The triumph of Bedr encouraged Mohammed to expedite his plans of
revenge against his internal foes; directly or indirectly, he
stimulated his accomplices to assassinate them. Peculiarly sensitive
as he was to the slurring satires and puns which the Jews had aimed
against some of his most cherished speeches, and being wholly
incapable of retorting in kind, he was only too pleased when the
Moslems showed a demoniacal readiness to avenge his wounded honor
with sharper-pointed weapons than epigrams. Asma, a poetess strongly
on the side of the Jews, composed some verses that castigated the
disaffected Medinese for bowing before an interloper whom she
represented as hoping that the city would “be done brown” so
that he might enjoy a toothsome banquet; shortly afterward, one
of the Prophet’s men stole into her room at midnight and, after
taking the trouble to remove her nursing baby, thrust his sword
through her breast. Next morning Mohammed paused in his prayers
at the Mosque long enough to inquire of the murderer, “Hast thou
slain the daughter of Merwan?” “Yes,” was the reply, “but tell me
now, is there cause of apprehension?” “None,” the Prophet assured
him, “a couple of goats will hardly knock their heads together for
it.” Then, turning toward the congregation, he shouted: “If ye
desire to see a man that hath assisted the Lord and His Prophet,
look ye here!” A second satirist, old Abu Afak, a Jewish convert,
foolishly attempted to carry on the work begun by Asma. “Who will
rid me of this pestilent fellow?” inquired Mohammed; and within a
few hours Abu Afak, while carelessly sleeping in a courtyard, was
also transfixed with a sword. Both of these deeds were committed
within a week after Bedr.
About six months later one Ka’b, another Jewish versifier who, like
most satirists of his time, signalized his craft by anointing his
hair on one side, allowing his clothes to become disordered, and
wearing but one shoe, decided to amuse himself by making public a
series of poems that were intimately concerned with the amatory
charms of some of the most generous Moslem women. Of a beauty named
Um al-Fadl he wrote:
“Of saffron color is she; so full of charms that if thou wert to
clasp her, there would be pressed forth Wine, Henna, and Katam;
So slim that her figure, from ankle to shoulder, bends as she
desires to stand upright, and cannot.
When we met she caused me to forget my own wife Um Halim, although
the cord that bindeth me to her is not to be broken.
I never saw the sun appear by night, except on one dark evening
when she came forth unto me in all her splendor.”
Ka’b was also believed to be engaged in double dealings with the
Koreish, and so the Prophet offered this public prayer: “O Lord,
deliver me from the son of Al-Ashraf, in whatever way it seemeth
good unto Thee, because of his open sedition and his verses.” And
lest there might be doubt as to how he wished his supplication to be
fulfilled, he asked his servants this pointed question: “Who will
ease me of the son of Al-Ashraf? for he troubleth me.” Maslama’s son
Mohammed, a well-known Moslem libertine, responded, “Here am I--I
will slay him.” “Go!” exclaimed the happy Prophet, “the blessing
of God be with you, and assistance from on High!” Aided by four
conspirators, this Mohammed succeeded in luring Ka’b away from his
bride on a moonlight night. Suddenly seizing his long hair, they
pulled him to the ground with the shout: “Slay him! Slay the enemy
of God!” and immediately stabbed him to death. “Welcome!” said
Mohammed on their return, “for your countenances beam of victory.”
“And thine also, O Prophet!” they replied, as the victim’s head
was tossed down before his feet.
On the following day Mohammed, having decided that the only good
Jews were dead or exiled ones, gave the Moslems free leave to kill
them upon sight. Muheisa, a converted Khazrajite, at once availed
himself of this long-desired privilege by slaughtering the first
Hebrew he chanced to meet; and when his brother Huweisa chided him
for his excessive zealotry, he growled: “By the Lord! if he that
commanded me to kill him had commanded to kill thee also, I would
have done it.” “What!” screamed Huweisa, “wouldst thou have slain
thine own brother at Mohammed’s bidding?” “Even so,” was the cool
answer. “Strange indeed!” said the aghast Huweisa, “hath the new
religion reached to this? Verily, it is a wonderful faith!” And he
immediately proclaimed his own conversion to Islam.
