Safiyah: Difference between revisions

'''Safiyah bint Huyayy''' (صفية بنت حيي‎, c. 610 - c. 670) (also spelled Saffiya, Safiyya, Safiya bint Huyai) was the bride of [[Kinana]] and the chief mistress of the Jewish tribes of [[Banu Qurayza|Quraiza]] and An-Nadhir. According to the [[sira|sira,]] Muhammad captured and married her after killing her husband. She and her husband were both captured after the victorious conclusion of Muhammad's [[conquest of Khaybar]]. The narrations agree that Muhammad chose her due to her exceeding beauty, as had been his custom in other engagements where the believers took slave women as booty, such as the conquest of the [[Banu Qurayzah]]. There was apparently some concern for his safety the night of their wedding on the part of his followers, as he had just that day murdered her husband and her father after taking them as prisoners of war, going so far as to torture her husband Kinana in order to ascertain the location of his treasure. Modern Muslims have found the story emberassing from the modern, liberal point of view, which supports the rights of people to not be slaves and to choose their own sexual and marriage partners. The story of Safiyah flies in the face of these norms, instead reflecting a world where powerful men like Muhammad take women as prizes in war use them sexually to their own advantage with little regard to the women's emotional well being. Rather than admit this rather plain reading of source texts, many Muslim [[Dawah|duaah]] and apologists rather seek to use isolated narratives to recast Safiyah as a women deeply in love with the man who had just killed her father, brother, and new husband (including torturing her husband in order to find his gold) and profoundly possessed by the conviction that he was a prophet of [[Allah (God)]].   

Upon seeing her, Muhammad said, "Take any slave girl other than her from the captives"<ref>{{Bukhari|1|8|367}}</ref> and he selected her for himself (as was his custom, he had done similarly with Rayhana after [[The Massacre of the Banu Qurayza]]):<ref>Ibn Sa'd, Dar Al-Kutub Al-Ilmiyyah, vol.2 p.58</ref>  {{Quote|2=When the apostle had conquered al-Qamus the fort of B. Abu'l-Huqayq, Safiya d Huyayy b. Akhtab was brought to him along with another woman. Bilal who was bringing them led them past the Jews who were slain; and when the woman who was with Safiya saw them she shrieked and slapped her face and poured dust on her head. When the apostle saw her he said 'Take this she-devil away from me.' He gave orders that Safiya was to be put behind him and threw his mantle over her, so that the Muslims knew that he had chosen her for himself.  I have heard that the apostle said to bilal when he saw this Jewess behaving this way,  “Have you no compassion, Bilal, when you brought two women past their dead husbands?”|A. Guillaume (trans.), The Life of Muhammad: A translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah (Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 515

As such it would appear that Muhammad broke the rules of Islamic 'iddah in order to have sex with Safiyah so soon after he had tortured her husband to death. The issue is muddied, though, due to the fact that Safiyah was taken as a slave. Since her husband was killed and not taken with her as her husband in slavery, Muhammad might not have had to follow the rules of [[Shari'ah]] regarding the [[iddah]] of a widow when marrying her and taking her to bed. In such a case, waiting one menstrual cycle might have sufficed. <ref>{{Cite web| title = Two Issues Around Prophet Muhammad's Marriage With Safiyya {{!}} ICRAA.org| author = | work = ICRAA.org| date = | access-date = 25 March 2022| url = https://www.icraa.org/two-issues-around-prophet-muhammads-marriage-with-safiyya/#_ftn14| quote = }}</ref>

The above author clearly views a plain retelling of the facts as related by the tradition to be themselves attack up on the character. He attacks the mere thought of their presentation in a neutral matter as "ignorant missionary" rhetoric, attacking the motive behind even questioning whether Muhammad was morally right to take a woman as war booty and then marry her after killing her father, husband, and brother. Rather than dealing with the meaning of "rape" in such a context of slavery and pre-modern society the author instead casts aspersions.  

