Muhammad°
MUHAMMAD°
MUHAMMAD ° (Muhammad ibn ?Abdall?h ibn ?Abd al-Muttalib ibn H?shim ibn ?Abd Man?f ibn Qu?ayy ; c. 570–632), founder and prophet of *Islam. Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570 c.e. In his twenties he married Khad?ja, in whose service he was trading; she was a few years older and bore him several children. According to the traditional account, he received his first revelation at the age of 40, following which he preached his religion with little success in his hometown Mecca for about a decade. The turning point was Muhammad's conclusion of an agreement with Arabs from *Medina who adopted the new religion and provided him with a new basis for continuing his mission. The hijra that followed the agreement marks the beginning of Muhammad's Medinan period, namely the decade that made Islam a world power. It is mainly with regard to the Medinan period that a student of Muhammad's biography finds himself on relatively firm ground.
The scholarly struggle with central issues of Muhammad's biography has not yet gone far beyond the starting point, because the accounts about specific events in Muhammad's life, their chronology, and their sequence are often incoherent or contradictory. In addition, they reveal legal and exegetical biases beside political and tribal ones. The famous biography of Muhammad by Ibn Hish?m and several other early mainstream compilations were the mainstay of Western scholarship regarding the life of Muhammad. But in recent decades an increasingly critical attitude to these sources has been adopted by several scholars, which for the time being rules out the writing of a narrative biography along the lines of the medieval ones. The creators of the accounts that make up the medieval biographies were not unsophisticated and often had agendas of their own, beside their wish to tell the story of the Arabian Prophet. Students of these accounts cannot afford to be gullible or unsophisticated. Moreover, one has to bear in mind that many of the medieval scholars, on whom we sometimes pass judgment as if they were fellow historians, did not consider themselves as such, or in any case they were not historians in the modern sense of the term. The liberty with which these compilers treated the received texts, for example in creating "combined reports" by putting together fragments from the texts of their predecessors, is most revealing with regard to their concept of history. Besides, their compilations were products of their own time. Their foundations had been laid well before they came into being, and in the cultural context of early Islam that was marked by extreme conservatism, the compilers had little room for self-expression and creativity.
The sheer amount of evidence found in Muhammad's biography is misleading; for example, one looks in vain for the name of a fortress in which a certain tribe was besieged. To some extent the lack of concrete evidence in the biography can be remedied by resorting to other sources, since accounts about Muhammad's life are found everywhere in the vast Islamic literature. Even relatively late sources sometimes contain valuable evidence, because compilers who lived several centuries ago still included in their compilations extracts from much older works which have meanwhile been lost. In sum, one has to throw one's net beyond Muhammad's medieval biographies and employ relatively late sources, too.
Paradoxically, as more and more texts on the Prophet's life are being made available electronically or through the publication of texts hitherto unknown to science, Western scholars seem to be less and less interested in finding concrete evidence in this huge repository of source material. Such evidence does exist, mainly in the form of background information regarding the society of Arabia at the time of Muhammad. The thousands of persons mentioned in the sources, their families and property, in addition to the geographical and topographical data, provide a firm starting point for the study of events in Muhammad's life, their chronology, and their sequence. Between the naiveté of certain past scholars who were unaware of the complexity of Islamic accounts, and the total rejection of these accounts as historical sources, there are several interim positions. A rigorous scrutiny of the sources does point out problematic areas in the evidence, but enough playing cards remain in our hands to facilitate step-by-step progress in the study of Muhammad's life.
Many Jews are mentioned in the chapters of Muhammad's Medinan period. The amount of evidence about their relations with Muhammad is enormous and some of it goes back to Jewish converts or their descendants. It makes up a sizeable "Jewish chapter" in every medieval biography of Muhammad. Only a small number of Jews are treated positively in the biography and elsewhere in the Islamic literature. They include several Jews who adopted Islam and several others who helped Muhammad in one way or another. Other Jews who appear in the sources were hostile to him: this has major implications to this very day, far beyond the spheres of literature and culture.
