Muhammad and The Medinan Jews

Muhammad and the Medinan Jews: A Comparison of the Texts of Ibn Ishaq's Kitab Sirat Rasul
Allah with al-Waqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi

Author(s): Rizwi S. Faizer
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 463-489
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 28
(1996),
463-489. Printed in the United States
of
America
Rizwi S. Faizer
MUHAMMAD AND THE MEDINAN
JEWS:
A COMPARISON OF THE TEXTS OF IBN
ISHAQ'S
KITAB SiRAT RASUL ALLAH WITH
AL-WAQIDSI'
KITAB AL-MAGHA Z
This article is based on the
assumption
that Ibn
Ishaq (704-67)
and
al-Waqidi
(747-823)
were
responsible
for
my
main
sources,
the
compilations
entitled Kitab
sirat rasul Allah1 and Kitab
al-maghdzi,2
respectively.
Such an
assumption
is
jus-
tifiable. To take Ibn
Ishaq's Biography
in the recension of Ibn Hisham
(d. 834),3
we
know that the
Ziyad
ibn CAbd Allah al-Bakka'i
(d. 798)
text used
by
Ibn Hisham
was authorized
by
Ibn
Ishaq
himself,
and indeed had been confirmed
by
the use of
both sam' and
Card
techniques4
as a correct version.5 At the same
time,
Ismail K.
Poonawala confirms that the redaction of Salama ibn al-Fadl
(d. 807) compares
closely
with the text of Ibn
Hisham,6
indicating
that the text of Ibn
Ishaq
had
probably
been fixed7: Salama's redaction was based on a
papyrus manuscript
of Ibn
Ishaq8
transmitted
by
Muhammad ibn
Humayd
ibn
Hayyan
al-Razi,
and was used
by
al-Tabari in his narration of the
Prophet's
life,
which forms a
part
of his
compi-
lation Ta'rlkh al-rusul wa'l-muluk.9 As for the text of
al-Waqidi,
evidence indicates
that it had been established
by al-Waqidi
himself from
beginning
to
end,
for he not
only prefaces
his work with the names of his chief transmitters of tradition10 but
also
provides
the basic
chronology
of all the events that are discussed in his work.
Moreover,
both Ibn Hisham and Ibn
al-Thalji (d. 879)1
refer to their recensions as
the
compilations
of Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi, respectively. Significantly,
it is these
texts that are used
by
modern
biographers
of the
Prophet
to determine the events
that constitute his life. It is these
very
texts that are used
by
both Marsden Jones and
Patricia Crone for their various
appreciations
of sira and
maghizi compilations.12
It is
interesting
that all of the transmitters and
compilers
before Ibn Hisham who
dealt with material about the
period
of the
Prophet regarded
it as
maghdzi
material.
Ibn Hisham
appears
to have been the first to
bring together
this
material,
as for
instance in his recension of Ibn
Ishaq,
in which he uses the term sira in the title.
Thereafter the terms sira and
maghdzi
came to be used
synonymously
as a
generic
label for these
compilations.13
In
my
references to the
genre
I have found it conven-
ient to use the term
sira-maghazi
so as to avoid
any
confusion.
Rizwi S. Faizer is an
independent
scholar
living
in Cornwall, Ontario,
Canada.
? 1996
Cambridge University
Press 0020-7438/96 $7.50
+ .10
464 Rizwi S. Faizer
Modern
approaches
to
sira-maghdzi
have been
overwhelmingly
concerned with
evaluating
its content for information about the
Prophet's
life.14 The
justification
for such an
approach
has been that these texts are
essentially repositories
of archaic
and therefore authentic traditions.
Authenticity,
however,
does not
imply veracity,
so that there is much
controversy regarding
the
historicity
of these texts and how
they
should be
interpreted.
Scholars have tended to isolate traditions and examine
how
they
have been
variously
recollected
by
different transmitters in the
hope
of
discovering
the facts behind the narrative-or whether indeed there were
any
such
facts. Little
weight
has been
given
to
analyzing
the material in terms of the nature
of the
genre
concerned and what it meant to the
persons
who
compiled
it.
Present
understanding
of
sira-maghazi
is based
largely
on J. M. B. Jones's
analy-
sis. His
investigation
is
primarily
a
response
to Julius
Wellhausen,
who had noticed
two motifs in
particular
in the
Prophet's biography,
the raid on Nakhla and the
dream of
'Atika,
and asserted that
al-Waqidi
had taken much from Ibn
Ishaq
with-
out
acknowledgment-and
that in fact he had
plagiarized
the work of Ibn
Ishaq.5l
Jones,
investigating
the motifs for
himself,
admits that
al-Waqidi
and Ibn
Ishaq
made
very
similar
statements,
but avers that there is no
plagiarism
involved,
for the lan-
guage
used reflects the modifications
representing
the
style
of the
typical storyteller
from whom
al-Waqidi
had
probably
derived his information. Jones further
explains
the "close
parallels"
that exist between the different narratives
by claiming
that the
compilers
of
sira-maghazi
were in fact
drawing upon
a common reservoir, or cor-
pus,
of
qass-folk
tales-and traditional material.16 It is this notion of a
"single
corpus"
that has led Crone to declare:
Waqidi
did not
plagiarize
Ibn
Ishaq,
but he did not offer an
independent
version of the
Prophet's life, either; what he, Ibn
Ishaq
and others
put together
were
simply
so
many
selec-
tions from a common
pool
of
qass
material. And it is for the same reason that
they
came to
agree
on the
historicity
of events that never took
place....17
I take issue with the above and
propose
instead that
al-Waqidi
was the
compiler
of a
unique
statement of
sira-maghazi,
different from that of Ibn
Ishaq.
I also
sug-
gest
that the intentions of the
compilers
when
they put together
their
biographical
works were not historical.
My argument
is that, contrary
to the assertion made
by
Jones, the enormous
variety
of information which the numerous traditions commu-
nicate makes it
meaningless
to view traditions as
belonging
within a
"single
cor-
pus."
It thus becomes clear that the choice of materials that are
ultimately brought
together
to establish a
given compilation
is determined
by
the
purpose
of the au-
thor-compiler.
I therefore view as
imperative
the need to
study
each
particular
work
as an
integral
statement
shaped by
the
goals
and views of its author, and to
attempt
to understand how the author has
exploited
the
genre
to
say
what he wants to
say.
It is the
compiler
who selects the
pieces
of information-available in a decontex-
tualized state18-with which to
compose
his text, and it is the
compiler
who decides
the
sequence
in which to
place
them. The
compilation
must be seen as an
integral
statement that, to be
correctly understood, must not be confused
by
the introduction
of material which has not been included in that
particular
text. It must be
appreci-
ated as a creative work in its own
right.19
According
to
sira-maghazi,
when Muhammad moved to Medina to
escape
the
torment of the Meccans he found that numerous Jewish communities were
already
Muhammad and the Medinan Jews 465
settled in that town.
Although
Muhammad
waged frequent
wars
against
the
pagan
Arabs,
it is
through
the subordination of the Jews that his
might
and
authority
are
established in this literature. As a
result,
the Jewish faith is
superseded by
that of
Islam. The
portrayal
of Muhammad's
opposition
to the Jews makes
sira-maghazi
a
combination of salvation
history
and Arab
saga.
The
subject
of Muhammad's relations with the Medinan Jews has received much
attention from scholars because of the contentious issues involved.
Important
in the
context of this article is the
way
in which modern historians have used the narration
of the
Prophet's biography by al-Waqidi
to
interpret
what has come to be known as
the "Constitution of
Medina,"
which is included in the Sira of Ibn
Ishaq.
From Well-
hausen,
Arent J.
Wensinck,
and Leone Caetani to William
Montgomery
Watt,
R. B.
Serjeant,
Uri
Rubin,
and Moshe Gil,20 one finds
analyses
and
interpretations
which
contradict and
deny
one another.
Simultaneously,
there has been a rise of Muslim
apologetics
from scholars such as W. N. Arafat and Barakat Ahmad
concerning
Muhammad's
raids-maghazl-on
the Medinan
Jews,
particularly
the B.
Qurayza.
It has been asserted that the execution of these raids was
contradictory
to the
very
essence of Islam.21 M. J. Kister indicates otherwise. In a 1986 article
addressing
the
issue,
he tries to discover the facts behind the various traditions.22 In the
light
of
these
conflicts,
I
hope
to
bring
to the
study
of this
topic
an
understanding
of the
significance
of the motif of Muhammad and the Jews in
sira-maghazi,
and thus a
better
understanding
of the nature of the
genre
itself.
In order to
appreciate
the nature of this literature I have undertaken a case
study
of the material
concerning
Muhammad and the Medinan Jews in
biographical
lit-
erature on the
Prophet. Using
methods of
comparative
textual
analysis,
I have in-
vestigated
the differences between the two
compilations,
the Kitab sirat rasul Allah
and the Kitab
al-maghdzi,
in terms of
theme, sources, chronology,
and
style,
to de-
termine whether and to what extent Ibn
Ishaq's interpretation
of the
Prophet's
life
differs from that of
al-Waqidi.
As far as the basic themes of the two
compilations
are concerned,
it is
important
to notice how each author
imposes
his bias
upon
the work he
shapes.
The main
theme of Ibn
Ishaq's
work is the
history
of monotheism,
and the confirmation of
Muhammad as the last
prophet
of God. The
prophetic
essence of Muhammad's
person
is established from the
beginning.
His noble
heritage
is indicated
by
his
very genealogy.23
The
plausibility
of this thesis is further substantiated
by
the fact
that, like Moses, Noah, and Hud before him, Muhammad
brings
down the wrath of
God on those who
deny Him-as,
for
instance,
in the cases of the B.
Qaynuqac,
the
B. Nadir, and the B.
Qurayza-in
order to effect their
subjugation.
At the same
time,
we are also introduced to
many
instances of Christ-like
miracles,
such as the
healing
of wounds24 and the
feeding
of the multitude.25 This
prophetic
theme is
woven
together
with universal
legendary patterns
and mnemonic devices linked
through
citations of asbab al-nuzul-occasions of revelation-to establish that the
Qur'an
was the
message
that God had revealed
through Muhammad,
His last mes-
senger
to mankind.26
In
al-Waqidi's compilation,
the account
given by
Ibn
Ishaq
of the
biography
of the
Prophet
is related as the
plain
and
simple maghdzi,
which
literally
means "raids," but
also
signifies
the achievements of the
Prophet.
It is
interesting
to note that unlike
Ibn
Ishaq, al-Waqidi
does not
present
his reader with the stories of the
Prophet's
466 Rizwi S. Faizer
birth,
emigration,
or death.27 Yet it would be incorrect to
argue
that this was be-
cause
al-Waqidi
was concerned
only
with the raids of the
Prophet. Al-Waqidi
not
only
narrates other
events,
such as the various
agreements
concluded
by
the
Prophet,
but also recounts the
treaty
at
Hudaybiya,
the conversion of CAmr ibn
al-CAs,
the
destruction of
al-'Uzza,
and the
Prophet's
farewell
pilgrimage.28
Sometimes the
title of the raid is a mere mnemonic label which leads to the recollection of numer-
ous other incidents that occurred at the same time.29
The
majority
of Ibn
Ishaq's
transmitters of tradition come from Medina.30 His
weightiest
authorities include his teacher Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab al-
Zuhri
(670-742),3l
a student and collector of the traditions of CUrwa ibn
al-Zubayr
(d. 712),
whom Ibn
Ishaq
also cites;32 CAbd Allah ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm
(675-747),
who was
supposed
to have authored a
maghazi
work
(which
was transmitted
by
his
nephew),
and who is also known to have transmitted some of the
Prophet's messages
to his
contemporaries,
such as the
kings
of
Himyar;33
CAsim ibn CUmar ibn
Qatada
(d. 746),34
who was ordained
by
the
caliph
CUmar ibn CAbd
al-CAziz (683-720)
to
teach
maghdzi
and
manaqib
al-sahaba-the virtues and merits of the
Companions
of the
Prophet-at
the
mosque
of Damascus;35 and CAbd Allah ibn Abi
Najih (d. 748),
a Meccan scholar who was commended for his
commentary
on the
Qur'an.36
Although many
of the transmitters cited
by
Ibn
Ishaq
are also referred to
by
al-
Waqidi
in his Kitdb
al-maghdzi,
traditions narrated on the
authority
of Ibn
Ishaq
himself are not to be found. The traditions used
by al-Waqidi (except
in the case of
traditions in the form of asbab
al-nuzul,
which are
usually
cited on the
authority
of
Abu
Hurayra
or Ibn
CAbbas)
are
generally presented
as a more
regular
chain of au-
thorities,
or
isndd,
and are
very traditionally
stated.
