The Massacre of the Banu Qurayzah: Difference between revisions

According to the traditional Islamic sources, in 627 AD as a result of the Battle of the Trench during which the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza had renounced their earlier pact with Muhammad and plotted with the besieging enemy, the Muslims under his direct military command laid siege to the Banu Qurayzah compound. After a siege of around 2 weeks, depending on the source, the Jews of Banu Qurayzah surrendered and entrusted their fate to a trusted intermediary from the Muslims of the tribe of 'Aws, Sa'd bin Mu'adh. Sa'd bin Mu'adh advised Muhammad to slaughter the men folk of the tribe and take the women and children as captives. Muhammad took this advice and as a consequence between 400 and 900 male prisoners of the tribe including any boys showing signs of puberty were beheaded, many in front of their families, and the rest of the tribe were taken as captives or sold into slavery. The event is thought to be mentioned in the Quran, is well attested to in the Islamic historical tradition, and has served as the basis for multiple rulings throughout history dealing with the treatment of captured non-Muslims by Muslim military forces. There is much uncertainty about the historic facts according to academic and modernist Muslim scholars.

Earliest accounts

Surah al-Ahzab (The Confederates)

The most well known version of these events is recorded in the Sira of Ibn ʾIsḥāq (d. 769 CE).^[1] However, there is a brief description in the Quran itself according to the great majority of Islamic scholars, which is also the view of those academic historians who believe there is at least some historicity to the story.

Quran 33:9-25 recalls an attempted attack by the confederates on Medina (i.e. Yathrib, mentioned in verse 13). The next two verses (26-27) state that Jewish or Christian supporters of the failed offensive were brought down from their fortresses, then one group were killed and another taken captive:

Later in the same surah, Quran 33:50 gives Muhammad certain rights over his share of female captives. Quran 33:55-58 denounces disbelievers who break their treaties and describes how they should be dealt with. Some early commentators such as Mujahid and al-Tabari said this denunciation referred to or included the Banu Qurayza.^[2]

Early sῑra-maghāzī material

The story is widely reported with varying details in the sῑra (biographical) genre and the maghāzī (raids/expeditions) material therein. The earliest surviving complete work of this genre is Kitāb al-Maghāzī by Mūsā ibn ʿUqba (d. 725 to 737 CE), which was for a long time lost but rediscovered in 2021. It can be read in English translation online including the Banu Qurayza report.^[3] Mūsā ibn ʿUqba was a student of Ibn Shihāb az-Zuhrī (d. 741 CE), who himself wrote the first maghāzī book. Al-Zuhrī's narrations feature heavily in the sῑra-maghāzī literature and are an important source of information about early Islamic history. Al-Zuhrī as well as several other sources are credited by Ibn ʾIsḥāq for each contributing parts of his account.^[4]

There are some differences as described in the next section between Mūsā ibn ʿUqba's version of the Banu Qurayza incident and the slightly later and longer one by Ibn ʾIsḥāq, who served the 'Abbasid Caliphate.

Accounts in the sῑra

Background

In an oft-cited academic article on the topic, Professor Meir J. Kister includes some background to the agreement which the Banu Qurayza are said to have later broken according to early sources, allowing the Banu Qurayza to stay after the Banu al-Nadir had been expelled from Medina.

Battle preparations

According to Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad's constant aggressive raids and warmongering against the Meccans had driven them, in alliance with the Jewish tribes he had expelled from Yathrib and the north Arabian tribe of Ghatfan, to put an end to him and his movement once and for all. The three original Jewish tribes of Medina, the Banu Nadir, the Banu Qaynuqaa', and the Banu Qurayza, had seen their number dwindle to one as Muhammad had expelled the Banu Nadir and the Banu Qaynuaqaa' from Medina on different pretexts. Meanwhile their property, including their precious palm trees, had been seized by Muhammad and the Muslims. Together with the Meccans and the Ghatfan, the exiled Jewish tribes of Medina had formed an alliance and gathered an army whose numbers are given in the sira as being around 10,000 strong, including over 600 mounted horsemen against very few cavalry for the Muslims, and 7,000 stronger than the army which had defeated Muhammad and the Muslims at Uhud. Muhammad at this time could call on a force of only around 3,000 men. Muhammad received word of their advance and began to make preparations by digging a trench with his men.^[6] In al Waqidi's version, the Banu Qurayzah lent the Muslims entrenching tools.^[7] The Muslim strategy relied on the Banu Qurayza, whose fort lay in the rear of the Muslim defenses, not breaking their agreement with Muhammad and joining with the confederates.

