Muhammad and The Jews — Page 26
The Arab legends trace the first Jewish settlers in the I:Iijaz to the time of Moses who had ordered some of his followers to fight the Amalek, a people of Edomite stock and described by Rabbinic literature as "Israel's permanent arch-enemy". l According to Abl! al-Faraj al-I~bahani (284/897-356/967) these Jews were sent to destroy the Amalek in the I:Iijaz. But they failed to fulfil the commandment of total annihilation; they took pity on the handsome son of the Amalek king and took him back alive instead of killing him. As a punishment these Jews were banished and they settled in Yathrib, which they had earlier conquered. Among those who settled were the Jews of the B. Quray~ah, the B. al-Na<;lir and the B. Qaynuqa"-. 2 Though there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this legend the historical evidence takes us only to the first century A. D. The tombstone inscrip- tions of a Shubeit "Yehudaya" erected in al-Hijr in 42 A. D. (or 45 B. c. ) and that of one Simon in 307 (which incidentally is the latest Nabatean inscription yet discovered) are some of the few remnants of Arab-Jewish life in pre-Islamic Arabia. Werner Caskel, referring to these two inscriptions, considers the Jews to be the main. representa- tives of Nabatean culture in the I:Iijaz after 300 A. D. and declares : These are the beginnings of the Jewish population, which later occupied all the oases in the northwest including Medinah. 3 Yathrib, an oasis on the caravan route running from north to south, rich in underground water supplies, springs and fountains, provided the Jews with a land where they could apply their farming experience. They planted it with palms, fruit trees and rice, and seem to have pioneered in introducing advanced methods of irrigation and cultiva- tion of the soil. They also developed new arts and crafts from metal work to dyeing and the production of fine jewellery, and taught the neighbouring tribes more advanced methods of exchanging goods and money. 4 Though distinguished from the Arabs by their religion, these Jews became Arabicised to such an extent that their tribes adopted Arabic 1 "Amalek", The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, 1965, pp. 27-8. 2 Abii al-Faraj al-l~bahani, Kitiib al-Aghiini (Cairo: Ministry of Culture and Education, n. d. ), Vol. III, p. 116. Ibid. , (Beirut, 1960), Vol. XXII, pp. 97-107. Al-Samhiidi, Vol. I, pp. 154-165. a Werner Caskel, "The Bedouinization of Arabia", Studies in Islamic Cultural History, G. E. von Grunebaum, ed. (Wisconsin, 1954), p. 43. 4 Baron, Vol. _111, p. 70. 26