an overly favorable view of Islam, its peoples, and
its history.
See also edUcation; stUdent.
Further reading: Elizabeth Barrow, ed., Evaluation of
Secondary-Level Textbooks for Coverage of the Middle
East and North Africa. 3d ed. (Ann Arbor, Mich.:
Middle East Studies Association and the Middle East
Outreach Council, June 1994); Charles Haynes, A
Teacher’s Guide to Study about Religion in Public Schools
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991); Charles C. Haynes,
Sam Chaltain, et al., The First Amendment in Schools: A
Guide from the First Amendment Center (Alexandria, Va.:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Develop-
ment, 2000).
covenant
A covenant is a contractual agreement or com-
mitment that states the mutual duties and obliga-
tions of the parties involved. In the Abrahamic
religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it
has considerable theological significance because
it expresses the relation between God and humans
at specific moments in sacred history. Sometimes
it is understood as a bilateral agreement involving
mutual concord between God and his people, and
in other cases, it is given by God alone. Accord-
ing to the doctrines of these religions, God will
reward humans for heeding his commands and
punish them for forgetting or disobeying them.
The torah of Judaism expresses the covenants
between God, humankind, and the people of
israel that occurred in the times of Noah, abra-
ham, Isaac, Jacob, and david. The most impor-
tant such agreement in Judaism is the covenant
established at Sinai, which moses conveyed to the
Israelites from God. Christians have regarded this
as the old covenant, or “testament,” which has
been succeeded by a new one given by JesUs in
the gospels.
In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, God
is believed to have established covenants with
both humankind and with sacred individuals (the
prophets) and their followers. The covenant men-
tioned most often in the qUran is the one between
God and the people of Israel, which they are
blamed for breaking (for example, Q 2:83). The
key division expressed in the quranic agreements
is between those who honor God’s commands as
believers and those who do not—the forgetful and
the disbelievers. The most universal covenant is
the primordial one God established on the Day of
Alastu, when he brought forth all of Adam’s future
progeny and they acknowledged his oneness and
sovereignty (Q 7:172). Muslims are told that if
they remember to keep God’s covenant and fulfill
other conditions, they can return in the aFter-
liFe to the paradise from which Adam had been
expelled for violating his agreement with God
(Q 2:35–36, 13:20–23). Those who do not will
face God’s curse and the fires of hell (Q 13:25).
Aside from Adam, other prophets who were party
to covenants with God were Abraham, moses,
JesUs, and mUhammad. In regard to Muhammad,
the Quran states that the prophets have all agreed
with God to believe in and help his future mes-
senger, the prophet of Islam (Q 3:81). In shiism,
the idea of covenant has been shaped to promote
belief in its doctrines concerning Muhammad’s
holy family (the ahl al-bayt) and the imams.
See also adam and eve; chrisitianity and
islam; holy books; JUdaism and islam; sharia.Further reading: John Wansbrough, Quranic Studies:
Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 8–12; Bernard Weiss,
“Covenant and Law in Islam.” In Religion and Law:
Biblical, Judaic, and Islamic Perspectives, edited by E.
B. Firmage, B. Weiss and J. W. Welch, 49–83 (Winona
Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990).creation
Historians of religion have noted that most reli-
gions and traditional societies have creation
myths—stories about the origins of the world,
plants and animals, human beings, and importantK 170 covenant