They rarely
extend back to the
Prophet's
time,
which is
just
as it would have been in
al-Waqidi's day,
and
generally
come to an end at the level of the
Tabiiin,
the successors to the
Companions
of the
Prophet.37
The
question,
however,
is whether
al-Waqidi
was
merely restating
what
had been
already
said
by
Ibn
Ishaq,
or whether he was able to
bring
a new inter-
pretation
to the essential data of the
Prophet's
life.
Take for instance the essential materials of which the two
compilations
are com-
posed.
Both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
use a
variety
of materials that
range
from docu-
ments to
poetry
and
Qur'anic
citations but consist most of all of
popular
stories and
traditions. As far as this case
study
of Muhammad and the Jews is
concerned,
the
documents included are
largely
lists: of Jewish adversaries,38 of the Jews
joined by
Ansari
hypocrites,39
of
participants
in the various battles and raids;40 of those who
were
martyred41
or taken
prisoner;42
and of those who were
given
shares in the
booty
won in various
engagements.43
In addition to the
lists,
we are told of the
writing
down of
agreements
between
the Muslims and the Jews.
According
to both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi,
Muhammad
made a written
agreement
of this sort soon after his
entry
into Medina:
according
to Ibn
Ishaq,
this took
place just
before the
pact
of brotherhood was made between
the
Muhajirun
and the Ansar. Ibn
Ishaq
does not
give
the
precise
date,
but he in-
dicates the moment at which the
agreement
was made
by placing
the evidence in
that
particular position. According
to the
agreement,
Muhammad,
together
with the
Muhajirun
and the
Ansar, agreed
to let
specific
Jewish
tribes-excluding
the B.
Qay-
nuqa',
the B.
Nadir,
and the B.
Qurayza44-identified by
their
relationship
to the
Medinan Arab tribes live unmolested and as a
part
of the umma in accordance with
their
religious
beliefs.45
Did Muhammad have the
authority
to make such a
concession,
and could the
Jews have been forced to live
accordingly? According
to Ibn
Ishaq,
it would seem
so. The
support
of the Ansar even at
CAqaba,
had been vehement and continued to
hold in Medina at this
point.46
More
importantly,
Ibn
Ishaq
shows us that the Jews
actually permitted
Muhammad to
participate
in the activities of their
community
during
the first few months after his arrival in Medina.
Thus,
Ibn
Ishaq
shows
Muhammad
passing
sentence on an adulterous Jewish
couple,47 raising
the value of
the blood
price
of the B.
Qurayza
to
equal
that of the B.
Nadir,48
and
becoming
in-
volved in
religious arguments
with the Jews.49 An
atmosphere
of
integration
and
active
proselytizing, barely
visible in the
al-Waqidi text,
is indicated. Ibn
Ishaq sug-
gests
that the better moments had
encouraged
Muhammad to believe that the Jews
could be included in an
umma,
or
community,
with the Muslims.
Unfortunately,
the
activity
led to much
religious
conflict between the two
peoples
and,
soon
enough,
Jewish
rejection
of Muhammad. One sees Muhammad himself turn
away
from the
Jews with the
symbolic gesture
of
changing
his
qibla
from Jerusalem to Mecca.50
But Muhammad's
God-given victory
at Badr leads him to invite the Jews of the
B.
Qaynuqac
to Islam, for
surely
such a
victory
indicated that God was on his side.
Inferring
the
optimism
of Muhammad, Ibn
Ishaq
tells how the Jews, in
rejecting
the
Prophet, declared, "O Muhammad, you
seem to think that we are
your people."51
By contrast, al-Waqidi barely
refers to the
religious
controversies which arose
between Muhammad and the Jews. The issue of the
qibla
is avoided, and there is
no mention of Muhammad
giving
his verdict
regarding
the adulterous Jewish
couple
or
interfering
to
adjust
the blood value of the Jews.52 It would
appear that, according
to
al-Waqidi,
the Jews of Medina
generally
lived as an
independent community
in
Medina, and that the notion of the Jews
living
as an umma with the
Muslims,
under
the common dhimmat Allah, or
protection
of God, was never considered.
Al-Waqidi
does not
give
us
any
information
regarding
a written
agreement
in
which the
Muhajirun
and the Ansar are
key participants,
as indicated in Ibn
Ishaq's
"Constitution of Medina."53 It is
possible
that al-Waqidi was not aware of the exis-
tence of this document, but if he knew the work of Ibn
Ishaq,
as is established
by
al-
Tabari,54 one must admit that such a
possibility
is remote. It
may
be that al-Waqidi
believed that the
loyalty
of both
groups-the Muhajirun
and the Ansar
(comprising
the Aws and the Khazraj)-to
the
Prophet
was such that a formal
agreement
be-
tween them was
unnecessary.
As
portrayed by
Ibn
Ishaq,
the factionalism that existed within one of these two
groups,
the Ansar, provoked
both the
undertaking
of the Aws to murder KaCb ibn
al-Ashraf and the
Khazraj agreement
to remove Abu RafiC'.s It was fear of the con-
sequences
of such
rivalry
that
justified
the formal
contracting
of an
agreement
among
the three
groups-the Muhajirun,
the
Aws,
and the
Khazraj-in
the Ibn
Ishaq
narrative.
Al-Waqidi,
for his
part,
does not call attention to these
groups'
ri-
valry, perhaps
because he believed that the
Prophet
had
helped
them to overcome
it. It is
interesting
that what
appears
to be a crucial sentence in Ibn
Ishaq's
narration
of the murder of Abu Rafi',
"Now Aws had killed Kacb ibn al-Ashraf before Uhud
because of his
enmity
towards the
apostle
... so
Khazraj
asked and obtained the
468 Rizwi S. Faizer
apostle's permission
to kill Sallam who was in
Khaybar,"
is absent from
al-Waqidi's
text.56 The lack of
rivalry
is also
implied
in al-Waqidi's interpretation
of the events
in which the land taken from the B. Nadir is divided
among
the
Muhajirun
alone;
no
apprehension among
the Ansar as a result of this action is cited.57 This
may
be
why al-Waqidi
does not indicate the conclusion of such an
agreement.
According
to
al-Waqidi,
Muhammad desired to establish an
agreement
with all of
the
peoples
of Medina-with the
Aws,
the
Khazraj,
and those who converted to Is-
lam on the one
hand,
and with those who did not
convert,
such as the
pagan
Arabs
and the
Jews,
on the other.58
Al-Waqidi provides
considerable information
regarding
written and direct
agreements
between Muhammad and the Jews. He claims that
Muhammad in fact concluded an
agreement
with the Jews soon after his
entry
into
Medina.59
Al-Waqidi
also informs us of a second
contract,
one that was established be-
tween Muhammad and the Jews
(of
the B. Nadir and the B.
Qurayza)
when the
latter
approached
him to
complain
of the insecure conditions he had created when
he had
Kacb
ibn al-Ashraf killed.
Interestingly,
the tradition even informs us of
where the
agreement
was contracted: "at the house of Ramla bint al-Harith."60 It is
significant
that
al-Waqidi
never associates this
agreement
with the "Constitution of
Medina" or
any part
of it as cited
by
Ibn
Ishaq.
That an
agreement actually
existed
between the B.
Qurayza
and
Muhammad, however,
is indicated
by al-Waqidi
in his
description
of the refusal of the B.
Qurayza
to
help
the B. Nadir when the B. Nadir
were
being besieged by
Muhammad61, and in his
telling
of how the B.
Qurayza
had lent the Muslims their baskets and
spades
in
preparation
for the battle of the
Trench.62
In this
regard
the
agreement
to
protect
Muhammad referred to
by
'Amr ibn Su'da',
who, while
disassociating
himself from the
treachery
of the B.
Qurayza,
nevertheless
does not convert to Islam, is
extremely pertinent
to
al-Waqidi's
narrative:
O Jewish
people, you
entered into an alliance with Muhammad
according
to which
you agreed
that
you
would not
help
one of his enemies
against him, and that
you
would
protect
him
against
those who attacked him. ... If
you
refuse to enter [into an alliance] with him, then
remain steadfast in Judaism and
give thejizya, though by
God I do not know if he will receive
it or not.63
What
al-Waqidi
seems to
suggest here, interestingly enough through
the voice of a
Jew, is that the
jizya
is a
payment
which
may
take the
place
of Jewish
participation
in
defending
the Muslims-a
payment
made in
compensation.
It is such a
payment
that is
agreed
to
by
the Jews of
Khaybar
later on. Thus, al-Waqidi
is in fact
pre-
senting
us with a
premonition
or a
foreshadowing
of what is to come.
It is
certainly
true that all of the
agreements
indicated
by al-Waqidi
sound similar
to the "Constitution of Medina." Thus, Wellhausen
prefaces
his discussion of the
"Constitution of Medina" with citations from
al-Waqidi
because he believes that
they
are
important
for the
"interpretation
of the
purpose
of this
agreement."64
That
al-Waqidi's representation
of the
agreement
is quite different from the "Constitution
of Medina" becomes clear when examined more
objectively.
For instance, while Ibn
Ishaq
gives
the Jews a subordinate
place
in the "Constitution," al-Waqidi
describes
a one-to-one
agreement
between the Muslims and the Jews.
Again,
while the "Con-
stitution"
anticipates
the
recognition
of the Jews as a
part
of the umma under the
common
protection
of a dhimmat
Allah,
al-Waqidi
does not. For
al-Waqidi,
the
agreements
are
purely political;
he does not inform the reader that the
Prophet
desired to
impose
such social or
religious
structures
upon
the Jews.
Finally,
while
Ibn
Ishaq
excludes the B.
Qaynuqac,
the B.
Nadir,
and the B.
Qurayza
from his
"Constitution,"
al-Waqidi
indicates direct
negotiations
with these
very groups. Thus,
rather than assume that
al-Waqidi
was
interpreting
the "Constitution" as narrated
by
Ibn
Ishaq,
I
suggest
that both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
were,
in
fact,
providing
the
reader with their individual
interpretations
of an
agreement
between Muhammad
and the Jews which
belonged
to the
genre
of
sira-maghazi.
For Ibn
Ishaq,
there
was no
agreement
between Muhammad and the main Jewish
communities;
for al-
Waqidi,
there were several
agreements.65
It
appears
then that the differences found in
al-Waqidi's
text are not ill-considered
idiosyncrasies
but rather
carefully thought-out
alterations that come
together
to es-
tablish a
meaningful
statement that is distinct from that of Ibn
Ishaq.
This distinct-
ness is
clearly
connected to
al-Waqidi's
more
stylistic approach
to the
compiling
of
sira-maghazi,
which enables him to
recontextualize,
through
the
repetition
and
transference of
traditions,
the narrative accounts of events and the characterization
of
personalities
as established
by
Ibn
Ishaq.
The contrast can be seen more
clearly
when
specific examples
are
analyzed
in
their
larger context, such as the two authors' accounts
concerning
the raid on the
B.
Qaynuqac,
the exile of the B. Nadir, and the raid on the B.
Qurayza.
These events
constitute a unit within the structural framework of the
maghazi
and indicate Mu-
hammad's relations with the Medinan Jews-in
mythical terms, the hero's
journey
away
from home to
prove
himself.66
Although
these tribes were not the
only
Jews
in
Medina, they
were
certainly
the most
significant,
and Muhammad is
depicted
as
having
been
responsible
for
bringing
about their destruction. The
way
this
hap-
pened
is
explained differently by
Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi.
Ibn
Ishaq represents
Muhammad's conflict with the Jews of Medina in a
truly
eclectic fashion: with the B.
Qaynuqac,
we have the
Prophet inviting
the Jews to
Islam in
typical Biblo-Qur'anic manner; with the B.
Nadir, Ibn
Ishaq
introduces
instead the universal
mythical pattern
of
stone-throwing,
for we see the B. Nadir
plan
to
drop
a rock
upon
Muhammad in order to kill
him;67 and with the B.
Qurayza,
we
see
borrowing
from the tales of the
ayyam,
in
particular
a
story
which told of how
the B.
Qurayza
had been massacred
by
Malik ibn
Ajlan
in the
days
of the
Jahiliya.68
A
story
similar to this last
example
is also related
regarding
the Christians of
Naj-
ran, who were said to have been massacred
according
to some
pre-Islamic
tradi-
tions cited
by
Ibn
Ishaq.69
In his
depiction
of the actual destruction of the
tribes,
Ibn
Ishaq
uses a combination of mnemonic70 and
Biblo-Qur'anic patterns:
the com-
munity
that
rejects
Muhammad is obliterated in so decisive a fashion that not
only
are the
better-prepared
Jews defeated
by
the smaller Muslim
forces,
but none of the
Jewish tribes is ever heard of
again.
