The Massacre of the Banu Qurayzah: Difference between revisions

==Background==

==Narrative from the Sira==

The series of events leading to the destruction of the Banu Qurayzah started during the battle of the trench. Unable to break the defenses of the Medinian Muslims, the Meccans sent an emissary from their Jewish allies, “the enemy of Allah, Huyayy bin Akhtab An-Nadri” <ref>Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq, Alfred Guillaume (translator), The life of Muhammad: a translation of Isḥāq's Sīrat rasūl Allāh Oxford Universite Press 2005, p.453</ref>, to the Banu Qurayzah in an attempt to bring their aide and end the stalemate by attacking Muhammad and the Muslims in the rear of their defenses. According to Ibn Ishaq, initially the leader of the Banu Qurayzah Ka'b bin Asad al-Qurayzi did not even allow Huyayy bin Akhtab to enter the compound, but was goaded into doing so be Huyayy's accusation that bin Ka'b did not want to share his food. Ibn Ishaq does not make it clear how he knows this however he claims that the negotiation came to naught due to the Qurayza’s insistence that the Meccans offer hostages in order to assure they would not leave the field of battle till Muhammad was defeated (though they did in fact end up leaving without defeating Muhammad). According to Ibn Ishaq, the Banu Qurayzah after much "wheedling" agreed only to not aide the Muslims or to obstruct or fight the confederates. Ibn Ishaq offers as evidence of the Banu Qurayza’s perfidy an Isnad chain from Yahya bin ‘Abbaad bin ‘Abdullah bin Az-Zubayr with a story that a Muslim woman, Safiyah bint ‘AbdulMuttalib, who saw a Jewish scout of the Banu Qurayzah reconnoitering a Muslim fort in preparation for an attack. 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<ref>ibid, 458</ref>. Other than this Ibn Ishaq presents no evidence that the Jews of the Banu Qurayzah were in league with the confederates. He does, however, relate that Allah “sowed discord” between the confederates and the Banu Qurayza, which resulted in the Meccans retreating without having defeated Muhammad or engaged in a coordinated attack upon the Muslims with the Banu Qurayzah<ref>ibid, 459</ref>

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 <ref>ibid, 462</ref>. 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 <ref>ibid, 463</ref>.

   

Ibn Ishaq also records that Muhammad took one of the Jewish women of the Banu Qurayza, Rayhanah, for himself.<ref>"The Apostle had chosen one of the women for himself, Rayḥāna d. ʿAmr b. Khunāfa, one of the women of B. ʿAmr b. Qurayẓa, and she remained with him until she died, in his power."<BR />Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq, Alfred Guillaume (translator), The life of Muhammad: a translation of Isḥāq's Sīrat rasūl Allāh Oxford Universite Press 2005, p.466</ref> 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 also cannot be true, 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 of the Lord prevented them from allowing themselves to be saved by conversion to Islam. So clearly, at least in the eyes of the sirah, their Jewish religion did, in fact, have something to do with the pitilessness with which Muhammad dealt with them, going against Qadhi's point that the prophet acted without malice or religious animus according to the sources we have. Bukhari also mentions 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):{{Quote| {{Bukhari|5|59|449}}|Narrated Al-Bara: "On the day of Qurayza’s (besiege), Allah's Apostle said to Hassan bin Thabit, 'Abuse them (with your poems), and Gabriel is with you"}}

==Problems with the Traditional Narrative==

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" <ref>"New Light on the Story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina", W.N Arafat 2001 p. 100-107</ref>.

Modern scholarship has cast much more serious doubts on the scholarship of Islamic scholars working in the 8th century (2nd Islamic century) such as Ibn Ishaq. As Fred Donner points out, one of the earliest documents we have from the nascent proto-Islamic movement is the ''Constitution of Medina''  صحيفة مدينة also known as the Ummah Document or صحيفة الأمة. 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 <ref>Muhammad and the Believers: At the Orgins of Islam, Fred Donner, Harvard University Press 2010, p. 72-73</ref>.

==See Also==