Muhammad in Mecca
Arabia in general and Mecca in particular were not isolated from the rest of the world, mainly because of the rivalry between Byzantium and the Sassanian Empire. Being a significant Arabian cultic and trade center, Mecca and its vicinity must have attracted international traders of all religions. But because of lack of interest on the part of Muslim informants, and perhaps due to self-censorship and an apologetic attitude, concrete details about indigenous Meccans who abandoned idol worship and adhered to other religions, or about foreigners living in Mecca, is scarce; after all, Muhammad was accused by his Meccan adversaries of having had a human teacher rather than a heavenly one. There is evidence about a Jewish trader in Mecca who announced Muhammad's birth, lamenting the fact that prophecy had forsaken the Children of Israel. This may well have been a legendary person created in the context of the literary genre known as "the proofs of Muhammad's prophecy." But he represents the Jewish trader in Mecca and elsewhere in Arabia that must have been a well-known figure. A relatively more convincing account concerns a Jew from Najr?n by the name of Udhayna who was a protégé of Muhammad's grandfather ?Abd al-Muttalib and was trading on the latter's behalf in the markets of Tih?ma or the Arabian coast. When the Jew was murdered, ?Abd al-Muttalib saw to it that blood money be given to the Jew's cousin. Off the beaten track one also finds relatively reliable data of Jewish women who before Islam married prominent members of Muhammad's tribe, Quraysh. For example, two elder brothers of Muhammad's grandfather are said to have had a Jewish mother.
Since Muhammad himself was a trader, there can be no doubt that he had had some contacts with Jews before becoming a prophet. Also his family's links with Medina, which had a large and dominant Jewish population, point in the same direction. His great-grandfather H?shim married a Medinan woman, Salm?, of the Arab tribe of Khazraj. Muhammad's grandfather ?Abd al-Mu??alib was born in Medina and stayed there with his mother for several years. Other Qurash?s, too, had close links with Medina in which both trade interests and politics were involved. For example, when Ab? Sufy?n had married Hind, who in due course gave birth to the future caliph Mu??wiya, the bride's father, ?Utba ibn Rab??a, borrowed the jewelry of the Ban? Ab?l-?uqayq, a leading family of the Jewish tribe *Na??r.
Muhammad at Medina
Negotiations between Muhammad and men from Medina of the Khazraj and Aws tribes (mainly of the former, which was stronger than the latter), referred to in Islam as al-An??r or "the helpers," preceded by several months the hijra that brought Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. The crucial agreement was concluded during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca at nearby al-?Aqaba. Reportedly, the Jews of Medina told their Arab neighbors about the imminent appearance of a prophet. This sounds like yet another example of "the proofs of Muhammad's prophecy," but it may reflect historical fact. At the ?Aqaba meeting, twelve of the Medinan Arabs were designated as nuqab?? or tribal representatives, nine of the Khazraj and three of the Aws. Seven out of the twelve nuqab?? shared a common denominator: they were literate. Now since in pre-Islamic Medina literacy was acquired at the Jewish bayt al-midr?s, this means that the literate nuqab??, while they possibly did not convert to Judaism, were educated by the Jews, and hence were prepared to accept Muhammad as the messiah expected by the Jews. This conclusion, arrived at by comparing the list of nuqab?? with that of literate people, has a stronger claim to historicity than a direct statement found in a literary source.
Some have argued that the fate of the Jews of Medina was raised at the ?Aqaba meeting and that Muhammad had a predetermined plan to wipe them out. But this assumption is based on a corrupt text: the word yah?d or "Jews" in the story of the meeting on which this argument was based is wrong and should be replaced by ?uh?d or "treaties" found in better versions of the same text. It is doubtful that Muhammad had such plans; in any case it is somewhat naive to expect to find Muhammad accused of insincerity in an Islamic source otherwise devoted to the protection of his image.