As for the actual means of Muhammad's vic-
tory,
the violence
against
the Jews is
depicted
as
having
escalated from forced
submission to exile and execution.
Al-Waqidi,
for his
part, plays
with Ibn
Ishaq's account, using repetition,
a
change
of
chronology,
and new material
(as
is his
wont)
to weave a motif about the Jews'
470 Rizwi S. Faizer
abrogation
of the
agreement
with Muhammad.
This, too,
is an
age-old
biblical
theme: the Jews had not
kept
their covenant with God. But
al-Waqidi
does not
stop
here. He takes
aspects
of the B. Nadir incident
depicted by
Ibn
Ishaq
and
presents
them
during
the raid on the B.
Qaynuqac
as
well,
so that the
hypocrisy
of Ibn
Ubayy
is
repeated,
as is the notion of the exile of the Jews.
Through repetition al-Waqidi
emphasizes
that the
Prophet
is honest
by
character;
he is a man who
keeps
his
agree-
ments but is forced to attack the Jews because
they
have
abrogated
theirs. As for the
Jews,
they
are
portrayed
as
predictably
unfaithful.
By emphasizing
the
writing
of an
agreement
with the
significant
Jewish
communities, al-Waqidi
introduces his own
interpretation
of these events. A close
comparison
of the texts of Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
is
necessary
to
appreciate
more
fully
the contrived nature of this art form.
Compare
the
way
the two authors recall the events that led to the raid on the
B.
Qaynuqac by
the Muslims.
According
to Ibn
Ishaq,
the battle of Badr had been
won,
and God had thus indicated to the Jews that Muhammad was His chosen mes-
senger.
The time had come for Muhammad to remind the Jews of their covenant with
God and to demand that
they recognize
him as a
prophet.71
When the Jews refused
to
comply
with his
request,
Muhammad attacked them.
According
to Ibn
Ishaq,
the
Jews of the B.
Qaynuqac
were not attacked because
they
had broken an
agreement
but because
they
had
rejected
God's
message.
But consider
al-Waqidi's interpretation.
As
always,
he
begins
his
chapter
on the
raid on the B.
Qaynuqac
with the date of the raid, stating
that it
happened
in the
middle of Shawwal.
(He places
the raid on
Sawiq
after it,
in the month of Dhu'l-
Hijja.)
As
always,
he concludes the
chapter
with a statement about who had been
left in
charge
of Medina
during
the
Prophet's
absence. On this occasion, it was Abu
Lubaba.
Al-Waqidi
informs the reader that soon after his
entry
into Medina, Mu-
hammad had made an
agreement
with the Jews, offering
them
security
in return for
their
political allegiance.
The Jews had invited the Muslim attack when
they
broke
their
agreement
with Muhammad. It would
appear
that the
aggression
started with
a small incident in the
marketplace,
in which a Jew insulted an Arab woman. One of
the Arabs, much
provoked,
killed the Jew in
anger, only
to be killed himself,
thus
exacerbating
the
antagonism
that
already
existed between the two communities.72
The basic structure of the narrative as established
by al-Waqidi
is
quite
different
from that of Ibn
Ishaq.
Ibn
Ishaq
moves
immediately
into the
scene, showing
Mu-
hammad
inviting
the Jews to Islam. In
contrast,
al-Waqidi
begins
with the
agree-
ment made between Muhammad and the
Jews,
moves to the sudden revolt of the
B.
QaynuqaC,
and
only
then tells of the
Prophet's inviting
them to Islam-all of this
relayed
on the
authority
of CAbd Allah ibn Jacfar from al-Harith ibn
Fudayl
from Ibn
Kacb
al-Qurazi.
The
phrase,
"You think that we are
your people,"73
included
by
Ibn
Ishaq
and
indicating
that Muhammad
may
have believed that the Jews would ac-
knowledge
his
authority,
is not mentioned
by al-Waqidi.
Particularly interesting
is the
way
in which
al-Waqidi gives
us information
par-
alleling
that
reported by
Ibn
Ishaq
on the
authority
of 'Asim ibn 'Umar ibn
Qatada.
It is also noticeable that Ibn
Ishaq
avoids
mentioning
an
agreement
between Mu-
hammad and the Jews. He informs us that the B.
Qaynuqac
were the first of the
Jews "to
destroy
what was between them and the
Messenger
of God."74 "What"
was between the
Prophet
and the Jews
may very
well have been an
understanding
or a
peace.
On the other
hand,
we observe that
by introducing
the
chapter
with
information
regarding
the
contracting
of an
agreement
between Muhammad and
the
Jews,
al-Waqidi
leaves no room for doubt that the what that was
destroyed
was
indeed the contract. The
parallel
narrative as
reported by al-Waqidi-and
here I
provide
a literal translation so that the reader
may appreciate
how
al-Waqidi
makes
his
point by adding
what is
probably
an
interpretative gloss ("of
the
agreement")-
states:
When the
Prophet
overcame the
companions
of Badr and arrived in
Medina,
the Jews acted
wrongfully
and broke what was between them and the
Messenger
of
God,
of the
agreement.75
A closer examination of the traditions
concerning
the raids on the Jewish
groups
reveals that the isnads in the two
parallel passages
of Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
are
nowhere the same.76 One cannot
deny
that the tradents used
by
al-Waqidi
have al-
ready
been made familiar to us
by
the work of Ibn
Ishaq.
Nevertheless,
they
are
not identical to the ones that Ibn
Ishaq
uses as his authorities when he narrates the
episode regarding
the B.
Qaynuqac;
in
fact,
the actual traditions used are also differ-
ent. In other
words,
Jones's
statement,
"Musa b.
CUqbah,
Ibn
Ishaq,
and
al-Waqidi
were
drawing upon
a central core of material so well known that verification
by
conventional isnad was
superfluous,"77 implying
that the three
compilers
were
using
the same traditions and
saying
the same
thing,
is based on too
simplistic
an
appre-
ciation of the narrative and cannot be
accepted.
The difference that
emerges
when two authors cite different
Qur'anic passages
as
having
been revealed on the occasion of the same event is
significant.
Ibn
Ishaq's
citation,
One force
fought
in the
way
of
God;
the
other, disbelievers, thought they
saw double their
own force with their
very eyes ...,
indicates that the
victory
at Badr was a miracle from
God,
a
sign
that informed the
people
of Muhammad's role.78 With
al-Waqidi,
however,
who insists that the Jews
abrogated
their
agreement
first,
the citation is:
If thou fearest
treachery
from
any group,
throw back
[their Covenant]
to them
(so
as to
be)
on
equal
terms: for God loveth not the treacherous.79
Here the reference
appears
to be to the failure of the Jews to
keep
the
agreement;
indeed, Qur'anic exegesis usually explains
it this
way.
Thus,
al-Waqidi
claims that
the Jews had
provoked
Muhammad's attack
by abrogating
the
agreement.
There are other
significant
differences between the two narrators.
Al-Waqidi
in-
troduces two new themes into this
episode,
which in Ibn
Ishaq's
text are
present only
in the
episode
of the raid on the B. Nadir: the
hypocrisy
of Ibn
Ubayy
and the
pun-
ishment
by
exile to Adhricat inflicted on the Jews after the
capture
of their
weapons.
These additional traditions
bring
a new dimension to the
story
of the B.
Qaynuqac.
Al-Waqidi,
from this
very early stage, portrays
Ibn
Ubayy
as a
hypocrite,
and we see
the author
exploit repetition
to establish this character trait. The
justification
for such
repetition
is based on the
understanding
that the traditions
are,
in actual
fact,
achro-
nological
and therefore
may
be
placed
wherever the
compiler
desires or even
repeated.
Certainly, knowing
that the B.
Qaynuqac
have
already
been exiled makes one more
reconciled to this notion when the B. Nadir are later removed from Medina.
472
Rizwi S. Faizer
There is also a difference in the
sequential placement
of the event. In the com-
pilation
of Ibn
Ishaq
the traditions
concerning
the B.
Qaynuqac
are
placed after
a
group
of traditions
concerning
the raid on
al-Sawiq.
It tells of Abu
Sufyan
and a
group
of Meccans
being
entertained and
given
information about the Muslims
by
the B. Nadir.80
Essentially,
it informs the reader of a breach of contract
by
the B. Na-
dir,
in that
they
were
entertaining
the
enemy
of the
Muslims,
and the reader is left
wondering why
Muhammad chose to attack the B.
Qaynuqac
rather than the B. Nadir.
In the narrative of
al-Waqidi,
the raid
against
the B.
Qaynuqac
is instead
followed
immediately by
the raid of
al-Sawiq.81
To
explain why
the
Prophet's
first attack was
against
the B.
Qaynuqac, al-Waqidi deliberately
shifts the raid of
al-Sawiq
from the
place
that it had been
given by
Ibn
Ishaq, thereby rationalizing
the
sequence
of
events-though, interestingly,
he too
joins
Ibn
Ishaq
in
situating
the raid of
al-Sawiq
in the month of
Dhu'l-Hijja.
In the scene of
Kacb
ibn al-Ashraf's
murder,
al-Waqidi indicates,
as does Ibn
Ishaq,
that Ibn al-Ashraf was killed because he had insulted the
Prophet
after the
Battle of Badr. The different isndds used
by al-Waqidi,
however,
indicate that he is
using
traditions different from those used
by
Ibn
Ishaq.
This difference is also re-
flected in
al-Waqidi's
choice of asbdb al-nuzul. Thus, al-Waqidi
indicates that verses
from the suras al
Clmran and
al-Baqara
were revealed at this
time,82
while Ibn
Ishaq (who
associates dl CImran with the raid on the B.
Qaynuqac)
does not indi-
cate the revelation of
any passages
from the
Qur'an during
his account of the mur-
der of Ibn al-Ashraf.83 Instead, he
suggests
a
possible
link between Ibn al-Ashraf's
murder and the raid on the B. Nadir, which he associates with surat al-Hashr. This
association is indicated
by
Ibn
Ishaq's
inclusion of
poetry
about the murder of Kacb
at the end of the narrative
concerning
the raid on the B. Nadir.84 More to the
point,
whereas Ibn
Ishaq simply
informs the reader that the Jews were
extremely
fearful
after the
killing
of Kacb and
by
the murder of the Jewish merchant Ibn
Sunayna by
Muhayyisa
ibn Mas'ud
shortly thereafter,85 al-Waqidi
builds on the incident to tell
us that the Jews
consequently
met with the
Prophet
to
protest
his action.86
At this
point, al-Waqidi
has the
Prophet
make the
significant
comment that
any
insults
against
his
person
would be
punished by
death. The
Prophet
then invites the
B. Nadir to make a written
agreement
with him, and
they
do so under a date
palm
at the home of Ramla bint al-Harith.87
Serjeant
attempts
to reconcile the latter
part
of the text of the "Constitution of Medina" with this
agreement
as recorded
by
al-
Waqidi.88 However, the "Constitution" does not include the Jews of the B. Nadir as
participants, directly
or
indirectly;
nor does Ibn
Ishaq
refer to an
agreement
with
the Jews
during
the
episode concerning
the B. Nadir. For
al-Waqidi,
the distur-
bance leads the Jews to meet with Muhammad and come to an
agreement
with
him,
which is written down.89 It is obvious that Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
are not describ-
ing
the same situation. Like
Serjeant,
Martin
Lings mistakenly attempts
to
juxtapose
the two narratives.
According
to
Lings,
"He then invited them to make a
special
treaty
with him in addition to the covenant, and this
they
did."90 The fact is that
Muhammad's
provocative cry permitting
the
killing
of
any
Jew would have
brought
to an end
any agreement
with the Jews, if one existed.91
We are not told the exact nature of the
agreement,
but it was
probably
one of
neutrality,
for when the Jews refuse to
join
with
Mukhayriq
on Muhammad's side
at Uhud because it is the
Sabbath,
Muhammad makes no
protest.
At the same
time,
we are told
by al-Waqidi
of an incident at the fortress of Faric in which
Safiya
bint
CAbd al-Muttalib kills one of the Jews in a
group
she has seen
moving
toward the
fortress.92
Although
the incident
appears
to be a
play upon
Ibn
Ishaq's
account of
what occurred at the same fortress
during
the battle of
al-Khandaq,93
the
repetition
in
al-Waqidi's
narrative serves to
deemphasize
(as
with the notion of
exile)
the
sig-
nificance of a similar
story
in his account of the battle of
al-Khandaq.94
The affair of Bi'r
Macuna
concerns the actions of a Muslim
who,
not
knowing
that Muhammad had
recently
come to an
agreement
with the B.
CAmir,
murders two
of the tribe's members.95 Muhammad turns to the B. Nadir for
help
in
paying
their
blood
money.
