Muhammad and The Jews — Page 19
INTRODUCTION isolate any one of the accounts with which we are concerned and then to identify the source of his information. With these three works, all written or collected approximately a century and a half or more after the events under study took place, our earliest record of the remembered past of early Islam comes to a close. What was remembered by our informants the original reporters and transmitters, and above all what was recorded by Ibn Isl_iaq, al-Waqidi and lbn Sac:. d reflects the importance which they attached to the events as preserved. It is their historical consciousness on which we depend. It is definitely not comparable to our sense of history. Details which might have been of interest to us have been lost for ever, for the early observers of that history were not concerned with them. For example Ibn Isl;iiiq begins his account of the affair of the B. Qaynuqac:. with the following words: The Apostle assembled them in their market and addressed them as follows : 'O Jews, beware lest God bring upon you the vengeance that he brought upon Quraysh and become Muslims. . . 1 Ibn Isl;iaq does not tell us why the Apostle assembled them to give such a warning, though he goes on to say that the B. Qaynuqac:. were the first of the Jews to break their agreement with the Apostle and go to war between Badr and Ul;iud. 2 What was that agreement, when was it signed and how did the B. Qaynuqiic:. break it? There is no informa- tion. Almost a hundred years later, Ibn Hishiim (d. 218/833) editing the Sirah, noticed that the account lacked some important information. So he added that a Muslim woman was insulted by the B. Qaynuqac:. in their market. 3 Was that the only reas6n? Was it an act of war? Did it mean the breach of an agreement? We can only conjecture, re- construct and try to search for the reasons which led the Apostle to assemble the B. Qaynuqac:. and administer them such a warning. For Ibn Isl;iaq, who never suppresses relevant evidence, this information was not important. If he knew, he did not care to record it; if he did not know, he did not think it was necessary to obtain it. Before giving an account of the battle of UJ:iud, Ibn Isl)aq records that the - Apostle said, 'kill any Jew that falls into your power'. Thereupon Mul;iayyi~ah b. Masc:. ud leapt upon lbn Sunaynah, a Jewish merchant 1 Ibn Hishiim, p. 545. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 19