Muhammad and The Jews — Page 12
most pertinent criticism, from our point of view, is Ibn IsJ:iaq's method of "tracing the ghazawiit of the Prophet by means of the sons of the Jews who had become Muslims and remembered the story of Khaybar and other matters". 1 Dealing with this charge and the quarrel bet- ween Ibn JsJ:iaq and the great Traditionist Malik b. Anas, Ibn Sayyid al-Nas concludes that both of them were finally reconciled and when Ibn IsJ:iaq left Medina for Iraq Malik gave him fifty dinars and half of his date crop of the year as a gift. Malik did not intend to malign him as a Traditionist but he did question his acceptance of the reports of Khaybar, Quray'. ?ah and al-Nagir and such other unattested events from the Jewish converts (from their fathers). Ibn lsJ:iaq followed these reports in his maghiizi without necessarily ascertaining the true facts whereas Malik himself did not report except from reliable men. 2 As we shall see while examining the various reports of Ibn Isl) aq, the charge does not seem to be without substance. While converts from one religion to another are not necessarily unreliable, a historian should closely scrutinize reports emanating from them. The very fact of their conversion means that they considered the attitude, the policy and. the action of their erstwhile co-religionists objectionable, if they were sincere in their conversion; it was expedient to disassociate themselves from their action, if the conversion was forced. In any case their tendency in remembering and reproducing the events of their past or the past of their ancestors direcily involved in conflicts with their new co-religionist will be subconsciously-and sometimes deliberately-prejudicial to the task of ascertaining true facts. One might, however, ask in parenthesis if Malik b. Anas's charge was fair. It shows a latter-day prejudice against the Jewish converts. Wh y should they be less reliable than the sons of the pagan Arab converts? Would the Muslim sons of those Meccan pagans who fought the Apostle not distort the role of their ancestors in the same manner as the sons of the Jewish converts, to gain acceptability? Their reports need as much verification as those of the Jewish converts. Referring to lbn IsJ:iaq's methodology of reporting the events in Medina Horovitz observes : H er e the isniid is th e rule, and the authorities of Ibn Is]Jaq are his Medina t ea cher s, above all al-Zuhri, c Asim ibn cu mar and c Abdullah ibn Abl Bakr, to whom also he is already indebted for the chronological scaffolding. . . For the presentation of 1 Talldhib, Vol IX, p, 45. 2 Ibn Sayyid al-Nii. s, Vol. I, p. 17. 12. .