This leads to the
episode regarding
the raid on the B. Nadir. It is im-
portant
to note that
despite
the
many
and varied accounts of this
event,
al-Waqidi
retains much of what is found in the text of Ibn
Ishaq,
even if he does not cite him.
In
al-Waqidi's text,
as in Ibn
Ishaq's,
the B. Nadir
plot
to kill the
Prophet
while he
is
visiting
the tribe in search of
help
with the
payment
of the blood
money-com-
pensation
for the two members of the B. CAmir whom one of his
companions
had
killed. Like Ibn
Ishaq, al-Waqidi
informs the reader that the destruction of the
palm
trees of the B. Nadir
by
Muhammad,
in an
attempt
to force out the
Jews,
was an act
based on
inspiration
from God. In both accounts Yamin ibn
CUmayr willingly pays
someone to have his cousin murdered in order to
please
the
Prophet.96
Nevertheless,
it seems clear that
al-Waqidi
and Ibn
Ishaq
are not
using
the same
traditions, for their isnads are not the same. The difference is
significant.
To a cer-
tain extent,
one can account for this difference
by noting
the differences in the na-
ture of the events that lead to the raid in the two narratives. In Ibn
Ishaq's account,
the murder of Kacb leaves the Jews concerned for their
future,
but
nothing
is done
about it; it seems that the
plot
to kill Muhammad is therefore an answer to that
problem.
In
al-Waqidi,
the murder of KaCb leads to an
agreement
between Muham-
mad and the Jews. The B. Nadir's
plot
to kill Muhammad can therefore be looked
upon
as
essentially
an
abrogation
of the
agreement,
and
al-Waqidi
indicates this
through
the words of Sallam ibn Mishkam.97
If one looks more
carefully
at the narrative,
it
appears
that the
emphasis given
to the events
by al-Waqidi
also differs from that
given by
Ibn
Ishaq. Thus,
in its
discussion of the tradition
regarding
the
Prophet's
distribution
among
the Muha-
jirun
of the land of the B.
Nadir,
Ibn
Ishaq's
version
portrays
the
Prophet
as an au-
tocratic leader who
unhesitatingly gives
the
acquired
land to his own
people,
for it
is God Himself who established that land taken without force is the
property
of the
Prophet,
and thus, by extension, the
Prophet
has the
right
to divide it
among
whom-
ever he
pleases.
In
al-Waqidi, however,
Muhammad is
portrayed
as a leader
acting
on
nonreligious
matters with the
approval
of the
people.
This is seen in
al-Waqidi's
interpretation
of the Muslims' decision to move out of Medina
during
the battle of
Uhud,98
and later in the decision to build a trench
during
the battle of
Khandaq.99
In
narrating
this account about the land of the B.
Nadir, al-Waqidi
not
only pro-
vides the reader with several traditions
regarding
the
Prophet's
use of that land. He
also sets out to
explain
the circumstances that are
supposed
to have led to the
Prophet's
decision to
give
the land to the
Muhajirun alone,
and to exclude all but
the two
indigent among
the Ansar. Once
again, according
to
al-Waqidi,
Muhammad
474 Rizwi S. Faizer
acted after
consulting
the
community. According
to
al-Waqidi's
view,
the Ansar had
considered it an honor to have the
Muhajirun
live with them in their homes from
the time
they
first arrived in Medina. When God
granted
Muhammad the land of
the B.
Nadir,
which was
captured
without the use of
arms,
Muhammad called the
Ansar
together
and offered them a share in the
property,
in which case the Mu-
hajirun
would continue to live in their
homes,
or the
right
to retain their homes for
themselves
by letting
the
Muhajirun
alone share the B. Nadir's
property.
That both
Sacd
ibn CUbada and
Sacd
ibn
Mucadh
should
cry out, "[R]ather, you
will
apportion
it to the
Muhajirun,
but
they
will
stay
in our homes
just
as
they were,"
indicates a
warm
acceptance
of the
grant
of land to the
Muhajirun,
an outcome
certainly
not
suggested by
Ibn
Ishaq.100
As for the exile of the B.
Nadir,
Ibn
Ishaq
indicates that while some of the tribe
moved to
Khaybar,
others moved to
Syria.101
In his
chapter
on the B. Nadir's
exile,
al-Waqidi
also informs us that members of the B. Nadir moved to
Syria,
but
only
in his section on asbab.102
Indeed,
in the course of his narrative on the B.
Nadir,
al-
Waqidi
tells us
only
of their removal to
Khaybar.103
Norman A.
Stillman,
who does
not
appreciate
the
interpretative
nature of this
literature, neglects
the asbab
and, ig-
noring
the
interpretation
of Ibn
Ishaq, misrepresents
the
episode.
He asserts that
Two
years later,
the men of Nadir lost their
lives,
their
wealth,
and their women when the
Muslims took
Khaybar.104
In
anticipation
of the
approaching
murder of Abu
Rafic,
al-Waqidi
finds it sensi-
ble to
provide
additional information
(compared
to that of Ibn
Ishaq)
in "the raid on
the Banu Nadir." He
explains
that Abu Rafic was an
important
and
powerful
leader
of that tribe who maintained close associations with the Jews of
Khaybar:
Abu Rafic Sallam shouted to
them,
"If the
CAjwa
are cut over
here, surely
to us in
Khaybar
are
CAjwa
...
Surely my
confederates at
Khaybar
are ten thousand warriors."105
Al-Waqidi
also
suggests
that Abu Rafic was an influential
moneylender, declaring
that "Abu Rafic Sallam b. Abi
al-Huqayq
was owed a hundred and
twenty
dinars."'06
Regarding
the events
following
the raid on the B. Nadir and
leading
to the battle
of the
Trench,
the most noticeable difference between the narratives of
al-Waqidi
and Ibn
Ishaq
is that the latter
places
both the murder of Sallam and the raid of Mu-
raysica after
the battle of the
Trench,
whereas
al-Waqidi places
them
before.
As far
as
al-Waqidi
is
concerned,
Abu Rafic cannot
participate
in the battle of the Trench
because he has
already
been killed.
The battle of the Trench-or the battle of
al-Khandaq,
as it is also known-was
according
to both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi inspired by
the Jews of the B. Nadir with
others of their confession in
Khaybar. Importantly, however,
it is
just prior
to his
account of the battle
(in
Dhu'l
Qacda,
A.H.
5)
that
al-Waqidi
informs us of the dis-
sension caused in the
community by
the scandal about
CA'isha,107
an affair which is
dated
by
Ibn
Ishaq just previous
to
al-Hudaybiya.108 Al-Waqidi
thus conceives the
battle as
happening
at a
quite inopportune
moment as far as Muhammad and the
Muslims were concerned.
Again,
the outline of Ibn
Ishaq's
narrative is maintained
by al-Waqidi:
both de-
scribe Muhammad's
participation
in the
digging
of the trench and the various mira-
cles which indicate his
prophethood,
such as the
changing
of hard rock into sand
by
pouring
water on it'09 and the
increasing
of the
quantity
of dates so that
they
were
sufficient to feed all those
working
on the trench.110 Both authors tell of CAmir ibn
CAbdu Wudd's
challenge,
which is answered
finally by
CAli;lll
of the
Prophet
send-
ing
for
CUyayna
ibn Hisn in an
attempt
to bribe him to leave the
enemy
forces;1l2
and of the mischief of
Nucaym
ibn
Mascud,
who aroused
anger
and
hostility against
the Jews
among
the Ghatafan and the
Quraysh."3
Yet the two authors differ on
significant
details.
Though
both date the battle of
Khandaq
to A.H.
5,
Ibn
Ishaq places
the event in the month of
Shawwal;
al-Waqidi
in Dhu'l
Qacda.
Whereas Ibn
Ishaq simply
indicates that the notion of
building
a
trench was not an Arab
one,
al-Waqidi explicitly
states that the idea was recom-
mended
by
Salman
al-Farisi."14
While both authors attribute
Sacd
ibn
Mucadh's
in-
jury
in battle to the shortness of his
sleeve,
it is Ibn
Ishaq
who has
Sacd
ibn Mu'adh
cry
out at this
point against
the Jews of the B.
Qurayza.115
While both authors tell
us that the
Prophet
sent
Hudhayfa
to
spy
on the
camp
of Abu
Sufyan,
Ibn
Ishaq
merely says
that "so and so" was seated beside
Hudhayfa,
while
al-Waqidi
informs
us that CAmr ibn al-CAs sat on one side of
Hudhayfa
and
MuCawiya
ibn Abi
Sufyan
on the other
(surely
an indication of his
anti-Umayyad sentiments).
In
addition,
al-Waqidi
characterizes the return of
Hudhayfa
as a
miracle."6
Then there are the traditions that seem to be
exclusively al-Waqidi's.
It is al-
Waqidi
who informs us that the Jews
participated along
with the
Quraysh
and the
Ghatafan in a
pagan
ritual under the curtains of the
KaCba, indicating
their obvious
ignorance
of their own Jewish
practices;117
that the B.
Qurayza
had lent their bas-
kets and
spades
to the Muslims in order to build their
trenches, pointing
to the
existence of an
agreement
with Muhammad;118 that the two SaCds of the Ansar
pleaded
with the B.
Qurayza
to return to the
Prophet
rather than
obey Huyayy;"9
and that the
Prophet expressed
the
hope
that he would circumambulate the Kacba
and take
possession
of its
key
in the near future.120
Interestingly
and
importantly,
both
biographers
show the B.
Qurayza betraying
the
Prophet
at the last moment, preferring
to
join
forces with the unreliable
Huyayy
and
his associates to
keeping
the accord with Muhammad, who, even in their own assess-
ment, had
always
been fair to them.121 But while Ibn
Ishaq's position
on the issue is
unclear because in his earlier
chapter
on "The Cow" he establishes the considerable
hostility
of Kacb ibn Asad to the
Prophet,122 al-Waqidi
stresses the claim that there was
a written
agreement
between Muhammad and the B.
Qurayza. Significantly,
the
agree-
ment as
explained by
CAmr ibn SuCda123
implies
a
promise
of active
support
for the de-
fense of the Muslims, the
betrayal
of which, according
to
al-Waqidi,
is the
primary
act
which
brings
about Muhammad's
aggression against
them and
finally
their execution.
Given the above, it is difficult to
appreciate
the
position
of M. J. Kister, who
declares:
The
suspicions
that
Qurayza attempted
to
plot
with
Quraysh against
the
Prophet
would
probably
not
justify
the cruel
punishment
of execution.124
Citing
the work of CAli ibn Burhan al-Din, Kister
attempts
to
explain
the actions
of the
Prophet by relating
them to his desire to
acquire
the land of the B. Nadir
in order to
provide
the
Muhajirun
with
property
and
help
them become self-
supporting.125
There are two
problems
with Kister's
reasoning,
both of which are
essentially methodological. First, he has misunderstood the
interpretational
nature
476 Rizwi S. Faizer
of the
work,
and therefore has not
given
sufficient consideration to what both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
are
saying.
It seems obvious that
according
to both
portrayals
of the
incident,
the
problem
was one not of mere
suspicion
but of clear evidence.
The
betrayal
of the
Prophet by
the B.
Qurayza
is
depicted
as
having
led to con-
siderable
insecurity
for those on the
Prophet's
side: witness the inclusion
by
both
compilers
of traditions
referring
to the Jewish advance on the fortress of Faric, in
which the Muslim women and children were
being
housed
during
the battle of al-
Khandaq.126
Moreover,
while Ibn
Ishaq
has the
Prophet
himself listen to their
per-
sonal insults and their denial that
they
had an
agreement
with
him,
al-Waqidi goes
even
further, having
the two
Sacds
plead
with the B.
Qurayza
to return to their
agreement
with the
Prophet. According
to
al-Waqidi,
the
pleas
of the Medinans
were not
heeded,
and the
abrogation
of the
agreement by
Kacb
ibn Asad held.127
Kister
prefers
to
ignore
all of this evidence. He maintains that the
agreement
drawn
up
between Muhammad and the
Jews, contrary
to what
al-Waqidi
informs us
of
through
Ibn
Sucda,
was a
simple
muwadaca
agreement,
an
agreement
of neutral-
ity,
and then
proceeds
to
explain
that the behavior of the B.
Qurayza
was indeed in
accordance with such a neutral
position-they
did not
participate
in the
war,
he
says,
but
they
did aid the
Prophet
with baskets and
spades-information
that has
been
carefully
selected from the text of
al-Waqidi.128
Second,
Kister does not
appreciate
the decontextualized nature of these
traditions,
which the
compilers
of
sira-maghazi quite confidently
seem to have
placed
where
they wished, according
to their
purposes.
