Muhammad and the Medinan Jews: A Comparison of the Texts of Ibn Ishaq's Kitab Sirat Rasul Allah with

al-Waqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi Author(s): Rizwi S. Faizer Reviewed work(s): Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 463-489 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/176149 . Accessed: 01/11/2011 00:04
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 28 (1996), 463-489. Printed in the United States of America

Rizwi S. Faizer

MUHAMMAD A COMPARISON KITAB SiRAT AL-WAQIDSI'

AND RASUL

THE

MEDINAN

OF THE TEXTS ALLAH

JEWS: OF IBN ISHAQ'S

WITH

KITAB AL-MAGHA Z

This article is based on the assumption that Ibn Ishaq (704-67) and al-Waqidi (747-823) were responsible for my main sources, the compilations entitled Kitab sirat rasul Allah1 and Kitab al-maghdzi,2 respectively. Such an assumption is justifiable. To take Ibn Ishaq'sBiography in the recension of Ibn Hisham (d. 834),3 we know that the Ziyad ibn CAbdAllah al-Bakka'i (d. 798) text used by Ibn Hisham was authorized by Ibn Ishaq himself, and indeed had been confirmed by the use of both sam' and Cardtechniques4 as a correct version.5 At the same time, Ismail K. Poonawala confirms that the redaction of Salama ibn al-Fadl (d. 807) compares closely with the text of Ibn Hisham,6 indicating that the text of Ibn Ishaq had probably been fixed7:Salama's redaction was based on a papyrus manuscriptof Ibn Ishaq8transmittedby Muhammadibn Humayd ibn Hayyan al-Razi, and was used by al-Tabariin his narrationof the Prophet'slife, which forms a part of his compilation Ta'rlkhal-rusul wa'l-muluk.9As for the text of al-Waqidi, evidence indicates that it had been established by al-Waqidi himself from beginning to end, for he not but only prefaces his work with the names of his chief transmittersof tradition10 also provides the basic chronology of all the events that are discussed in his work. Moreover, both Ibn Hisham and Ibn al-Thalji (d. 879)1 refer to their recensions as the compilations of Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, respectively. Significantly, it is these texts that are used by modern biographers of the Prophet to determine the events that constitute his life. It is these very texts that are used by both MarsdenJones and Patricia Crone for their various appreciations of sira and maghizi compilations.12 It is interesting that all of the transmittersand compilers before Ibn Hisham who dealt with material about the period of the Prophet regardedit as maghdzi material. Ibn Hisham appears to have been the first to bring together this material, as for instance in his recension of Ibn Ishaq, in which he uses the term sira in the title. Thereafterthe terms sira and maghdzi came to be used synonymously as a generic label for these compilations.13In my references to the genre I have found it convenient to use the term sira-maghazi so as to avoid any confusion.
Rizwi S. Faizer is an independent scholar living in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada. ? 1996 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/96 $7.50 + .10

464 Rizwi S. Faizer Modern approaches to sira-maghdzi have been overwhelmingly concerned with evaluating its content for information about the Prophet's life.14 The justification for such an approachhas been that these texts are essentially repositories of archaic and therefore authentic traditions. Authenticity, however, does not imply veracity, so that there is much controversy regarding the historicity of these texts and how they should be interpreted. Scholars have tended to isolate traditions and examine how they have been variously recollected by different transmitters in the hope of discovering the facts behind the narrative-or whether indeed there were any such facts. Little weight has been given to analyzing the material in terms of the nature of the genre concerned and what it meant to the persons who compiled it. Present understandingof sira-maghazi is based largely on J. M. B. Jones's analysis. His investigation is primarily a response to Julius Wellhausen, who had noticed two motifs in particular in the Prophet's biography, the raid on Nakhla and the dream of 'Atika, and asserted that al-Waqidi had taken much from Ibn Ishaq without acknowledgment-and that in fact he had plagiarized the work of Ibn Ishaq.5l Jones, investigating the motifs for himself, admits that al-Waqidiand Ibn Ishaq made very similar statements, but avers that there is no plagiarism involved, for the language used reflects the modifications representingthe style of the typical storyteller from whom al-Waqidi had probably derived his information. Jones furtherexplains the "close parallels" that exist between the different narrativesby claiming that the compilers of sira-maghazi were in fact drawing upon a common reservoir, or corpus, of qass-folk tales-and traditional material.16 It is this notion of a "single corpus" that has led Crone to declare: version of the Waqididid not plagiarizeIbn Ishaq,but he did not offer an independent weresimplyso manyseleclife, Prophet's either;whathe, IbnIshaqandothersputtogether And it is for the samereasonthatthey cameto tions froma commonpool of qass material. of agreeon the historicity eventsthatnevertook place....17 I take issue with the above and propose instead that al-Waqidi was the compiler of a unique statement of sira-maghazi, different from that of Ibn Ishaq. I also suggest that the intentions of the compilers when they put together their biographical works were not historical. My argument is that, contrary to the assertion made by Jones, the enormous variety of information which the numerous traditions communicate makes it meaningless to view traditions as belonging within a "single corpus." It thus becomes clear that the choice of materials that are ultimately brought together to establish a given compilation is determined by the purpose of the author-compiler.I therefore view as imperative the need to study each particularwork as an integral statement shaped by the goals and views of its author, and to attempt to understandhow the author has exploited the genre to say what he wants to say. It is the compiler who selects the pieces of information-available in a decontextualized state18-with which to compose his text, and it is the compiler who decides the sequence in which to place them. The compilation must be seen as an integral statement that, to be correctly understood, must not be confused by the introduction of material which has not been included in that particulartext. It must be appreciated as a creative work in its own right.19 According to sira-maghazi, when Muhammad moved to Medina to escape the torment of the Meccans he found that numerous Jewish communities were already

