Formulation of the Claim
The neglect of the Medina Constitution in traditional exegesis reveals a purely theological view of Islamic history.
Explanation
Arkoun maintains that ignoring the “Medina Constitution” is not merely an oversight in reading, but a sign of a way of understanding the Islamic origins that excludes the historical document in favor of a closed doctrinal construction. Instead of reading the Constitution as a founding text for organizing the first community and its relations, it is marginalized because traditional exegesis tends to reduce everything to theological meaning alone.
As a result, history is stripped of its human and political dimension, and the founding texts become governed by an interpretive trajectory that privileges creed over facts. In this sense, the Constitution becomes an example of what traditional exegesis misses when it recognizes only what conforms to a preconceived image of the Islamic beginning.
Its Place in the Book’s Argument
This atom falls within Arkoun’s critique of the limits of inherited reading, which reorders the past according to the logic of faith alone and prevents the emergence of documents that reveal the multiple levels of the early Islamic experience. It is connected to Arkoun’s broader theses about the need to move beyond theological reduction toward a historical-anthropological understanding of texts and events, so that the founding moment is not reduced to a ready-made doctrinal narrative.
Limits of the Claim
This atom does not mean that all traditional exegesis is entirely unaware of the Medina Constitution; rather, it points to a general tendency not to grant it its full historical value. Nor does it make the Constitution by itself a comprehensive key to interpreting the Islamic origins.