The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume II — Page 272
Seal of the Prophets - Volume II 272 Muslims were confronted, has already been described above. Their state was exactly like that of a person who becomes surrounded in such a place which is engulfed by a dangerously blazing fire on all four sides to as far as one can see, and he has no place of escape; and such people are standing beside him which are thirsty for his blood. In this extremely vulnerable state of the Muslims, if an evil and mischievous person incites people against their Master and Chief by reciting provocative couplets and provokes his enemies to assassinate him, what other solution could there have been in the circumstances of that era, except for putting an end to such a person? Then, this action was performed by the Muslims only in a state of extreme provocation - a state in which a minor killing cannot be considered enough for retribution. As such, even an individual like Mr. Margoliouth, who generally takes an opposing stance on every matter, does not hold the Muslims worthy of condemnation on account of these incidents. Hence, Mr. Margoliouth writes: “Since, if the verses ascribed to ‘Asma be genuine, she had deliberately incited the people of Medinah to a murderous attack on the Prophet, her execution would not have been an inexcusably ruthless measure, judged by any standard; and it must not be forgotten that satire was a far more effective weapon in Arabia than elsewhere. . . . . . . and from the fact that only the culprit suffered, it was a decided improvement on the existing system, by which satire on an individual meant war between whole tribes. The principle that each person shall suffer for his own fault was introduced instead. ” 1 If Mr. Margoliouth has any objection with respect to these executions, it is only with regards to the manner in which they were carried out. In other words, why were they not officially executed after the formal announcement of their crimes? The first answer to this is that even if these incidents are deemed as being true, they were the individual actions of certain Muslims themselves, which were committed by them after they had been immensely provoked. The Holy Prophet sa did not order these actions and this is categorically established by the record of Ibni Sa‘d. Secondly, if hypothetically, it is accepted that the Holy Prophet sa had ordered these actions, even still, the circumstances of that era were most definitely such, that if an official judgement had been formally passed with regards to the execution of ‘Aṣmā’ and Abū ‘Afak, and the 1 Mohammed and The Rise of Islam, By David Samuel Margoliouth, pp. 278-279, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York & London, The Knickerbocker Press, Third Edition