Muhammadand the Medinan Jews

465

settled in that town. Although Muhammadwaged frequent wars against the pagan Arabs, it is through the subordinationof the Jews that his might and authority are established in this literature. As a result, the Jewish faith is superseded by that of Islam. The portrayalof Muhammad'sopposition to the Jews makes sira-maghazi a combination of salvation history and Arab saga. The subject of Muhammad'srelations with the Medinan Jews has received much attention from scholars because of the contentious issues involved. Importantin the context of this article is the way in which modern historians have used the narration of the Prophet'sbiography by al-Waqidi to interpretwhat has come to be known as the "Constitutionof Medina,"which is included in the Sira of Ibn Ishaq. From Wellhausen, Arent J. Wensinck, and Leone Caetani to William Montgomery Watt, R. B. Serjeant, Uri Rubin, and Moshe Gil,20one finds analyses and interpretationswhich contradict and deny one another. Simultaneously, there has been a rise of Muslim apologetics from scholars such as W. N. Arafat and Barakat Ahmad concerning Muhammad'sraids-maghazl-on the Medinan Jews, particularlythe B. Qurayza. It has been asserted that the execution of these raids was contradictoryto the very essence of Islam.21M. J. Kister indicates otherwise. In a 1986 article addressing the In issue, he tries to discover the facts behind the various traditions.22 the light of these conflicts, I hope to bring to the study of this topic an understandingof the significance of the motif of Muhammadand the Jews in sira-maghazi, and thus a better understandingof the nature of the genre itself. In order to appreciate the nature of this literatureI have undertakena case study of the material concerning Muhammad and the Medinan Jews in biographical literature on the Prophet. Using methods of comparative textual analysis, I have investigated the differences between the two compilations, the Kitab sirat rasul Allah and the Kitab al-maghdzi, in terms of theme, sources, chronology, and style, to determine whether and to what extent Ibn Ishaq's interpretationof the Prophet's life differs from that of al-Waqidi. As far as the basic themes of the two compilations are concerned, it is important to notice how each author imposes his bias upon the work he shapes. The main theme of Ibn Ishaq's work is the history of monotheism, and the confirmation of Muhammad as the last prophet of God. The prophetic essence of Muhammad's person is established from the beginning. His noble heritage is indicated by his very genealogy.23The plausibility of this thesis is further substantiatedby the fact that, like Moses, Noah, and Hud before him, Muhammadbrings down the wrath of God on those who deny Him-as, for instance, in the cases of the B. Qaynuqac,the B. Nadir, and the B. Qurayza-in order to effect their subjugation. At the same time, we are also introduced to many instances of Christ-like miracles, such as the healing of wounds24and the feeding of the multitude.25This prophetic theme is woven together with universal legendary patterns and mnemonic devices linked through citations of asbab al-nuzul-occasions of revelation-to establish that the Qur'an was the message that God had revealed through Muhammad,His last messenger to mankind.26 In al-Waqidi'scompilation, the account given by Ibn Ishaq of the biography of the Prophetis related as the plain and simple maghdzi, which literally means "raids,"but also signifies the achievements of the Prophet. It is interesting to note that unlike Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi does not present his reader with the stories of the Prophet's

