A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (10 page)

Jewish tribes in Medina took sides in the feud between the Aws and Khazraj. The three largest Jewish tribes were the Nad
ī
r, the Qurayza, and the Qaynuq
ā
. The Nad
ī
r and the Qurayza sided with the Aws, while the Qaynuq
ā
were allied with the Khazraj. By the seventh century, many people in Medina were exhausted from the almost constant warfare.

In June of the year 622, representatives of the Aws and Khazraj met twice with Muhammad near Mecca to ask for his help in making peace in Medina. At the second meeting, 75 tribal leaders swore allegiance to him and accepted Islam as their faith. In giving their loyalty to Muhammad and
to Islam, the two groups of tribes renounced all of their previous agreements and alliances. In desert communities such as Medina, those who were not protected by an alliance had no rights.

When Muhammad arrived in Medina in September with his followers, he was aware that he did not have the support of everyone in the city. So he set out to strengthen his position. It is believed that he created a document that defined relationships among the various groups in Medina. Today that document is often referred to as the Constitution of Medina. It begins with these words:

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Beneficent
.

This is a document from Muhammad the Prophet [governing the relationships] between the Believers and Muslims of Quraysh [Muhammad’s tribe] and Yathrib [Medina], and whoever follows them and are attached to them and strives with them. They are a single community in the face of all other men…
.

A Believer shall not kill a Believer for the sake of an unbeliever, nor shall he aid an unbeliever against a Believer
.

Allah’s protection is one; He grants protection even to the least among them. The Believers are responsible for one another in the face of all other men.
²

The document treats all “Believers” as brothers with duties and responsibilities toward one another. In the past, people in Arabia had been loyal only to their families, clans, and tribes. Now they had a new, more inclusive loyalty. They were not permitted to fight other believers. The document continues:

The peace of the Believers is one. No Believer shall conclude a separate peace from another Believer fighting in the Path of Allah. Rather it shall be for all equally…
.

The Believers should avenge each other’s blood when it is spilled in the Path of Allah.
³

The document focuses on the rights and responsibilities of “Believers.” Those who worshipped many gods were now outsiders. But what about
the Jews in Medina? Were they part of the community? (No Christians lived in the city.) The constitution states:

Any Jew who follows us shall have aid and comfort. Such a Jew shall not be oppressed nor his enemies aided against him…
.

The Jews of the [tribes in Medina] are a community with the Believers. The Jews have their religion, and the Muslims have theirs. This applies to their clients and themselves, except those who act wrongfully and sin, for they bring destruction upon themselves and their households.
⁴

The document also contains the following statement:

If they [the Jews] are called to make peace and maintain it, they must do so. And if they call upon the Believers for the like of this, it is within their rights, except where one is fighting for the sake of the Faith.
⁵

The document places Jews within the new alliance. They could count on the support of the community in matters of justice. Yet at the same time, only Muslims had the right to demand or to make a separate peace when they were fighting for sake of Islam. In other words, if Muslims were fighting for their religion, they could negotiate in wartime without taking into account the interests of their non-Muslim allies. In that sense, Jews (and Christians in other places) were not equal participants in the larger community. They were tolerated minorities.

Many historians think that the constitution was not written immediately after Muhammad’s arrival in Medina. He probably needed time to establish his authority before he could define relationships among groups in the oasis. An opportunity came in 624, when the people of Mecca who opposed Muhammad and his teachings sent an army to attack him. A battle took place at Badr, which is about halfway between Mecca and Medina. To the surprise of many, the Muslims won the battle. It was a turning point for Muhammad. He now had the power and the prestige to consolidate his position in Medina.

Some historians believe that Muhammad expected Jews to accept Islam and its teachings. If so, he was disappointed. Some Jews were prepared to accept his leadership. After all, life had become almost intolerable in the oasis as a result of years of fighting. But many others joined Muhammad’s opponents; still others remained neutral.

Jews opposed Muhammad for a variety of reasons. Many believed that the days of prophecy were over, so they doubted that Muhammad was a prophet. Other Jews felt that he had misinterpreted their religion. On the other hand, Muhammad believed that Jews and Christians had distorted God’s revelations to Moses and later to Jesus. And he chastised them for not being true to their own religious laws.

Jews in Medina were also motivated by political considerations. In the past, they had won power by supporting one warring Arab tribe over another. Muhammad’s efforts to join the two main groups in Medina into a kind of super-tribe, and the renunciation of the Arab tribes’ alliances with the Jewish tribes, left many Jews uneasy about their own future in the city.

Muhammad was also uneasy. He believed there were traitors in Medina who were informing his enemies of his plans. By 624, he was convinced that the Qaynuq
ā
(members of one of the largest Jewish tribes) were the traitors, so he and his followers attacked their forts. After a short siege, during which no other group came to its aid, the tribe surrendered. Only then did the chief of the Khazraj, a group that had long been an ally of the Qaynuq
ā
, ask Muhammad to spare the Qaynuq
ā
. He agreed but expelled members of the tribe from the city and divided their lands and many of their other possessions among his followers. The Qaynuq
ā
eventually made their way to a settlement in what is now Jordan near the border with Syria.

Why did none of the other Jewish tribes come to the aid of the Qaynuq
ā
? Today it seems clear that if one Jewish tribe was under attack, the others were possibly in danger as well. At the time, it was not that obvious. Attacks on one tribe or another had long been part of life in Arabia. Most attacks were motivated by political or tribal disputes. Also, the Jews themselves were by no means united. The Qaynuq
ā
had been allied to an enemy of the Nad
ī
r and Qurayza, the two other major Jewish tribes in Medina.