The Jewish Tribes
Several Jewish tribes in Medina are the subjects of separate chapters in Muhammad's biography because they were involved in bloody conflicts with him. In the traditional order of events these are the *Qaynuq??, the Na??r, and the *Quray?a. A fourth tribe, the Tha?laba ibn al-Fi?yawn, may have been ona similar level of significance, but it was expelled by Muhammad in 3/625 "without a fight," and hence only scanty details were preserved about it. The major Jewish tribes of Medina were the owners of weapons and fortresses par excellence. However, concerning the status of the Jews, modern students of Muhammad's life have been misled by a corrupt passage in W?qid?'s "Book of Battles" (Kit?b al-magh?z?) regarding the divisions in the population of Medina when Muhammad arrived there. The passage is from the introduction of the account about the assassination of Na??r's leader *Ka?b ibn al-Ashraf. In its correct form, the passage reads as follows: "Ibn al-Ashraf was a poet. He would satirize the Prophet and his Companions and instigate against them in his poetry the infidels of Quraysh. When the Messenger of God came to Medina, its population was a mixture; among them there were the Muslims who were united by the call of Islam; the 'associators' who worshipped idols; and the Jews who were the owners of weapons and fortresses and allies of the two clans, the Aws and the Khazraj."
It can be shown that the Jewish tribes, Na??r and Quray?a, in addition to several Arab clans of the Aws, owned castles or special fortifications. Unlike the common tower-houses called in Arabic u?um, pl. ???m that were found everywhere in the Medina area, these castles were military buildings only used at times of war. In addition, the main Jewish tribes had huge arsenals of weapons of different kinds that are listed in the reports on the spoils taken from them. The above report also refers to alliances between the Jews and the Arab tribes of Medina. The Jewish tribes were part of the general system of alliances that was supposed to preserve a balance of power in Medina. In this system the Qaynuq?? and Na??r were allied with the Khazraj, while the Quray?a were allied with the Aws. In the Battle of Bu??th several years before the hijra, the system was temporarily disturbed, when the Na??r fought against their former allies, the Khazraj, alongside the Quray?a and the Aws. But after the battle there was a reconciliation between the Na??r and the Khazraj following attempts by the Khazraj leader ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy, who had not been involved in the Battle of Bu??th. He was the most prominent leader among the Khazraj, and probably in Medina at large, and was supported by the Jewish allies of the Khazraj, namely the Qaynuq?? and the Na??r.
The small group of muh?jir?n including Qurash?s and clients who arrived at Medina, followed by Muhammad himself, did not cause an immediate upheaval in Medinan politics. Reconciliation between the Khazraj and the Aws was under way, although several wounds and blood with claims were still open. The tribal system was generally stable, with the exception of the occasional clan which had a dispute with its brother clans. Muhammad did not pose as a political reformer intent on destroying the existing equilibrium. It is true that his monotheistic message had immediate political implications, because the Arab tribal leadership of Medina was closely associated with idol worship. But as far as the Jewish tribes were concerned, there was nothing alarming about that: they could only rejoice at the sight of idols being destroyed.
The initial good intentions of Muhammad and the Jewish tribes vis-à-vis each other were expressed, not long after the hijra, by separate non-belligerency agreements with the three ?ain tribes, Qaynuq??, Na??r, and Quray?a. Besides having a time limit, these agreements basically included an assurance that the parties would not attack each other. Simply, the relationship between the newcomers and the native Jewish population had to be regulated by agreements so that trade and ??riculture could continue without interruption.
Muhammad directed his attention to his community of disciples that included an increasing number of members from the Khazraj and Aws tribes. One of his first political actions, dating back to the very first period after the hijra, was the conclusion of the agreement known in Orientalist jargon by the misnomer, "The Constitution of Medina." The three main Jewish tribes were not a party to the agreement, which was far more binding than the basic non-belligerency agreements which they had concluded with Muhammad. The so-called "Constitution" was closely linked to Muhammad's creation of a territorial basis in the town of Zuhra in Lower Medina (the S?fila): the only Jewish tribe that is listed in the agreement, the Tha?laba ibn al-Fi?yawn, lived in Zuhra and hence was Muhammad's neighbor; as has been mentioned, the Tha?laba were expelled in 3/625. This precious document created a community defined by religion, while preserving the existing tribal system. Despite its religious framework, it had far-reaching political implications, since it separated the members of Muhammad's new community from their fellow tribesmen with regard to several key legal aspects. Thus it laid the foundations for Muhammad's victory over the Jews that was achieved despite his initial military inferiority. Muhammad introduced into the political system of Medina a new source of authority which destroyed it from within, namely Allah and His Messenger.