466 Rizwi S. Faizer birth, emigration, or death.27Yet it would be incorrect to argue that this was because al-Waqidi was concerned only with the raids of the Prophet. Al-Waqidi not only narratesother events, such as the various agreementsconcluded by the Prophet, but also recounts the treaty at Hudaybiya, the conversion of CAmr al-CAs,the ibn destruction of al-'Uzza, and the Prophet's farewell pilgrimage.28 Sometimes the title of the raid is a mere mnemonic label which leads to the recollection of numerous other incidents that occurred at the same time.29 The majority of Ibn Ishaq's transmittersof tradition come from Medina.30His weightiest authorities include his teacher Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab alZuhri (670-742),3l a student and collector of the traditions of CUrwaibn al-Zubayr Allah ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm (675-747), (d. 712), whom Ibn Ishaq also cites;32CAbd who was supposed to have authoreda maghazi work (which was transmittedby his nephew), and who is also known to have transmittedsome of the Prophet'smessages to his contemporaries,such as the kings of Himyar;33 CAsimibn CUmar Qatada ibn (d. 746),34 who was ordained by the caliph CUmaribn CAbdal-CAziz(683-720) to teach maghdzi and manaqib al-sahaba-the virtues and merits of the Companions of the Prophet-at the mosque of Damascus;35 CAbd and Allah ibn Abi Najih (d. 748), a Meccan scholar who was commended for his commentary on the Qur'an.36 Although many of the transmitterscited by Ibn Ishaq are also referred to by alWaqidi in his Kitdb al-maghdzi, traditions narratedon the authority of Ibn Ishaq himself are not to be found. The traditions used by al-Waqidi (except in the case of traditions in the form of asbab al-nuzul, which are usually cited on the authority of Abu Hurayraor Ibn CAbbas) generally presented as a more regular chain of auare or isndd, and are very traditionally stated. They rarely extend back to the thorities, Prophet'stime, which is just as it would have been in al-Waqidi'sday, and generally come to an end at the level of the Tabiiin, the successors to the Companions of the The question, however, is whether al-Waqidi was merely restating what Prophet.37 had been already said by Ibn Ishaq, or whether he was able to bring a new interpretation to the essential data of the Prophet'slife. Take for instance the essential materials of which the two compilations are composed. Both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidiuse a variety of materialsthat range from documents to poetry and Qur'anic citations but consist most of all of popular stories and traditions. As far as this case study of Muhammadand the Jews is concerned, the of documents included are largely lists: of Jewish adversaries,38 the Jews joined by of Ansari hypocrites,39of participantsin the various battles and raids;40 those who were martyred41 taken prisoner;42 of those who were given shares in the booty or and won in various engagements.43 In addition to the lists, we are told of the writing down of agreements between the Muslims and the Jews. According to both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, Muhammad made a written agreement of this sort soon after his entry into Medina: according to Ibn Ishaq, this took place just before the pact of brotherhoodwas made between the Muhajirunand the Ansar. Ibn Ishaq does not give the precise date, but he indicates the moment at which the agreement was made by placing the evidence in that particularposition. According to the agreement, Muhammad,together with the Muhajirunand the Ansar, agreed to let specific Jewish tribes-excluding the B. Qaynuqa', the B. Nadir, and the B. Qurayza44-identified by their relationship to the