Early in 625, the following year, Muslims assassinated the chief of the Nad
ī
r. The killing was not a surprise: the chief had written poetry ridiculing Islam and insulting Muslim women. In Arab society, revenge was almost always taken for such an attack on a group’s honor. Even so, his death probably made other Jews uneasy.

Then, on March 23, Muhammad and his followers lost a battle to the non-Muslim Arabs of Mecca at Mount Uhud. Once again Muhammad suspected treason, and this time he turned his attention to the Nad
ī
r. Muhammad accused the tribe of plotting against his life and ordered its members to leave the city.

When none of its allies in Medina came to its aid, the tribe had no choice but to go into exile. Although members had to give up their lands and their weapons, they managed to keep their other possessions, and they left Medina in style—with heads held high and their wealth on display. The entire tribe—men, women, and children—left the city in a caravan of 600 camels. As their former neighbors gathered to watch, they marched through the heart of town to the music of pipes and timbrels (small drums or tambourines). The women were dressed in their finest clothes and had uncovered their faces to show off their beauty. Onlookers were impressed. Some Arabs wrote poetry in admiration of the tribe, especially its wealth and the beauty of its women.

Now only one large Jewish tribe, the Qurayza, remained in Medina. In 627, the Meccans and their Bedouin allies attacked the city once again. Although the Qurayza helped defend the city by supplying the tools to dig a deep trench around it, they remained in their forts and did not participate in the fighting. They did not openly aid the enemy, but from the Muslims’ point of view, they had “sinned in their hearts.”

As soon as the battle was won, Muhammad attacked the Qurayza. The tribe held out for 25 days. When all hope was gone, the Qurayza tried to surrender on the same terms as the Nad
ī
r had, but this time Muhammad was not willing to compromise. He ordered the beheading of all adult males in the tribe and the enslavement of their wives and children. Their lands and other property were divided among Muhammad’s Muslim followers.

The treatment of the Qurayza was not unusual at this time in history. Disloyalty was a crime not only in Arabian society but also in the Byzantine and Persian Empires. Almost everywhere, it was punished in ways that seem shocking today. But at the time, the beheading of more than 600 men added considerably to Muhammad’s prestige. Admired or feared, he had become a powerful leader—one to be reckoned with.

In 629, Muhammad set out to conquer the oasis of Khaybar, the community where the Nad
ī
r had found refuge among other Jews after being forced out of Medina. After more than a month of fierce fighting, the Jews surrendered. This time, Jews were allowed to remain on their lands and cultivate their fields as long as they paid a tribute, or tax, to the Muslims; the amount they had to pay was more than half of their harvest. However, members of the Nad
ī
r tribe were not included in this agreement. Their men were slain, their wealth was confiscated, and their women and children were enslaved.

Muhammad used the agreement with the Jews of Khaybar as a model for pacts with Jews and Christians who controlled other oases. Once a group agreed to pay a tribute, the group was tolerated. That option was not open to other nonbelievers—particularly not to those who worshipped many gods. They had to convert to Islam or face death.

Muhammad’s actions were consistent with the values of Arabian society. At that time and in that place, tribes and political factions constantly jockeyed for power. Everyone understood that the stakes were high and the winner took all. And in Medina, power seems to have been the crucial issue, rather than religious beliefs or cultural differences. The three tribes were targeted because they refused to accept Muhammad’s political authority. Other Jewish tribes in Medina continued to live peacefully in the city.

Muhammad’s treatment of minorities in Medina is important not because it was anti-Jewish or anti-Christian but because it established who was in charge of the community and on what conditions nonbelievers might continue to live in that community. Muslims were in charge and they alone determined the status of nonbelievers.

Muhammad had wanted to bring his teachings to people throughout the world, but it was not until after his death that his followers were able to do so. Muhammad died in 632 after a brief illness. He left no clear instructions about who should be his successor, so the most urgent need was to choose someone to lead the community in his place. After a brief struggle for power, Muslim leaders agreed to make Abu Bakr the caliph, or successor, to Muhammad. He was a relative of Muhammad’s as well as his closest friend and one of the first converts to Islam.

As one of his first acts, the new caliph sent out a small army of Arabs to build an Islamic empire. They invaded Palestine in 634. Many people expected Jews there to welcome the invaders. After all, the Byzantines were threatening to forcibly convert Jews to Christianity. But, though some Jews favored the new invaders, others tried to remain neutral and still others fought fiercely to protect their lands.

By 750, more than a century later, Muslims controlled much of the old Roman and Byzantine Empires well as parts of the Persian Empire. As they took over more and more territory, they had to figure out how to govern this new empire. They were a tiny minority in a huge area that included people who worshipped many gods, as well as Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. In dealing with people who worshipped many gods, the Muslims continued to call for conversion or death. But they dealt differently with Jews and Christians, with whom they had much in common. Members of all three religions worship one God, accept many of the same prophets, believe in life after death and judgment, and have similar ideas about the creation of the world. Muslims considered Jews and Christians not equals but
dhimmi
—people who belong to a tolerated religion.

J
EWISH
C
OMMUNITIES IN THE
M
USLIM AND
B
YZANTINE
E
MPIRES
(750
CE
)