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New Light on the Story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

W. N. Arafat
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Extract

It is well known that at the advent of Islam there were three Jewish tribes who lived in Yathrib (later Medina), as well as other Jewish settlements further to the north, the most important of which were Khaybar and Fadak. It is also generally accepted that at first the Prophet Muḥammad hoped that the Jews of Yathrib, as followers of a divine religion, would show understanding of the new monotheistic religion, Islam. However, as soon as these tribes realized that Islam was being firmly established and gaining power, they adopted an actively hostile attitude, and the final result of the struggle was the disappearance of these Jewish communities from Arabia proper.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 108 , Issue 2 , April 1976 , pp. 100 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1976

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References

1 Isḥāq, Ibn, Sīra (ed. Wüstenfeld, , Göttingen, 1860), 545–547Google Scholar; (ed. Saqqa et al., Cairo, 1955), II, 47–9. See also al-Wāqidī, , Kitāb al-maghāzī (ed. Jones, M., London, 1966), II, 440 ff.Google Scholar; Suhaylī, , al-Rawḍ al-unuf (Cairo, 1914), I, 187et passimGoogle Scholar; Ibn Kathīr, al-Sīra al-Nabawīya (ed. Muṣṭafā ‘Abd al-Wāḥid, Cairo, 1384–5/1964–6), II, 5 et passim.

2 Sīra, 545–56, 652–61/II, 51–7, 190–202; Ibn Kathīr, op. cit., III, 145 ff.

3 Sīra, 755–76, 779/11, 328–53, 356, etc. More on Khaybar follows below.

4 ibid., 776/II, 353–4.

5 ibid., 668–84/II, 214–33.

6 ibid., 684–700/II, 233–54.

7 ibid., 689/II, 240; ‘Uyūn al-athar (Cairo, 1356 A.H.), II, 73; Ibn Kathīr, III, 239.

8 In his introduction to ‘Uyūn al-athar, I, 7, Ibn Sayyid al-Nās (d. 734 A.H.), having explained his plan for his biography of the Prophet, expressly states that his main source was Ibn Isḥāq, who indeed was the chief source for everyone.

9 Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, IX, 45. See also ‘Uyūn al-athar, I, 17, where the author uses the same words, without giving a reference, in his introduction on the veracity of Ibn Isḥāq and the criteria he applied.

10 d. 179.

11 ‘Uyūn al-athar, I, 12.

12 ibid, I, 16.

13 Sīra, 691–2/II, 242, 244; ‘Uyūn al-athar, II, 74, 75.

14 Ibn Sayyid al-Nās (op. cit, I, 121) makes precisely this point in relation to the story of the Banū Qaynuqā‘ and the spurious verse which was said to have appeared in Sūra LIII of the Qur'ān and at the time was taken by polytheist Meccans as a recognition of their deities. The author explains how various scholars disposed of the problem, and then sums up by stating that in his view, this story is to be treated on the same level as tales of the maghāzī and accounts of the Sīra (i.e. not to be accorded unqualified acceptance). Most scholars, he asserts, usually treated more liberally questions of minor importance and any material which did not involve a point of law, such as stories of the maghāzī and similar reports. In such cases data would be accepted which would not be acceptable as a basis of deciding what is lawful or unlawful.

15 See n. 18 below.

16 Ṭabarī, Tārīkh, I, 1499 (where the reference is to al-Wāqidī, Maghāzī, II, 513); Zād al-ma‘ād (ed. T. A. Ṭāhā, Cairo, 1970), II, 82; Ibn Kathīr, op. cit., IV, 118.

17 On this see Arafat, W., “Early critics of the poetry of the Sīra”, BSOAS, XXI, 3, 1958, 453–463CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Kadhdhāb and Dajjāl min al-dajājila.

19 ‘Uyūn al-athar, I, 16–7. In his valuable introduction Ibn Sayyid al-Nās provides a wide-ranging survey of the controversial views on Ibn Isḥāq. In his full introduction to the Göttingen edition of the Sīra, Wüstenfeld in turn draws extensively on Ibn Sayyid al-Nās.

20 Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, IX, 45. See also ‘Uyūn al-athar, I, 16–7.

21 ibid.

22 Qur'ān, XXXV, 18.

23 Qur'ān, XLI, 4.

24 ed. Khalīl Muḥammad Harrās, Cairo, 1388/1968, 241.

25 Significantly, little or no information is to be found in general or special geographical dictionaries, such as al-Bakrī's, Mu‘jam mā'sta‘jam; Yāqūt's Mu‘jam; al-Fairūzābādī's al-Maghānim al-muṭāba fī ma ‘ālim ṭāba (ed. Ḥamad al-Jāsir, Dār al-Yamāma, 1389/1969); Six treatises (Rasā'il fī tārīkh al-Madīna, ed. Ḥamad al-Jāsir, Dār al-Yamāma, 1392/1972); al-Samhūdī, Wafā' al-wafā' bi-akhbār dār al-Muṣṭafā (Cairo, 1326), etc. Even al-Samhūdī seems to regard a mention of the market-place in question as a mere historical reference, for in his extensive historical topography of Medina he identifies the market-place (p. 544) almost casually in the course of explaining the change in nomenclature which had overtaken adjacent landmarks. That market-place, he says, is the one referred to in the report (sic) that the Prophet brought out the prisoners of Banū Qurayẓa to the market-place of Medina, etc.

26 p. 247. I am indebted to my friend Professor Maḥmud Ghūl of the American University, Beirut, for bringing this reference to my attention.

27 d. 157/774. See EI 2, sub nomine.

28 Sīra, 689/II, 240; al-Wāqidī, op. cit., 512.

29 Sīra, 689/II, 240; Ibn Kathīr, op. cit., III, 238.

30 e.g., Nasab Quraysh (ed. Hārūn, A. S., Cairo, 1962), 340Google Scholar.

31 op. cit., II, 634, 684.

32 op. cit., III, 415.

33 Guillaume, A., Islam (Harmondsworth, 1956), 10–11Google Scholar.

34 De bello Judaico, I, 4, 6.

35 ibid., VII, 9, 1.

36 ibid., VII, 10, 1.

37 Sīra, 685–6/II, 235–6.

38 Sīra, 352, 396/I, 514, 567.

39 The Times, 18 August 1973; and The Guardian, 20 August 1973.