Many of the Jews would doubtless have liked to follow his example,
but their day of grace was past; no longer could they qualify as
“Witnesses” for Mohammed. For indeed his heart was set upon their
extermination, or--what was even better--the robbery of their goods;
and to that end, like a good general, he proceeded first against
those who dwelt in Medina. About a month after Bedr, he went to
the wealthy tribe of Beni Kainuka, who practised the goldsmiths’
trade in Medina, and peremptorily announced his errand thus: “By
the Lord! ye know full well that I am the Apostle of God. Believe,
therefore, before that happen to you which has befallen Koreish!”
But they hurled defiance at him, so he decided to wait until he
could find a convenient excuse to attack them. He soon found it.
As a Moslem girl was trading in a goldsmith’s shop one day, a
frivolous-minded Jew sought entertainment by creeping up behind
her and pinning the bottom of her skirt to her shoulder; howls of
merriment followed and the poor maiden almost died of shame. A Moslem
who soon avenged the insult by slaying the sprightly Jew was killed
in turn by other Jews; and thus the Prophet was conscientiously
able to proceed against the Beni Kainuka--for had they not broken
the solemn treaty hitherto contracted between the Moslems and the
Hebrews? A fortnight’s siege ended in their abject surrender; their
hands were then tied and they were led out to be executed. At this
moment Abdallah ibn Obei, who still retained some remnants of
power in Medina, approached the Prophet with a plea for mercy. But
the only reply was an averted face, so Abdallah seized Mohammed’s
arm and repeated his request. “Let me go!” the Prophet angrily
screamed; then, since Abdallah still clung to him, he again shouted,
“Wretch, let me go!” But Abdallah continued to hang on, begging that
pity be shown; and Mohammed, who still feared Abdallah’s might,
grudgingly commanded, “Let them go!” though he could not refrain
from adding, “The Lord curse them, and him too!” So their lives
were spared, but their rich possessions were confiscated and they
were at once sent into banishment; and Mohammed solaced himself
for his Pyrrhic victory by selecting the choicest of their weapons
for himself. When Abdallah bitterly reproved one of the Prophet’s
leading confederates, he was met by the curt response: “Hearts have
changed. Islam hath blotted all treaties out.”
Such, indeed, was the fact. Within a year the murderer of Ka’b was
dispatched to the Jewish tribe of Beni an-Nadir--which was suspected
of being in secret league with the Koreish--with this commission:
“Thus saith the Prophet of the Lord. Ye shall go forth from out of
my land within the space of ten days; whosoever after that remaineth
behind shall be put to death.” When they protested on the ground
that such treatment would be rather severe on a people who had
never injured Islam, Mohammed’s envoy merely remarked, “Hearts are
changed now,” and abruptly left them. After prolonged and anxious
consultation, they decided to hold fast to their fortress--a
proceeding so unusual for their race that, when the Prophet heard
of it, he shouted in delight: “Allah Akbar! The Jews are going to
fight! Great is the Lord!” His enthusiasm was somewhat dampened,
however, when he discovered that a lengthy siege failed to dislodge
them; accordingly, he determined to hasten matters by destroying
the pick of their palm-trees with fire and axe. They protested that
this act was both barbarous and contrary to Mosaic law; and, while
Mohammed was no longer much interested in Moses, he well knew that
his deed was opposed to the unwritten laws of Arabian warfare. The
Koran, therefore, was soon adorned with this exculpatory passage:
“That which thou didst cut down of the Date-trees, or left of them
standing upon their roots, it was by the command of God, that He
might abase the evil-doers.” The Beni an-Nadir, in fact, were so
completely abased by the relentless siege that they were glad to
surrender their lands and go into exile on the generous condition
that their lives should be spared.
