The Myth of Islamic Tolerance Toward Christians: The Ashtiname Story

Lily Jay’s piece about the “secret letter” allegedly written by Mohammed to Christians is a good example of a growing genre of Islamic apologetics aimed at Western Christian audiences: take a nice-sounding fragment, remove the surrounding legal and political tradition, and present it as proof that Islam has always been about protection, tolerance, and, religious freedom.

The document she refers to is usually known as the Ashtiname, or the Covenant of Mohammed with the Monks of Mount Sinai (St. Catherine’s Monastery). In popular Islamic apologetics, it is presented as a sweeping charter of Christian protection: churches are not to be destroyed, monks are not to be forced from their monasteries, Christian women are not to be compelled in marriage, and Muslims are supposedly obligated to defend Christians.

The problem is not that such a document is uninteresting. It is very interesting. The problem is that Lily Jay’s presentation turns a disputed historical document into a propaganda shortcut.

Not secret, not an original, not simple

First, the “secret letter” is not secret. It has circulated for centuries, appears in interfaith literature, and is routinely invoked by Islamic apologists and Christian-Muslim dialogue activists. Calling it “secret” gives the viewer the emotional thrill of discovering hidden truth, when in reality the document is part of a long-running controversy over authenticity, transmission, and interpretation.

Second, the document is not simply “the exact letter” directly written by Mohammed and preserved unchanged as it may appear from Lily Jay’s presentation. It is a known fact that Mohammed was illiterate, unable to read or write (Koran 7:157,Koran 29:48, Koran 62:2). Therefore, in the case that it was authentic (which is highly disputed), it would have been dictated by him, definitely not written. The St. Catherine tradition says the original was taken by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I, and that later copies were made. The monastery’s known copy is not a seventh-century document from Mohammed’s lifetime. It is a much later copy.

Even defenders of the Ashtiname acknowledge that the widely circulated versions are copies, not originals. Critics from academic environment go much further: Gabriel Said Reynolds, professor of Islamic studies and theology at Notre Dame, has argued that the Christian covenants attributed to Mohammed are later documents, with the earliest Sinai copies dating to the sixteenth century — roughly nine hundred years after Mohammed’s death.

That does not mean the document has no historical value. It may tell us something about how Christian communities under Islamic rule tried to secure protection, privileges, and legal guarantees. But that is very different from proving that Mohammed himself gave Christians a universal charter of equal religious freedom.

“Protection” is not equality

The key word in this discussion is protection. In Islamic political law, protected non-Muslims were not equal citizens in a secular liberal sense. They were dhimmis — communities allowed to survive under Islamic sovereignty in exchange for submission, loyalty, and payment of jizya (per-capita tax imposed on non-Muslim subjects).

This is the part that Lily Jay’s presentation omits.

A covenant of protection, even if authentic, would not erase the wider Islamic legal framework. It would fit inside it. Christians could be "protected," but as subordinate communities. Their protection depended on Islamic power. Their security came from accepting the political supremacy of Islam.

That distinction is vital. A ruler can protect a minority while still denying that minority equal status. A system can preserve churches while still subordinating Christians. A state can tolerate Christian worship while still treating Islam as legally supreme and Christianity as a defeated or inferior.

The sentimental reading of the Ashtiname collapses all of this into a simple slogan: “Mohammed protected Christians.” But the real question is: protected them as what? Or from what?

As equal citizens? No.

As autonomous sovereign communities? No.

As religious communities living under Islamic rule? Yes — and that is the point.

The primary doctrinal sources are harder to market

The Koran contains verses that can be used in interfaith dialogue, including “there is no compulsion in religion” and other verses addressed to the People of the Book (Christians and Jews). Islamic apologists frequently quote these.

But at the same Koran also contains material that is much harder to turn into marketable content.

Koran 9:29 commands Muslims to fight those among the People of the Book who do not follow the religion of truth “until they pay the jizya” while being brought low. Koran 5:51 warns believers not to take Jews and Christians as friends. Koran 98:6 places disbelievers among the People of the Book in hell and calls them the worst of all beings.

These can hardly be described as marginal details. They are, in fact, part of the doctrinal architecture behind the later Islamic treatment of Jews and Christians.

The same pattern appears in the hadith tradition. In Sahih al-Bukhari, Mohammed’s letter to Heraclius, the Christian Byzantine emperor, is not a declaration of Christian dignity. It is an invitation to Islam: “...I invite you to Islam, and if you become a Muslim, you will be safe...” If Heraclius rejects Islam, the guilt of his subjects is placed upon him.

That is much closer to Islamic political framework and reality than Lily Jay’s feel-good framing.

The apologetic trick

The trick is simple: isolate the most attractive document, detach it from Islamic law, and use it to override the rest of the tradition.

If the Ashtiname is authentic, it documents that Islamic rulers and traditions allow certain Christian communities to live under Islamic rules as second-class dhimmis, which is a known fact. If it is late or forged, it could suggest that Christians under Islamic rule had strong reasons to produce or preserve documents that could protect them from expropriation, coercion, and insecurity. In neither case does it prove the claim Lily Jay wants viewers to absorb that Islam, as a civilizational system, recognized Christians as free and equal to the Islamic community.

The more realistic reading is this: Christianity could, in some conditions, be tolerated under Islamic rule when it accepted Islamic supremacy.

Why this matters now

Content like this is aimed at those who know very little about Islamic doctrine, law, and the history of dhimmis. It gives Christians a comforting story: Islam did not come to supersede Christianity, defeat it, tax it, subordinate it, or absorb it. Islam came to protect it.

But Islamic sources tell a different story. Christians are “People of the Book,” but they are also accused of grave theological error. They may be protected, but under Islamic rule. They may worship, but not as equals in an Islamic order. They may exist, but their existence is regulated by the supremacy of Islam, including the necessity of acceptance of Mohammed as the final prophet.

That is the part the reel leaves out.

The Ashtiname should be studied. It should not be used as a magic eraser over the Koran, Hadith, Sira, doctrine of jihad, enforcement of sharia, jizya, and the historical reality of dhimmi status.

The question is not whether one can find an Islamic text that sounds generous toward Christians. The question is whether that text represents the governing logic of Islamic treatment of non-Muslims.

The answer is no.