The first period after the hijra was marked by a stable relationship between Muhammad and the Jews that was possibly not free of polemics and friction. Muhammad sincerely expected the Jews to embrace Islam, but they were only prepared to recognize him as Allah's messenger to the Arabs. The small number of Jewish converts was for Muhammad a constant source of frustration; even declaring *Jerusalem as the Muslim qibla or direction of prayer did not help to attract the Jews to Muhammad's call. As long as Muhammad's relations with the main Jewish tribes were good, there was nothing menacing about the "Constitution" from their viewpoint. Problems began when conflicts of loyalties occurred among the Arab allies of the Jews. With the prominent exception of ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy, Islamic literature usually preserved the stories of former Arab allies who proved by their actions that they were no longer attached to the Jews. Hostilities broke out after Muhammad's major victory at Badr (2/624) at about the same time Jerusalem was replaced by Mecca as the Muslim direction of prayer. The first Jewish tribe to enter into a conflict with Muhammad was the Qaynuq??. Muhammad's biography offers a variety of causes for this conflict, a phenomenon we meet time and again with regard to other Jewish tribes and to the assassination of the Na??r leader Ka?b ibn al-Ashraf. Regarding the Qaynuq??, the pride of place in the sources – and sometimes in scholarly writings as well – is given to the alleged events that followed the humiliation of an Arab woman by a Jewish goldsmith at the market of the Qaynuq??. But this story is a suspicious casus belli, since a similar one exists regarding one of the pre-Islamic "Battles of the Arabs" (ayy?m al-?arab). In fact, we have here a wandering literary motive unworthy of serious consideration.
Self-imposed censorship is not uncommon in Islamic literature, and Muhammad's biography is no exception. Therefore, straightforward answers to simple questions are in short supply. Even when this would have been appropriate, we are unlikely to come across a statement that "Muhammad attacked such-and-such an enemy, taking advantage of a propitious moment"; unrealistically, the Prophet is not supposed to have been driven by political or military considerations. But Muhammad's brilliant achievement during the last decade of his life is proof enough that he knew how to choose a propitious moment in the interest of his new religion. To understand why the Qaynuq?? were the first Jewish tribe to find itself in conflict with Muhammad one has to consider two realities that can easily go unnoticed in the general tumult of the evidence. The Qaynuq?? lived in Lower Medina, not far from Muhammad's territorial basis – admittedly, this is also true of the Na??r, who lived in the nearby town of Zuhra; both Jewish tribes were allied with the Khazraj. More significantly, the Qaynuq?? lost most of their Arab allies. The Qaynuq?? were allied with the Khazraj, who were generally far more supportive of Muhammad than the Aws. However, their alliance was not with the Khazraj as a whole, but with a specific group within the Khazraj, namely the ?Awf ibn al-Khazraj. The ?Awf were divided into two subsections, the ?ubl? led by ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy and the Qaw?qila led by ?Ub?da ibn al-??mit. The two leaders held equal shares of the alliance. Against the background of the conflict between Muhammad and the Qaynuq?? ?Ub?da repudiated his alliance with the Qaynuq??. In practice this meant the collapse of their alliance with the ?Awf ibn al-Khazraj, because it was inconceivable that one section of the ?Awf, the ?ubl?, would fight against another section, the Qaw?qila, in order to protect the Qaynuq??.
This crucial account on the alliance – a rarity in Muhammad's biography that is otherwise poor in factual evidence – provides a matter-of-fact behind-the-scenes insight ?nto the conflict with the Qaynuq??. We owe it to ?Ub?da ibnal-S?mit's offspring. They were naturally proud of ?Ub?da's repudiation of his alliance with the Qaynuq??, which is emphasized against ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy's refusal "to move with the times." According to Arab values, the abandonment of one's allies was not a praiseworthy act; but there was a temporary abandonment of these values in the context of Muhammad's conflict with the Jews. The reversal of values is reflected by the expression "the hearts have changed" which is used as an excuse at least twice in connection with the alliances between the Jewish and Arab tribes of Medina. It is doubtful whether the dialogues which include this expression really took place; but obviously Islamic literature chose to refer in this manner to the changing circumstances when the former Arab allies of the Jews had to choose between their Jewish allies and Muhammad. By declaring their loyalty to Muhammad, they expunged the blemish of their former alliances.
