Muhammad and The Jews — Page 106
may have realized already that the Emigrants would generally have more influence on M ul). ammad than the An~i'ir. . . . for some of them hopes may have been set on a league with Ibn Ubayy". 1 Even when they failed they did not realize the necessity of adaptability. "Thus the Jewish opponents of Mahomet placed a ridiculous meaning on his sayings and revelations, and treated him contemptuously. " 2 The Jews of Yathrib epitomised the tragedy of a group which had lost its moorings. The tensions in the Medina of A. D. 627 reflected the strains and stresses of the larger social structure of which they were only a minor part. Having been assimilated in the Arab majority they had preserved only the external forms of an identity. Nothing distinguished them from other Arabs except their monotheism and the dietary laws. The differences between the two should have been still reduced by the Islamic monotheism, but research has shown "that groups might become more conscious of their opposed identities precisely at a time when external differences between them are being reduced. " 3 They failed to respond to the new situation by changing their attitude and social organization and fell back on the old tried methods of forging new alliances with non-Muslim Arabs, not anti- cipating that the winner would be the Muslim and not the Meccan Quraysh. Unfortunately for them, not only the fundamental changes in the larger society, but the character of the Jewish minority was determined by the personal qualities of two of its leaders, Kaeb b. Asad and I:Juyayy b. Akhtab, one a wavering weakling and the other an incorrigible intriguer. While a decline in the economic sphere is gradual and a declining elite gets time and opportunity to retard and even reverse the process of decline, a shift in the skills of war and a failure to comprehend the nature of that shift, and to adapt or retreat accordingly, is always fatal. The Jews of Yathrib Jost and the Jews of Khaybar failed to destroy the small Muslim force investing it because they did not realize till the end that their i'iti'im had ceased to provide protection. The origin of the word i'i!i'im is doubtful. According to Arab scholars it is an Arabic word denoting height and according to Jewish scholars it is a Hebrew word. These were fortlike 1 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, pp. 201-2. 2 Graetz, p. 74. The Qur 0 an, Al·Nisii, 46. 3 Andre Beteille, "Race, Caste and Ethnic Identity," Int ernational Social Science Journal, No. 4, 1971, p. 534. 106'