The Jews
27. The Jews broke treaties.
Mohammad, on his first arrival at Medina, made a treaty of alliance with the Jews, by which the free exercise of their religion and the possession of their rights and property were guaranteed. It was stipulated in the treaty that either party, if attacked, should come to the assistance of the other. Medina should be sacred and inviolable for all who joined the treaty. But the Jews broke their treaty and rebelled. They assisted the enemy during the siege of Medina, and committed treason against the city.
28. Bani Kainúkaá, Bani Nazeer, Koreiza, Khyber, and Ghatafán.
The Bani Kainúkaá were the first among the Jews who broke the treaty and fought against Mohammad between the battles of Badr and Ohad.181
The Bani Nazeer broke their compact with Mohammad after his defeat at Ohad. They had also made a conspiracy to kill Mohammad. They were banished; some of them went over to Khyber. The Jewish tribe of Koreiza had defected from their allegiance to Mohammad, and entered into negotiations with the enemy, when Medina was besieged by the Koreish and Bedouin tribes at the battle of the Ditch. They were afterwards besieged by Mohammad. They surrendered at the discretion of Sád, who passed a bloody judgment against them. The Jews of Khyber (including those of Nazeer) and Bani Ghatafán, who had lately besieged Medina with the Koreish in the battle of the Ditch, made alliance against Mohammad,182 and were making preparations for an attack on him. They had been inciting the Bani Fezára and other Bedouin tribes in their depredations, and had combined with Bani Sád-Ibn Bakr to attack upon Medina. They were subjected at Khyber, and made tributaries, paying jizya in return of the protection guaranteed to them.
29. Notices of them in the Koran.
The treachery of the Bani Kainúkaá, Nazeer and Koreiza, and Khyber is noticed in the Koran in the following verses:—
58. “They with whom thou hadst leagued, but who ever afterwards break their league, and fear not God!”
59. “And if thou capture them in battle, then (by the example of their fate) put to flight those who are behind them—they will perhaps be warned:”—
60. “Or, if thou fear treachery from any people, throw back their treaty to them in like manner: verily, God loveth not the treacherous.”
61. “And think not that the infidels shall get the better of Us! Verily, they shall not find God to be weak.”
62. “Make ready then against them what force ye can, and squadrons of horse whereby ye may strike terror into the enemy of God and your enemy, and into others beside them whom ye know not, but whom God knoweth; And all that you expend for the cause of God shall be repaid you; and ye shall not be wronged.”
63. “But if they lean to peace, lean thou also to it; and put thy trust in God: He verily is the Hearing, the Knowing.”
64. “But if they seek to betray thee, then verily God will be all-sufficient for thee. He it is who strengthened thee with his help and with the faithful and made their heart one. Hadst thou spent all the riches of the earth, thou wouldst not have united their hearts; but God hath united them: He verily is Mighty, Wise.”
65. “O Prophet! God and such of the faithful as follow thee will be all-sufficient for thee!”
66. “O Prophet! stir up the faithful to the fight....”—Sura, viii.
26. “And He caused those of the people of the Book (the Jews) who had aided the confederates, to come down out of their fortresses, and cast dismay into their hearts: a part ye slew, a part ye took prisoners.”—Sura, xxxiii.
29. “Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given,183 as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and his apostles have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the Truth, until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled.”
124. “Believers! wage war against such of the unbelievers as are your neighbours, and let them assuredly find rigour in you: and know that God is with those who fear Him.”—Sura, ix.
30. The judgment of Sâd.
The Bani Koreiza had surrendered themselves to the judgment of Sâd, an Awsite of their allies, Bani Aws. To this Mohammad agreed. Sâd decreed that the male captives should be slaughtered. Mohammad, disapproving the judgment, remarked to Sâd: “Thou hast decided like the decision of a king,” meaning thereby a despotic monarch. The best authentic tradition in Bokhari (Kitáb-ul-Jihád) has the word ‘Malik,’ monarch; but in other three places of Bokhari, Kitabul Monakib, Maghazi, and Istizan, the narrator has a doubt whether the word was Allah or Malik. Moslim, in his collection, has also ‘Malik,’ and in one place the sentence is not given at all. It was only to eulogize the memory of Sâd after his death, that some of the narrators of the story gave out that Mohammad had said that Sâd had decided like the decision of a Malak, angel; or some narrators interpreted the word Malik, king, as meaning God; and therefore put the word Allah in their traditions. Mohammad never said Malak, meaning angel, or Malik, allegorically meaning Allah; he simply said Malik, literally meaning a king or monarch.
31. Defensive character of the expedition against the Jews of Khyber.
The expedition against the Jews of Khyber was purely defensive in its character. They had, since the Jews of the tribe of Nazeer and Koreiza being banished from Medina in consequence of their treason against the Moslem commonwealth, had joined them, been guilty of inciting the surrounding tribes to attack upon Medina, and had made alliance with the Bani Ghatafán, who had taken a prominent part among the confederates who had besieged Medina at the battle of the Ditch, to make a combined attack upon Medina. They, especially Abul Hukeik, the chief of Bani Nazeer, had excited the Bani Fezára and other Beduoin tribes to commit incursions on Medina. They had made a combination with the Bani Sád-Ibn Bakr to make inroads on the Moslims. Bani Sád, a branch of Hawazin, were among the confederates who had besieged Medina. Lately, Oseir Ibn Zárim, the chief of Nazeer at Khyber, maintained the same relations with Bani Ghatafán, as their former chief had, to make a combined attack on Medina. The Bani Ghatafán, with their branches of Bani Fezára and Bani Murra, in league with those of Khyber, were always plotting mischief in the vicinity of Fadak at Khyber. They (the Ghatafán) had continued for a long time to alarm Medina with threatened attacks. At the seventh year of the Hegira timely information was received by Mohammad of the combined preparation of Khyber and Ghatafán. He rapidly set forth in his defence, and marched to Khyber at once. He took up a position at Rají, between Khyber and Ghatafán, to cut off their mutual assistance. So it was not a sudden and unprovoked invasion, as Sir W. Muir calls it. He writes: “Mahomet probably waited for some act of aggression on the part of the Jews of Kheibar (it was the fertile lands and villages of that tribe which he had destined for his followers), or on the part of their allies, the Bani Ghatafán, to furnish the excuse for an attack. But no such opportunity offering, he resolved, in the autumn of this year, on a sudden and unprovoked invasion of their territory.”184 It will appear from what I have stated above, that the invasion of Khyber was purely defensive in its character.