The information for this article has been taken from Dr. Jamal Badawi’s lecture.
One of the criticism of Prophet (peace be upon him) mentioned by the orientalists is that he persecuted the Jews of Medina because they refused to accept his message. This article will discuss Prophet’s (peace be upon him) treatment of the Non-Muslims. After you have read the article in its entirety (if Allah wills) you will realise how unjust the above mentioned criticism is. Even though the Scholars of Islam have answered this and many other similar objections in great detail, these objections keep on getting recycled for the last few centuries in the polemic literature and now on the internet.
First of all, we have to distinguish between two periods, the Makkan period (13 years of his mission) when Muslims were persecuted and the Medinan period (the remaining 10 years of his mission).
In Makkah, he encountered at least two groups: idolatrous Arabs and the Christians. As far as the encounter with idolatrous Arabs go, we find that it is subdivided into two types: positive and negative. By positive, I mean his encounter with those who rejected Islam, but did not seek to hurt or undermine Islam or the Prophet (peace be upon him), and how he dealt with them.
The best example for this is his uncle Abu Talib. Abu Talib did not accept Islam, but he never put obstacles before the Prophet (peace be upon him), he even defended the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his right to preach what he believed in or claimed to have received as revelation. For that type of relationship, Prophet (peace be upon him) more than reciprocated that courtesy. He loved his uncle, in spite of his idolatrous beliefs; he respected him and treated him with all kindness that is owed to a peaceful Non-Muslim.
But we have also the encounters with those who showed aggressiveness; they not only hurt the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Muslims, but also tortured them. There are many examples, let me give you two.
The first is of one of his uncle Abu Jahal. It is reported that one time Abu Jahal passed Prophet (peace be upon him) and he started abusing him verbally in a very ugly way. There was a young lady who was overhearing this conversation, she kept watching and after Abu Jahal had said his vile words the Prophet (peace be upon him) simply looked at him and did not respond. A few minutes later one of his uncle Hamza (may Allah be pleased with him) came from his hunting trip. He did not accept Islam or follow Prophet (peace be upon him) at that time. When he passed by that young lady and she told him that do you realise what happened to your nephew Muhammad (peace be upon him)? He said what? She replied that Abu Jahal abused him in a bad manner. He asked what did Muhammad (peace be upon him) do? She replied that he did not reciprocate with words; he just left him (moved away from him). It was that nobility of Prophet (peace be upon him) in the face of abuse (which is one of his characteristics) that softened the heart of Hamza (may Allah be pleased with him) and that was the turning point in his life. Hamza (may Allah be pleased with him) by nature was strong, aggressive and husky person. He walked right up to the Kaaba where Abu Jahal was sitting with the chiefs of Quraish, and he hit him with his bow on his head. He then said that you abused Muhammad (peace be upon him); I say what he says and I follow his religion. The point here is the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) kind behaviour towards those who were evil.
The second example was when Prophet (peace be upon him) was being persecuted and rejected in Makkah, he sought to find some followers and secure a base to preach the word of God as he received it and believed in it. So he goes to the nearby township known as Taif. He goes there to talk to people and invite them to Islam. But he was mocked, first by adults (e.g. one of them said “ha, you are telling me that you are a prophet, it is either you are a liar or truthful. If you are a liar I do not want to listen to a liar, and if you are truthful and indeed if you are a prophet then you are too big for me to listen too”); it did not stop at that and they sent their children who pelted Prophet (peace be upon him) with stones. He started to bleed, as a result, and blood seeped into his sandals. Then he took refuge in a garden which belonged to a couple of Christians. He sits there making earnest prayer to Allah that if You are not angry with me O Allah, then I do not care (meaning I do not care for this suffering). In the middle of all of that pain and psychological trauma an angel of God came to him and said that for those arrogant people, if it is okay with you, God has permitted me to crush them between these two mountains. Most humans perhaps would be thinking of vengeance but the Prophet (peace be upon him) answered that angel and said no, because I hope to Allah that out of the descendents these people there will be people who will worship Allah (that was very prophetic and that is what happened later, and as we know Muhammad bin Qasim was one of those descendents). [Similar statement has been recorded about Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) which shows they were not copying each other but receiving the same message and inspiration from God]. Prophet (peace be upon him) said to Allah to forgive my people for they know not what they are doing.
