Jihad (Struggle, effort, endeavour) - Part 13

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

pg. 217].)

 

 

Jihad - Part 13

 

(p.161) But what was Muhammad to do about Qurayzah? The departure of the Quraysh

had not weakened the bitter opposition to his leadership within Medina: His

opponents were convinced that the Meccans would return in the not too distant

future and wreak terrible vengeance for their humiliation, so they intensified

their campaign against him. The settlement was on the brink of civil war and in

this explosive climate, the Qurayzah could not remain unpunished. The day after

the departure of the Meccan army, Muhammad's troops surrounded the fortress of

Qurayzah, who asked that they be permitted to leave on the same terms as

Qaynuqa' and Nadir. But this time Muhammad refused: Nadir had proved to be just

as dangerous to the ummah in exile. The elders of Qurayzah agreed to accept the

arbitration of their former ally Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, who had been severely wounded

during the siege and was carried to the Qurayzah village on a litter. (p.162)

Even though some of the other tribes asked him to be merciful, Sa'd believed

that the Qurayzah were an unacceptable security risk and made the conventional

judgment: all seven hundred men of the tribe should be executed, their wives and

children sold into slavery, and their property divided among the Muslims. When

he heard the verdict, Muhammad is reported to have cried: " You have judged

according to the ruling of Allah above the seven skies! " [62] The next day, the

sentence was carried out.

 

Revolting as it seems to us today, almost everybody in Arabia would have

expected Sa'd's judgment. According to the texts, not even the Qurayzah were

surprised by the decision. The executions sent a grim message to the Jews of

Khaybar, and the Bedouin would have noted that Muhammad did not shrink from

retaliation. He had staged a defiant show of strength, which, it was hoped,

would bring the conflict to an end. Change was coming to this desperate,

primitive society, but for the time being, violence and killing on this scale

were the norm. [63]

 

Nevertheless, the incident marks the nadir [lowest point] of Muhammad's career.

It is, however, important to note that the Qurayzah were not killed on religious

or racial grounds. None of the other Jewish tribes in the oasis either objected

or attempted to intervene, clearly regarding it as a purely political and tribal

matter. A significant number of the Arab tribe of Kilab, the clients of

Qurayzah, were also executed alongside the Jews. Muhammad had no ideological

quarrel with the Jewish people. (p.163) He once said, " He who wrongs or destroys

a Jew or a Christian will have me to answer on the Day of Judgment. " The men of

Qurayzah were executed for treason. The seventeen other Jewish tribes of Medina

remained in the oasis, living on friendly terms with the Muslims for many years,

and the Qur'an continued to insist that Muslims remember their spiritual kinship

with the People of the Book:

 

Do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in a most

kindly manner--unless it be such of them as are bent upon evil-doing--and say:

" We believe in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us, as well as

that which has been bestowed upon you: for our God and your god is one and the

same, and it is unto Him that We all surrender ourselves. " [64]

 

Later in the Islamic empires, Jews would enjoy full religious liberty and

anti-Semitism would not become a Muslim vice until the Arab/Israeli conflict

became acute in the mid-twentieth century.

 

The tragedy of Qurayzah may have seemed expedient to the Arabs of Muhammad's

time, but it is not acceptable to us today. Nor was it what Muhammad had set out

to do. His original aim had been to end the violence of jahiliyyah [violent and

explosive irascibility, arrogance, tribal chauvinism], but he was now behaving

like an ordinary Arab chieftain. He had felt impelled to go to war in order to

achieve a final peace, but the fighting had unleashed a grim and vicious cycle

of strike and counterstrike, atrocity, and retaliation, which violated essential

principles of Islam. (p.164) As he rode away from the village of Qurayzah

towards a city that was still seething with resentment, Muhammad must have

realized that he would have to find another way to end the conflict. Somehow he

had to abandon this jahili behavior once and for all and find an entirely

different solution.

 

Muhammad (Prophet For Our Time)

Chapter 4, 'Jihad', p. 161-164

Karen Armstrong

Harper Perennial - London, New York, Toronto and Sydney

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

ISBN-10 0-00-723248-9

 

Notes:

 

[62] Ibn Ishaq, 689, in Guillaume, 'Life of Muhammad'.

 

[63] Aslan, 'No god but God', 91-98; Norman A. Stillman, 'The Jews of Arab

Lands' (Philadelphia, 1979).

 

[64] Qur'an 29:46, Asad translation.