Muhammadand the Medinan Jews

467

Medinan Arab tribes live unmolested and as a part of the ummain accordance with their religious beliefs.45 Did Muhammad have the authority to make such a concession, and could the Jews have been forced to live accordingly? According to Ibn Ishaq, it would seem had so. The support of the Ansar even at CAqaba, been vehement and continued to hold in Medina at this point.46More importantly,Ibn Ishaq shows us that the Jews actually permitted Muhammad to participate in the activities of their community during the first few months after his arrival in Medina. Thus, Ibn Ishaq shows Muhammadpassing sentence on an adulterousJewish couple,47raising the value of the blood price of the B. Qurayza to equal that of the B. Nadir,48and becoming involved in religious arguments with the Jews.49An atmosphere of integration and active proselytizing, barely visible in the al-Waqiditext, is indicated. Ibn Ishaq suggests that the better moments had encouraged Muhammadto believe that the Jews could be included in an umma, or community, with the Muslims. Unfortunately,the activity led to much religious conflict between the two peoples and, soon enough, Jewish rejection of Muhammad.One sees Muhammadhimself turn away from the Jews with the symbolic gesture of changing his qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca.50 But Muhammad's God-given victory at Badr leads him to invite the Jews of the B. Qaynuqacto Islam, for surely such a victory indicated that God was on his side. Inferringthe optimism of Muhammad,Ibn Ishaq tells how the Jews, in rejecting the Prophet, declared, "O Muhammad,you seem to think that we are your people."51 By contrast, al-Waqidi barely refers to the religious controversies which arose between Muhammad and the Jews. The issue of the qibla is avoided, and there is no mention of Muhammadgiving his verdict regardingthe adulterousJewish couple or interferingto adjustthe blood value of the Jews.52It would appearthat, according to al-Waqidi, the Jews of Medina generally lived as an independent community in Medina, and that the notion of the Jews living as an ummawith the Muslims, under the common dhimmatAllah, or protection of God, was never considered. Al-Waqidi does not give us any information regarding a written agreement in which the Muhajirunand the Ansar are key participants,as indicated in Ibn Ishaq's It "Constitutionof Medina."53 is possible that al-Waqidi was not aware of the existence of this document, but if he knew the work of Ibn Ishaq, as is established by alone Tabari,54 must admit that such a possibility is remote. It may be that al-Waqidi believed that the loyalty of both groups-the Muhajirunand the Ansar (comprising the Aws and the Khazraj)-to the Prophet was such that a formal agreement between them was unnecessary. As portrayedby Ibn Ishaq, the factionalism that existed within one of these two groups, the Ansar, provoked both the undertaking of the Aws to murder KaCbibn al-Ashraf and the Khazrajagreement to remove Abu RafiC'.s It was fear of the consequences of such rivalry that justified the formal contracting of an agreement among the three groups-the Muhajirun, the Aws, and the Khazraj-in the Ibn Ishaq narrative. Al-Waqidi, for his part, does not call attention to these groups' rivalry, perhaps because he believed that the Prophet had helped them to overcome it. It is interesting that what appearsto be a crucial sentence in Ibn Ishaq's narration of the murderof Abu Rafi', "Now Aws had killed Kacb ibn al-Ashraf before Uhud because of his enmity towards the apostle ... so Khazraj asked and obtained the

468 Rizwi S. Faizer apostle's permission to kill Sallam who was in Khaybar,"is absent from al-Waqidi's text.56The lack of rivalry is also implied in al-Waqidi'sinterpretationof the events in which the land taken from the B. Nadir is divided among the Muhajirunalone; no apprehension among the Ansar as a result of this action is cited.57This may be why al-Waqidi does not indicate the conclusion of such an agreement. According to al-Waqidi,Muhammaddesired to establish an agreement with all of the peoples of Medina-with the Aws, the Khazraj,and those who converted to Islam on the one hand, and with those who did not convert, such as the pagan Arabs and the Jews, on the other.58 Al-Waqidi provides considerable information regarding written and direct agreements between Muhammad and the Jews. He claims that Muhammadin fact concluded an agreement with the Jews soon after his entry into Medina.59 Al-Waqidi also informs us of a second contract, one that was established between Muhammad and the Jews (of the B. Nadir and the B. Qurayza) when the latter approachedhim to complain of the insecure conditions he had created when he had Kacb ibn al-Ashraf killed. Interestingly, the tradition even informs us of It where the agreement was contracted: "at the house of Ramla bint al-Harith."60 is that al-Waqidi never associates this agreement with the "Constitution of significant Medina" or any part of it as cited by Ibn Ishaq. That an agreement actually existed between the B. Qurayza and Muhammad,however, is indicated by al-Waqidi in his description of the refusal of the B. Qurayzato help the B. Nadir when the B. Nadir were being besieged by Muhammad61,and in his telling of how the B. Qurayza had lent the Muslims their baskets and spades in preparationfor the battle of the
Trench.62

In this regardthe agreementto protect Muhammadreferredto by 'Amr ibn Su'da', who, while disassociating himself from the treacheryof the B. Qurayza,nevertheless does not convert to Islam, is extremely pertinentto al-Waqidi'snarrative: O Jewishpeople,youentered analliancewithMuhammad to into according whichyouagreed thatyou wouldnot help one of his enemiesagainsthim, and that you wouldprotecthim him. ... If you refuseto enter[intoan alliance]with him, then againstthose who attacked in and remain steadfast Judaism give thejizya,though GodI do notknowif he will receive by
it or not.63

