Introduction on the Eve of the Emergence of Islam, There Was A

Introduction

On the eve of the emergence of Islam, there was a large area of Jewish settlement in the Ḥijāz. Beginning in Wādī al-Qurā, the Jewish settlement spread southward through the oases of Taymāʾ, Fadak, Khaybar and Yathrib—which later became known as Medina. According to Islamic historiography, there were barely any Jews remaining in Medina by 627 CE, five years after Muḥammad’s arrival. The Jewish tribes of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ and Banū al-Naḍīr had been exiled, while the Banū Qurayẓa had been massacred and their wives and children were given as spoils to the Muslim victors.1 Shortly before his death Muḥammad said, “Let there be no two reli- gions in Arabia” (lā yajtamiʿu dīnān fī jazīrat al-ʿarab). Islamic sources state that the second Caliph, ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 634–644 CE), obeyed Muḥammad and exiled nearly all of the Ḥijāzī Jews.2 There are no—and perhaps never were any—Jewish or Christian sources documenting the history of the Ḥijāzī Jews.3 The Mishna along with the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds lack any detailed information on the lives of Arabian Jews, and provide little assistance in building a comprehensive profile of these communities.4 As a result, we are forced to rely almost exclusively on Islamic sources. Western scholars began studying the Jewish communities of Arabia at a very early stage. However, the Jews were always treated as secondary actors

1 On the exile of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ, see Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 1:176–180; ʿAbd al-Malik b. Hishām al-Maʿāfirī, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, 4 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī, 1987), 3:9– 10; On the exile of the Banū al-Naḍīr, see al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, 1:374–375; On the Banū Qurayẓa, see Meir Jacob Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa: A Re-examination of a Tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986), 61–96. 2 Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-Buldān (Beirut: Dār al-Nashr li’l-Jāmiʿīyyīn, 1957), 39–41. Ibn Hishām, Sīra, 3:304. 3 See Haim Zeʾev Hirschberg, Israel in Arabia: History of the Jews of Ḥimyar and the Ḥijāz from the Destruction of the Second Temple to the Crusades (Tel-Aviv: Bialik Institute, 1946), 112 [in Hebrew]; Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 74. 4 See further Shlomo Dov Goitein, “The Children of Israel and Their Arguments: A Study in the Qurʾān,” Tarbitz 3/3–4 (1931), 410–422, at 411 [in Hebrew]. 2 introduction in the narrative of Muḥammad and his Companions (ṣaḥāba).5 So far as I have been able to ascertain, the first scholar to provide insight into the lives of the Jews of Medina was Hartwig Hirschfeld, who described the history of Jews of Medina and Khaybar from the arrival of Muḥammad in Medina (622 CE) until the exile of the Jews of Khaybar (636–637 CE).6 In 1910, Rudolf Leszynsky published a monograph that dealt specifically with the relationship that the Jewish communities of Medina and Khaybar had with Muḥammad.7 At around the same time, Israel Friedländer compiled references on the Jews of Arabia from early non-Islamic sources.8 In 1928, Arent Jan Wensinck published a monograph on the same subject as Leszynsky.9 In 1946, Haim Zeʾev Hirschberg published a composition entitled Israel in Arabia. This is the first work covering the entire history of the Jews of Arabia from ancient times until the end of the Jewish communities of Medina and Khaybar. Previously, scholars had addressed specific issues regarding the Medinan Jews, but had never constructed a complete his- torical account of this community. In 1957, Israel Ben-Zeʾev (Wolfensohn) published a parallel work, The Jews in Arabia. Both Ben-Zeʾev’s and Hirschberg’s books are written in an archaic Hebrew of high literary quality and are quite difficult for most modern Hebrew readers to follow. Nonetheless, these works are consid- ered among the most important and central monographs in the field.10 Thirty years after the publication by Ben-Zeʾev, Gordon Darnell Newby published A History of the Jews of Arabia.11 Newby’s work is rich in detailed information and offers some new insights about the Jews of Medina. In

5 Some of these early scholars used the terms “Jews of Arabia” and “Jews of Medina” interchangeably, perhaps because compared with the Jews of Medina and Khaybar, Jews residing in Arabian oases are barely mentioned in the Islamic sources. 6 Hartwig Hirschfeld, “Essai sur l’histoire des Juifs de Médine,” 2 parts. Part 1, Revue des études juives 7 (1883), 167–193; Part 2, Revue des études juives 10 (1885), 10–31. 7 Rudolf Leszynsky, Die Juden in Arabien zur Zeit Mohammeds (Berlin: Mayer and Mueller, 1910). 8 Israel Friedländer, “The Jews of Arabia and the Gaonate,” Jewish Quarterly Review 1 (1910), 249–257. 9 Arent Jan Wensinck, Mohammed en de joden te Medina (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1928). 10 Shlomo Dov Goitein criticized both Wensinck’s and Ben-Zeʾev’s books and argued, “Even after Wensinck’s research on Muḥammad and the Jews of Medina, and the detailed description of Arabian Jewish history in Ben-Zeʾev’s book, we still require Leszynsky in order to sketch their cultural and social life.” See Goitein, “The Children of Israel and Their Arguments,” 422 n. 14. 11 Gordon Darnell Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia: From Ancient Times to their Eclipse under Islam (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina, 1988).