Muhammad and The Jews — Page 124
The result of the two peace treaties, at I:Iudaybiyah and Khaybar, was a great success. Two years later (1. I 630/ 10. IX 8), when the Apostle marched to Mecca, his army numbered 10,000 men as compared to 1,600 in 628 (6 A. H. ). I:Iudaybiyah and Khaybar had paid a great dividend. Watt finds it "interesting to speculate on what would have happened had the Jews come to terms with Mu]J. ammad instead of opposing him. At certain periods they could have secured very favourable terms from him, including religious autonomyl, and on that basis the Jews might have become partners in the Arab empire and Islam a sect of Jewry. How different the face of the world would be now, had that happened!"2 Unfortunately a declining elite does not act that way. Among the migratory peoples of ancient times the Greeks, the Italians and the Hebrews "looked upon their neighbours with greater apprehension than did any of the others. These three peoples lived in deep fear of the societies beyond, and even among themselves there was mutual antagonism and distrust. "3 While the Greeks and the Italians had settled by the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews, due to their unfortunate circumstances, retained the characteristic of a migratory society. We have noted earlier that the B. QaynuqaC, the B. al-Nac;lir and the B. Quranah bore their misfortunes alone. No other Jewish tribe moved to help them. They had shown the same 'mutual antagonism and distrust' at the Battle of Bucath. "They were continually conscious, indeed too conscious, of a distinction between their society and others, between themselves and the out- group". 4 Their apprehension over strangers and foreigners prevented them from accepting the invitation to join the ummah. Things became far more difficult, because they formed an elite group, which would have lost its exclusiveness by joining an out-group. Even where the Jews have broken physical restrictions of a gentile-instituted ghetto, the ghetto as a Jewish institution holding the Jews under intellectual 1 Islam in any case gave religious autonomy to the Jews and it lasted in the form of the "millet" system up to the downfall of the Ottomans. 2 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 219. 3 Richard Freeman, Repentance and Revolt: A Psychological Approach to History (Rutherford, N. J. : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970), p. 29. 4 Freeman, p. 32. 124