Battle of the Trench (al Khandaq) and the Banu Qurayza's role

Ibn Ishaq records that the two sides pitched their camps either side of the trench. The leader of the Banu al-Nadir, Huyayy bin Akhtab An-Nadri, then went to the Banu Qurayza to ask them to abandon their agreement with Muhammad. According to Ibn Ishaq, initially the leader of the Banu Qurayzah, Ka'b bin Asad al-Qurayzi, refused to abandon his commitment to Muhammad, but after much wheedling from Huyayy agreed to do so.^[8] An additional detail in Mūsā ibn ʿUqba's account is that this had been a vow not to deceive Muhammad nor aid his enemies against him, and to assist him against anyone who attacked Yathrib (Medina). In this version they also promise to join the fight against him so long as hostages are provided by the confederates to guarantee they will both commit to the fight come what may. This is agreed by the Quraysh and so the Banu Qurayza declare war on Muhammad.^[9]

Ibn Ishaq reports that Muhammad sent some men to the Banu Qurayza to find out whether they had really abandoned their agreement, which they confirmed and insults were exchanged. A siege by the confederates against Medina with little action besides the shooting of arrows then ensued for around 20 days.^[10] In Mūsā ibn ʿUqba's version, it is after this siege period that Muhammad first sent his men to the Banu Qurayza, who explain their refusal to renew their alliance with him due to the way their kin, the Banu al-Nadir, had been treated.^[11]

Ibn Ishaq offers as evidence of the Banu Qurayza’s perfidy a story with isnad chain from Yaḥyā b. ʿAbbād b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr that a Muslim woman, Ṣafīyya bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, saw a Jew walking around their fort. She feared that he was scouting for weaknesses as the Banu Qurayza had gone to war and cut the fort's communications with Muhammad. She told the fort's commander Hassan of this and asked him to kill the scout, and when he refused she took a club and went out and beat the man to death.^[12]

The sequence of events that Ibn Ishaq goes on to describe differs considerably from Musa's narrative. While Muhammad and his men continued to endure the siege, Nuʿaym ibn Masʿūd, a member of the Ghatafan who had secretly become Muslim, came to Muhammad, who sends him to sow distrust among the enemy, "for war is deceit". In Ibn Ishaq's version, it is now that the confederate hostages idea is first raised, as a suggestion by Nuʿaym to the Banu Qurayza, which they embrace as a prerequisite to joining the fight against Muhammad (this contradicts the scout story in which they are already active).^[13] In Mūsā ibn ʿUqba's account, as mentioned above, this had been the Banu Qurayza's own proposal before the siege got underway.

Ibn Ishaq reports that Nuʿaym then (or as his sole act in the version reported by Musa, having reported to Muhammad what he had learned of Banu Qurayza's offer) tricked the Quraysh leader Abu Sufyan that the Banu Qurayza had switched sides again and would request hostages only in order to betray them. According to Ibn Ishaq this led Abu Sufyan to send a message to the Banu Qurayza, who do indeed make the request as a condition of joining the fight. Thus Nuʿaym's trickery of them both plays out perfectly.

