The relationship between the Prophet Muhammad and the Jewish people is complex and nuanced. Not only was
he a descendant of Ishmael, the forefather of the Arabs, he was also a descendant of Isaac, the forefather of the
Jews. Although most Sunni sources state that the Prophet’s parents were pagans, Shiite sources stress that they
were monotheists, suggesting that they belonged to the hanifs, namely, the small sect of rightly-guided Arabs who
had preserved the religion of Ishmael. Some early Christian sources, however, indicate that the Prophet’s father,
‘Abdullah, was Christian while his mother, Aminah, was Jewish. As contentious as these claims may be, and as
sensitive as Muslims may be about the subject, there is no doubt that the Prophet’s paternal great grandmother,
Salma bint Amr was Jewish. Consequently, although he was predominantly of Arab ancestry, he also had Jewish
ancestry, thereby tracing back to Abraham, the first major monotheistic figure in history, from both sides of his
family.
Born and raised in the polytheistic sanctuary of Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad occasionally came into contact
with Hanifs, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, some of whom traveled there for purposes of trade. When he proclaimed prophecy at the approximate
age of forty, he did not have a very receptive audience. His monotheistic message, however, which he presented as a revival of the
teachings of Abraham, and in which he likened himself to the brother of Moses, was viewed respectfully by the Negus of Abyssinia, who is
believed by some scholars to have been a Judeo-Christian.
As such, he offered refuge to the persecuted followers of the Prophet Muhammad.
It was the people of Yathrib, a city to the north of Mecca, that offered the Prophet a permanent home. Composed of equal amounts of Arabs
and Jews, the prosperous city had suffered from significant in-fighting. When word of the leadership skills of the Prophet reached them, they
invited him to act as a mediator to help unite the community. Muhammad, who was neither a pagan Arab nor a Jew, was seen as entirely objective.
The Arabs from Medina were the first to convert to the Prophet’s new creed.
They had grown up hearing the Jews of their community speak of the imminent rise of
a new prophet and they wanted to be the first to follow him. A small, but important
segment of Jews also embraced Islam, including several prominent rabbis.
As an effective and visionary leader, the Prophet Muhammad’s first order of business
was to create a historically unprecedented written constitution for his new city-state,
which would soon be known as Medina al-Nabi, namely, the City of the Prophet. It
decreed that Jews and Muslims were both believers. It stipulated that all citizens were
equal. According to early Muslim sources, all the Jewish tribes of Medina and the surrounding
region made terms with the Prophet. Nonetheless, at a later date, some Jewish
tribes changed their minds and plotted to overthrow the Prophet with the help of the
pagans of Mecca. Accounts of the events are cloudy and inconsistent. Some sources
suggest that some tribes were exiled. Others allege that the male combatants of one
tribe were condemned to death for treason, as per the judgement of one of their Arab
allies who judged them according to Jewish law, while women and children were subjected
to slavery. This entire episode is disputed by both Muslim and non-Muslim historians
and cannot be treated as historical fact. All we know for certain is that the
Prophet Muhammad came into conflict with segments of the Jewish community. His
loyal Jewish allies, however, continued to live in Medina and stand by his side until the
rest of his life.
Although the issue is complicated, the alleged massacre of the Jews has colored the
perception of Jews for some Muslims and the perception of Muslims for some nonMuslims,
particularly Jews and Christians, who use it to condemn Islam as a whole.
This resembles the attitude of some Christians who accuse Jews of killing Jesus and
hate them all as a whole. It is similar to the attitude of some Muslims who, as a result
of events in the world, condemn all Jews for intolerable actions committed by a certain
number of them, and thereby espouse anti-Jewish sentiments. Muslim-Jewish relations
are not limited to a single conflict that supposedly took place in the seventh century. The fact of the matter is that, despite periods of problems,
Muslims and Jews have co-existed peacefully for the larger part of the past 1400 years. Jews fled Christian persecution in Europe to
find safety and security in the Muslim world. The Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492 were embraced with open arms by
the Ottomans. Moriscos and Marranos, cryptic Muslims and cryptic Jews, also suffered together in Catholic Spain and often intermarried.
Surely, there must be some historical basis for Judeo-Muslim solidarity.
Although an increasing number of individuals of all faiths have learned about the treaties and covenants that the Prophet Muhammad concluded
with communities belonging to the Christian faith, many more need to learn about the agreements he entered into with members of the
Zoroastrian, Samaritan, and Jewish faiths. Far from being late forgeries, the documents in question have been transmitted for fourteen centuries.
They survive in manuscript form. They are recorded in the sources belonging to all of these faith communities. One of the most important
documents dealing with Muslim-Jewish relations is the Treaty of Maqna which provides protection to the Jewish inhabitants of northwestern
Arabia, including the tribes of Hanina, Maqna, and Khaybar. Concluded toward the end of the Prophet Muhammad’s prophetic career,
it demonstrates that the conflict that reportedly took place in Medina with the Banu Nadir, Banu Qaynuqa, and Banu Nadir, do not represent
the last word on the subject of interfaith relations between Jews and Muslims.
