Religious and Social Leadership As the Tribesmen of Arabia, the Jews Of

chapter one

Religious and Social Leadership

As the tribesmen of Arabia, the Jews of Medina drew their leadership from the more dominant clans among them. Their community leaders were judges, military commanders, and those who ruled on halakhic matters. A study of “the occasions of revelation” (asbāb al-nuzūl) in Islamic literature reveals that the Jewish leaders in Medina often provoked Muḥammad with questions on religious issues. As a result, they were referred to as the “people of the question” (aṣḥāb al-masʾala).1 A reflection of the numer- ous questions that the Jewish sages in Medina asked Muḥammad exists in the following saying, which indirectly presents the Jews as a trigger for the revelation of many verses of the Qurʾān: “[Much of] the Qurʾān was revealed because of the questions they (i.e., the Jewish leaders in Medina) posed to him (i.e., Muḥammad)” (kāna al-Qurʾān yanzilu fīhim fīmā yasʾalūna ʿanhu).2

1. The Leaders of the Jewish Tribes of Medina

ʿAbd al-Malik b. Hishām (d. 833 CE) records a list of the Medinan Jew- ish leaders of every Jewish tribe in Medina.3 Many of these leaders are reported to have been killed during the Muslim-Jewish conflicts in Med- ina and Khaybar. The leaders of the strongest Jewish tribe in Medina, the Banū al-Naḍīr, were the brothers from the Abū al-Ḥuqayq family: Sallām, the richest merchant in the Ḥijāz, and al-Rabīʿ together with the three brothers from the Banū Akhṭab family: Ḥuyayy, Judayy and Abū Yāsir. In 625 CE, after the Banū al-Naḍīr surrendered to the Muslims, these two families along with others, moved to Khaybar where their relatives lived. Sallām b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq was then appointed ruler of Khaybar. He was soon murdered by Muslim assassins who disguised themselves as

1 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, 2:158. 2 Ibid., 2:155. 3 For the full list, see ibid., 2:155–158. 10 chapter one merchants.4 Al-Yusayr b. Rizām took over after Sallām’s death, however, he was soon murdered in an attack on his unarmed delegation on its way to Medina.5 After al-Yusayr, Kināna b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq was appointed as the ruler of Khaybar. In 628 CE, after the battle of Khaybar, he was cap- tured and tortured by al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām, who demanded to know where his family’s fortune was hidden. Subsequently, the location of the fortune was discovered and Kināna was decapitated by Muḥammad b. Maslama.6 According to Islamic tradition, Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab was the most hos- tile opponent of Muḥammad. At one point, when Muḥammad was in the Banū al-Naḍīr’s territory, Ḥuyayy gathered his men and told them that this would be their best opportunity to kill Muḥammad and they must seize it because they would never get another chance like that. He then ordered one member of his tribe to climb on top of a roof and wait until Muḥammad arrived in order to drop a stone on his head. Islamic sources suggest that Allāh warned Muḥammad of Ḥuyayy’s plan and he was saved.7 After Ḥuyayy moved to Khaybar he tried to organize opposition to the Muslims in Medina. In 627 CE, the Quraysh mustered a large army and set out for Medina. The Muslims, however, were well-entrenched and the city could not be taken, so the Quraysh returned to Mecca. At the same time, Ḥuyayy was in Medina and succeeded in convincing Kaʿb b. Asad, the leader of the Banū Qurayẓa, to break his treaty with the Muslims. After the Quraysh left the siege on Medina, the Muslims besieged the Banū Qurayẓa, who surrendered and were massacred. Ḥuyayy b. Akhṭab was among the dead. Another leader of the Banū al-Naḍīr wasS allām b. Mishkam. He appears to have been an excellent military strategist. Sallām served as commander of an army of Jews; he led them into the battle of Buʿāth (618 CE). Ahead of the battle of Khaybar (628 CE), he was asked to assume a command

4 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, 2:392. See further, Harald Motzki, “The Murder of Ibn Abī’l-Ḥuqayq: On the Origin and Reliability of some Maghāzī-Reports,” in Harald Motzki (ed.), The Biography of Muḥammad: The Issue of the Sources (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000), 170–239. 5 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, 2:566. 6 Ibn Hishām, Sīra, 3:286. 7 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, 1:364–365.