What al-Waqidi seems to suggest here, interestingly enough through the voice of a Jew, is that the jizya is a payment which may take the place of Jewish participation in defending the Muslims-a payment made in compensation. It is such a payment that is agreed to by the Jews of Khaybar later on. Thus, al-Waqidi is in fact presenting us with a premonition or a foreshadowing of what is to come. It is certainly true that all of the agreements indicated by al-Waqidi sound similar to the "Constitution of Medina." Thus, Wellhausen prefaces his discussion of the "Constitution of Medina" with citations from al-Waqidi because he believes that That of they are importantfor the "interpretation the purpose of this agreement."64 al-Waqidi'srepresentationof the agreementis quite differentfrom the "Constitution of Medina"becomes clear when examined more objectively. For instance, while Ibn Ishaq gives the Jews a subordinateplace in the "Constitution,"al-Waqidi describes a one-to-one agreementbetween the Muslims and the Jews. Again, while the "Con-

Muhammadand the Medinan Jews

469

stitution" anticipates the recognition of the Jews as a part of the umma under the common protection of a dhimmat Allah, al-Waqidi does not. For al-Waqidi, the agreements are purely political; he does not inform the reader that the Prophet desired to impose such social or religious structuresupon the Jews. Finally, while Ibn Ishaq excludes the B. Qaynuqac, the B. Nadir, and the B. Qurayza from his "Constitution," al-Waqidiindicates direct negotiations with these very groups. Thus, ratherthan assume that al-Waqidiwas interpretingthe "Constitution"as narratedby Ibn Ishaq, I suggest that both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi were, in fact, providing the reader with their individual interpretationsof an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews which belonged to the genre of sira-maghazi. For Ibn Ishaq, there was no agreement between Muhammadand the main Jewish communities; for alWaqidi, there were several agreements.65 It appearsthen that the differences found in al-Waqidi'stext are not ill-considered idiosyncrasies but rathercarefully thought-out alterations that come together to establish a meaningful statement that is distinct from that of Ibn Ishaq. This distinctness is clearly connected to al-Waqidi'smore stylistic approachto the compiling of sira-maghazi, which enables him to recontextualize, through the repetition and transference of traditions, the narrativeaccounts of events and the characterization of personalities as established by Ibn Ishaq. The contrast can be seen more clearly when specific examples are analyzed in their larger context, such as the two authors' accounts concerning the raid on the B. Qaynuqac,the exile of the B. Nadir, and the raid on the B. Qurayza.These events constitute a unit within the structuralframework of the maghazi and indicate Muhammad'srelations with the Medinan Jews-in mythical terms, the hero's journey away from home to prove himself.66Although these tribes were not the only Jews in Medina, they were certainly the most significant, and Muhammadis depicted as having been responsible for bringing about their destruction. The way this happened is explained differently by Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi. Ibn Ishaq represents Muhammad'sconflict with the Jews of Medina in a truly eclectic fashion: with the B. Qaynuqac, we have the Prophet inviting the Jews to Islam in typical Biblo-Qur'anic manner; with the B. Nadir, Ibn Ishaq introduces instead the universal mythical patternof stone-throwing,for we see the B. Nadir plan to drop a rock upon Muhammadin order to kill him;67and with the B. Qurayza, we see borrowing from the tales of the ayyam, in particulara story which told of how the B. Qurayzahad been massacred by Malik ibn Ajlan in the days of the Jahiliya.68 A story similar to this last example is also related regarding the Christians of Najran, who were said to have been massacred according to some pre-Islamic traditions cited by Ibn Ishaq.69In his depiction of the actual destruction of the tribes, Ibn Ishaq uses a combination of mnemonic70 Biblo-Qur'anic patterns:the comand munity that rejects Muhammadis obliterated in so decisive a fashion that not only are the better-prepared Jews defeated by the smaller Muslim forces, but none of the Jewish tribes is ever heard of again. As for the actual means of Muhammad'svictory, the violence against the Jews is depicted as having escalated from forced submission to exile and execution. Al-Waqidi, for his part, plays with Ibn Ishaq's account, using repetition, a change of chronology, and new material (as is his wont) to weave a motif about the Jews'