In the Treaty of Maqna, which is found in classical Muslim and Jewish sources, the Prophet Muhammad grants “the protection of God” to his
allies from the Children of Israel. “Yours is the safeguard of God and that of his Messenger with regard to your persons, belief, and property, slaves, and whatever is in your possession.” Addressing the Jews, the Prophet reassures them that “You shall not have the annoyance of landtax,
nor shall a forelock of yours be cut off.” He promises that “No army shall tread on your soil, nor shall you be assembled [for military
service], nor shall tithes be imposed on you, neither shall you be injured in any way.” He guarantees that “No one shall leave his mark on you,
you shall not be prevented from wearing slashed or colored garments, nor from riding on horseback, nor from carrying any kind of arms.” He
decreed that the Jews had the right to self-defense: “If anyone attacks you, fight him, and if he is killed in the war against you, none of you
shall be executed for his sake, nor is ransom to be paid for him.” In the event a Jew killed a Muslim intentionally, the accused would be
judged according to Muslim law.
The Prophet Muhammad also freed Jews from oppressive taxation: “No disgraceful charges shall be brought against you, and you shall not be
as other [non-Muslim] poll-tax payers.” Since they were equal citizens, it was the duty of the Muslim State to provide for their needs: “If you
ask for assistance, it shall be granted to you, and if you want help, you shall have it.” As the Messenger of God stated, “Not a shoe-lace of
yours shall be cut.” In other words, justice was to be dispensed equally. The Jewish citizens of the Muslim State were allowed to enter
mosques. What is more, the Prophet specifically stated that they would not be “precluded from governing Muslims.” As an autonomous community
within the Muslim State, the Prophet assured them that “You shall have no other ruler except out of your own midst, or from the family
of the Messenger of Allah.” The funeral rites of the Jews were to be respected. In addition, all Muslims were to hold the Jews in honor on
account of their high station and the station of Safiyyah, the Jewish wife of the Prophet. As the Treaty of Maqna states:
It shall be incumbent upon the people of the house of the Messenger of Allah and upon the Muslims to uphold your honor, and not to touch
you. If any of you goes on a journey, he shall be under the safeguard of Allah and his Messenger. “There is no compulsion in matters of religion”
[Qur’an 2:256].
The Prophet also promised to provide them with one fourth of the khums, a Muslim tax, so long as they remained law-abiding and loyal. He
placed them under his protection, that of his family, and that of the Muslims. “Whoever deserves well of [the tribe of] Haninah and the people
of Khaybar and Maqna,” stated the Prophet, “all the better for him; but he who does them evil, all the worse for him.” The Messenger of God
then warned against manipulating his message:
Whoever reads this letter or mine, or to whomever it is read, and he alters or changes anything of what is in it, upon him shall be the curse of
Allah and the curse of all human kind. He is beyond my protection and intercession on the day of Resurrection, and I am his foe. And who is
my foe is the foe of Allah, and he who is the foe of Allah goes to hell […] and bad is the abode there.
The Treaty of Maqna was witnessed by God, the angels, and the Muslims who were present. It was written by ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and witnessed
by ‘Ammar ibn Yasir, Salman al-Farsi, and Abu Dharr, three prominent Companions of the Prophet. Tragically, the version of the
Treaty of Maqna found in Muslim sources such as Ibn Sa‘d and Baladhuri, which was supposedly a faithful copy of the original that was in
the hands of Egyptian Jews in the 8th century, has been proven to have been altered. A comparison of the original document found in the Cairo
Genizah, as completed by Ahmed El-Wakil, shows this to be the case. This confirms that Sunni hadith and historical sources are not necessarily
accurate reflections of early Muslim material. Generally compiled several centuries after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad, they
are, to a large extent, censored accounts of the primary sources, altered to make them accord with the interpretations and interests of the rulers
of the time. As a comparison of the surviving copies of the Covenants of the Prophet with the Jews, Samaritans, Zoroastrians, and Christians
shows, the versions included in canonical books of Muslim tradition were edited to make them less tolerant than the originals. This demonstrates
that a process of white-washing took place at a later point and that conflicts that took place centuries after the rise of Islam were projected
back to the time of the Prophet. An attempt was made to free the Prophet from any association with Judaism and Christianity, presenting
him as an illiterate pagan, as opposed to a literate monotheist with an in-depth understanding of Abrahamic religions.
The Treaty of Maqna from the Cairo Genizah is only one of half a dozen copies of covenants reportedly concluded between the Prophet Muhammad
and the children of Israel, many of which have been passed down by Yemenite Jews. If the Treaty of Maqna found in Ibn Sa‘d and
Baladhuri is generally treated as authentic by the majority of Muslim and non-Muslim scholars who have studied it, the same cannot be said
of the covenants transmitted by Yemenite Jews. The general consensus of the mostly modern, secular, Jewish scholars who have examined
them is that they are forgeries created by the Children of Israel in an attempt to secure rights from Muslim rulers. Several scholars, however,
such as Hartwig Hirschfeld, Ahmed El-Wakil, and myself, have argued in favor of the general authenticity of the documents in question. The
Covenants of the Prophet with the Children of Israel are not inflated accounts of the Treaty of Maqna found in Muslim sources; rather, the
Treaty of Maqna found in Muslim sources is an edited, censored, and abbreviated version of the original documents transmitted by the Jewish
people.
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