It is this
ability
to move the
achronological
material around, and even
repeat it, that enables
al-Waqidi boldly
to shift the tradi-
tion
regarding
the exile of the Jews, mentioned in connection with the B. Nadir
by
Ibn
Ishaq,
in order also to assert the exile of the B.
QaynuqaC.129
It is in a similar
spirit
that
al-Waqidi
includes
parallel
traditions
regarding
the fortress of Faric in the
context of the battles at Uhud and
Khandaq,
which in the narrative of Ibn
Ishaq
is
found
only
in his
description
of the latter event.130 It would
appear
that in the nar-
rative of 'Ali ibn Burhan al-Din to which Kister referred, the tradition
concerning
the
grant
of land to the
Muhajirun
had
probably
been moved from the
position given
it
by
both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi,
who
speak
of it in connection with the B. Nadir,
to the section of his work
dealing
with the raid on the B.
Qurayza.131
Kister's
jus-
tification for
selecting
the traditions of 'Ali ibn Burhan al-Din is
probably
his
identification of what he would
categorize
as
"genuine
tradition." I believe, how-
ever, that Kister misunderstands the fundamental nature of these traditions and,
ignoring
the
interpretations
of both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi, attempts
to
explain
Muhammad's actions as the result of his desire for more land.
The shift in the
setting
from the battle of the Trench to the raid on the B.
Qurayza
is immediate in the texts of both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi.
As
always, al-Waqidi
provides chronological
details as well as information
regarding
who had been left
in
charge
of Medina for that time. He then foreshadows what is to follow
through
a tradition which tells of the dream of the wife of Nabbash ibn
Qays:
She said: I saw the trench, there was no one in it. I saw that the
people
turned towards us,
while we were in our fortresses, and we were
slaughtered
like
goats.132
The rest of the
episode
is
very
similar to that
presented by
Ibn
Ishaq: al-Waqidi
tells of how the
prophet
handed over the banner to cAli;133 how cAli
attempted
to
protect
the
Prophet
from the insults of the B.
Qurayza;'34
how
cAmr
ibn
Sucda',
"a
man of
God,"
was rescued for his faithfulness;135 how the
Prophet's
aunt asked that
he
spare
the life of
Rifaca
ibn
Samaw'al,
with whom she had "a
relationship";136
and,
most
importantly,
how the
Prophet
had the consent of the Aws in
choosing
Sacd
ibn
Mucadh
to
pass
sentence on their Jewish confederates.137
Yet
despite many
similarities,
some of these traditions are
presented by
al-
Waqidi
in a different manner.
Thus,
both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
show the
Prophet
withdrawing
from the
battle,
only
to be called out
again by
the
angel
Gabriel. Al-
Waqidi, however, provides
the additional detail that Muhammad withdrew to
CA'isha's
house.138 Both authors
depict
the
Prophet
as
alerting
those around him to the fact
that
they
had
really
seen the
angel
Gabriel,
not
Dihya al-Kalbi,
ride
by,
but al-
Waqidi
informs us that it was the B.
Najjar
whom Muhammad addressed.139 Both
relate that
Kacb
ibn Asad offered his
people
three alternatives to
escape
death,140
but
interestingly,
in the
al-Waqidi
text,
we have
already
heard of a similar offer
being
made to the Jews of the B. Nadir
by
Kinana ibn
Suwayra'; thus,
a certain
fatalism is
conveyed.'41
Even as
Kacb
starts to
speak,
the reader knows that his
advice will not be heeded.
Some traditions that are
barely
mentioned
by
Ibn
Ishaq
are
skillfully
drawn out
by al-Waqidi
and extended, I believe, for the
purpose
of
providing
a kind of relief-
oriented entertainment in the
style
of the
qissa.
One
example
is the tale of Nabbata.
Ibn
Ishaq
informs the reader that a
single
Jewess was executed, and that she was
killed for
having
committed some
unspecified
crime.
Al-Waqidi gives
not
only
her
name but also her exact offense. Nabbata had been
persuaded by
her husband to
drop
a millstone from
atop
their fortress onto the Muslim soldiers below-the
very
means
by
which
they
had earlier
attempted
to kill the
Prophet.
One of the Muslims
had been killed as a result.
Again, by providing
more information, al-Waqidi sug-
gests
that he is the better informed. Both narratives
agree concerning
the
hysterical
laughter
with which Nabbata faces the
knowledge
of her
impending
doom.142
Sometimes the traditions are
differently
recalled. For instance, al-Waqidi
intro-
duces Abu Lubaba
through
traditions
describing
his behavior even before Uhud143
and relates details about his stubborn and insubordinate attitude toward the
Prophet,
including
his refusal to
give
a cluster of dates first to Muhammad, so that he
might
hand it to an
orphan,
and then
directly
to the
orphan
in return for a similar cluster in
paradise.144
This
episode
in
al-Waqidi's
text devalues the
impact
of Abu Lubaba's
well-known
betrayal
of God and Muhammad when he
goes
to advise the B.
Qurayza,
a narrative which, in the Ibn
Ishaq context, evokes the biblical
persona
of Judas.145
The tradition that
probably
makes a
greater impact, however, is the one
regarding
Sa'd's
prayer.
Ibn
Ishaq
relates this tradition
during
his narrative of the battle of al-
Khandaq, indicating
Sa'd ibn Mu'adh's
anger
at the
hostility
of the B.
Qurayza,
who
had, since before the
coming
of Islam, joined
with him
against
his
opponents,
even
when those
opponents
were the B.
Qurayza's
fellow Jews.146
Al-Waqidi
inserts this
tradition into his
chapter
on the raid on the B.
Qurayza.
Thus in
al-Waqidi's
Kitdb
al-maghazl,
it is in the
episode concerning
the B.
Qurayza
that we have Sa'd ibn
Mucadh
pray
after
passing
sentence on the Jews that
every
male adult be executed:
O
God, if
you
have
anything
left of the war with the
Quraysh, keep
me for it. Indeed there
is no tribe that I want to
fight
more than a tribe which has disbelieved in the
Messenger
of
478 Rizwi S. Faizer
God,
caused
injury
to him and exiled him. And if the war has ended between us and
them,
make me a
martyr.
Let me not die until I have seen
my
desire
upon
the B.
Qurayza.147
The shift is
significant. By placing
the
prayer
of SaCd in the midst of the battle of
Khandaq,
Ibn
Ishaq suggests
that
Sacd
had
requested
that he himself be
permitted
to decide the fate of the B.
Qurayza.
In other
words,
Ibn
Ishaq puts
the
responsi-
bility
for the sentence of execution on
Sa'd
ibn MuCadh. It was this act which re-
sulted in his
being
sanctified,
as it were.
By placing
the tradition after the
passing
of the sentence
upon
the B.
Qurayza, al-Waqidi
removes the
responsibility
for the
verdict from
Sacd
ibn Mu'adh's shoulders and
places
it,
if
indirectly,
on those of
Muhammad. Of
course,
according
to
al-Waqidi,
the Jews had broken their
agree-
ment with
Muhammad,
and
this,
together
with the fact that the Muslims had been
dangerously exposed
to the
enemy
forces,
justified
the verdict.
At this
point,
it would be instructive to
compare
Watt's
analysis
of this
sequence
of events. He writes:
Caetani's
suggestion
that the
judgment
was attributed to
Sacd
in order to avoid
making
Mu-
hammad
directly responsible
for the "inhuman" massacre is
completely
baseless. In the earli-
est
period
his
family
and their friends remembered his
appointment
as
judge
as an honor ...
Caetani's alternative
suggestion
that SaCd
pursued
not the course that he
thought
best but that
dictated to him
by
Muhammad is more difficult to
dispose
of. The
prayer
of
Sacd
for ven-
geance might
have been introduced to defend him from a
charge
of subservience.148
The fact is that while Ibn
Ishaq
indicates that Sacd was
responsible
for the execu-
tion of the Jews
by citing
Sacd's
prayer during
the battle of
al-Khandaq, al-Waqidi
once
again projects
the notion that it was because the Jews had
abrogated
their
agreement
that the
Prophet
attacked them
by displacing
that tradition and
citing
it
during
the raid on the B.
Qurayza.
Neither Caetani nor Watt, however, notices how
the tradition was
manipulated
and used
by
the two authors to
suggest subtly
differ-
ent
positions.
The reason for this
probably
lies in the fact that the two historians
did not notice the shift in the tradition and that, even if
they did, they
chose not to
regard
it as
significant.
This failure to
perceive
the nuances in the text results from
isolating
and
selecting particular
traditions without
taking
their context into consid-
eration, and from not
appreciating sufficiently
the
essentially interpretative
nature
of this material. The
point
is that these traditions are not
chronologically
fixed. Thus,
each author-collator is at
liberty
to
place
the traditions where he will in order to
establish his
interpretation.
It is therefore
important,
if one desires to
appreciate
sira-maghazi
for what it is, to seek out the differences and
try
to understand them.
As for the course of these events, it was
by establishing
a
sequence
for the series
of events-a
chronology,
if not a
precise
one-that
compilers
such as Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
determine most
effectively
their
interpretations
of the life of Muhammad.
Chronology
which determines cause and effect is
clearly
the
key
to
interpretation.
In this
regard,
Ibn
Ishaq's
insinuation of an essential
periodization
of the
Prophet's
life, despite
the fact that the Islamic calendar was established several
years
after the
Prophet's death, during
the
caliphate
of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, is
interesting:
[T]he apostle
came to Medina on
Monday
at
high
noon on the 12th of Rabic al-Awwal. The
apostle
on that
day
was
fifty-three years
of
age,
that
being
thirteen
years
after God called
him.
149
It is nevertheless
important
to understand that the
day
and date
stipulated by
Ibn
Ishaq
are at best a
rough
indication. The fact that
according
to Ibn
Ishaq
the
Prophet
Muhammad was
born, emigrated,
and died on a
Monday suggests
that the
chronology
has become
mythologized. Indeed,
Ibn
Ishaq
often indicates his uncer-
tainty
as to the
chronology
of
specific
events.
According
to
him,
the
Prophet's
de-
cision to
change
the direction of the
qibla may
have occurred in either
Rajab
or
Sha'ban.150
Again,
Ibn
Ishaq
does not seem certain as to when the murder of Ibn
al-Ashraf took
place,
either.151
Al-Waqidi's approach
to the
chronology
of this literature is
comparable
to Ibn
Ishaq's.
After
commencing
his work with a list of the traditionists who constitute
his main
sources,
al-Waqidi goes
on to list the various events of the
maghdzi
of the
Prophet
in
chronological
order.'52
The basic structure of
al-Waqidi's
Kitab
al-maghazi
resembles in broad lines Ibn
Ishaq's.
The battles of
Badr, Uhud,
and
Khandaq
are
followed
by
the raids on the B.
Qaynuqac,
the B.
Nadir,
and the B.
Qurayza, respec-
tively.
Then there are the advances into
Khaybar,
Fadak,
Wadi
al-Qura,
and
Tayma'
before the
taking
of Mecca. But if one scrutinizes the material more
thoroughly,
one finds a
myriad
differences in detail.
It has been
suggested
that
al-Waqidi's emphasis
on
chronological
detail is due to
his more careful
investigation
of the traditions. Once
again
it is
necessary
to stress
the fact that the traditions themselves are not
chronologically
fixed and that the
genre
of
sira-maghazi
does not
impose
a definite
chronology.
It is therefore ex-
tremely important
to
recognize
that
al-Waqidi's chronology
is not the outcome of a
more
thorough investigation
of tradition. It is rather a
chronology
that he devised in
order to establish his
unique
rendition of
sira-maghdzi.
Such an
interpretation
is
substantiated
by
the fact that
al-Waqidi gives
much of his
chronology
on his own
authority,
and that he commends Ibn
Ishaq
as a traditionist even
though
he differs
with him
regarding
the
sequence
of events and dates.
Because both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
date the raid of
al-Sawiq
in
Dhu'l-Hijja,
Jones believes that this was indeed when the event occurred.153 This misunderstand-
ing
of the issue is
probably
due to Jones's focus on the date
per
se. He is unable
to
appreciate
the use of
chronology
as
essentially
a litmus test of cause and effect
rather than a deliberation
regarding
an exact
point
in time. Thus, although
both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
declare that the raid on
al-Sawiq
took
place
in
Dhu'l-Hijja,
in
Ibn
Ishaq
the raid on the B.
Qaynuqac (for which he does not
give
a
precise date)
follows the raid on
al-Sawiq,
while
according
to
al-Waqidi
the raid on the B.
Qay-
nuqac precedes
that on
al-Sawiq,
around the month of Shawwal.
Al-Waqidi
is
clearly
rationalizing
the
sequence
of events in order to
justify why
Muhammad first at-
tacked the B.
Qaynuqac
rather than the B. Nadir.