Esposito posits peacemaking as a goal of the marriage, yet the tribe that Saffiyyah hailed from was and continued to be at war with the Muslims; the people of Khaybar itself were reduced to dhimmitude and along with the rest of the Jews were eventually expelled from Arabia. In addition to this, before Muhammad heard of her beauty, he was going  

The above shows a clear apologetic bias at work; no modern person, especially given contemporary concerns about sexual consent prevalent in modern culture, would cast the marriage of a woman taken as a slave to the man who had just defeated her tribe in battle and murdered her husband as an example of fair and equal consent. The author above is clearly more concerned with modern perceptions of Muhammad and how they conform to contemporary mores around things like sexual consent than the plain facts of what is written in the texts.  

{{Quote|2=While the people of Khaybar return to their homes, Kinanah's 17-year-old widow, Safiyah bin Huyay, approaches the Prophet and relates a dream in which she saw a brilliant moon over the city of Medina. The moon moved to Khaybar and then fell into her lap. The Prophet interprets her dream by giving her the choice of returning to her people or embracing Islam and joining his household as his 10th wife. Safiyah readily chooses the latter.|Meraj Mohiuddin. Revelation: The Story of Muhammad : Peace and Blessings be Upon Him. Whiteboard Press. pp. 291. ISBN 978-0-9896288-0-8. OCLC 1069569279, 2015.}}No passages are cited by ''Revelation'' to support this story but the following hadith is probably in mind here{{Quote|2=There was a green scar in an eye of Safiyya. The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) asked her, ‘What is this scar in your eye?’ She said, “I mentioned before my husband my dream that a moon fell into my lap upon which he slapped me and said; ‘Do you long for the King of Yathrib [the Prophet].’” She said: ‘There was none more hateful to me than the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) as he had my father and husband killed. The Prophet (ﷺ), however, kept on explaining, ‘Safiya! Your father instigated the Arabs against me and did such and such.’ He kept doing so till all my harsh feelings for him vanished.|al-Tabarani, Abu al-Qasim, al-Mu’jam al-Kabir, (Cairo: Maktaba Ibn Taimiya, 1994) Vol.24, 67 Hadith 177; rated as  as sahih by Albani in Silsala al-Ahadith al-Sahiha, (Riyadh: Dar al-Ma‘rif, 1996) Vol.6, Hadith 2793}}It should be noted that the tradition seems to contradict the other traditions which show that Safiyah was in great anguist at the death of her family at the hands of Muhammad and his believers. It's also notable that at least one other version of the tradition exists in the same hadith collection where it is the sun, not the moon, that falls into her lap.  {{Quote|2=نَزَلَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ خَيْبَرَ وَصَفِيَّةُ عَرُوسٌ فِي مَجَاسِدِهَا، فَرَأَتْ فِي الْمَنَامِ كَأَنَّ الشَّمْسَ نَزَلَتْ حَتَّى وَقَعَتْ عَلَى صَدْرِهَا، فَقَصَّتْ ذَلِكَ عَلَى زَوْجِهَا، فَقَالَ: وَاللَّهِ مَا تَمَنَّيْنَ إِلا هَذَا الْمَلِكَ الَّذِي نَزَلَ بنا، فَفَتَحَهَا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَضَرَبَ عُنق زوجها صبرا، وتعرض من هناك من فتية النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم ليتزوجها حَتَّى أَلْقَى لَهُمْ رَسُولُ اللهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ تَمْرًا عَلَى مُنْتَصَفٍ، فَقَالَ: «كُلُوا وَلِيمَةَ رَسُولِ اللهِ عَلَى صَفِيَّةَ»

''Revelation'' makes no mention of the numerous traditions mentioned above which indicate that Safiyah was filled with sadness at the murder of her family relations by the Muslims (and their torture in her husband Kinana's case). Rather than dealing with the wide range of sources available on Safiyah, ''Revelation'' chooses to cherry pick a single tradition which casts her marriage to Muhammad as divinely pre-ordained and in accordance with her personal wishes, which is what modern liberal audiences would expect of a man claimed to be a good example ([[Uswa Hasana|Uswa Hasana)]]. Again, these modern Muslims seem embarrassed to admit the truth about the multiple different narrations that exist about Safiyah. And instead of presenting the tradition as it exists, they seem to whitewash it to suit modern, liberal sensitivities around consent and slavery.  

*[{{Reference archive|1=http://alisina.org/muhammad-raped-safiyah/|2=2011-11-04}} Did Muhammad rape Safiyah?] ''- [[Ali Sina]]''