The repudiation of former alliances with the Jews repeats itself in connection with the other main Jewish tribes. The assassination of the Na??r leader Ka?b ibn al-Ashraf, the son of an Arab tribesman and an aristocratic woman of the Na??r, which was probably an introduction to the tribe's siege and expulsion, was carried out by his foster-brother, among others. The vivid account of how Ka?b was lured out of his fortress and the precise details of his assassination belong to the "change of heart" theme.
As usual, one finds several alternative causes for the conflict with the Na??r where one good cause would have sufficed. Again a significant reality could easily have been overlooked. Some reports about the conflict with the Na??r have it that Muhammad ordered his men to attack the Na??r who were lamenting the death of their chief, Ka?b ibn al-Ashraf, in their town of Zuhra. This suggests that the attack on the Na??r was a surprise one. As has already been mentioned, in addition to the common tower-houses which were also used for residence, the Na??r had a castle only used at times of war. But when Muhammad attacked them, they were in their town, not in their castle. Indeed accounts of their war with Muhammad speak of house-to-house fighting. The compilers of Muhammad's biography felt an understandable aversion to describing the attack on the Na??r as a surprise attack; the attachment of a proper casus belli to every act of war was for them a matter of high priority. The expelled Na??r probably went to places with which they had had former trading links: Edrei, Jericho, al-??ra, and Khaybar. Two leading families of the Na??r, the Ban? Ab?l-Huqayq and the family of ?uyayy ibn Akh?ab, went to Khaybar.
Like the other main Jewish tribes, the Quray?a concluded a non-belligerency agreement with Muhammad not long after his arrival at Medina. Agreements of this kind had a time limit. In any case, some sources mention a later agreement that neutralized the Quray?a and gave Muhammad a free hand to deal with the Na??r. It is reported that Muhammad laid siege to the Na??r, announcing that they would only be safe if they conclude an agreement (i.e. of non-belligerency) with him. They refused and he fought them for one day. In the following day he laid siege to the Quray?a, demanding that they conclude with him an agreement along the same lines. They consented and he returned to the Na??r and fought them until they surrendered and went into exile. This valuable fragment seems to have been marginalized in Islamic literature. Again, we realize that scholarly biographies of Muhammad which are solely based on his mainstream biographies lack crucial evidence.
The war against the Quray?a took place after the Battle of the Ditch (Khandaq) during which Medina was besieged by a coalition including Muhammad's own tribe, Quraysh, and several nomadic tribes. Unlike the war against the Na??r, in this case one may speak of a real siege: the Quray?a were probably in their castle in a state of alert ever since the Battle of the Ditch had started. The siege of the Quray?a was rather eventless, perhaps due to negotiations which were taking place between Muhammad and the leaders of the besieged tribe. The besiegers had only two casualties: a man who died of natural causes and another who was killed by a millstone thrown from the castle by a woman who was later executed.
The Quray?a are said to have violated their non-belligerency agreement with Muhammad, although evidence about hostile military actions on their part is meager. Reportedly, it was the angel Gabriel who told Muhammad after the Battle of the Ditch that the war was not over yet and that he had to march on the Quray?a. Obviously, the informant who brought Gabriel into the story did not give much thought to the question of casus belli. Typically, when the Quray?a surrendered without conditions, Muhammad yielded the power to decide their fate to a former ally of theirs from the Aws, who ordered that their fighting men (i.e. all those who had reached puberty) be killed and their wives and children be sold into slavery. Several accounts make it clear that while this person, Sa?d ibn Mu??dh, had undergone a full "change of heart," other members of the Aws were embittered by the fact that the Qaynuq??, who had been allied with the Khazraj, had been allowed to leave Medina unharmed through the intercession of ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy, while their own allies were going to be slain. In itself, the execution of a whole tribe was not a new idea: after all, Muhammad had intended to execute the Qaynuq??. The Quray?a could not rely on meaningful support from their allies, the Aws, for the simple reason that at the time of their execution most of the Aws were not yet Muslims. ?Abdall?h ibn Ubayy, even after having lost some of his power among the Khazraj following Muhammad's arrival at Medina, commanded enough authority among the Khazraj to exert real pressure on Muhammad and spare the lives of the Qaynuq??. It can be said that the execution of the Quray?a is yet another attestation of the collapse of the system of alliances that had safeguarded the security of the Jewish tribes.