Mūsā ibn ʿUqba had placed Abu Sufyan's message and the reply in an earlier context, following the initial siege period, and with another, more important difference. He reports from al-Zuhri that the Banu Qurayza make this offer on their own initiative after the same message to them from Abu Sufyan, and that the offer is only that they would not hold him back so long as hostages are provided, i.e. they do not offer to actively join the fight.^[14]

In either version, Nuʿaym's efforts (whether he had tricked one or both parties) had successfully sown distrust between the confederates and the Banu Qurayza. A bitter wind had also overturned the tents and pots of the confederate camp (see Quran 33:9). All of this led Abu Sufyan to order the departure of his men, and their Ghatafan allies likewise abandoned the siege the next morning.^[15]
[16]

From the above it can be said that while both Ibn Ishaq and Musa's versions have the Banu Qurayza refusing to honour their agreement, the only evidence provided by Ibn Ishaq that they actively aided the confederates or plotted to do so is the scouting report and the story of Nuʿaym enticing them (which contradicts the former, as mentioned above). Musa's version reports a more active role, with the Banu Qurayza proposing before the siege begins to join the fight on receipt of confederate hostages as a guarantee, though he also includes the report from al-Zuhri in which the Banu Qurayza only offer not to hold Abu Sufyan back with the same hostage condition.

Siege of the Banu Qurayza

The battle of the trench being won, Muhammad and his men put their weapons down to head home. According to the sirah, though, Allah had other plans. The angel Jibreel appeared to Muhammad just as he had put down his weapon, and commanded him to march on the Jews of the Banu Qurayzah. The Muslims laid them under siege for differing amounts of time depending on the source (Ibn Ishaq claims 25 days before "Allah cast terror in their hearts"). The Banu Qurayzah were told to surrender and accept Islam, something they swore they would never do. Despairing of their position, they discussed three options according to Ibn Ishaq (though Musa b. Uqba omits this element): accepting Islam, killing their wives and children and engaging in a banzai-style attack against the numerically superior Muslim forces (perhaps, modern commentators have added, in emulation of their religious forbearers at Masada in Palestine), or engaging in a sneak attack on the Jewish Sabbath. The Jews of the Banu Qurayzah found none of these options acceptable.

Unable to come to a decision and under siege for weeks, the Banu Qurayzah asked to speak with Abu Lubaba, a man of the tribe of 'Aws, their allies. Abu Lubaba, when asked what the Banu Qurayzah should do, advised them to surrender to the prophet, but at the same time raised his hand to his neck, indicating they would be slaughtered.^[17] After he left, he felt that his action in telling the Banu Qurayzah of their fate was a betrayal of the prophet, and he tied himself to a pillar to ask for Allah's forgiveness, an act that Muhammad approved of. Despite this warning, the Banu Qurayzah surrendered to the Muslims the following day.^[18]

The decision on their fate

Ibn Ishaq reports that the tribe of 'Aws, allies of the Banu Qurayzah from the time of jahilliyah, asked for mercy for them from the prophet. The prophet, not wanting to cause dissension in his ranks (oaths and alliances of loyalty were very important in tribal Arab society, as in the absence of courts and established governments the only guaranty of security and justice which could be obtained was the promise of protection from allies in the case of murder, family feuds or war), entrusted the fate of the Banu Qurayzah to a trusted elder shaykh of the 'Aws, Sa‘d bin Mu‘adh, who had been mortally wounded during the battle and would in fact die shortly after the slaughter of the Banu Qurayza. In Musa b. Uqbah's version, it is the Banu Qurayza themselves who choose Sa'd to determine their fate.^[19]. Once Sa'd bin Mu'adh had ascertained that both the Banu Qurayzah and the prophet would abide by his judgement, whatever it be, he gave it without hesitation: the men of the Banu Qurayzah were to be executed to the last, their property divided, while the women and children should be taken as captives.

