Muhammad and the Jews of Medina: A Review of Literature

The Prophet’s Mosque- Medina, Saudi Arabia

By Samuel M. Taylor

The following collection of literature illustrates varying analyses of the position of the Jews of Medina during the life of the Prophet Muhammad and their relationship to the fledgling Muslim community.  While there is a degree of overlapping corroboration among these sources regarding the expulsion of Medinese Jews in or around the year 5 A.H., there is a strand of scholarship (particularly in the article authored by W.N. Arafat) that vigorously challenges the established tradition of the massacre of the Banu Qurayza—one of the most contentious subjects surrounding the legacy of the Prophet.  The validation or rejection of certain primary sources on the event in question inevitably determines the conclusions at which each author arrives.

This review will begin by treating all four pieces of literature separately, ordered by the year in which they were published.  The second section will expand upon the debate elicited by the last two articles, “New Light on the Story of the Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina” by W.N. Arafat and the response found in M.J. Kister’s “The massacre of the Banu Qurayza: a re-examination of a tradition.”  While the final two pieces represent the most contemporary debate among these four sources, the first two, “The condemnation of the Jews of Banu Qurayza” by W. Montgomery Watt and Muhammad and the Jews of Medina by Arent Jan Wensinck, represent the more ‘traditionist’ accounts of the relationship between the Prophet and the Jews of Medina before Arafat’s challenge in 1976.

Section I: Literature

The Condemnation of the Jews of Qurayza: A Study of the Sources of the Sira

W. Montgomery Watt, Muslim World, 1952

In his defense of the traditionist account of the condemnation of the Banu Qurayza, William Montgomery Watt offers a direct refutation of Leone Caetani’s affixation of blame upon the Prophet for the “slaughter”[1] of the Banu Qurayza in Volume I of Annali dell’ Islam.  Watt’s thesis relies on the commonalities in the sira employed by the ‘traditionists,’ as Caetani calls them[2], which confirm two ‘firmly’ establish facts: (1) the Prophet’s calling of a sayyid from among the Aws tribe, and (2) the Prophet’s final comment regarding the judgment of Sa’d b. Mu’adh.

Watt’s collection and analysis of 11 sira accounts (each with its own isnād) of the fate of the Banu Qurayẓa draws material from Ibn Sa’d, Al-Waqidi, Ibn Hisham and Al-Tabari.[3]   He begins his analysis by seeking out all phrases that were ‘certainly’ or ‘almost certainly’ inventions made after the fact—usually a period of at least six years after the event.  Among these ‘inventions,’ which Watt argues were due to political and theological motives[4], only one challenges the established facts of the traditional account: in the fifth of Ibn Sa’d’s seven sources, rather than calling upon a sayyid from the Aws tribe, the Prophet merely requests counsel from Sa’d b. Mu’adh.[5]

Having covered any and all significant discrepancies in content found in the 11 sira, Watt devotes the majority of the remainder of the article to examining the varying chains of isnad in order to determine the biases in transmitters of the traditions.  He accounts for a lack of complete isnads in the earlier sources (such as Ibn Ishaq and Al-Waqidi) by pointing to intellectual changes in Islamic scholarship during the time of the prominent jurist Al-Shafi (150-204 A.H.)—changes that henceforth required an unbroken chain of transmission.[6]  The identification of this ‘shift’ allows Watt to divide the various transmitters in his sources into three categories: (1) the “informal transmitters” (before 100 A.H.), (2) early or “unscientific” collectors (100-150 A.H.), and (3) the “scientific” scholars (150 A.H. and after).[7]  The problem, however, with identifying the scholars after the year 150 A.H. as completely ‘scientific’ arises when considering the theory of Dr. Joseph Schacht, who asserts that the ‘invention’ of isnads in the second century A.H. played a large role in constructing the legal tradition—for even if certain ‘links’ in the chain of isnad were not explicitly identified, a process of ‘hypothetical reconstruction’ may have occurred, allowing biographical scholars to at least identify the milieu through which a certain sira had passed.[8]

