Muhammad and The Jews — Page 111
THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE CONFLICt But the Jewish leadership was as demoralised as ever. The feebleness shown by the B. Quray~ah made it apparent that they had no leader. Kaeb b. Asad acted like a man driven by despair. While adversity can bring out almost superhuman heroic qualities among besieged people, the B. Quray~ah were plunged into the depths of depression. They had lost the qualities of leadership, courage and endurance, most probably, during the war of Bueath or even earlier. The division of the Apostle's life in two periods, the Meccan and the Medinan, seems to be neat and logical. But it is an over- simplification. After the Hijrah the Apostle and the Emigrants had escaped persecution, but the struggle for survival had not ceased. A more logical periodization would be to divide the Apostle's life into three phases: the first up to the year of his call to the Ministry, the second from this date to the truces of I;f udaibiyah and Khaybar, and the third from Khaybar to his death. We might subdivide the second phase in two periods, one of persecution and the second of armed struggle, or call them the periods of (I) Meccan struggle, (2) Medinan struggle and (3) the propagation of the faith. I;f udaybiyah and Khaybar, whatever be the periodization, are definite watersheds in the history of early Islam. The largest number of people the Apostle could gather around him on a battle-field was 3,000 up to the end of the sixth year of the Hijrah. According to our sources this was the number of people who took part in defending Medina during the Battle of the Abziib. 1 But the people who went out on an expedition did not exceed 1,600. 2 This gives a fairly correct idea of the Muslim strength during the first six years of the Hijrah. Except for the Muhiijirun and the An~iir the Arab tribes had not accepted Islam. "Islam had touched only a few tribes on the neighbourhood of Mecca and Medina". 3 The continuous conflict with the Quraysh of Mecca and the cold war with the Jewish elite of the I;fijaz was not conducive to the propagation of the faith, which required stability and peace. The Apostle was nearing sixty and had accomplished little except a few local successes. The failure of the Meccan-Jewish attempt to liquidate the Apostle and his followers at the Battle of the Abziib was only a negative success for the Muslims. They remained bottled up in Medina, safe within their own confines, free to send expeditions, 1 Ibn Hishiim, p. 673. 2 Ibn sa~d, II, p. 95. Ibn Hishiim gives tw~ figures, 700 and 1400, p. 740. 3 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 40. 111