Jihad (Struggle, effort, endeavour) - Part 7

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('Jihad' - Struggle, effort, endeavour. [Muhammad Prophet For Our Time Glossary

pg. 217].)

 

 

Jihad - Part 7

 

(p.140) After the euphoria of victory had faded, Muhammad found that even though

his prestige had increased in Arabia as a whole, the fear of an imminent Meccan

attack was swelling the opposition party in Medina. Ibn Ubayy and his supporters

were backed by three of the largest Jewish tribes--Nadir, Qurayzah and

Qaynuqa'--who depended upon their commercial links with the Quraysh and wanted

no part in any war against Mecca. A third column was opening up in the oasis.

About ten weeks after Badr, Abu Sufyan led a token ghazu [raid] of two hundred

men to the fields outside Medina, and under cover of night slipped into the

territory of Nadir, where he was entertained by its chief, Sallam ibn Mishkan,

who, according to Ibn Ishaq, " gave him secret information about the Muslims. "

[25]

 

Muhammad's scouts kept him informed of these developments. These three Jewish

tribes were clearly a security risk. They had large armies and were experienced

soldiers. If a Meccan army were to camp south of Medina, where Nadir and

Qurayzah had their territories, it would be easy for them to join forces with

the Quraysh and breach the city's defences. (p.141) If the Quraysh decided to

attack from the north, which would be their best option, Nadir and Qurayzah

could attack the Muslims from the south. But a more urgent concern was Qaynuqa',

the wealthiest of the Jewish tribes and former allies of Ibn Ubayy, who

controlled the market in the center of Medina. [26] The Muslims had established

a little market of their own, and for religious reasons did not charge interest.

Taking this as a direct challenge, the Qaynuqa' decided to break their agreement

with the Prophet and join the opposition. Muhammad visited their district and

asked them, in the name of their common religion [the pure religion of Abraham,

before this split into rival sects], to keep the peace. They listened in

mutinous silence and then replied:

 

O Muhammad, you seem to think that we are your people. Do not deceive yourself,

because you have encountered a tribe [at Badr] with no knowledge of war and got

the better of them; for by Allah, if we fight you, you will find that we are

real men! [27]

 

Muhammad withdrew and grimly awaited developments.

 

A few days later fighting broke out in the market of Qaynuqa', when one of the

Jewish goldsmiths insulted a Muslim woman. As the hakam [arbitrator; Muhammad's

political role in Medina], Muhammad was called in to arbitrate, but the chiefs

of Qaynuqa' refused to accept his judgment, barricaded themselves into their

fortress and called upon their Arab allies for aid. Qaynuqa' had an army of

seven hundred men, and had their allies responded, they would certainly have

defeated and probably eliminated the ummah [community]. (p.142) But the Arabs

remained staunchly behind the Prophet, and Ibn Ubayy found that he was powerless

to help his old confederates. After a siege of two weeks, the Qaynuqa' were

forced to surrender unconditionally. Muhammad would have been expected to

massacre the men and sell the women and children into slavery--the traditional

punishment meted out to traitors--but he acceded to Ibn Ubayy's plea for

clemency and spared them, provided that the whole tribe left Medina immediately.

Qaynuqa' were ready to go. They had taken a gamble, but had underestimated

Muhammad's new popularity. Neither their Arab allies nor the other Jews

protested. Tribes had often been driven out of the oasis during the internecine

wars before the hijrah [migration to Medina], so this expulsion was part of a

process that had started long before Muhammad's arrival. [28] Bloodshed was

avoided, but Muhammad was caught in a tragic moral dilemma: the justification

for the jihad against the Quraysh [Muhammad's 'born' tribe] had been the

Muslims' exclusion from their native city, which was condemned by the Qur'an as

a great evil. Now, trapped in the aggressive conventions of Arabia, he was

compelled to eject another people from their homeland.

