Had Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) really been anti-Jewish, he would have persecuted
Jews since the very dawn of his nascent Muslim state in Medina, but this
did not happen. Once Prophet Muhammad reached Medina, one of the
earliest things he did over there was to draw up such a unique
constitution which protected the human rights of all the population of Medina, including Jews themselves.
This was an unprecedented motion which
was not even followed up with a parallel experience except after much
more than a dozen of centuries. The stated constitution was a matchless
convention at the time. At such a point of time, the modern concepts of
“religious pluralism”, “freedom of religion”, “human rights”, and “social integration” had not been coined yet.
One place could hardly accommodate two or more faiths. “Minorities” had no rights at all, and they were also vulnerable to mass massacres or expulsions. The “religious tolerance” had not been known yet.
However, the Medina Constitution
included many articles providing for the Jews’ entitlement to equal
rights, treatment, protection and freedom. Prophet Muhammad enforced
what is known later as “peaceful coexistence”. He allowed Jews to live
side by side with Muslims in peace.
However, most Jewish tribes rejected
such peaceful coexistence and breached Medina Constitution as well as
the covenants concluded with them by plotting against Prophet Muhammad
and Muslims and/or siding with the Arabian polytheists and pagans.
Even when the Jewish tribes betrayed
Prophet Muhammad and Muslims, he exercised self-control and
self-restraint and was quite fair and just and his reaction was
proportionate to the action done.
When a man from Banu Qaynuqa` (a Jewish
tribe) committed a sexual assault against a Muslim woman, wanted to
force her to uncover her face and fastened the tail of her garment to
the chair by a nail, the woman had her private parts uncovered. So she
cried for help while Jews were laughing at her. Then, a Muslim man
killed the Jew. Then, the Jews killed this Muslim man, whose kindred
turned to Muslims for retaliation.
In this case, Prophet Muhammad decided
to fight Banu Qaynuqa` for they rejected mutual respect and peaceful
coexistence and dared to violate Medina Constitution. Such a tribe could
not coexist with Muslims in Medina any longer. Had those Jews remained
there, retaliation and violence would not have come to an end. Instead
of expulsion, they would have been massacred. That is why, it is said
that it is Banu Qaynuqa` themselves who elected to leave Medina after
mediation to avoid fighting with Muslims.
Banu An-Nadir, another Jewish tribe,
conspired to throw away a large stone down a house on the head of
Prophet Muhammad who was sitting down with them. However, God foretold
Prophet Muhammad about that. Thereupon, he went back to Medina, amassed
an army and went to fight them.
After Prophet Muhammad besieged them,
they asked him to evacuate from Medina, carrying away everything they
wanted to carry unlike weapons. Prophet Muhammad agreed to that and let
them go out. This is another case of betrayal, breach of covenants and
rejection of peaceful coexistence. It is Jews who chose to leave Medina
to avoid fighting with Prophet Muhammad and Muslims.
Banu Quraydhah, another Jewish tribe,
went farther by siding with the Arabian polytheists against Muslims.
They conspired with the Arabian pagans to make a way for them from their
side to enter Medina and massacre Muslims. Again, we have a case of
betrayal, breach of covenants and rejection of peaceful coexistence.
Once Khandaq (Ditch) Battle was over,
God commanded Prophet Muhammad to fight them for their betrayal. The
long siege forced them into a surrender which was conditional on
arbitration. Prophet Muhammad accepted this condition and allowed them
to choose the arbitrator. They chose as an arbitrator Companion Sa`ad
bin Mu`adh, who was their ally during the pre-Islamic era.
Prophet Muhammad also accepted Sa`ad bin
Mu`adh as an arbitrator. However, he judged that the adult men should
have been killed, women and children should have been enslaved and the
property should have been distributed among Muslims. He based his
judgment on the judgment provided for in the Torah (Deuteronomy
20:12-14)
Prophet Muhammad approved this judgment
as identical to that of God. This was a fair judgment. Given that the
Jews’ betrayal could lead to the annihilation of all Muslims, it was
quite fair to sentence their males to death. If the Arabian pagans could
have entered Medina, they would have sentenced all Muslims, including
men, women and children, to death.
The danger Jews posed to the nascent
Muslim state was not reduced by the evacuation of Jews from inside
Medina as the Jews of Medina joined the Jews of Khaybar (an oasis some
153 km to the north of Medina) and allied with the Arabian tribes which
were inimical to Islam and Muslims. They continued to conspire against
Prophet Muhammad and Muslims.
Therefore, Prophet Muhammad decided to
fight the Jews of Khaybar. After a lot of hostilities, the Jews of
Khaybar proposed to make peace with Muslim in return for sharing their
harvests with Muslims on a fifty-fifty basis.
However, given such repeated scenarios
of betrayal and rejection of peaceful coexistence, after Prophet
Muhammad had proved to the world as well as history that Muslims wished
for “religious pluralism”, “freedom of religion”, “religious tolerance”,
and “peaceful coexistence”, he found out that the above concepts
pioneered by Islam were inapplicable at the time or at least in Arabia.
Therefore, he made the following
statements: “Drive out the polytheists from Arabia,” (Al-Bukhari) and
“Two religions should not be left in Arabia.” (Ahmad) Prophet Muhammad
made similar statements in this this sense.
Many people misunderstand those and
similar hadiths as calling for wrongful expulsion or eradication of
non-Muslims from the Muslim countries. This understanding of the above
hadiths is quite wrong simply because Prophet Muhammad himself did not
expel all Jews or non-Muslims from Arabia until he died.
It is reported that Prophet Muhammad
died while his (iron) armor was pledged to a Jew for thirty Saas (old
measure equal to 3 kg) of barley (Al-Bukhari). It is historically
established that there were Jews residing in Arabia after Prophet
Muhammad’s demise and during the caliphate of Caliph Abu Bakr and even
`Umar.
Should Prophet Muhammad have meant the
mass expulsion of non-Muslims from Arabia, he himself and his successors
would have done that, but this did not take place.
Commenting on the above hadiths, some
Muslim scholars indicated that Prophet Muhammad rather meant that
non-Muslims should not have resided inside or near to the sacred places
of Muslims. Other scholars opined that he meant that they should not
have resided in Arabia as a whole, but they could still reside elsewhere
inside the Muslim world. Some other scholars were of the opinion that
non-Muslims should not have resided permanently or in large numbers in
Arabia.
Anyway, no matter how the above
prophetic statements can be interpreted, we have known for a certainty
that Prophet Muhammad in particular and Muslims in general did not
object to peaceful coexistence with Jews or any non-Muslims, but
Muslims’ good intentions and religious tolerance encouraged polytheists,
specifically Jews, to betray and conspire against them.
Muslims still welcome coexistence with
Jews and any non-Muslims on condition that any such non-Muslims do not
betray, wrong, or harm Muslims and have a good relationship with Muslims
based on good neighborhood and mutual respect.
Finally, it is convenient to conclude
this article with such verses which regulate and underlie the
relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the Quran, we read:
Allah does
not forbid you for those who do not fight you because of religion and do
not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and
acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.
Allah only forbids you from those who fight you because of religion and
expel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion – [forbids] that you
make allies of them. And whoever makes allies of them, then it is those
who are the wrongdoers. (Al-Mumtahanah 60:8-9)
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