470 Rizwi S. Faizer abrogation of the agreement with Muhammad. This, too, is an age-old biblical theme: the Jews had not kept their covenant with God. But al-Waqidi does not stop here. He takes aspects of the B. Nadir incident depicted by Ibn Ishaq and presents them during the raid on the B. Qaynuqacas well, so that the hypocrisy of Ibn Ubayy is repeated, as is the notion of the exile of the Jews. Through repetition al-Waqidi emphasizes that the Prophetis honest by character;he is a man who keeps his agreements but is forced to attack the Jews because they have abrogatedtheirs. As for the Jews, they are portrayedas predictablyunfaithful. By emphasizing the writing of an agreement with the significant Jewish communities, al-Waqidi introduces his own interpretation of these events. A close comparison of the texts of Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi is necessary to appreciatemore fully the contrived natureof this art form. Compare the way the two authors recall the events that led to the raid on the B. Qaynuqacby the Muslims. According to Ibn Ishaq, the battle of Badr had been won, and God had thus indicated to the Jews that Muhammadwas His chosen messenger. The time had come for Muhammadto remindthe Jews of their covenant with When the Jews refused God and to demand that they recognize him as a prophet.71 to comply with his request, Muhammadattacked them. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Jews of the B. Qaynuqacwere not attacked because they had broken an agreement but because they had rejected God's message. But consider al-Waqidi'sinterpretation.As always, he begins his chapter on the raid on the B. Qaynuqac with the date of the raid, stating that it happened in the middle of Shawwal. (He places the raid on Sawiq after it, in the month of Dhu'lHijja.) As always, he concludes the chapter with a statement about who had been left in charge of Medina during the Prophet'sabsence. On this occasion, it was Abu Lubaba. Al-Waqidi informs the reader that soon after his entry into Medina, Muhammad had made an agreement with the Jews, offering them security in returnfor their political allegiance. The Jews had invited the Muslim attack when they broke their agreement with Muhammad.It would appear that the aggression started with a small incident in the marketplace,in which a Jew insulted an Arab woman. One of the Arabs, much provoked, killed the Jew in anger, only to be killed himself, thus exacerbating the antagonism that already existed between the two communities.72 The basic structureof the narrativeas established by al-Waqidi is quite different from that of Ibn Ishaq. Ibn Ishaq moves immediately into the scene, showing Muhammad inviting the Jews to Islam. In contrast, al-Waqidi begins with the agreement made between Muhammad and the Jews, moves to the sudden revolt of the B. QaynuqaC, only then tells of the Prophet'sinviting them to Islam-all of this and Allah ibn Jacfarfrom al-Harithibn Fudayl from Ibn relayed on the authorityof CAbd included by Ibn Kacb al-Qurazi. The phrase, "You think that we are your people,"73 Ishaq and indicating that Muhammad may have believed that the Jews would acknowledge his authority,is not mentioned by al-Waqidi. Particularly interesting is the way in which al-Waqidi gives us information paralleling that reportedby Ibn Ishaq on the authority of 'Asim ibn 'Umar ibn Qatada. It is also noticeable that Ibn Ishaq avoids mentioning an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews. He informs us that the B. Qaynuqac were the first of the Jews "to destroy what was between them and the Messenger of God."74"What" was between the Prophet and the Jews may very well have been an understanding or a peace. On the other hand, we observe that by introducing the chapter with

Muhammadand the Medinan Jews

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information regarding the contracting of an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews, al-Waqidi leaves no room for doubt that the what that was destroyed was indeed the contract. The parallel narrative as reported by al-Waqidi-and here I provide a literal translation so that the reader may appreciatehow al-Waqidi makes his point by adding what is probably an interpretativegloss ("of the agreement")states: Whenthe Prophet the of in overcame companions Badrandarrived Medina, Jews acted the and of wrongfully brokewhatwas betweenthemandthe Messenger God,of the agreement.75 A closer examination of the traditions concerning the raids on the Jewish groups reveals that the isnads in the two parallel passages of Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi are nowhere the same.76One cannot deny that the tradents used by al-Waqidi have already been made familiar to us by the work of Ibn Ishaq. Nevertheless, they are not identical to the ones that Ibn Ishaq uses as his authorities when he narratesthe episode regardingthe B. Qaynuqac;in fact, the actual traditionsused are also different. In other words, Jones's statement, "Musa b. CUqbah,Ibn Ishaq, and al-Waqidi were drawing upon a central core of material so well known that verification by conventional isnad was superfluous,"77 implying that the three compilers were using the same traditions and saying the same thing, is based on too simplistic an appreciation of the narrative and cannot be accepted. The difference that emerges when two authorscite different Qur'anic passages as having been revealed on the occasion of the same event is significant. Ibn Ishaq's citation, One force foughtin the way of God;the other,disbelievers, thoughtthey saw doubletheir own force with theirvery eyes ..., indicates that the victory at Badr was a miracle from God, a sign that informed the people of Muhammad'srole.78With al-Waqidi, however, who insists that the Jews abrogated their agreement first, the citation is: to If thoufearesttreachery fromany group,throwback [theirCovenant] them(so as to be) on equalterms:for God lovethnot the treacherous.79 Here the reference appears to be to the failure of the Jews to keep the agreement; indeed, Qur'anic exegesis usually explains it this way. Thus, al-Waqidi claims that the Jews had provoked Muhammad'sattack by abrogating the agreement. There are other significant differences between the two narrators.Al-Waqidi introduces two new themes into this episode, which in Ibn Ishaq'stext are present only in the episode of the raid on the B. Nadir: the hypocrisy of Ibn Ubayy and the punishment by exile to Adhricatinflicted on the Jews after the captureof their weapons. These additional traditions bring a new dimension to the story of the B. Qaynuqac. Al-Waqidi, from this very early stage, portraysIbn Ubayy as a hypocrite, and we see the authorexploit repetitionto establish this charactertrait.The justification for such repetition is based on the understandingthat the traditions are, in actual fact, achronological and thereforemay be placed whereverthe compiler desires or even repeated. Certainly,knowing that the B. Qaynuqachave already been exiled makes one more reconciled to this notion when the B. Nadir are later removed from Medina.