Some authors assert that Sa'd bin Mu‘adh justified this decision as being from the Torah of the Jews itself. Some of them point to Deuteronomy 20:12-14 which reads as follows:

Although modern Muslims cite this verse in justification of Mu'adh's verdict, no primary source says explicitly that Sa'd based his verdict on the Torah. In addition, it should be noted that neither Jewish nor Christian tradition understands this verse as a blanket rule for warfare, but rather as a specific command to the Jews under the command of Joshua who were fighting the pagan peoples of the Holy Land. It has not, generally, been used by either religion to justify the sort of massacre that took place in Medina in other historical contexts.

The massacre and division of captives and property

Musa b. Uqba is very brief on what happened next: "So, the Messenger of Allah had their fighters executed, and there were, they say, six hundred of them. They were killed at the house of Abū Jahm in Balāṭ – which was not [known as Balāṭ] at that time – and they say that their blood reached Aḥjār al-Zayt in the market. He took their women and children as prisoners of war and had their wealth divided amongst the Muslims who were present." He goes on to describe the beheading of Huyayy who had convinced the Banu Qurayza to abandon their agreement with Muhammad before the battle.^[20]

Ibn Ishaq's account of this incident has a little more detail, including the execution method.^[21] He additionally includes three poems attributed to Hassan b. Thabit which mention the slaying of the Banu Qurayza for treachery.^[22]. In this account, the prisoners, thus condemned, were kept in the house or compound of a Muslim woman d. Al-Hārith of the Banu al-Najjār tribe. In the morning the men were marched in batches to Muhammad and were executed by decapitation over trenches which had been dug in the city's market. He says there were 600 to 700 in all, though some said as high as 800 to 900. Ibn Ishaq includes a report from Aisha that one woman was amongst them. He includes various other narrations about individuals, including a survivor, Atiyyah al-Qurazi, who was spared because he was not yet an adult and only adults were killed.^[23] The other women, the children and property were divided among the Muslims, with a horseman receiving 3 times the spoils of a foot soldier. The haul of weapons and plunder was substantial, but Muhammad still sent some of the women and children to be sold in the Najd for more horses and weapons.^[24] Muhammad as was custom received his fifth share of the loot including his pick of the females, a beautiful Jewish woman named Rayhana whose husband was decapitated, and the rest went to all the rest of the Muslims.^[25]

Accounts in Hadiths

Hadiths collected by al-Bukhari include many of the elements which feature in the sira literature. This includes a narration that the angels commanded Muhammad to take the war to the Banu Qurayza:

Similiarly, the following narration has the account of Sa'd condemning them to their fate:

Incidentally, another hadith narrates, like in the sira accounts, that after Sa'd was called upon to provide a fair judgement to the Banu Qurayza as a former ally, he succumbed to mortal wounds suffered during the battle of the trench, wishing for death to the infidels:

Bukhari also has this narration on the fate of the Banu Qurayza, carried out in accordance with Sa'd's judgement:

A hadith in Sunan Abi Dawud tells us that signs of puberty determined whether or not a male youth would be spared. This narration from the same survivor is also reported in Ibn Ishaq as mentioned at the end of the Sira section above, though the translation there has the word "adult" instead of "had begun to grow hair":

Tafsir commentary

The famed mufassir Ibn Kathir in his commentary on sura 33 Al-Ahzab الأحزاب  "The Confederates" draws on pertinent details from the narrative, particularly the anti-Jewish elements. Like other commentators, he reads into the Quran's denouncement of the people of the book the perfidious Jews of the tribe of Banu Qurayzah and their betrayal of the prophet:

He refers here to Surah 33:

Ibn Kathir includes the narration that it was the angels themselves who implored Muhammad not to stop fighting. Thus Ibn Kathir emphasises that the fate of the Banu Qurayzah was the work of their own hand, a fate approved of and commanded by heaven itself. This is further underlined when he includes Muhammad's response to Sa'd's judgement upon them from the sira narratives:

Modern apologetic views and perspectives

In the clip above Muslim scholar Yasir Qadhi, well respected for his degrees from the Islamic University of Medina as well as from Yale, makes the argument that Muhammad was dealing with treachery and he had taken the maximum punitive actions against it. Qadhi argues that the prophet was justified in every step and showed as much restraint as necessary, being motivated purely by concerns on statecraft and practicality, not by malice. As he says, it is possible to accuse the prophet of being "harsh" but not of acting with malice towards the Banu Qurayza or the Jews in general, as this would not be "academically valid." Yasir Qadhi states that the punishment was "harsh" and yet it is sometimes necessary to be harsh. Yaqeen institute scholar Abu Amina Elias (Justin Parrott) makes the cases that killing the "fighting men" prisoners of the Banu Qurayzah was an "act of self-defense" on the part of the Muslim community and cites Deuteronomy 20:12-14 to justify the actions of the Muslims. He also claims that the prophet only sent his men with their arms to "defend themselves" and that the women and children of the Banu Qurayzah were taken "into captivity" for their protection since all of their men folk had been slaughtered.^[26] Karen Armstrong, in her book A Short History of Islam, likewise claims  "The struggle did not indicate any hostility towards Jews in general, but only towards the three rebel tribes. The Quran continued to revere Jewish prophets and to urge Muslims to respect the People of the Book."^[27] These arguments echo the motivations of much of the source material above. Ibn Ishaq implies that the Jews of Banu Qurayzah posed a threat to the Muslims via their betrayal and does portray Muhammad as hesitating to decide their fate (even though Abu Lubaba seems to already know of it before Sa'd was appointed to judge them). Ibn Ishaq recounts how "harsh" the punishment was:

Yet critics of these pro-Islam viewpoints have pointed out that Sa'd did not explicitly say he based his verdict on the Torah and the verse cited by modern Muslims from Deuteronomy to justify the extermination of the Banu Qurayzah was not viewed in this way by traditional Christian or especially Jewish scholarship. According to Jewish doctrine, these verses were revealed to Moses before the Israelites entered the Holy Land, specifically instructing them on how to deal with the people living there.^[28] Morever, the claim that there was no apparent animus towards the Jews of Banu Qurayza on the part of Muhammad is contradicted by Ibn Ishaq's account:

In mocking them as apes, Muhammad is here echoing the Qur'an, which claims that (some) Jews were turned into apes for violating the sabbath (Quran 50:60).

Ibn Ishaq also records that Muhammad took one of the Jewish women of the Banu Qurayza, Rayhanah, for himself.^[29] Indeed, according to this account the destruction of this tribe allowed Muhammad to reward his fighters handsomely (and Muhammad himself took a fifth of the booty). Abu Amina Elias's view that the Muslims took such women and children as Rayhana captive simply for their protection is also inconsistent with the reports, as Ibn Ishaq also recounts that some of them were taken to the far-off region of the Najd to be sold for weapons and horses. Yasir Qadhi himself points out that the Banu Qurayzah were offered freedom to live on were they to accept Islam, and according to the sirah only their hard, petulant hearts which rejected Muhammad despite knowing he was a prophet prevented them from allowing themselves to be saved by conversion to Islam. In this way the sirah portrays their Jewish religion as leading to the pitilessness way with which Muhammad dealt with them, which in addition to the apes insult, critics may argue goes against Qadhi's point that the prophet acted without malice or religious animus according to the sources we have. Bukhari also collected a hadith that the prophet commanded his men to abuse the Banu Qurayzah with poetry, which was in ancient Arab times one of the premier ways of promoting enmity with an enemy (Muhammad ordered poets who did this to him to be killed):

Academic views on historicity

The narrative of the Banu Qurayzah is an accepted part of Islamic law, and early Islamic jurists closely studied and analyzed every detail when ruling on the conduct of war, such as how to conduct arbitration and executions.^[30] As such there is no question amongst orthodox Muslims that it happened (Islamic modernist scholars commonly doubt it). Yet the historiography of the subject is not without its own problems.