The second encounter is with the Christians. Even before migration to Medina, Prophet (peace be upon him) told his companions to migrate to Abyssinia and he stated that there is a king in whose realm people are not wronged. Now one observation; that good relationship and courtesy continued not only when Muslims were persecuted, but when Muslims became powerful and had their own state and base in Medina, we never hear about Prophet (peace be upon him) ordering the invasion of Abyssinia. That fly in the face of mistaken interpretation that some Muslims may have as well, that it is the duty of Muslims to fight all people in the world until they accept Islam or come under the rule of Islam. If this were the true, the first implementation of that would have been done by the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself. There is no record whatsoever that shows when Islam allowed fighting either for self defense or against oppression, it was not meant for people who are not Muslims but coexisting peacefully with the Muslims. This is clear lesson from the life of Prophet (peace be upon him).
Now we go to his encounters in Medina. Here we find multiple encounters with Non-Muslims (Jews, Christians and idolatrous Arabs). With Jews one of the major act of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in Medina (beside the buddy system between the migrants and the settlers and building of a mosque as a centre for Muslims) was known as the As-Saheefah (which can be described as perhaps the first multicultural, multi religious and pluralistic Constitution in the world that guaranteed equal rights to everybody irrespective of their faith). In this Saheefah or Constitution, of which everybody was a signatory to, it was agreed that Muslims irrespective of their tribes, irrespective whether they are migrants or settlers in Medina, are to be regarded as one community united by faith. The same equal treatment would be given to various Jewish tribes as well, and all Jews in Medina irrespective of their tribes are to be regarded as one community of faith united by Judaism. Secondly, the constitution guaranteed full rights and autonomy and freedom of worship and belief to Jews, Muslims and everyone else for that matter. Thirdly, it was agreed that Jews and Muslims should be co-defenders of Medina. Should any enemy attack Medina, both are obligated as two communities to stand together against aggression and never to help any enemy attacking Medina. Fourthly, no side should give refuge to someone who committed a crime. That was an amazing liberal treatment, approach and reaching out to what the Quran called the people of the book (applying to Jews and Christians). Also, all parties (including the Jews) agreed that the head of the whole community would be the Prophet (peace be upon him).
Now what happened later, unfortunately, was that three tribes (one tribe after the other) broke this agreement of peaceful co-existence and mutual respect and engaged in hostilities towards Muslims to some degree or the other. The Prophet (peace be upon him) in his position and responsibility as the enforcer of the law of constitution of Medina (to which everybody signed) had the power to enforce fair and proportionate punishment for a crime committed by the offending party. However, there are a number of observations in approach and fairness of Prophet (peace be upon him) in dealing with the offending people. Firstly, it is impossible to think against any punitive action against those who broke the law as anti Semitism, as Prophet (peace be upon him) himself is a pure Semite as he was the descendant of Prophet Ishmael (peace be upon him). Secondly, it is impossible to think that this punitive action against the offenses was anti Jewish, as the Quran mentions the name of Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) more times than Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself. The Quran describes the original Torah given to Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) as light and guidance. Thirdly, it is impossible to think of these punishments as revenge because they rejected him as a prophet. Why? Because the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions are prohibited by the text of the Quran in many verses (e.g. the verse 2:256 says “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion”). The freedom of worship is guaranteed in several places in the Quran.