The last major episode in Muhammad's conflict with the Jews of Arabia was the conquest of Khaybar. Here too we come across a little known chapter in Muhammad's diplomatic history, one that is completely absent from his biographies, probably due to self-imposed censorship. The expedition of Khaybar (7/628) was immediately preceded by that of ?udaybiyya (6/628) in which Muhammad led an enormous army to the fringes of the sacred area of Mecca. There he negotiated the terms of a non-belligerency treaty with his tribe, Quraysh. Muhammad's medieval biographies include lengthy accounts about the negotiations at ?udaybiyya, making no secret of the fact that Muhammad consented to far-reaching concessions to the Qurash? pagans. But there is no convincing explanation of why he was prepared to yield to such an extent. It is an 11th century doctor of law who has the answer. It is found in a discussion of whether it is legitimate for Muslims to accept humiliating demands if these are dictated by necessity. The casein question concerns the demands made by the inhabitants of a town which a Muslim troop needs to cross:
Indeed the Messenger of God undertook in the non-belligerency agreement on the day of ?udaybiyya, commitments which were graver than this, since the people of Mecca imposed on him to undertake to return to them any of those who would come to him as a Muslim. He had fulfilled this undertaking until it was abrogated, because there was in it a benefit for the Muslims, owing to the conspiracy between the people of Mecca and the people of Khaybar. It prescribed that if the Messenger of God marched on one of the two parties, the other party would attack Medina. He concluded a non-belligerency agreement with the people of Mecca to secure his flank when he would march on Khaybar.
The Mecca-Khaybar "conspiracy" was adapted to the realities on the ground, since Medina is located between Khaybar in the north and Mecca in the south. Muhammad's rivals, the Jews of Khaybar and the Quraysh of Mecca, agreed that rather than coming to each other's rescue upon being attacked by Muhammad, the party that was not targeted would attack Muhammad's base in Medina. The sweet fruit of the ?udaybiyya non-belligerency agreement was the abolishment of the Mecca-Khaybar axis. The pagan Meccans gave Muhammad a free hand in Khaybar, the last major Jewish stronghold in northern Arabia. Khaybar was conquered shortly afterwards. The Jews of Khaybar and those of Fadak, Taym?? and W?d?l-Qur? were allowed to continue cultivating their lands in return for a certain share of the annual harvest.
Muhammad's phenomenal success in his war against the Jewish tribes of Medina gave him control over it. The accounts of the tragic events of this first encounter between Islam and Judaism remain with us. Regardless of their historicity, they became basic building blocks of Islamic culture and a source of edification, inspiration and entertainment for millions of Muslims.
bibliography:
M. Gil, Be-Malkhut Yisma?el (1997), 1, 3–46;H.Z. Hirschberg, Yisra?el be-Arav (1946); J. Horovitz, The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and their Authors (2002); M.J. Kister, "The Massacre of the Ban? Quray?a: A Re-Examination of a Tradition," in: Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 8 (1986), 61–96; idem, "The S?rah Literature," in A.F.L. Beeston et al. (eds.), Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period (1983), 352–67; M. Lecker, Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia (1998); H. Motzki (ed.), The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (2000); U. Rubin, "Muhammad," in: Encyclopaedia of the Qur??n, 3, 440–58; M. Schoeller, Exegetisches Denken und Prophetenbiographie (1998); idem, "S?ra and Tafs?r Muhammad al-Kalb? and the Jews of Medina," in: H. Motzki (ed.), The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (2000), 18–48; R. Sellheim, "Prophet, Chaliph und Geschichte: Die Muhammad-Biographie des Ibn Is??q," in: Oriens, 18–19 (1965), 91–336; W.M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (1956).
[Michael Lecker (2nd ed.)]