Muhammad and The Jews — Page 108
siege the heaviest burden falls upon the leader of the defenders. He has to combine in himself a veritable galaxy of talents. He must be brave and appear to be brave without being foolhardy; he must have, or soon acquire, suffi- cient personal authority to be the unquestioned leader of his troops;. . . such a man must remain serene in the face of setbacks and disappointments, so that he generates an air of confidence in even tu al victory. . . . 1 These qualities, as the three sieges of Yathrib amply show, were completely absent in the Jewish leadership. Khaybar presented a different picture, but there, too, a unified leadership was not possible. Ibn Isl;tiiq, al-Waqidi and lbn Sacd in their accounts of the conflict with the B. Qaynuqiic have not given the name of any person who led these unfortunate Jews. They were not short of prominent people whose names have been mentioned in other contexts. lbn lsl;taq has given the names of twenty-eight prominent adversaries of the Apostle from the B. Qaynuqiic. 2 Rafacah b. Qays was one of them; he went to the Apostle asking why he turned his back to Jerusalem as the qiblah. 3 He also went to the An$iir asking them not to contri- bute to the public expenses and when he spoke to the Apostle he twisted his words. 4 Finl;tas is another rabbi of the B. Qaynuqac who infuriated Abu Bakr by saying that the Jews were not poor compared to Allah. 5 Another, Shas b. Qays, had earlier ordered a Jewish youth to recite the poems of Bucath to the An$iir. 6 But neither on the eve of the siege nor during the siege nor after the siege is the name of any leader of the B. Qaynuqac mentioned. There were seven hundred well-fed and well-provided combatants among the B. Qaynuqac; three hundred of them had their armour. Any leader with even a modicum of military experience would have given battle to the Apostle in the open field. With their fortress at their back the B. Qaynuqac could effectively deal with the three hundred-odd Muslims with ease. Unlike the Quraysh at Badr they were not short of water, and were not camped in the open. They were strategically in a stronger position. Their market was near the bridge of the Wadi of Batl;tan and an ufum 1 Belfield, p. 5-6. 2 lbn Hisham, p. 352. 3 Ibid. , p. 381. 4 Ibid. , p. 390. 5 Ibid. , p. 388. 6 Ibid. , p. 385. 108•