With this background let’s see what was the proper approach to the enforcement of the law. Firstly, the Prophet (peace be upon him) never stereotyped and lumped all the Jews together when it came to punishments. Only the offending tribe was punished not the others. This is significant because if you are anti Jewish you would lump them all together, as Hitler did, and this was not the case at all. Secondly, the punishment was ALWAYS proportionate to the offense that was committed. For example, in the case of Banu Kainuka it was a major offense but in the case of Banu Nazir in the next instance the offense was much greater (including the conspiracy to kill the Prophet peace be upon him) and in the case of Banu Quraizah it was what we call today, in modern Legal language, as high treason at the time of war.
As mentioned earlier, one of the clause in the constitution was that both Jews and Muslims will defend Medina against the invaders, and none should cooperate with the enemy against their fellow Medinites. And we know historically, and you can read this in the most authentic reference (in Seerah of Ibn Ishaaq) that the Arabs when they lost hope of really trying to destroy the Prophet (peace be upon him) they tried to gather a huge army, a coalition of various tribes (and not limited to the Makkan people); they surrounded Medina with the intention of wiping out the Muslims from the face of the earth. Now Muslims and Jews were living side by side in Medina. Yet information was relayed to Prophet (peace be upon him) that there have been contacts between the invading army and the chief of the tribe of Banu Quraizah in order to get rid of Muhammad as a problem for the pagan arabs and as well for the Jews. In fairness, Ibn Ishaaq says that in the beginning when that offer was made to the chief of the tribe of Banu Quraizah, he hesitated; and look at his words and acknowledgement (even when another fellow Jew of another tribe said that this is your opportunity, as Muslims do not stand any chance and they would be finished, so you better join) he said no, we have never seen from Muhammad except faithfulness (meaning respect of his agreement). But apparently he was tempted and you know in these tribes it was not only the decision of the chief, they were quiet democratic and the people of fighting age would discuss the issue, and in the end the consensus was that yes Prophet (peace be upon him) never broke the treaty but he does not stand a chance so let us finish the Muslims once in for all and join hands. The Prophet (peace be upon him) wanted to make sure not to jump to conclusions and he sent an emissary to the Jews and when they were asked that is it true about the treaty and the reply was what treaty? So it was coming from the horse’s mouth that treaty was not acknowledged by that tribe.
But then the critics say that it was the Prophet (peace be upon him) who ordered the execution of the fighting men. In fact, this is great falsification of history. Even if the Prophet (peace be upon him) did that it would have been perfectly his authority being the head of the state. And here we have a case of high treason at the time of war when the life of everybody was in danger and you get a stab in the back from within. What would any head of the state do in a case like this? But the fact is that he did not even use that authority. He was beseeched by the head of the hypocrites, Ibn Salun, that the offending tribe should choose its own arbitrator and whatever decision he comes up with is binding.
In the legal profession when you talk about arbitration as opposed to conciliation or mediation, it means that you are accepted mutually by both parties. Yet the Prophet (peace be upon him) was so generous and so lenient that he said to Banu Quraizah that you choose your own arbitrator; and they did. And you know who they choose? They choose a man by the name of Saad Ibn Muaz; and why they choose him? Because he was their ally before Islam came to Medina. He was very close to them. He was familiar with their Torah and their system even though he was not a Jew himself, still they choose him. Saad then addresses both the Muslims and Jews of the tribe of Banu Quraizah and said that if I come up with a decision will everybody abide by it? By the way, he need not asked that question as anyone in industrial relations or law would know that arbitration is final and binding. There could be no challenge for the arbitrator’s decision even in modern legal systems, unless there is a proof of bribery or violation of law like refusing to hear evidence, for example.
So Saad said to the tribe of Banu Quraizah I am going to rule in accordance of your own Torah (which of course provided for capital punishment for fighting men; women and children were spared). Yet the critics keep on repeating the Prophet’s Massacre. It is true that Prophet (peace be upon him) agreed with Saad’s judgement but he did not have a choice as it was an arbitration decision that everyone agreed to accept. So I hope this clarifies some of the distortions we hear on the media and some other writings of those who have enmity in their hearts against Islam.
Please also watch the video "Muhammad A to Z" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhzSxf9iugE