Based on this presumption, Watt makes an additional distinction between the types of milieu by dividing them into either the ‘family/clan’ group or the ‘political’ group.[9]  While Schact expresses skepticism on the validity of isnad that pass through the family or clan group, Watt argues that evidence of later forgeries of isnad which sought to establish authenticity through the utilization of family transmission “seems to presuppose” that genuine traditions used this type of authentication.[10]  Because most of the authorities among the ‘informal transmitters’ of the first century A.H. belong to the clan of Sa’d b. Mua’dh, Watt considers these ‘family’ transmissions to be authentic (although possibly added separately) and, furthermore, proof of the clan’s attempt to include the sayyid comment to make “Muhammad a bulwark for Sa’d” rather than “Sa’d a scapegoat for Muhammad,” as asserted in Caetani’s Annali dell’ Islam.[11]  The latter suggestion, Watt argues, is “completely baseless.”

Muhammad and the Jews of Medina

Arent Jan Wensinck, 1975

Wensinck’s work serves as a challenge to previous methods used to determine the ‘originality’ of Islam, noting that the similar dissection of Christianity into an amalgam of Judaic and Greek thought serves as a poor and one-sided approach and fails to determine “the reciprocal relations and values of the religions.”[12]  A new method, therefore, must be sought in order to accurately examine the origins of Islam.  Wensinck stresses the importance of judging the Prophet and his movement by the religious and moral standards that existed in Arabia at the time, rather than simply characterizing Islam as a continuation of Judaic and Christian thought.  This approach, in his view, helps scholars better understand the Prophet’s influence from and interaction with the Jewish community living in Medina following the Hijra.

Wensinck holds that before migrating to Medina, the Prophet had not come into contact with Jews and that, due to his personality and profound convictions, he did not appear as a prophet of Christians and Jews.[13]  His focus on the development of institutions and customs in the third chapter[14] elicits an identification of two problems of determining their origins: (1) the form of institutions that come from the Prophet himself and (2) the question of how these were influenced by Jewish, Christian or other Arab customs.[15]  Wensinck’s approach to these problems would suggest he was not an outright defender of the ‘traditionist’ view, at least not in the same sense as Watt defended it.  His skepticism of the traditionist sources, which he claims allow scholars to be satisfied with only “approximate conjectures,” warrants his exclusive use of the Qur’an—the only primary source that has been “spared manipulation.”[16]

As for the issue of the Banu Qurayza massacre, Wensinck asserts that a detailed study of the traditionist account would be an “idle enterprise,” because the ‘main facts’ are assumed to be known: a description of the siege, the banishment of the Banu Nadir and Qaynuna, and the “blood-bath” of the Qurayza.[17]  While Wensinck does not go so far as to attribute blame to the Prophet (as Caetani did), he notes that the massacre clearly occurred at a time when the Prophet had little to lose in liquidating the Qurayza, who constituted one of the few remaining threats to the legitimacy of his power in Medina and were perpetually obstinate in converting to Islam.[18]  His utilization of Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Hisham, al-Waqidi and Ibn Sa’d clearly places Wensinck in the traditionist camp, although his accounts of the complete isnad is nowhere near as thorough as those found in Watt’s essay.[19]

Wensinck’s inconsistencies regarding the traditionist approach reveal the fragmentation of scholarship on the larger issue of the relationship between the Prophet and the Jews of Medina.  While he rejects the sira in constructing his ideas about Jewish influence on the development of the early believers’ movement, he relies on the traditions (particularly al-Waqidi’s account) to support his thesis that the sira transmitters invented or added quotes to their reports in order to illustrate a hostile and problematic Jewish community on the eve of the Banu Qurayza massacre.  From Wensinck’s work we can conclude that the exclusive use of either the Qur’an or the sira traditions inhibits effective scholarship on the full scope of relations between Muhammad and the Jews.