472 Rizwi S. Faizer There is also a difference in the sequential placement of the event. In the compilation of Ibn Ishaq the traditions concerning the B. Qaynuqacare placed after a group of traditions concerning the raid on al-Sawiq. It tells of Abu Sufyan and a group of Meccans being entertained and given information about the Muslims by the B. Nadir.80 Essentially, it informs the readerof a breach of contractby the B. Nain that they were entertainingthe enemy of the Muslims, and the reader is left dir, wonderingwhy Muhammadchose to attackthe B. Qaynuqacratherthan the B. Nadir. In the narrativeof al-Waqidi, the raid against the B. Qaynuqacis insteadfollowed immediately by the raid of al-Sawiq.81To explain why the Prophet'sfirst attack was against the B. Qaynuqac,al-Waqidi deliberately shifts the raid of al-Sawiq from the place that it had been given by Ibn Ishaq, thereby rationalizing the sequence of events-though, interestingly,he too joins Ibn Ishaq in situating the raid of al-Sawiq in the month of Dhu'l-Hijja. In the scene of Kacb ibn al-Ashraf's murder, al-Waqidi indicates, as does Ibn Ishaq, that Ibn al-Ashraf was killed because he had insulted the Prophet after the Battle of Badr. The different isndds used by al-Waqidi, however, indicate that he is using traditions different from those used by Ibn Ishaq. This difference is also reflected in al-Waqidi'schoice of asbdb al-nuzul. Thus, al-Waqidiindicates that verses from the suras al Clmranand al-Baqara were revealed at this time,82 while Ibn with the raid on the B. Qaynuqac) does not indiIshaq (who associates dl CImran cate the revelation of any passages from the Qur'an during his account of the murder of Ibn al-Ashraf.83Instead, he suggests a possible link between Ibn al-Ashraf's murderand the raid on the B. Nadir, which he associates with surat al-Hashr. This association is indicated by Ibn Ishaq's inclusion of poetry about the murderof Kacb More to the point, at the end of the narrativeconcerning the raid on the B. Nadir.84 whereas Ibn Ishaq simply informs the reader that the Jews were extremely fearful after the killing of Kacb and by the murderof the Jewish merchantIbn Sunayna by Muhayyisa ibn Mas'ud shortly thereafter,85 al-Waqidi builds on the incident to tell us that the Jews consequently met with the Prophet to protest his action.86 At this point, al-Waqidi has the Prophet make the significant comment that any insults against his person would be punished by death. The Prophet then invites the B. Nadir to make a written agreement with him, and they do so under a date palm at the home of Ramla bint al-Harith.87 Serjeant attempts to reconcile the latter part of the text of the "Constitution of Medina" with this agreement as recorded by alHowever, the "Constitution"does not include the Jews of the B. Nadir as Waqidi.88 participants, directly or indirectly; nor does Ibn Ishaq refer to an agreement with the Jews during the episode concerning the B. Nadir. For al-Waqidi, the disturbance leads the Jews to meet with Muhammadand come to an agreement with him, which is written down.89It is obvious that Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi are not describing the same situation. Like Serjeant,MartinLings mistakenly attemptsto juxtapose the two narratives. According to Lings, "He then invited them to make a special treaty with him in addition to the covenant, and this they did."90The fact is that Muhammad'sprovocative cry permitting the killing of any Jew would have brought to an end any agreement with the Jews, if one existed.91 We are not told the exact nature of the agreement, but it was probably one of neutrality, for when the Jews refuse to join with Mukhayriq on Muhammad'sside

