: command · Importance: core

B7-C2: Deal justly even with those you dislike — uprightness is nearest to taqwā. (FOUNDATIONAL / JUSTICE+ETHICS)

  • Q 5:8 (The Table): "O Believers! stand up as witnesses for God by righteousness: and let not ill-will at any, induce you not to act uprightly. Act uprightly. Next will this be to the fear of God."
  • Stance: command · Importance: core

B7-C3: To take one innocent life is as to slay all mankind; to save one life is to save all mankind. (FOUNDATIONAL / JUSTICE+ANTHROPOLOGY)

  • Q 5:32 (The Table): "he who slayeth any one, unless it be a person guilty of manslaughter, or of spreading disorders in the land, shall be as though he had slain all mankind; but… he who saveth a life, shall be as though he had saved all mankind alive."
  • Stance: assert · Importance: core

B7-C4: God has perfected the religion and chosen islām (submission) as the way. (FOUNDATIONAL / TAWHID+PROPHECY)

  • Q 5:3 (The Table): "This day have I perfected your religion for you… and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion."
  • Stance: assert · Importance: core

B7-C5: Cooperate in righteousness and piety, not in sin and enmity. (OPERATIONAL / ETHICS+SOCIAL)

  • Q 5:2 (The Table): "rather be helpful to one another according to goodness and piety, but be not helpful for evil and malice: and fear ye God."
  • Stance: command · Importance: supporting

B7-C6: God may yet make friendship between you and present enemies; deal kindly and justly with those who do not fight you. (OPERATIONAL / MERCY+SOCIAL)

  • Q 60:7–8 (She Who Is Tried): "God will, perhaps, establish good will between yourselves and those of them whom ye take to be your enemies… God doth not forbid you to deal with kindness and fairness toward those who have not made war upon you on account of your religion, or driven you forth from your homes: for God loveth those who act with fairness."
  • Stance: assert · Importance: core

Step 4 — Clusters

Cluster Atomic statements Intent
Keep covenants C1, C5 Fidelity to engagements; cooperate only in good
Justice to all, even enemies C2, C6 Uprightness unbent by dislike; kindness to non-hostile others
Sanctity of life C3 One life equals all mankind
The completed way C4 Islām perfected as the religion

Step 5 — Internal tensions

Sura 9 (Immunity) contains the verses of warfare against treaty-breakers and idolaters. These are context-flagged: this distillation extracts the covenant-fidelity, justice-to-enemies, and sanctity-of-life principles (which the same suras also assert) and does not extract the situational warfare verses as family-compass inputs. A genuine within-tradition reading weighs these against one another; this is a documented scoping decision, not a harmonization.

Step 6 — Synthesized chapter principles

B7-P1: Keep your covenants and oaths; cooperate only in good

"Be faithful to your engagements," and "lend your helping hands to righteousness and the fear of God," not to "wickedness and strife." Fidelity to one's word and alliances of good are binding.

  • Tier: OPERATIONAL · Domain: ETHICS+SOCIAL · Covers: C1, C5 · Evidence: Q 5:1–2

B7-P2: Justice is owed even to those you dislike — and kindness to the non-hostile

"Let not ill-will at any induce you not to act uprightly." And toward those who have not made war on you, "deal with kindness and fairness… for God loveth those who act with fairness" — enemies may yet become friends.

  • Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: JUSTICE+MERCY · Covers: C2, C6 · Evidence: Q 5:8, 60:7–8 · Untranslatable: ʿadl

B7-P3: The sanctity of a single human life

"He who slayeth any one… shall be as though he had slain all mankind; but he who saveth a life… as though he had saved all mankind alive." Every life carries the weight of all humanity.

  • Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: JUSTICE+ANTHROPOLOGY · Covers: C3 · Evidence: Q 5:32

B7-P4: The religion of submission (islām) is complete

"This day have I perfected your religion for you… and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion." Submission to the one God is the completed way.

  • Tier: FOUNDATIONAL · Domain: TAWHID+PROPHECY · Covers: C4 · Evidence: Q 5:3 · Untranslatable: islām

Step 7 — Traceability

Principle Atomic statements Verses
B7-P1 C1, C5 Q 5:1–2
B7-P2 C2, C6 Q 5:8, 60:7–8
B7-P3 C3 Q 5:32
B7-P4 C4 Q 5:3

Step 8 — Quality

  • Coverage: the covenant/justice/life-sanctity/completed-religion core captured across suras 5 and 60. Warfare verses (sura 9) and detailed divorce/dietary law (65, 5) are context-flagged or noted, not extracted as compass inputs.
  • Orphaned: <10% of principle-bearing material.
  • Principles: 4.
  • Traceability: 100%.

Step 9 — Validation (frame-independent claim-vs-warrant)

  • B7-P2 (justice to enemies): a strong convergence candidate — parallels "love your enemies" and Buddhist non-hatred at the claim level; warrant differs (justice as witness before God; hope of God-given reconciliation, not unconditional self-emptying love).
  • B7-P3 (sanctity of one life = all mankind): a strong convergence candidate — among the Quran's clearest universal-ethics statements; warrant (a command originally given "to the children of Israel," now reaffirmed) is shared-Abrahamic. The qualifying clause ("unless guilty of manslaughter or spreading disorder") is noted.
  • B7-P4 (islām perfected): a divergence by design — the finality/completeness claim is exclusive and does not converge; recorded as such, not forced.