New Light on the Story of the Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina

W. N. Arafat, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1976

Walid Najib Arafat’s article constitutes the first legitimate challenge to the established traditions (within this collection of literature) surrounding the fate of the Banu Qurayza in Medina.  While his qualms with the historicity of the sira accounts are valid, his method of argumentation frequently utilizes assumptions that are pseudo-academic, at best.  Arafat’s criticism of the traditionist approach focuses primarily on transmitters listed in the isnad of Ibn Ishaq’s sira—which Arafat characterizes as a “pieced together” set of data that mainly consists of “Muslim descendants of the Jews of Qurayza.”[20]

It is clear that Arafat rejects outright the account found in Ibn Ishaq’s sira while privileging the (extremely limited) account found in the Qur’an.[21]  After completely dismissing the traditionist sources as “neither uninterested nor trustworthy,” he lists twelve reasons to justify his rejectionof the story.[22]  While the first four are based entirely on the Qur’an and ‘Islamic principles,’ the remaining reasons are a mixture of pure conjecture, incorrect assertions regarding the lack of legal precedents, and a litany of reasons to mistrust Jewish sources coupled with evidence from al-Waqidi that some Jews remained in Medina even after the alleged ‘liquidation.’[23]

Much of Arafat’s objection to the traditionist account is based on the ‘unreliability’ of Jewish sources, exposing a clear bias against certain ‘links’ in Ibn Ishaq’s chain of isnad based on the notion that Jewish sources, even if they were descendants of Jewish converts to Islam, inherently spoiled the credibility of the entire transmission.  His boldest conclusion, however, does not appear until the end of the article, when Arafat claims the story of the Banu Qurayza massacre may have simply been ‘lifted’ from the story of the Roman massacre of 960 Jews at Masada in A.D. 73.[24]  This final episode in a long line of dubiously supported claims solidifies Arafat’s clear rejection of the traditional account—effectively likening it to a 1,300-year-old Jewish conspiracy to discredit the Prophet and his companions.

The Massacre of the Banu Qurayza: a re-examination of a tradition

M. J. Kister, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 1986

Meir Kister’s first objective is to establish a third way between dominant strands of ‘Western’ and ‘Muslim’ scholarship regarding Sa’d b. Mua’dh’s final judgement of the Banu Qurayza.  In Kister’s view, both types of scholars agree on the cruelty of Sa’d’s judgement, but ‘Muslim’ scholars tend to justify the massacre on the basis that the Qurayza had committed treason against the Prophet while ‘Western’ scholars consider this episode a ‘blot’ on the reputation of Muhammad.[25]  The ‘third way’ Kister offers is simply an attribution of blame on Huyayy b. Akhtab—who instigated the treasonous activities of the Banu Qurayza.[26]

The article is divided into three sections, the first and second of which deal exclusively with the “odd assumptions” put forth in Arafat’s New Light article published 10 years earlier.[27]  Kister’s rebuttal (discussed in more detail in the following section) includes an accurate summary of Arafat’s arguments with little to no distortion.  The majority of the second section picks apart the premises of Arafat’s 12 reasons for rejecting the traditionist account of the Banu Qurayza massacre, focusing principally on Islamic jurisprudence that directly evidences the events and, furthermore, uses Ibn Ishaq’s account as a basis for several legal decisions.[28]

Section III of Kister’s article deals with the nature of the muwada’a (non-aggression pact) made between the Prophet and Banu Qurayza using evidence from al-Tabari’s Tafsir (Qur’anic commentary), which explicitly mentions the Qurayza as an example of how to deal with treachery and insubordination.[29]  Kister then returns to al-Waqidi to present evidence for his original thesis regarding the culpability of Huyayy b. Akhtab.  However, Kister goes one step further and challenges reports concerning the ‘clandestine’ negotiations between the Quraysh and Banu Qurayza.  However, this challenge seems mostly speculative on the part of Kister, who simply states “the reliability of reports concerning [the negotiations] cannot be established” due to their clandestine nature.[30]

