Muhammad and The Jews — Page 50
in Medina, were not in a position to play any significant role. The maghiizi writers seem to have lost all interest in the Yathrib Jews after the discomfiture of the B. Quray{:ah and other Jews after the peace treaty with the Jews of Khaybar. The Muslim history of the period, as transmitted to us, is actually the history of the maghiizi. Since the Jewish population of Medina during the later period of the Apostle's life did not involve itself in any conflict or trouble it ceased to be of any interest to the maghiiziwriter. The Apostle did not live very long after the conquest of Mecca. It is difficult to say what form the ummah would have taken had the author of the $abifah lived longer. With his death the $abifah and the ummah created by it, as well as the Jews who were part of the ummah, passed out of the picture. The term ummah, as with all living institutions, acquired a new definition under the Apostle's successors. The Sharie. ah which determined the status of non-Muslim monotheists "did not derive directly from the Qur. ,an, it developed out of a practice which often diverged from the Qur. ,an's intentions and even from its explicit wording". 1 It also did not develop "in close connection with practice, but, as the expression of a religious ideal'', 2 as understood by Muslim theoreticians and ideologists of the Muslim ruling class, which was in fact not only in opposition to practice but in direct contradiction to the original model set by the Apostle. 1 Joseph Schacht, "Pre-Islamic Background and Early Development of Juris- prudence", in Law i11 the Middle East, ed. by Majid Khadduri and Herbert J. Liebesny (Washington D. C. , 1955), Vol. I, p. 41. 2 Ibid. , p. 40. 50 '