These episodes relating to the Beni Kainuka and the Beni an-Nadir
are only two of many like illustrations, that might be discussed
at wearisome length, which demonstrated two significant facts:
Mohammed had succeeded in ridding Medina of its indwelling foes,
and he had decided to destroy the Jewish settlements throughout
all Arabia. The massacre of the Beni Koreiza followed as a matter
of course; and in 628 the last Hebraic stronghold of much account
was also dismantled. In the summer of that year Mohammed, heading
sixteen hundred men, pounced upon the opulent city of Kheibar, which
lay about one hundred miles to the north of Medina--a distance
that shows how wide the sweep of the Prophet’s victorious arm had
reached. The motive which inspired him to assault this people
appears to have sprung from the consideration that they had failed
to avenge the murder of one of their own tribesmen by a Moslem;
for the Prophet may well have believed that such an aggressively
peace-loving clan merited the severest punishment. In any case, they
were not true believers; and, at this stage of Islam, that fact in
itself constituted a more than ample pretext for the opening of
hostilities. Kheibar’s forts fell in rapid succession before the
impetuous rush of the now veteran Moslem army. As Mohammed gaily
charged from one conquered stronghold to another, he continually
raised the rapturous shout: “Allah Akbar! Great is the Lord! Truly
when I light upon the coasts of any People, woe unto them in that
day!” After the conquest was complete, Kinana, chieftain of Kheibar,
was tortured in the hope that he would reveal his hidden treasure.
Fires were burnt upon his breast until he was so nearly dead that
he could not have confessed even had he so desired; and Mohammed,
who realized that he had carried the thing too far, ordered his
head to be chopped off.
Kinana’s notoriously beautiful wife, the seventeen-year-old Safiya,
and her companion were then fetched up to the Prophet; the companion,
seeing the headless trunk, beat her face and howled aloud. “Take
that she-devil hence!” snapped Mohammed; but he tenderly folded
his mantle around Safiya’s head to screen her from the sight, for
he had determined to marry her. His approaching nuptials, however,
were nearly ruined by Zeinab, a Jewess who had lost all her male
relatives and her husband on that fateful day. She poisoned a kid,
tastily garnished it, and then placed it before him, smiling and
coaxing him to eat. Having distributed the least desirable parts
among his fellows, he bit off a choice mouthful from the shoulder;
but barely had his teeth closed on it when he cried, “Hold! surely
this shoulder hath been poisoned,” and indecorously spat it out.
One man who had partaken of the meat died, and Mohammed himself
is reputed to have been afflicted with such violent pains that he
was repeatedly cupped between the shoulders; yet within a short
time he was observed to disappear with the fickle-hearted and coyly
reluctant Safiya behind the bridal tent.
Thus the former Meccan merchant and exile passed from conquest to
conquest. He was now not only a prophet--plenty of contemporary men
professed a similarly exclusive claim to that commonplace title--but
the recognized dictator over Medina and an extensive range of
contingent territory; furthermore, the terror inspired by the mere
mention of his name had penetrated to the most distant stretches of
Arabia, and was beginning to arouse sinister forebodings in adjacent
nations. Had his relatively unbroken succession of victories made him
an inexorably ruthless tyrant whose actions were wholly prompted by
an insatiable ambition, or had they but reaffirmed his ceaselessly
reiterated claim that he was only plastic clay in Allah’s hand? Did
he delight to glut himself in wanton bloodshed, or, in the inmost
regions of his spirit, did he believe that the punishments meted
out upon his enemies had actually been self-inflicted inasmuch as
they had refused to accept the one true God? “And He hath caused to
descend from their strongholds the Jews.... And He struck terror
into their hearts. A part ye slaughtered, and a part ye took into
captivity. And He hath made you to inherit their land, and their
habitations, and their wealth, and a land which ye had not trodden
upon; and God is over all things powerful.... I am the strongest,
therefore Allah is with me.” Did those exultant words emanate
from a profligate, coldly calculating and atrociously barbarous
hypocrite, or from a humble and grateful penitent whose sole wish
was to be a channel through which Allah’s divine purposes might be
made manifest? The answer forever bides.
[Illustration: VIII]