Kister’s final (and arguably most important) argument concerns the question of numbers killed.  Basing his evidence on the traditions, Kister argues that because the officially reported numbers of weapons collected (1500 swords, 1500 shields and 2000 spears) far exceeded the military needs of a ‘fighting force’ of 400 men, the number of ‘fighting men’ killed must have also exceeded 400.[31]  He does, however, provide an alternate theory in which the Qurayza kept excess weapons in storehouses[32] and therefore may have constituted a military threat to the Prophet in Medina.  Still, Kister says, suspicions that the Banu Qurayza collaborated with the Quraysh against Muhammad would “probably not justify” the massacre of the fighting men and subsequent enslavement of Qurayza’s women and children.[33]

Section II: Comparitive Analysis of Arafat’s New Light and Kister’s Re-Examination

Arafat reduces the significance the traditionist account of the Banu Qurayza to that of merely an “odd tale” found among the sira.  Similarly, Kister reduces Arafat’s analysis to a mere collection of “odd assumptions.”[34]  Arafat’s New Light rejects the traditionist account of the Banu Qurayza massacre on three grounds (or, in Kister’s view, three ‘assumptions’): (1) it is not consistent with Qur’anic and Islamic principles, (2) it did not serve as a precedent in later Islamic jurisprudence, and (3) Ibn Ishaq has been denounced by prominent jurists and is therefore an unreliable source.  The arguments and evidence supporting and rejecting these claims will now be examined individually in order to highlight each author’s use and interpretation of the primary sources in question.

In his third reason for rejecting the traditionist account, Arafat states: “To kill such a large number is diametrically opposed to the Islamic sense of justice and to the basic principles laid down in the Qur’an.”[35]  This argument is consistent with Arafat’s insistence on using the only authority “which the historian would accept without hesitation or doubt”—the Qur’an.[36]  Kister does not attack this point with Qur’anic evidence but instead employs the opinion of 14^th-century Muslim jurist Al-Mawardi, who argues that not only was the massacre permissible, but incumbent upon the Prophet because he had likened Sa’d’s judgment to that of God and, therefore, was “not permitted to forgive (in a case of) God’s injunction.”[37]  It seems, then, that Kister is unable to find an explicitly referenced Qur’anic principle that would have justified the massacre and, thus, had to refer to a reference from a 14^th-century jurist—hardly satisfying Arafat’s standards for authority.[38]

On his insistence that “Had this slaughter actually happened, jurists would have adopted it as a precedent,”[39] Arafat has little ground on which to stand.  For this argument, he uses Abu ‘Ubayd b. Sallam’s jurisprudence work in Kitab al-amwal, which reveals a case of sedition perpetrated by a group of ‘People of the Book’ in Lebanon resulting in Al-Awza’i’s decision to spare the entire community from punishment on the basis that “the incident was not the result of the community’s unanimous agreement.”[40]  Here, Kister directly refutes Arafat’s claim with another piece of jurisprudence, found in al-Shafi’s Kitab al-Umm in a passage entitled “Violation of an Agreement.”[41]  The legal precedent used in the passage makes an explicit reference to the judgment of the Banu Qurayza, claiming that since the people did not abandon their leader who broke a truce with the Prophet, he was justified in killing their fighting men and confiscating their property.[42]  Although utilizing a comparison of fiqh sources presumably allows for a fair comparison, the language[43] serves as an additional obstacle in determining the similarities between Al-Awza’i’s and Sa’d’s respective judgments.  Kister, however, holds that al-Shafi’s justification makes obvious the fact that “people who do not revolt against their iniquitous leaders and join the righteous party may be put to death by order of the Imam.”[44]

