Muhammad and The Jews — Page 123
THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE CONFLICT renaissance are concomitant. The great Jewish-Muslim symbiosis 1 during the golden period of Islam was the result of that encounter. It is meaningless to talk of a 'break with the Jews'. It presupposes an alliance with them of which we have no evidence. The Jews of the I;lijii. z as usual with a declining elite soon faded out of the limelight, but did not disappear from Medina. When the Apostle died his coat of mail was mortgaged to a Jew who had supplied him with foodgrains. 2 The Jews were obviously conducting business as usual, but for the Muslim chronicler of wars and the biographer of the Apostle the Jews of the I;lijii. z ceased to be of interest after the peace of Khaybar. The jurists and the Tradition compilers kept their watch on the Jews for a slightly longer period to find or establish precedents for collect- ing jizyah and khariij. Actually the Jews of the I;lijii. z were neither expelled nor did they leave the region during the lifetime of the Apostle. The Apostle himself took care to obliterate signs of bitterness. To both the B. Quray'. (:ah and the Jews of Khaybar the Apostle made a gesture of goodwill and conciliation after their discomfiture. No such gesture was made to the B. Qaynuqii. "". They did not need it either. The pattern of the Apostle's marriages as it unfolds itself is clearly social and political. "His marriages were not simply love matches; they were political alliances". 3 A defeated adversary was almost always won by this gesture. Umm Salamah (Hind) was a close relative of the leading man of the Makhziim clan, Juwayriyah was the daughter of the tribe of al-Mu~taliq, who were defeated by the Muslims. All the Apostle's marriages, Watt observes, "can be seen to have a tendency to promote friendly relations in the political sphere. " 4 The Union with RayMnah, 5 was in fact a polrtical' announcement that the Apostle had closed the chapter of bitterness and was making another attempt to win the friendship of the B. Quray'. (:ah through marriage with a lady of their clan. The gesture would have been meaningless and empty if all the male adults had been slain and their women and children sold as slaves. The Apostle tried to strengthen his negotiated peace with the State of Khaybar by the same sign of goodwill. He took Safiyah in marriage and thus sealed his alliance with the most important Jewish power in theI;Iijii. z. 1 S. D. Goitein (Jews and Arabs, p. 127) calls it 'Jewish-Arab symbiosis'. 2 Al-Bukhari, Sahib Kitab al Buyiic, Vol. III, pp. 73-74. 3 Rodinson, Mohammed, pp. 280-81. 4 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 287. 5 Ibid,. p. 288. Rayl)anah was a widow from the B. Quran;ah. 123