As mentioned above, at the outline level, most academic scholars accept the tradition that Quran 33:26-27 refers to the Banu Qurayza (with context about a confederate siege on Yathrib in verses 9-25 of the same surah). The details of the sira narratives are generally treated with greater doubt, particularly the number of men executed.

A tribe of that name seems to have existed given that many al-Qurayzi names later appear as Muslim narrators or transmitters of hadiths on other topics (including Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi, Uthman ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi, Tha'laba bin Abi Malik al-Qurazi; there is also a hadith about Rifa'ah Al-Qurazi's wife, and there is the report mentioned above from Atiyya al-Qurazi about the massacre).

Constitution of Medina

Nevertheless, modern academia has cast serious doubts on the scholarship of Islamic scholars working in the 8th century (2nd Islamic century) such as Ibn Ishaq. An enduring puzzle in this context is the Constitution of Medina  صحيفة مدينة also known as the Ummah Document or صحيفة الأمة. As Fred Donner points, this is one of the earliest documents we have from the nascent proto-Islamic movement. This remarkable document, preserved by the Islamic historian Al-Tabari, lays out a compact for the "believers" of Medina, an "ummah" or national community that includes the Jews as "believers" on the same level as the Arab believers. Fred Donner believes this document actually points to an early, occulted history of Islam in which Arab monotheists joined with Jews into one "ummah" under the command of Muhammad. Troublingly for the historical narrative, this document makes mention of many different Jewish tribes, but the main 3 tribes of the sira, the Banu Qurayza, the Banu Qaynuqaa', and the Banu Nadir are conspicuously absent. It is in fact the absence of these tribes which convinces scholars that the document must be very old despite being preserved only in the 9th-century works of Tabari, since a younger document would presumably would have been changed to agree with the established historical narrative. Donner mentions that many early 7th century mosques do not include the qibla facing towards Mecca, and concludes that this story of the massacre of the Banu Qurayzah may have been invented or embellished in order to explain a much later break between the Jewish and Muslim communities.^[31]

Patricia Crone and Michael Cook in their groundbreaking work Hagarism likewise report on an Armenian historian writing in the 7th century known as pseudo-Sebeos. This historian imputes the Arab invasions to a confederation of Jews and Arabs led by Muhammad himself, contradicting the Islamic narrative that Muhammad died before the invasion of Palestine and the Middle East. Pseudo-Sebeos likewise imputes to the Arabs and Jews a shared monotheism and brotherhood through their ancestry to Abraham and his wife Hagar.^[32] If this account is to be believed, there could not have been any great massacre of the Jews by Muhammad as we has working with them when he invaded Palestine. Stephen Shoemaker in his work The Death of a Prophet adds further evidence to thesis of Crone and Cook, marshaling evidence from a wide variety of sources, almost all of which predate the first Islamic sources, that Muhammad himself was actually the leader of the believers when they entered Palestine and he died only after its conquest. In particular he calls attention to a Jewish apocalypse from the 7th century, the Secrets of Rabbi ben Shim'on, which seems to paint Muhammad as the redeemer of the Jews from the oppression of the Romans in the Holy Land. If this is to be believed, and this source predates every Islamic source we have, the massacre of the Banu Qurayzah could not have taken place, since Muhammad, the leader of the invasion of Palestine, was seen as a savior of the Jewish people.^[33] This would seem to indicate that the break between the Muslims and the Jews took place after his death, and would indicate that stories such as the massacre of the Banu Qurayzah were fabricated in order to "back date" the break with the Jews to the prophet's own lifetime.

Academic scholars who have been less skeptical of the tradition such as Michael Lecker tend to posit that the Constitution of Medina was written after the three tribes had lost their places in Medina, or that the separate agreement made by the Banu Qurayza (which they later broke according to the traditional account) is the reason why they are not named in the document. Donner similarly mentions the possiblity that there were separate agreements with the three tribes, or that their names were later removed.