Lastly, Arafat’s denunciation of Ibn Ishaq must be examined closely, because it allows him to reject the earliest primary source other than the Qur’an.  Arafat claims that Ishaq’s former colleague, Malik b. Anas, denounced Ishaq for his approach to collecting the sira and “called him unequivocally ‘a liar’ and ‘an impostor…who transmits his stories from the Jews.’”[45]  It was his ‘unquestioning acceptance’ of the Banu Qurayza story that earned Ishaq the ire of his contemporaries.  However, using the same source from which Arafat draws Malik’s quote (Ibn Sayyid al-Nas), Kister points out that Malik’s contempt for Ishaq was not due solely (or even primarily) on Ishaq’s use of Jewish converts to Islam in his isnad, but was part of a larger dispute between Ishaq and Malik.[46]  In his refutation of Arafat’s account of the enmity between the two scholars, Kister points out that Malik took offense to Ishaq’s pride in editing (or, rather, being the ‘surgeon’ of) Malik’s maghazi writings and that, because of this, Malik referred to Ishaq as a ‘liar’ and ‘imposter’ on separate occasions that did not coincide with Malik’s criticism of Ishaq’s Jewish sources.[47]  Futhermore, Kister points out that the suspicion of Ibn Ishaq’s sources evolved out of a ‘latter-day’ prejudice against the sons of Jewish converts and that the traditionist accounts still withstand scrutiny regarding the ‘undisputed’ facts of the Banu Qurayza massacre.[48]

Section III: Conclusion

Based on the collection of literature above, one may divide the varying ‘strands’ of scholarship on Muhammad’s relationship with the Jews of Medina into the ‘traditionist’ and ‘tradition-skeptic’ camp.  While Caetani’s first challenge (published in 1905 in Annali dell’ Islam) to the traditionists sought to assign blame directly to the Prophet for the Banu Qurayza massacre, Arafat’s second challenge (published in 1976) sought to question the account of the event altogether.  These debates expose the weaknesses in utilizing only one type of source to determine the historicity of events in Medina in the year 5 A.H., as each body of work is subject to the biases of its authors.  As exhibited in the analysis, decisions in Islamic jurisprudence, sira, and Qur’anic verses can be employed to make diametrically opposed arguments.  It seems, then, that scholars of early Islamic history need to examine more closely the reasoning behind rejection and adoption of certain accounts in order to better understand the evolution of the historical narrative surrounding Muhammad’s relationship with the Medinese Jewish community.

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[1] Leone Caetani, Annali dell’ Islam, vol. I (Milan: Hoepli), 632

[2] Ibid., p. 632.  “The artifice of the traditionists is so transparent that it is hardly necessary to set it in relief.”  This accusation by Caetani was hurled at scholars who have “tried to remove from Muhammad the direct responsibility for the inhuman massacre of about 900 innocent persons.”

[3] W. Montgomery Watt, “The Condemnation of the Jews of Banu Qurayza: A Study of the Sources of the Sira,” in Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 1-12.  Originally published in W. Montgomery Watt, “The Condemnation of the Jews of Banu Qurayza,” Muslim World 42 (1952): 160-71.

[4] Ibid., p. 5

[5] Ibid., p. 3

[6] Ibid., p. 6

[7] Ibid., p. 8

[8] Ibid., p. 7

[9] Ibid., p. 10

[10] Ibid., p. 9

[11] Ibid., p. 11

[12] Arent Jan Wensinck, Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (Berlin: Freiburg, 1975), 1

[13] Ibid., p. 1-2.  Yet, Qur’anic passages revealed in Mecca suggest the Prophet was familiar with the Old Testament.

[14] It should be noted that, in dividing his chapters for the book, Wensinck titles his third section “Jewish influence upon the development of the Islamic cult.”  While the use of the term cult clearly has a negative connotation, it is not inaccurate in describing the status of Muhammad’s movement by the time he entered Yathrib (Medina).

