Muhammad and The Jews — Page 23
INTRODUCTION Abii Dii. ,iid provides additional information or explanation of events, where our primary sources have been silent or vague. Al-Samhiidi is the earliest source on Medina after Islam. During the course of research other important sources of Muslim history, which were con- ceived in another tradition and were inspired by different motives, such as Yal;iyii b. Adam's Kitiib al-Khariij and Abii al-Faraj al-I!?bahiini's Kitiib al-Aghiini have also been sifted for relevant material. The main facts or arguments, however, do not depend either on them or on al-W iiqidi and Ibn Sa"'d, and the present study would still stand if references to these works were omitted. Lord Acton once observed that when an interesting statement is discovered, the critical method "begins by suspecting it"; the his- torian's basic duty "is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art of investigating it-of discerning truth from falsehood". The punishment of the B. Quray+ah is unique in the life of the Apostle. The total number of men reported to be executed on surrender is said to be six hundred to nine hundred, while the total number of Muslims and non-Muslims killed during all the battles and expeditions which were undertaken during the Apostle's lifetime is less than five hundred killed on both sides-the number of non-Muslims killed is less than three hundred. "This dark episode, which Muslim tradition, it must be said, takes quite calmly, has provoked lively discussion among Western biographers of Mul;iammad, with caustic accusations on the one hand and legalistic excuses on the other". 1 But in this lively discussion both sides seem to have paid little attention to critical exa- mination of the evidence. The Western scholar quoted Ibn IsJ:iiiq, al-Wiiqidi and Ibn Sacd and the Muslim apologist answered back with Deuteronomy 2 and 2 Samuel3. Stories of massacres and mass murders have a way of impressing themselves on man's imagination. Once circulated it is difficult to remove them from the collective memory of people. Even when historically demolished they become part of popular legend. George W. Hartman in the Journal of Social Psychology4 has analysed the 1 Francesco Gabrieli, Muhammad and the Conquests of Islam trans. by Virginia Luling and Rosamund Linell, (London, 1968), p. 73. 2 Deuteronomy 20, 13-14, quoted by Muhammad Ali, Muhammad the Prophet (Lahore, 1924), p. 163. 3 2 Samuel XII, 31, quoted by Syed Ameer Ali, The Spirit of lslam(London, 1964), p. 82. 4 Vol. XXII, November 1945, pp. 221-236. 23