Muhammad and The Jews — Page 33
le :d er ie _o :e !S. h 's 4 ·e d d y l· l· ti 1f 1t ·f e e THE JEWS OF ARABIA ON THE EVE OF THE Hijrah b. al-"'Ajlan belonged to the Khazraj, but both the Aws and the Khazraj bowed to his leadership. Malik became independent and it is probable that with him nearly all the Khazraj and most of the Aws freed _themselves from the 'Jewish' over-lordship. 1 Ibn Khurradadhbih (d. 309/911) reports that the Marzubiin a!-biidiyah appointed an "'iimil over Medina who collected taxes. The B. Quray?:ah and the B. al-Na<;lir, the report continues, were kings who were appointed to collect these taxes from the Aws and the Khazraj. 2 Yaqiit (d. 626/1229) also reports that the B. Quranah and the B. al-Na<;lir were the kings driven out by the A ws and the Khazraj, who had formerly paid tax to the Jews. 3 Altheim and Stiehl consider lbn Khurradadbbih's report sound, and observe that such a situation could endure as long as the Jewish tribes dominated the Aws and the Khazraj, till the middle of the sixth century. 4 It is probably safer to assume that the Jews of Medina had Jost their position as a dominant group sometime before the birth of the Apostle. Various developments after the middle of the sixth century tended to weaken the Jewish community of Yathrib. The fact that before the battle of Bu"ath, the Ban ii al-Na<;lir and Banii Quray?:ah had given hostages to the Khazraj suggests that they were fully conscious of their weakness. But at the battle of Bu"'ath both the tribes helped the Aws against the Khazraj even at the cost of the lives of some of their hostages. This help made it possible for the Aws to gain victory at Bu"'ath, which was fought a few years before the Hijrah. 5 By the first quarter of the seventh century the Ban ii Qaylah were, probably, on the way to becoming a dominant group in Yatbrib. Yathrib at this time was not much of a city. It was a disorganised collection of hamlets and houses, farms and fortified huts scattered over an oasis, rich in underground water supplies and springs and fountains. Though the Aws seemed to have the upper hand, relations between the different groups bad reached a very low ebb. They were divided, and unimportant quarrels assumed dangerous proportions. 1 Al-Samhiidi, Vol. I, pp. 177-98. See also Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 192-95. 2 lbn Khurradadhbih, Kitab a/-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, ed. by de Goeje (Leiden, 1889), p. 128. 3 Yaqiit, Mu"'jam al-Buldan, ed. by F. Wiistenfeld (6 Vols. , Leipzig, 1866-1873), Vol. IV, p. 460. 4 F. Altheim and R. Stiehl, Finanzgeschichte der Spiitantike (Frankfurt am Main, 1957), p. 149. n. 63. 5 lbn Hishiim, pp. 372-73; Al-Agluini, Vol. XVII, pp. 68-75. 33