As for the traditions
concerning
the
chronology
of the assassination of Kacb and
the raid on the B.
Nadir,
Ibn
Ishaq
has
effectively separated
the two incidents in his
historicizing
of these events, placing
Kacb's assassination after Badr and before Uhud,
and the exile of the B. Nadir after Uhud. He thus maintains the traditions which as-
sociate Muhammad's
anger
toward KaCb with his
having
been
provoked
soon after
the battle of Badr.
According
to both Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi,
Kacb ibn al-Ashraf
had
gone
to Mecca after Badr and had incited the
Quraysh
to
fight
the
Prophet.
Kacb had also
composed
verses
mourning
the death of the brave Meccan victims
killed at Badr; on
returning
to
Medina,
he had then
composed
love
poems
of a
480 Rizwi S. Faizer
nature
insulting
to some Muslim
women.'54
Ibn
Ishaq
does not refer to
any Qur'anic
citations,
but he does
suggest
that traditions did exist which linked the assassina-
tion of
Kacb
to the exile of the B. Nadir. This he does
by placing
a
poem apparently
composed by
the cousin and son-in-law of the
Prophet,
CAli,
at the end of the
chap-
ter on the exile of the B.
Nadir,
which he associates in turn with the revelation of
the surat al-.Hashr.
Al-Waqidi,
on the other
hand,
associates the murder with the
revelations of verses from the suras al
Clmran
and
al-Baqara.
There are more details to contend with.
Early
sira literature dates the raid on the
B. Nadir as
having
taken
place
six months after Badr on the
authority
of Zuhri from
'Urwa ibn
al-Zubayr,155
and Musa ibn
CUqba.l56
At the same
time,
traditions also
exist
indicating
that, according
to
CUrwa,
the conflict with both the B.
Qaynuqac157
and the B. Nadir took
place
around the same time-that
is,
six months after Badr.
Why
then did Ibn
Ishaq place
the raid on the B. Nadir after the battle of Uhud?
Ibn
Ishaq may
have been
falling
back on
exegetical
tradition. In that
genre,
not
only
is the assassination of Kacb linked to the exile of the B.
Nadir,
but both events are
chronologically placed
after Uhud.158
Moreover,
as
already explained,
Ibn
Ishaq,
like
the
exegetes,
links the
chapter
with surat al-.Hashr. On the other
hand,
it seems that
there also existed traditions
tying
the assassination of
Kacb
to a
subsequent agree-
ment between Muhammad and the Jews.159 It is this latter tradition that
al-Waqidi
makes use of in his Kitab
al-maghazi.
This tradition
implies
that there must have
been a considerable
lapse
of time between the assassination of
Kacb and the exile of
the B. Nadir160-a
lapse
sufficient to allow for the
making
of an
agreement
between
Muhammad and the B. Nadir. This
justifies al-Waqidi's arrangement,
which,
like
Ibn
Ishaq's,
sees the
placing
of KaCb's assassination after Badr but the exile of the
B. Nadir after Uhud.
Why
then was Ibn
Ishaq's
narration of the assassination not followed
by
informa-
tion
regarding
an
agreement
between Muhammad and the B. Nadir? I
suggest
that
he
deliberately
left it out, just as, when he described the
agreement
which has come
to be called the "Constitution of
Medina,"
he
deliberately
left out the names of the
three most
important
Jewish tribes.
Significantly,
an
agreement
between Muham-
mad and the Jews is never
categorically
mentioned in Ibn
Ishaq's
narration of the
raid on either the B.
Qaynuqac
or the B. Nadir. An
important
theme in his
biogra-
phy
of the
Prophet
is the
representation
of Muhammad as a
prophet
like
any
other:
a
prophet
who has come as God's
messenger
and who therefore must be
obeyed.
Whether an
agreement
was broken or not was,
as far as Ibn
Ishaq
was
concerned,
beside the
point.
Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
differ
regarding
the
chronology
of the murder of Sallam
ibn
Abi'l-Huqayq
as well.
Al-Waqidi
dates the event sometime in the month of
Dhu'l-Hijja
in the
year
A.H. 4, suggesting
that Sallam ibn
Abi'l-Huqayq
was mur-
dered for his activities
during
the raid on the B. Nadir.161 In
contrast,
Ibn
Ishaq
places
the murder soon after
al-Khandaq, implying
that Sallam ibn
Abi'l-Huqayq
was
being punished
for
joining
with the Meccans in their attack on Medina.162
Moreover, Ibn
Ishaq explains
the murder
by citing
the conflicts and
competition
that existed between the Aws and the Khazraj.'63 Al-Waqidi makes no reference to
the traditions
regarding
factionalism and indicates that it was the
Prophet
who took
the initiative in
sending
the
expedition
out
against
Abu Rafi'c,
just
as he did in the
case of Kacb.
Al-Waqidi's
earlier
dating-A.H. 4-suggests
that the
Prophet's
actions were such that
they
did not
encourage
the
development
of factionalism. Ac-
cording
to
al-Waqidi,
it makes sense to fix the date of the murder at a
point
closer
to the exile of the B. Nadir.164 To
justify
his
chronology, al-Waqidi brings many
new details
(i.e.,
information not
provided by
Ibn
Ishaq)
into his account of the ex-
ile of the B.
Nadir,
informing
the reader of the
authority
of Abu Rafic and indicat-
ing
that he had links to the Jews of the formidable fortress of
Khaybar,
events
which
explain
the attack on Abu Rafic in A.H. 4.
Although al-Waqidi
mentions an
alternative date in A.H.
6,165
the fact that he does not mention Abu Rafic
during
the
battle of
al-Khandaq
nevertheless
gives
a certain
finality
to his
original chronology.
As for the
chronology
of the battle of
al-Khandaq, al-Waqidi places
the battle soon
after the raid on
Muraysic.
On this
occasion,
the
Prophet's authority
is
challenged by
important
members of the
community
who
question
his wife's faithfulness. The com-
munity's
morale seems to have been at a low ebb when the
Prophet's
enemies decided
to attack him at what later came to be known as the battle of
al-Khandaq.
Al-Waqidi
also differs from Ibn
Ishaq
with
regard
to the
chronology
of
many
asbab al-nuzul. Ibn
Ishaq,
who,
as we have
seen,
is not
overly
disturbed
by
the ex-
istence of
contradictory
traditions
regarding
an
event,
gives
two
explanations
for
the occasion of the revelation of the verse
Remember God's favor to
you,
how a
people
were minded to stretch out their hands
against
you,
but He withheld their hands from
you.166
One
explanation, according
to Ibn
Ishaq,
is that this revelation referred to the B. Na-
dir's
attempt
to
drop
a stone on the
Prophet;167
the other
explanation
is that the
verse was revealed on the occasion of the raid on Dhat
al-Riqac,
when Ghawrath
of the B. Muharib failed in his
attempt
to kill Muhammad.168 Ibn
Ishaq
seems to
be
indicating
the various situations that
may
have
provoked
the
particular Qur'anic
revelation concerned.
Al-Waqidi disagrees: according
to his account, the verse was
revealed
during
the raid on Dhu Amarr.169 Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
also have a dif-
ference of
opinion regarding
the verses revealed
during
the conflict with the B.
Qay-
nuqac.
The
point
is that these narratives were not
inspired by QurDanic verses, as
Crone seems to believe; rather, each
compiler sought
out the
Qur'anic
citations
which best suited the
interpretation
or bias he desired to
impose
on various events
in the life of the
Prophet.
For his
part, al-Waqidi, seeking
a
passage
that would ac-
commodate his
interpretation
of
sira-maghazi,
did not
blindly
include the verses
cited
by
his
predecessor. Instead, he
carefully
selected his own.
As for their
styles,
there is a
striking symmetry
to the narratives of Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi.170
The
synchronization
of the traditions so that the account of the battle
of Badr is followed
by
the raid on the B.
Qaynuqac,
the battle of Uhud
by
the raid
on the B. Nadir, and the battle of
al-Khandaq by
the raid on the B.
Qurayza is, at
the
very least, a convenient mnemonic. The
similarity may stop there, but the
sym-
metry
does not: for whereas Ibn
Ishaq
describes an escalation of violence
against
the
Jews,
it is a kind of
patterned repetitiveness
which characterizes the account in
al-Waqidi's
Kitab
al-maghazi.
His
depiction
of Ibn
Ubayy
as a
hypocrite,
for in-
stance, can be seen in his accounts of the raids on both the B.
Qaynuqac
and the
B.
Nadir, a theme which is absent in Ibn
Ishaq's
discussion of the raid on the B.
Qay-
nuqac.
It is the same
style
of
repetitiveness
that leads
al-Waqidi
to mention the
advance of a
party
of Jews on the fortress of Faric not
only
in his account of the
482 Rizwi S. Faizer
affair of
al-Khandaq
(in which Ibn
Ishaq brings
to the fore the issue of increased
risk to the Muslims of
Medina,
possibly
to
justify
the execution of the B.
Qurayza),
but also in the earlier
sequence
of Uhud in which
al-Waqidi gives
us an
early
version
of
Safiya's bravery
in the face of Hasan's cowardice.'7 The
repetitiveness
in al-
Waqidi's
method
brings
to the narrative a certain flatness.
Sometimes,
however-
as in the case of Ibn
Sucda's
reference to the
jizya,
or the
Prophet's
reference to his
desire to hold the
key
to the
Kacba (made during
the battle of
al-Khandaq)-al-
Waqidi
uses
repetition
to foreshadow what will
follow,
conveying
a ritualistic effect
which his audiences must have found attractive. This is
quite
different from the
style
of Ibn
Ishaq,
who tends to cite a number of different accounts while
building
to a climax.
The
originality
of
al-Waqidi's
method lies
largely
in his restatement of sira-
maghazl
in the
light
of his
unique interpretation
of the
Prophet's
life. The com-
piler,
aware of the unattached and decontextualized nature of
traditions, assigns
to
them various and altered
positions
within the scheme of
sira-maghazi
to effect a
re-creation. The success of such a re-creation
depends
on the skill with which the
traditions are resituated and
manipulated
within the
given genre. By
this means al-
Waqidi gives
the traditions that constitute the
story
of the
maghdzi
of the
Prophet
a
new relevance. The
changed,
and sometimes more
detailed,
information that he in-
troduces stems not from a desire to
provide
more accurate
information,
but
largely
from a
stylistic impulse
to use the data for his own
purposes.
In effect, he
very
suc-
cessfully pours
old wine into a new bottle, so to
speak,
to become the
compiler
of
a new and
original biography
of the
Prophet.
Various conclusions
may
be drawn from the above discussion. What this
study
has made clear, however, is that the differences established
by al-Waqidi
are delib-
erate and often the result of
stylistic
considerations. Nevertheless, throughout
this
analysis
I have indicated that
despite
the differences, there is an
extraordinary
simi-
larity
between the two
compilations.
It is this
similarity
which has led authors such
as Wellhausen to accuse
al-Waqidi
of
plagiarism,
and others such as J. N. Mattock
to
explain
the variations in the different
compilations
as
comparable
to the oral
transmission of Greek
epic.172
Yet it is also
very
noticeable that
al-Waqidi
never
cites Ibn
Ishaq.
I
suggest
therefore that
al-Waqidi, knowing
the work of Ibn
Ishaq
and
being
aware of the numerous recensions of it that were
being
written at the
time,173 deliberately
set out to
compile
an
original sira-maghazi
of his own.
Because Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
are not
only using
different traditions but are
also
saying
different
things,
it is therefore incorrect to use the material
provided by
al-Waqidi
to
supplement
the narrative of Ibn
Ishaq.
In the works of both
compilers,
the
chronology
of events is artificial and
imposed;
it is based on the
purposes
of the
compiler
and the
interpretation
that he desires to
impose
on this material rather
than on a search for factual data. Moreover, al-Waqidi's interesting technique
of
foreshadowing,
which is a
part
of his
repetitiveness,
should be noticed for the
chronological ambiguity
it introduces.
More
importantly,
while
Qur'anic
influence is evident in the
way
Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
each use the motif, or
topos,
of Muhammad and the Jews, it is
only
in
this broad sense that such a
linkage
can be established. To see individual
passages
of the
Qur'an
as the
inspiration
for
particular
traditions
regarding
the
Prophet
used
in
sira-maghazi would,
I
believe,
be incorrect. Traditions
regarding
the
Prophet
seem to have had an
origin
and evolution of their own. The
linking
of these tradi-
tions with
Qur'anic
citations is a characteristic of
sira-maghazi.
But this
linkage
depended
on the
compiler
concerned,
who chose his citations
according
to his
unique interpretation
of the
Prophet's
life.
