Muhammad and The Jews — Page 36
with the Muslims. Since there is no definite information about any agreement with the Jews, the relationship between the Muslims and the Jews in Medina rested on some sort of status quo. To be more precise, it seemed to be an uneasy truce which lasted till the !)abifah was signed. Historians dealing with the pre-Islamic alliances among the tribes might reasonably ask ifthe Jews of Medina became an unwitting victim of clannish jealousies or complexities of inter-tribal alliances. As our examination of the incidents shows, such alliances played no part in the Jewish-Muslim conflict. The Jewish trust in the muniifiqun, however, played a far more important role in their misfortunes1. From the very first executions of Abu "Afak of the B. c Amr b. "Awf and "A~mii. , bint Marwiin of Umayyah b. Zayd, the Apostle had taken care to emphasise that Islam had terminated tribal alliances. It would not be correct to conclude that tribal affiliations did not play an important role in the Arab dealings with the Apostle, but they had no part-or no significant part-in the steep decline of the Jewish influence in the I;Iijiiz during the first ten years of their encounter with Islam. 1 See infra, Chapter III. While the B. al-Nac:lir were ready to comply with the terms offered by the Apostle it was ,. Abd Allah b. Ubayy and others who asked them to resist the Apostle. 36