Dave Andrews

My greatest, some might say ‘totally disqualifying’ disadvantage in writing a blurb for The Covenants With Allah written by Halim Rane and Ibrahim Zein, is I am not a Muslim, do not know Arabic and can only access the sources uncovered in this book through translations. However, my greatest, and I think ‘most telling’ advantage is I have been on a pilgrimage with Halim Rane, discovering the Covenants and their significance for our quest to create a culture of peace and justice between Muslims and non-Muslims over the last twenty years.

As a Christian I had been brought up with a strong awareness of covenantal theology. It was more preached than practiced and when preached was often presented in terms of a basis of devotion to ‘us’ believers and discrimination against ‘other’ non-believers. It was only when I studied the covenant advocated by Jesus, I realised his New Covenant entailed a New Command-ment ‘that you love one another (radically, compassionately and sacrificially) as I have loved you’ (John 13:34) Jesus made it clear our practice of the New Commandment of the New Covenant was to be truly inclusive of all people, including our ‘enemies’.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

This was a call to stand in solidarity with all people ‘righteous’ and ‘unrighteous’ alike. 

When I talked with Halim about this, he told me that most Muslims knew very little about covenantal theology, but he was on a venture himself to recover the Covenants with Allah. Along the way Halim told me he was realizing the covenants at the heart of Islam were a divine call for all of us to stand in solidarity with Allah, humanity and the earth, to reclaim our role as ‘covenantal stewards of human security, global justice and peaceful coexistence’

In Covenants with Allah, Halim, along with his fellow scholar, Ibrahim Zein, discuss the names, attributes and nature of Allah as the foundation of the covenants, introduce the story of Adam as a foundational parable linking covenantal responsibility and human agency, analyse Allah’s covenants with Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac and their descendants including the Children of Israel (and the emergent Jewish, Christian and Arab communities), survey the concepts embodied in the Constitution of Medina, Treaty of Hudaybiyya and contracts with the Monks of Mount Sinai, narrate the history of the way covenants were neglected, revised and revived through out history, document the disastrous national and international consequences of ignoring, disregarding or dismissing covenants, particularly in the case of Israel and Palestine, and present the covenantal narrative as a constructive Islamic framework in opposition to dominance of Muslims or dominance by Muslims, and in support of genuine egalitarian Muslim and non-Muslim mutuality.

Now this is a framework that Christians, like the Monks of Mount Sinai of old, can work with.

Dave Andrews, author The Jihad of Jesus