Muhammad and The Jews — Page 75
THE FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERACY his life even to avoid violating biblical commands, the exception being the three cardinal sins, murder, adultery and idol-worship. Indeed concerning the three for which he must lay down his life, many authorities hold that he is to allow himself to be killed rather than violate them, but must not actively destroy himself. I There have been exceptions2 but the general rule is that while one should fight to death one should not die by his own hands, or murder. If this tribe of the Jewish priests could fight like the defenders of Masada, it could inflict very heavy losses on the starving Muslims. But the morale of the besieged Jews was so low that Kaeb's advice portended suicide rather than victory. Probably in the history of religious persecution Jews are the only minority group who while secretly remaining faithful to Judaism practised another religion which they or their ancestors had to adopt to save their lives. Marranos, Chuetas and Jadid al-Islam are some of the well known Crypto-Jews. 3 But no one from the B. QuraY?:ah tried to save his life by accepting Islam. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in accepting that they all died as martyrs, but it seems to be too good to be true; it has the overtones of the story of the martyrs of Najran. In 723 A. D. the Byzantine emperor ordered the Jews of Asia Minor to em brace Christianity under pain of severe punishment; many Jews submitted to this decree. They "were of the opinion that the storm would soon blow over, and that they would be permitted to return to Judaism. " 4 Earlier in 654 the Jews of Toledo bad to accept Christianity under similar circumstances. 5 The second alternative was, therefore, neither in accordance with the Jewish law, nor Jewish practice, and was above all devoid of logic. The answer to the third alternative which Kaeb b. Asad had suggested also does not comply with the Jewish Jaw. In refusing to fight on the eve of the Sabbath the Jews of the B. Quran;ah said: "Are we to profane our Sabbath and do on the Sabbath what those 1 "Suicide", The Encyclopedia of Jewish Religion, 1965, p. 367. 2 Roman siege of Masada, Josephus, The Jewish War, Book VII, Chapters 8-9. Also the incident of R. Moses' wife, vide Abraham ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, The Book of Tradition tr. and ed. Gershon D. Cohen (Philadelphia, 1967), p. 64. 3 See Encyclopaedia Judaica, under Crypto-Jews and also under individual headings. 4 Graetz, p. 123. 5 Ibid. , p. 103. 75