[15] Ibid., p. 72

[16] Ibid., p. 72.  As noted in Watt, the traditions relayed in the sira were subjected to “what sects or parties of later periods have put in [the Prophet’s] mouth.  However, Watt does not consider these influences detrimental to traditionist legitimacy—rather, he points out that because more of the sira were transmitted through families than through political groups, ‘exaggerations’ mainly served to bolster the pride of Sa’d’s clan, with respect to the issue of the Banu Qurayza judgement.

[17] Ibid., p. 104

[18] Ibid., p. 105

[19] Ibid., p. 104.  Here, Wensinck makes a footnote reference to W.N. Arafat’s article “New Light on the Story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina,” pointing out Arafat’s challenge to the traditional description of the execution.  It is important to note that Arafat’s article was not published in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society until 1976, while Wensinck’s book was published in 1975.

[20] W. N. Arafat, “New Light on the Story of the Banu Qurayza,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1976): 101

[21] Ibid., p. 101.  For Arafat, the “only contemporary and entirely authentic” source is the Qur’an, Sura XXXIII, 26: “He caused those of the People of the Book who helped them (i.e. the Quraysh) to come out of their forts. Some you killed, some you took prisoner.”

[22] Ibid., p. 103

[23] Ibid., p. 104-105.  Al-Waqidi explains that “[the Jews] tried to prevent the departure of any Muslim that owed them money” as the Prophet was preparing the attack on Khaybar.  Ibn Kathir “takes the trouble to point out” that the Jews of Khaybar produced a forged document exempting themselves from the poll-tax in the year 300 A.H.

[24] Ibid., p. 106.  Arafat notes that although the author of the account of the Masada massacre, Flavius Josephus, was known for his disapproval of Jewish uprisings against the Romans, he was “still a Jew at heart.”

[25] M. J. Kister, “The massacre of the Banu Qurayza: a re-examination of a tradition,”

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 63-64

[26] Ibid., p. 63

[27] Ibid., p. 64

[28] Ibid., p. 67-70.  Among the Muslim jurists referenced are al-Shafi and Ibn Hazm.  The dispute over Malik b. Anas’s criticism of Ibn Ishaq will be examined in Section II.

[29] Ibid., p. 81

[30] Ibid., p. 86

[31] Ibid., p. 94

[32] Ibid., p. 94.  Kister here cites Abd al-Razzaq’s reference to a letter in which the Quraysh addressed the Banu Qurayza Jews as “ahl l-halqa,” meaning “the people of the weapons.”

[33] Ibid., p. 94-95

[34] Kister, p. 64

[35] Arafat, p. 103.  The reference here is to Sura XXXV, 18: “No soul shall bear another’s burden.”

[36] Ibid., p. 103

[37] Kister, p. 69

[38] Arafat’s argument, however, remains philosophically weak, for the event’s ‘inconsistency’ with Islamic principles does not necessarily negate its historicity.

[39] Arafat, p. 104

[40] Ibid., p. 104

[41] Kister, p. 67

[42] Ibid., p. 67

[43] Al-Awazi’s argument was based on the fact that “the incident was not the result of the community’s unanimous agreement” (Arafat, p. 104).  In al-Shafi’s justification of the Banu Qurayza executions he notes “not all of them took part in aiding against the Prophet and his Companions, but all of them remained in their stronghold and did not abandon the treacherous people from among them” (Kister, p. 67).

[44] Kister, p. 68

[45] Arafat, p. 102-103

[46] Kister, p. 75-76

[47] Kister, p. 76-77.  Kister allows that oneversion—the one relayed in the report of Ibn Sayyid al-Nas—“coupled” the ‘impostor’ accusation with a critique on Ishaq’s use of Jewish converts to Islam as sources.

[48] Kister, p. 80.  Kister explains that Ibn Ishaq’s reports describe the Qurayza as “wavering, undecided even in the most dangerous moments of their existence, stubborn and disobeying their leaders”—which hardly confirms Arafat’s assertion that the Qurayza were somehow ‘glorified’ in such reports.