Muhammad and The Jews — Page 56
MUHAMMAP AND THE JEWS and one of the Muslims leapt upon the goldsmith and killed him. So the Jews fell upon the Muslim and killed him, whereupon the Muslim's family called on other Muslims for help against the Jews. T_he Muslims were enraged, and bad feeling sprang up between the two parties. 1 Though al-Waqidi also reported the incident 2 , lbn sacd has not included it in his account. Al-Tabari following the original narrative of lbn Isl;taq has also not reported the incident. 3 Probably the incident got into the qii$$ material at a later stage, or per- haps seeing it as a minor incident Ibn Isl;taq did not consider it important enough to report. But in a tense situation charged with emotions on both sides even minor and trivial incidents can assume dangerous proportions. Discussing political change in plural societies Kuper observes:. . . conflict may move rapidly from one sector to another in a seemingly irrational and unpredictable manner. Thus minor, isolated events may have great resonance and precipitate societal intersectional conflict. So too, issues of conflict are readily superimposed, contributing to the likelihood and intensity of violence. 4 Whatever the incident which became the immediate cause of conflict,· the relations between the B. Qaynuqac and the Muslims had reached a point where the Apostle was compelled to assemble the B. Qaynuqac in their market for a warning. Since he claimed to be the Apostle of God his first duty was to warn them in the following words: 'O Jews, beware Jest Allah bring you the vengeance that he brought upon the Quraysh and become Muslims. You know that I ama prophet who has been sent-you will find that in your books and AJiah's covenant with you'. 5 The Jewish reply to this appeal was a challenge. They said: 'O Muhammad, you seem to think that we are your people. Do not deceive yourself because you encountered a people with no knowledge of war and l Ibn Hisbam, p. 568. 2 Al-Waqidi, Vol. I, pp. 176-77. 3 Al-Tabari, Ta 0 rikh al-Rusu/ wa al-Muluk (Cairo, 1961), Vol. II, pp. 479-83. Since AI-Tabari has taken in full Ibn IsQliq's Sirah according to the riwiiyah of Salamah b. Fai;ll al-Abrash al-An~ari (See Guillaume, p. xvii) no further references will be made to his Ta' rikh, unless the account varies from Ibn lsl)aq's Sirah. 4 Leo Kuper, "Political Change in Plural Societies: Problems in Racial Pluralism", International Social Science Journal, Vol. XXIII, No. 4, 1971, p. 595. 6 lbn Hisham, p. 545.