Finally,
I would
emphasize
that the
genre sira-maghazi
is not a confused collection
of traditional
materials,
as Crone would have us believe. Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
are
not
saying
the same
thing,
but we as readers will
appreciate
this material
only
if we
try
to understand each author's work as an
integral
statement that is distinct from
any
other. To isolate various traditions and
try
to understand them out of context as
they
are transmitted
through
time is a
meaningless
exercise and will not
produce
an
appreciation
of the
processes
at work. This
unsympathetic approach has,
disappoint-
ingly,
been the nature of most modern research on the
biographical
literature about
the
Prophet.
What is
really required
is an
approach
which
places
the
author-compiler
at the center of his
work,
for it is the
author-compiler's interpretation
of the
Prophet's
life,
rather than some
body
of absolute
data,
that we hold.
NOTES
Author's note: This article is based on
my
Ph.D.
dissertation,
"Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi
Revisited: A
Case
Study
of Muhammad and the Jews in
Biographical
Literature"
(Montreal:
McGill
University, 1995).
I thank the editor of
IJMES,
Professor R. S.
Humphreys,
for the valuable
suggestions
and comments
which have
helped
make this article a more lucid one.
1Muhammad ibn
Ishaq,
Kitdb sirat rasul Alldh, in the recension of CAbd al-Malik ibn Hisham, ed.
Ferdinand Wiistenfeld, under the title Das Leben Muhammed's nach Ibn Ishdk, 2 vols. in 3
(G6ttingen:
Dieterichsche Universitats-Buchhandlung, 1858-60); Muhammad ibn
Ishaiq,
The
Life of Muhammad,
ed., trans., and with an introduction by
Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford
University Press, 1955).
2Muhammad ibn 'Umar
al-Waqidi,
Kitab al-maghdzi,
edited with an
English preface
and Arabic intro-
duction
by
J. M. B. Jones, 3 vols. (London: Oxford
University Press, 1966).
3In this article, I refer to this work as either Kitab sirat rasul Allah or Sira
by
Ibn
Ishaq.
4Nabia Abbott
explains
the nature of
learning
in the
early years
of Islam, dividing
the students who
attended the "recitals" of
shaykhs/lecturers
into three
groups: (a)
those who attended for the
purpose
of
listening only (such a session was termed a sam'); (b) those who had
previously
read and
copied
the text
of the
shaykh's
lecture and
brought
their
manuscripts
to him to be checked,
a
process
known as the Card;
and (c) those who combined the samc and the Card. The correction could be done in
any
of three
ways:
by correcting
the
manuscript
from a second
reading
of the
shaykh,
either
by memory
or the use of his
own notes, by reading
the text back to the
shaykh
so that he
might
correct it, or
by comparing
the text
with another authenticated text established
by
the
shaykh
himself. See Nabia
Abbott,
Historical
Texts,
vol. 1, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri (Chicago: University
of
Chicago Press, 1957),
93.
5The Kufan, al-Bakka'i, is
recognized
as the most reliable transmitter of Ibn
Ish.aq
because his text
is
supposed
to have been dictated to him twice
by
the author. See R. G.
Khoury,
"Sources
islamiques
de
la 'Sira,'" in La Vie du
Prophete
Mahomet:
Colloque
de
Strasbourg,
October 1980
(Paris:
Presses Uni-
versitaires de France, 1983), 10.
6See the translator's foreword to al-Tabari,
The Last Years
of
the
Prophet,
vol.
9,
The
History of
al-
Tabari, trans. and ed. Ismail K. Poonawala
(Albany:
State
University
of New York
Press, 1990),
xi.
7See
Gregor Scholer, "Die
Frage
der schriftlichen oder mtindlichen
Uberlieferung
der Wissenschaften
im fruihen Islam," Der Islam 42 (1985): 201-30, who makes the case for the
early
existence of fixed
texts,
as
against
Sadun Mahmud al-Samuk, who believes that these
early
authors did not establish a fixed
text;
see Sadun Mahmud al-Samuk, Die historischen
Uberlieferungen
nach Ibn
Ishaq (diss., Frankfurt, 1978).
8Abbott, Historical Texts, 94.
9Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk, ed. M. J. De
Goeje (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1879),
1:1073-1837.
484 Rizwi S. Faizer
10Throughout
this article the terms
tradition, transmitter,
and tradent have been used in the Islamic
sense. I have not used the Arabic
terminology,
because the terms akhbar and hadlth are
subtly
different.
Distinguishing
one from the other is difficult
and,
as far as this article is
concerned, unnecessary.
1
In
fact,
the Kitdb
al-maghazi
of
al-Waqidi
has come down to us
through
the four
Iraqis
Ibn
al-Thalji,
Ibn Abi
Hayya (d. 931),
Ibn
Hayawayhi (d. 992),
and al-Hasan ibn CAli al-Jawhari
(d. 1062);
see
Jones,
English preface
to
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazl,
v.
12See J. M. B.
Jones,
"The
Chronology
of the
Maghdzi-A
Textual
Survey,"
Bulletin
of
the School
of
Oriental and
African
Studies 19
(1957): 245-80; idem,
"The
Maghiiz Literature,"
in Arabic Literature to
the End
of
the
Umayyad Period,
ed. A. E L. Beeston et al.
(Cambridge University Press, 1983),
344-51,
and Patricia
Crone,
Meccan Trade and the Rise
of
Islam
(Princeton:
Princeton
University Press, 1987),
respectively.
13Martin
Hinds, "Maghazl
and Sira in
Early
Islamic
Scholarship,"
in La vie du
Prophet Mahomet,
62.
14Leone
Caetani,
Annali
dell'Islam,
vol. 1
(Milan:
U.
Hoepli, 1905); Crone,
Meccan
Trade;
Moshe
Gil,
"The Medinan
Opposition
to the
Prophet,"
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10
(1987): 65-96;
Hartwig Hirschfeld,
"Essai sur l'histoire des Juifs de
Medine," part 1,
Revue des Etudes
juives
7
(1883):
167-93 and
part 2,
Revue des Etudes
juives
10
(1885): 10-31; Jones, "Chronology
of the
Maghazi";
M. J.
Kister,
"The
Expedition
of BiDr
Macuna,"
in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honour
of
Hamilton A. R.
Gibb,
ed.
George
Makdisi
(Leiden:
E. J.
Brill, 1965), 337-57;
M.
Lecker,
"Muhammad at Medina: A
Geographical Approach,"
Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6
(1985): 29-62;
R. B.
Serjeant,
"Haram and
Hawtah,
the Sacred Enclave in
Arabia,"
in
Melanges
Taha
Husain,
ed. A. R. Badawi
(Cairo:
Al-Maaref, 1962), 41; William
Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1953); idem, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956); idem, "Muhammad," in P. M. Holt
and Bernard Lewis, Cambridge History of
Islam
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 30-
56; Arent Jan Wensinck, Mohammed en de Joden te Medina (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1928), trans.
Wolfgang
Behn under the title Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (Freiburg
im
Breisgau:
K. Schwarz, 1975).
15Julius Wellhausen, preface
to
Al-Waqidi,
Muhammad in Medina, trans. Julius Wellhausen (Berlin:
G. Reimer, 1882), 12.
16j. M. B. Jones, "Ibn
Ishaq
and
al-Waqidi,"
Bulletin
of
the School
of
Oriental and
African
Studies
22 (1959): 41-51.
17Crone, Meccan Trade, 225.
18See, for instance, G. R.
Hawting's analysis
of the traditions of the
fath
in
"Al-Hudaybiyya
and the
Conquest
of Mecca," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 18, in which he discusses the use
of hadith. As for the use of akhbdr, see Stefan Leder, "Authorship
and Transmissions in Unauthored
Literature," Oriens (1988): 67.
19This is
essentially
the
position
toward
literary analysis
taken
by
Ferdinand de Saussure; see Jonathan
Culler, Ferdinand de Saussure (New York: Cornell University Press, 1986).
20Caetani, Annali, 1:391-95; Gil, "The Constitution of Medina," Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974): 44-
66, 203-24; Uri Rubin, "The 'Constitution of Medina': Some Notes," Studia Islamica 42 (1985): 5-20;
R. B.
Serjeant,
"The Sunnah JdmiCah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrim of Yathrib: Analysis
and Translation of the documents
Comprised
in the so called 'Constitution of Medina'," Bulletin
of
the
School
of
Oriental and
African Studies 41 (1978): 1-42; idem, "The Constitution of Medina," Islamic
Quarterly
8 (1964): 3-16; W.
Montgomery Watt, "Condemnation of the Jews of Banu
Qurayzah,"
in
Early
Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 1-12; Julius Wellhausen,
"Muhammads
Gemeindeordnung
von Medina," in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1889),
4:65-83; Wensinck, Muhammad and the Jews of
Medina.
21W. N. Arafat, "New
Light
on the
Story
of Banu Qurayza
and the Jews of Medina," Journal of
the
Royal
Asiatic
Society (1976): 100-107; and Barakat Ahmad, Muhammad and the Jews (New Delhi: Vikas
Publishing House, 1979).
22M. J. Kister, "The Massacre of the Banui
Qurayza:
A Reconsideration of a Tradition," Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 68.
23Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitib sirat rasul Allah, 3-7.
24Ibid., 552.
25Ibid., 672.
26Rudolf Sellheim, "Prophet,
Chalif und Geschichte. Die Muhammed-Biographie
des Ibn
Ishaq,"
Oriens 18-19 (1967): 3-91.
27The
Prophet's
death is mentioned
incidentally
in the course of the
chapter
on the raid on
Khaybar,
and Usama's raid on
Mu'ta,
for
instance,
but these are
only
references to the event. See
al-Waqidi,
Kitdb
al-maghazi, 678, 1,120.
On the other
hand,
there are other traditions
regarding
the
Prophet's
death
narrated
by al-Waqidi
which are recorded for us
by
Ibn
Sacd,
but as we are concerned with the Kitdb
al-maghdzi,
which is
essentially
a
literary genre,
these traditions will be considered to have been inten-
tionally
excluded
by al-Waqidi
and therefore considered irrelevant for the
purposes
of this
study.
28See
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi, 571-633, 741-54, 873-74,
1088-1103.
29Thus for instance the
ghazwat muraysic
is but a mnemonic for the recollection of the traditions
regarding
the scandal about CA'isha. See
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
426-40.
30According
to
Horovitz,
Ibn
Ishaq
cited more than one hundred traditionists from Medina alone. See
Josef
Horovitz,
"The Earliest
Biographies
of the
Prophet
and their
Authors,"
trans. Marmaduke
Pikthall,
in Islamic Culture 1
(1928): pt. 3,
170.
31Born into
notoriety,
his father
having
been one of the Meccans who had sworn to kill
Muhammad,
Ibn Shihab built
up
a
reputation
for his
scrupulous scholarship
and
honesty,
and for his collection of
traditions of the
Prophet.
See
Horovitz,
"The Earliest
Biographies
of the
Prophet," pt. 2, 33-50;
and
Fuat
Sezgin,
Geschichte des arabischen
Schrifttums (GAS) (Leiden:
E. J.
Brill, 1967),
1:280-83.
32Son of
CAsma', daughter
of Abu
Bakr,
and sister of
CA'isha,
the wife of the
Prophet,
and
al-Zubayr,
son of
al-CAwwam,
brother of
Khadija,
the first wife of the
Prophet.
See
Horovitz,
"The Earliest
Biog-
raphies
of the
Prophet,"
pt.
1, 542; and
Sezgin, GAS, 1:278.
33Tradition has it that CAbd Allah's
great-grandfather
was sent
by
the
Prophet
as
judge
to the Yemen,
and asked to instruct the inhabitants in the
teachings
of Islam. His
grandfather
is said to have been killed
at the battle of the harra in A.H. 63, and his father was
appointed judge
in Medina in A.H. 86, when 'Umar
ibn CAbd al-'Aziz took over its
governorship.
It was he whom 'Umar II is
supposed
to have
sought
out
to obtain the hadith of the
Prophet
and write them down. See Horovitz, "The Earliest
Biographies
of the
Prophet," pt. 2, 22-33; Sezgin, GAS, 1:284.
34His
grandfather
was the famous Qatada whose
eyeball
was
replaced
in its socket
by
the
Prophet,
and
who is
reported
to have declared that he could see better with that
eye
than with the one that had not been
wounded. See Eduard Sachau, "Studien zur altesten
Geschichtsiiberlieferung
der Araber," Mitteilungen
des Seminars
fiur orientalische Sprachen
7 (1904): 168.
35Khoury,
"Sources
islamiques," 12-13; Sezgin, GAS, 1:279-80.
36Khoury,
"Sources
islamiques,"
13.
37Horovitz, "The Earliest
Biographies
of the
Prophet," pt. 4, 518.
According
to Horovitz, al-Waqidi
must have been about
twenty-five years
old or
younger
when he
began
to collect traditions, for some of
his authorities died
only a little after A.H. 150.
38Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 351-52.
39Ibid., 355-61.
4?For the names of those who witnessed Badr, see
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
152.
41As for instance those who were
martyred
at the battle of
al-Khandaq, ibid., 495-96; those who were
killed
during
the raid on the B.
Qurayza,
ibid., 529; and those who were
martyred
at
Khaybar, ibid.,
699-700.
42Those who were taken
prisoner at Badr, ibid., 138-44.
43Portions allotted from what was taken from the B. Nadir, ibid., 379-80.
44That these communities were not included in the "Constitution" is indicated
by
the fact that when list-
ing
the various Jews who
opposed
the
Prophet,
he not
only
mentions the Jewish confederates of the Arab
groups
mentioned in the
agreement,
but also includes the B.
Qaynuqac,
the B. Nadir, and the B.
Qurayza.
See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitaib sirat rasul Allah, 351-52; see also Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 22; and Rubin,
"The Constitution of Medina," 10.
45Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 341-44.
46Ibid., 304-5.
47Ibid., 393-94.
48Ibid.,
395-96.
49Ibid., 388.
50Ibid., 427.
51Ibid., 545.
52A1-Waqidi, Kitdb
al-maghdzi,
454.
486 Rizwi S. Faizer
53"The
Prophet
wrote a document
concerning
the
emigrants
and
helpers
in which he made a
friendly
agreement
with the Jews...." See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Alldh, 341;
Ibn
Ishaq,
The
Life of
Mu-
hammad,
231.
54According
to
al-Waqidi,
Ibn
Ishaq
was "a
chronicler, genealogist,
and
traditionist,
... a man to be
trusted." See
al-Tabari, Ta'rikh, 3:2512,
Ibn
Ishaq,
The
Life of Muhammad,
xxxii.
55See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
714.
56See
idem, Life
of Muhammad,
482.
57Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
379.
58See
ibid.,
184.
59Ibid.,
176.
60Ibid.,
192.
61Ibid.,
370-71.
62Ibid.,
445.
63Ibid.,
503-4.
64Wellhausen,
"Muhammad's Constitution of
Medina,"
in Muhammad and the Jews
of Medina, 128-29.
65The archaic nature of the
language
of the information that has been differentiated as the "Consti-
tution of Medina" is not sufficient to establish its historical nature. Such
language
could
very
well have
been affected to
generate
the
impression
of
age,
and it is
interesting
that Watt himself should admit this
possibility.
See Watt, "Condemnation of the Jews of Banu
Qurayzah,"
in
Early Islam, 6. It is known that
students of law were
attempting
to simulate documents
pertaining
to the
meaning
of the term dhimmi
and its
legal implications.
The document which claims to
go
back to the time of
'Umar,
the second
caliph
of Islam, is a notorious
example.
See A. S. Tritton, The
Caliphs
and Their Non-Muslim
Subjects:
A Critical
Study of
the Covenant of 'Umar (London: Oxford
University Press, 1930), 12.
66Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), 30.
67Sellheim, "Prophet,
Chalif und Geschichte," 69.
68Hirschfeld, "Essai sur l'histoire,"
pt.
2, 174.
69Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
24.
70From what we know of earlier sira-maghazi, such as those of Macmar ibn Rashid and Musa ibn
'Uqba,
it was the raid on the B. Nadir that took
place
six months after Badr-the raid on the B.
Qay-
nuqac
not
being
mentioned. See Kister, "Notes on the
Papyrus
Text about Muhammad's Campaign against
the Banu al-Nadir," Archiv Orientalni 32 (1964), 235; and Jones, "The
Chronology
of the
Maghazi," 249,
268. This
episode
increases the number of
significant
Jewish tribes attacked by Muhammad from two to
three. Given that three is a
well-recognized
numerical mnemonic, and that Ibn Ishaq
was famous for his
oral
performances
of this collection of traditions about the
Prophet's life, the
possibility
that the inclu-
sion of the raid
accompanied by
the escalation of violence was established for mnemonic reasons must
be considered. For the uses of the mnemonic in oral tradition, see Rudolf Bultmann, who writes of the
law of
repetition
in The History of
the Synoptic
Tradition (New York:
Harper
and Row, 1963), 191, 314;
and Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1985), for an
ap-
preciation
of how oral tradition works. It is
important
to remember that historical fact is not
necessarily
behind these incidents.
According
to S. D. Goitein there is
only
Arabic
literary
evidence to
support
such
an
opinion;
see The Islam
of Muhammad, cited in Ronald C. Kiener's review article on Gordon D.
Newby,
Religious
Studies Review
(July 1992): 183.
71Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 545-47. I would remind the reader that while
al-Waqidi's Prophet
also demands conversion of the Jews, he does this
only
after defeating
them in war, and it is an offer
made as a last resort.
72See
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi, 176-77. A similar
story
is narrated
by
Ibn Hisham in his recen-
sion of Ibn
Ishaq's
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, but he takes the
precaution
to add that the woman referred
to refused to uncover her face, an
implausible
situation as the Prophet had not
yet prescribed
the veil for
his women. This leads one to
suppose, therefore, that the tradition cited was false. See Ibn
Ishaq, Kitab
sirat rasul Allah, 546.
73See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 545.
74Ibid., 543-44.
75Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
176.
76Thus, for instance, the isnads used
by
Ibn
Ishaiq
are (a) a
report
about the B.
Qaynuqac, (b) a free-
man from the
family
of
Zayd
ibn Thabit from Sacid ibn Jubayr
from Clkrima from Ibn
'Abbas, (c) 'Asim
ibn CUmar ibn
Qatada;
and
(d) Ishaq
ibn Yasar from CUbada ibn al-Walid ibn 'Ubada ibn al-Samit. The
isnads used
by al-Waqidi
are
(a)
CAbd Allah ibn
Jacfar
from al-Harith ibn
Fudayl
from Ibn Kacb al-
Qurazi, (b)
Muhammad ibn CAbd Allah from Zuhri from
'Urwa, (c-d)
two traditions that
begin "they
said,"
probably referring
to the collective tradition
given
at the
beginning
of the
book, (e)
Muhammad
ibn Maslama "said,"
(f)
"Muhammad related to me from
al-Zuhri,
from CUrwa,"
(g)
"Muhammad ibn
al-Qasim
related to me from his father from
al-RabiC
ibn Sabra from his
father,"
and
(h) "Yahya
ibn
CAbd Allah ibn Abi
Qatada
related to me from CAbd Allah ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm." See Ibn
Ishaq, Life
of Muhammad, 363-64,
and
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi, 176-80, respectively.
77Jones,
"The
Maghazl
Literature," 348.
78See
Qur'an, 3:10,
cited in Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
545.
79Qur'an,
trans. Yusuf
Ali, 8:58,
cited in
Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
177.
80Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
543-44.
81Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazl,
181.
82Ibid.,
185.
83See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Alldh,
548-53.
84Ibid.,
657-58.
85Ibid., 552-54.
86Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzt,
192.
87Ibid.
88Serjeant,
"The Sunnah
Jamicah,"
32.
89A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazl,
192.
90Martin
Lings,
Muhammad: His
Life
Based on the Earliest Sources
(London: George
Allen and
Unwin, 1983),
171.
91Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazl, 191;
Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Alldh,
553.
92Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzl,
288.
93Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Allah,
680.
94A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzi,
462.
95Ibid., 346;
Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Alldh,
648-51.
96Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Allah, 652-55; Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzi,
363-74.
97Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
365.
98Ibid.,
209-13.
99Ibid.,
444-45.
100Ibid.,
379.
10lIbn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah,
653.
102Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
380.
103Ibid.,
375.
104Norman A.
Stillman,
The Jews
of
Arab Lands: A
History
and Source Book
(Philadelphia:
Jewish
Publication
Society
of
America, 1979),
14.
05A1l-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
373.
106Ibid.,
374.
107Ibid.,
426-40.
108Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasal
Allah,
731-40.
109Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 671; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
452.
l0Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 672; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
476.
11Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 677-78;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
470.
112Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 676;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdaz,
477.
13Ibn
Ishaq, Kitsb
sirat rasul Allah, 680; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzl,
480-84.
114Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Alldh, 677; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzl,
445.
115bn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 678-79; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghdzi,
469.
16Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Kitab
al-maghdzi,
489.
117Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
442.
118Ibid.,
445.
119Ibid., 458.
120Ibid.,
460.
Interestingly,
this same tradition is
repeated
in the
chapter
on the raid on
al-Hudaybiya,
but there it is recorded as a vision or dream rather than a mere
hope.
See
ibid.,
572.
488
Rizwi S. Faizer
121Ibid.,
455.
122Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 396,
399.
123See
al-Waqidi,
Kitdb
al-maghazi, 503-4;
for
my
translation see
page
468.
124Kister,
"The Massacre of the Banu
Qurayza,"
94-95.
125Ibid., 96.
126Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 680;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
462.
127A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
458.
128Kister,
"The Massacre of the Banu
Qurayza,"
85.
129Ibid.,
178.
130Ibid., 288,
462.
13
Ibid.,
96.
132A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
497. This knack of
presenting
the reader with a kind of
premonition
of what is soon to
happen
is a characteristic of
al-Waqidi's style,
which I have commented on.
133Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 684;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
497.
134Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Kitab
al-maghazi,
499.
135Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitdb sirat rasul
Allah, 687-88;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
504.
36Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Kitab
al-maghazi,
515.
137Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Kitab
al-maghazi,
510.
13Ibn
Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasl Allah, 684; al-Waqidi,
Kitab al-maghazi, 497.
39Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 685;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
498-99.
140Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Allah, 685-86; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
501-3.
41Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
366.
142Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 690-91;
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
516-17.
143We know that it
happened
before Uhud because the man who
bought
the fruit from Abu Lubaba
was
martyred
at Uhud. See
al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
505.
144Ibid.
145Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 686-87; Sellheim, "Prophet,
Chalif und
Geschichte,"
62.
146Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
679.
47Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
512.
Compare
Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Alldh, 679.
148Watt,
"Condemnation of the Jews of Banu
Qurayzah,"
11.
149Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Allah, 415;
Ibn
Ishaq, Life of Muhammad,
281.
15?Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah, 381,
427.
151See
my
discussion of the murder of KaCb ibn al-Ashraf on
page
479-80.
152A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
1-8.
153Jones,
"The
Chronology
of the
Maghazi,"
261.
154See Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasil
Allah, 548-53; al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
184-93.
155'Abd
al-Razzaq,
al-Musannaf,
ed. Habib al-Rahman al-ACzami
(Beirut: 1970), 5:357,
cited in
Rubin,
"The Assassination of KaCb b.
al-Ashraf,"
Oriens 32
(1990): 69,
n. 27.
15tSee Kister,
"Notes on the
Papyrus Text,"
235.
157See
al-Zurqani,
Sharh cald'l mawdhib
al-laduniya, 1:551,
cited in
Jones, "Chronology
of the Ma-
ghazi," 247,
n. 21.
158Exegetes
such as
Muqatil
ibn
Sulayman (d. 767)
and
Baghawi (d. 1122)
are seen to associate the
murder of KaCb with the exile of the B. Nadir and surat al-Hashr. See
Rubin,
"The Assassination of
Kacb b.
al-Ashraf,"
68.
159Ibid., 68,
n. 23.
160A1-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
192.
16IIbid.,
391.
162Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Alldh,
714-16.
163Ibid.,
714.
164Jones, however, feels that the differences
regarding
the date of the murder of Abu Rafic was a
matter of
simple
confusion. See
Jones, "Chronology
of the
Maghazi,"
270.
165Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
395.
166QurDan,
trans. Yusuf
Ali,
5:12.
167Ibn
Ishaq,
Kitab sirat rasul
Allah,
392.
168Ibid.,
663.
'69Al-Waqidi,
Kitab
al-maghazi,
196.
170According
to
Northrop Frye, "Symmetry
in
any
narrative
always
means that historical content is be-
ing
subordinated to
mythical
demands of
design
and form." See
Northrop Frye,
The Great Code
(Toronto:
Academic Press
Canada, 1982),
43.
171Al-Waqidi,
Kitdb al-maghdzl,
288,
462.
172According
to J. N.
Mattock,
the
compiler
is
essentially sticking
to the
key components
of the
story,
but
inevitably changes
the details to suit the immediate circumstances that he faces. See J. N.
Mattock,
"History
and
Fiction,"
Occasional
Papers of
the School
of
'Abbasid Studies 1
(1986):
96.
173According
to Johann Flick there were at least fifteen known recensions of Ibn
Ishaq
available soon
after his death. See Johann
Fuck,
"Muhammad Ibn
Ishaq:
Literarhistorische
Untersuchungen" (diss.,
Frankfurt am Main:
1925),
44.

Muhammad and The Medinan Jews

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