Detailed analyses

W. N. Arafat is known for giving the first academic arguments rejecting the tradition in its entirety beyond the brief statements in surah al-Azhab of the Quran, and his paper remains popular among modernist Muslims today.^[34] It is, however, considered deeply flawed academically, due to the response from Meir J. Kister which pointed out numerous inaccuracies and false assumptions.^[5]

One of Arafat's better points, and which Kister only attempts to refute with post-Quranic evidence, is that the massacre would go against Quranic principles found in other verses, particularly Quran 47:4 (ransom or release prisoners) and Quran 35:18 (no soul will bear another's burdens).^[35] Similar Quranic or hadith arguments of principle remain popular today among modernist Muslims who reject the tradition. This assumes that principles of war were consistently applied throughout Muhammad's career and ignores the collective condemnation the Quran throws at the Jews for their past sins.

Another of Arafat's arguments is that within the Islamic tradition, Ibn Ishaq was frequently criticized for giving too much weight to Jewish stories and being biased in general in his retellings of certain events. Malik ibn Anas accusses Ibn Ishaq of being a "liar" for listening to "Jewish stories". Kister in turn observes that this reflects a later attitude of suspicion towards such sources. He also points out that the tradition about Banu Qurayza is widely reported in other early sira compilations besides Ibn Ishaq, in early tafsirs, and later in fiqh and hadith collections. He also shows that Arafat failed to present the background of the (mutual) emnity between Malik and Ibn Ishaq.^[36] Professor Sean Anthony in some comments recommending Kister's response to Arafat, further points out that Malik extolled the maghazi book of Musa b. Uqba, who includes the Banu Qurayza tradition as detailed above. He also shows that Arafat falsely claimed that Ibn Hajjar rejected the tradition.^[37]

Countering some of Arafat's other claims, Kister provides many examples of jurists drawing rulings from detailed analyses of the Banu Qurayza precedent. He also points out that the treatment of the Banu Qurayza was not entirely exceptional in the tradition. Sons of Abu al Huqayq (who had become leader of the Banu Nadir in Khaybar) were tortured and killed and their women and property taken when they broke an agreement (in this case, a surrender agreement which included a requirement to disclose any hidden treasure).^[38]

Perhaps less convincingly, Kister also counters Arafat's point (which is commonly made) about the "house" where the captives were taken being too small for hundreds of prisoners. The word here in Arabic is "dar" which Kister points out often means not just a house but a compound building, which could be of considerable size including stores, workshops and even markets.^[39] In any case, as mentioned above, the number of men (or 'muqatil', fighting-men in some versions) killed in the execution vary widely in the sources^[40] and are not generally considered reliable.

In his 2025 academic book, Muhammad's military expeditions, Ayman Ibrahim argues that the story elements serve to vilify the Jews and legitimise various practices of interest to medieval Muslims, noting that it is instigated as the will of Allah through Jibreel's command to march on the Banu Qurayza. He also notes the many contradictory details in the varying accounts of the incident. These variations in the accounts include whether or not the Banu Qurayza assisted the Muslims in their battle preparations, the length of the siege against them, and reports in which the Jews acknowledge the truth of Muhammad's insult that their sinful ancestors were turned into apes, or one of their number telling the rest that is now clear Muhammad is a prophet mentioned in their scriptures. In some reports it is Muhammad rather than the Jews who chose Sa'd to judge them, and in some reports Muhammad commands 'Ali and al-Zubayr to do the beheading. In Ibrahim's view, the entire tradition suffers from disunity and competing claims and it is impossible to reconstruct what actually occurred. Rather, he says these reports are authored for sectarian, religious and political goals.^[41]

See Also

• List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad

External Links

• What really happened to the Banu Qurayza - Collection of articles from Answering Islam

• Rebuttal to Answering Islam's Article "The Bani Quraytha Jews: Traitors or Betrayed? - Muslim Rebuttal to Answering Islam's Article "The Bani Quraytha Jews: Traitors or Betrayed?"

• The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-Examination of a Tradition (archive) - M. J. Kister, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 61-96

References