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There are many written accounts of Muhammad having had contact with many Jew s from tribes living in and around Medina . Muhammad had fought many battles with Jewish tribes such as the Banu Nadir and took concubines from them, including Safiyya Bint Huyayy who became his wife and Rayhana Bint Zayd who is said to have poisoned him. MUHAMMAD AND THE JEWISH TRIBES OF MEDINA In the course of Muhammad's proselytizing in Mecca , he viewed Christians and Jews (both of whom he referred to as " People Of The Book ") as natural allies, sharing the core principles of his teachings, and anticipated their acceptance and support. Muslims, like Jews, were at that time praying towards Jerusalem.Esposito, John. 1998. Islam: the Straight Path, extended edition. Oxford university press, p.17 Muhammad was very excited to move to Medina, where the Jewish community there had long worshiped the one God. ''Encyclopedia of Religion'', Second Edition, Lindsay Jones, Muhammad article, ISBN 0-02-865742-X Many Medinans converted to the faith of the Meccan immigrants, but the Jewish tribes did not. Much to Muhammad's disappointment, they rejected his status as a prophet. Their opposition "may well have been for political as well as religious reasons". Gerhard Endress, ''Islam'', Columbia University Press, p.29 According to Watt, "Jews would normally be unwilling to admit that a , Moses , and Jesus ), the Jews were furthermore in the position to make some Muslims doubt about his prophethood; the Jews, according to Watt, could argue that "some passages in the Qur'an contradicted their ancient scriptures". Watt states that many of the Jews had close links with Abd-Allah Ibn Ubayy , "the potential prince of Medina" who "is said that but for the arrival of Muhammad, had not become" The Cambridge History of Islam, p.40 the chief arbitrator of the community. The Jews may have hoped for greater influence if Ubayy had become a ruler.''The Cambridge History of Islam'', pp. 43-44 Watt writes that the Islamic response to these criticisms was: The Qur'an, met these intellectual criticisms by developing the conception of the religion of Abraham. While the knowledge of Abraham came from the Old Testament and material based on that, Abraham could be regarded as the ancestor of the Arabs through Ishmael . It was also an undeniable fact that he was not a Jew or Christian, since the Jews are either to be taken as the followers of Moses or as the descendants of Abraham's grandson, Jacob . At the same time Abraham had stood for the worship of God alone. The Qur'an therefore claimed that it was restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians. Watt states that the charge of altering the scripture may mean no more than giving false interpretations to some passages, though in later Islam it was taken to mean that parts of the is the Son of God, a claim unattested either in Jewish or other extra-Qur'anic sources. (Kate Zebiri, Encyclopedia Of The Qur'an , ''The Qur'an and Polemics'') David Waines opines that the Qur'an is mirroring contemporary popular beliefs many of which probably bordered on heresy. (David Waines, An Introduction to Islam, p. 27) Michael Cook considers the charge of considering Ezra as the Son of God to be petty or obscure. (Michael Cook, Muhammad, p. 34) In the . Muhammad met this feeling by suggesting that the fate of Qurayza should be decided by one of their Muslim allies and thereby avoiding any likelihood of blood-feud. A suggestion to which the Jews agreed. Muhammad appointed Sa'd Ibn Mua'dh , a leading man among Aws, who passed execution sentence against Qurayza. Watt states that there is no need to suppose that Muhammad brought pressure on Sa'd Ibn Mua'dh : Those of the Aws who wanted leniency for Qurayza seems to have been regarded Qurayza unfaithful only to Muhammad and not to Aws; the old Arab tradition required support of an ally, independent of the ally's conduct to other people. But Sa'd did not want to allow tribal allegiance to come before the Islamic allegiance. Watt, Muhammmad: The Prophet and Statesman, pp. 173-174 The Banu Qurayza incident has generated much controversy in the centuries since, and is therefore worth examining more closely here. Watt writes that "during the siege of Medina, Muhammad became anxious about their conduct and sent some of the leading Muslims to talk to them Jewish tribes ; the result was disquieting. Though Qurayza does not appear to have committed any overt hostile actWatt in Encyclopedia of Islam, Banu Qurayza Article and been overtly correct in their behaviour, The Cambridge History of Islam, p.49 they had almost certainly been involved in negotiations with the enemy and would have attacked Muhammad in the rear had there been an opportunity. Watt, ''Muhammad, Prophet and Statesman'', Oxford University Press, p. 171 " Marco Scholler believes the Banu Qurayza were "openly, probably actively," supporting Meccans and their allies.Qurayza article, Encyclopedia Of The Qur'an , vol. 4, p. 334 Nasr writes that it was discovered that Qurayzah had been complicit with the enemy during the Battle. Nasr in Muhammad article, ''Britanica Encyclopedia'' Finally, Welch states that Muslims "discovered, or perhaps became suspected" that the Jews were conspiring with the enemy. Welch, in ''Encyclopedia of Islam'', Muhammad Article " A minority of academic scholars reject the incident holding that Ibn Ishaq, the first biographer of Muhammad, supposedly gathered many details of the incident from descendants of the Qurayza Jews themselves. These descendants allegedly embellished or manufactured details of the incident by borrowing from histories of Jewish persecutions during Roman times. W. N. Arafat, "Did Prophet Muhammad ordered 900 Jews killed?", ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland''(''JRAS''), pp. 100-107, 1976. Watt, however, finds this argument "not entirely convincing."Watt in ''Encyclopedia of Islam'', Banu Qurayza Article REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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