 

The people of Medina anxiously waited for the inevitable Meccan attack. Since

Abu Jahl [the most virulent of Muhammad's early opponents] had been killed at

Badr and Abu Lahab [an early opponent of Muhammad] had died shortly afterwards,

Abu Sufyan was now the leading chieftain of the Quraysh and a far more

formidable opponent. In the late summer, a contingent of Muslim ghazis

[warriors] captured a large Meccan caravan. Abu Jahl would have retaliated

immediately, but Abu Sufyan did not allow this defeat to interfere with his

long-term objectives. (p.143) He simply intensified his preparations, building

up a large confederacy of Bedouin allies. Once the winter rains were over, three

thousand men with three thousand camels and two hundred horses left Mecca on

March 11, 625 and began their journey northward. After a journey of a little

over a week, they camped to the northwest of Medina on the plain in front of

Mount Uhud. [29]

 

The Medinese had only a week's notice of the Meccan advance. There was no time

to get the crops from the field, but Muhammad and the other chiefs managed to

bring in the people from the outlying areas and barricade them into the " city. "

The experienced warriors urged caution. It was very difficult to sustain a siege

in Arabia; and they suggested that everybody should stay behind the barricades

and refuse to engage with the Quraysh, who would eventually be forced to retire.

But after the victory at Badr, the younger generation wanted action and manged

to carry the day. Muhammad, who was not the supreme commander, had to bow to

this disastrous decision. The main Jewish tribes refused to fight and Ibn Ubayy

withdrew his men from the army, so on the following morning, Muhammad faced the

Quraysh outnumbered three to one. As the two armies began their advance, Abu

Sufyan's wife Hind marched behind the Meccans with the other women, singing war

songs and beating their tambourines. The Muslims were routed almost immediately

with a brilliant charge by the Meccan cavalry. Muhammad was knocked senseless

and word spread that he had been killed.

 

In fact, he had only been stunned, but the Quraysh did not bother to check the

rumor and failed to follow up their advantage. The Muslim survivors were thus

able to retreat in fairly good order. (p.144) Twenty-two Meccans and sixty-five

Muslims had been killed, including Muhammad's uncle Hamzah, a renowned fighter.

The Quraysh ran onto the battlefield and mutilated the corpses; one of them cut

out Hamzah's liver and carried the gruesome trophy to Hind, who ate a morsel of

it to avenge her brother, who had died by Hamzah's hand at Badr. She then cut

off his nose, ears, and genitals, urging the other women to follow her example,

and to the disgust of some of their Bedouin allies, they left the field sporting

grisly bracelets, pendants, and collars. Before his army moved off, Abu Sufyan

heard the disappointing news that Muhammad had not after all been among the

casualties. " Next year at Badr! " he cried, as a parting challenge. " Yes! " one of

the Muslims shouted on Muhammad's behalf, " It is an appointment between us! "

[30]

 

The Muslim defeat could have been worse. Had the Quraysh followed up their

charge, they could have destroyed the ummah [community]. But the psychological

impact of Uhud was catastrophic. When Muhammad returned home after the battle,

sick and shaken, he heard loud lamentation outside the mosque: it was the wives

of the Helpers mourning their dead. The Muslims fiercely resented Ibn Ubayy's

refusal to fight. When he rose to speak in the mosque on the following Friday,

one of the Helpers grabbed him and told him to keep his mouth shut. He strode

from the mosque in fury and refused to ask for Muhammad's forgiveness. Hitherto

the Hypocrites, as the Qur'an calls Ibn Ubayy's supporters, had been wavering,

waiting to see how things would turn out; they now became openly hostile.

(p.145) Muhammad's victory at Badr, they claimed, had been a flash in the pan.

He had brought death and destruction to Medina.

 

Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)

Chapter 4, 'Jihad', p. 140-145

Karen Armstrong

Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

ISBN-13 978-0-00-723248-2

ISBN-10 0-00-723248-9

 

Notes:

 

[25] Ibn Ishaq, 'Sirat Raszul Allah', 543, in Guillaume, 'Life of Muhammad'.

 

[26] Aslan, 'No god but God', 89-90; Lings, 'Muhammad', 160-62; Andrae,

'Muhammad', 207; Watt, 'Muhammad at Medina', 190-210.

 

[27] Ibn Ishaq, 'Sirat Rasul Allah', 296, in Guillaume, 'Life of Muhammad'.

 

[28] M.J. Kister, " Al-Hira: Some Notes on its Relations with Arabia, " 'Jerusalem

Studies in Arabic and Islam 6' (1985).

 

[29] Lings, 'Muhammad', 170-97; Andrae, 'Muhammad', 210-2213; Watt, 'Muhammad at

Medina', 20-30.

 

[30] Ibn Ishaq, 717, in Guillaume, 'Life of Muhammad'.