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at Uhud because it is the Sabbath, Muhammadmakes no protest. At the same time, we are told by al-Waqidi of an incident at the fortress of Faric in which Safiya bint CAbd al-Muttalib kills one of the Jews in a group she has seen moving toward the fortress.92Although the incident appears to be a play upon Ibn Ishaq's account of the what occurred at the same fortress during the battle of al-Khandaq,93 repetition in al-Waqidi'snarrativeserves to deemphasize (as with the notion of exile) the significance of a similar story in his account of the battle of al-Khandaq.94 The affair of Bi'r Macuna concerns the actions of a Muslim who, not knowing murderstwo that Muhammadhad recently come to an agreement with the B. CAmir, of the tribe's members.95Muhammadturns to the B. Nadir for help in paying their blood money. This leads to the episode regardingthe raid on the B. Nadir. It is important to note that despite the many and varied accounts of this event, al-Waqidi retains much of what is found in the text of Ibn Ishaq, even if he does not cite him. In al-Waqidi'stext, as in Ibn Ishaq's, the B. Nadir plot to kill the Prophet while he is visiting the tribe in search of help with the payment of the blood money-comwhom one of his companions had pensation for the two members of the B. CAmir killed. Like Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi informs the readerthat the destruction of the palm trees of the B. Nadir by Muhammad,in an attemptto force out the Jews, was an act based on inspiration from God. In both accounts Yamin ibn CUmayrwillingly pays someone to have his cousin murderedin order to please the Prophet.96 Nevertheless, it seems clear that al-Waqidi and Ibn Ishaq are not using the same traditions, for their isnads are not the same. The difference is significant. To a certain extent, one can account for this difference by noting the differences in the nature of the events that lead to the raid in the two narratives.In Ibn Ishaq's account, the murderof Kacb leaves the Jews concerned for their future, but nothing is done about it; it seems that the plot to kill Muhammad is therefore an answer to that leads to an agreement between Muhamproblem. In al-Waqidi, the murderof KaCb mad and the Jews. The B. Nadir's plot to kill Muhammadcan therefore be looked upon as essentially an abrogation of the agreement, and al-Waqidi indicates this through the words of Sallam ibn Mishkam.97 If one looks more carefully at the narrative, it appears that the emphasis given to the events by al-Waqidi also differs from that given by Ibn Ishaq. Thus, in its discussion of the tradition regarding the Prophet's distribution among the Muhajirun of the land of the B. Nadir, Ibn Ishaq's version portrays the Prophet as an autocratic leader who unhesitatingly gives the acquired land to his own people, for it is God Himself who established that land taken without force is the propertyof the Prophet, and thus, by extension, the Prophet has the right to divide it among whomever he pleases. In al-Waqidi, however, Muhammadis portrayed as a leader acting on nonreligious matters with the approval of the people. This is seen in al-Waqidi's interpretationof the Muslims' decision to move out of Medina during the battle of Uhud,98and later in the decision to build a trench during the battle of Khandaq.99 In narratingthis account about the land of the B. Nadir, al-Waqidi not only provides the reader with several traditions regardingthe Prophet'suse of that land. He also sets out to explain the circumstances that are supposed to have led to the Prophet's decision to give the land to the Muhajirunalone, and to exclude all but the two indigent among the Ansar. Once again, according to al-Waqidi, Muhammad

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acted after consulting the community. According to al-Waqidi'sview, the Ansar had considered it an honor to have the Muhajirunlive with them in their homes from the time they first arrived in Medina. When God granted Muhammad the land of the B. Nadir, which was captured without the use of arms, Muhammadcalled the Ansar together and offered them a share in the property, in which case the Muhajirunwould continue to live in their homes, or the right to retain their homes for themselves by letting the Muhajirunalone share the B. Nadir's property.That both Sacd ibn CUbadaand Sacd ibn Mucadh should cry out, "[R]ather,you will apportion it to the Muhajirun,but they will stay in our homes just as they were," indicates a warm acceptance of the grant of land to the Muhajirun, an outcome certainly not suggested by Ibn Ishaq.100 As for the exile of the B. Nadir, Ibn Ishaq indicates that while some of the tribe moved to Khaybar,others moved to Syria.101 his chapter on the B. Nadir's exile, In al-Waqidi also informs us that members of the B. Nadir moved to Syria, but only in his section on asbab.102 Indeed, in the course of his narrativeon the B. Nadir, alNorman A. Stillman, who does Waqidi tells us only of their removal to Khaybar.103 not appreciatethe interpretativenatureof this literature,neglects the asbab and, ignoring the interpretationof Ibn Ishaq, misrepresents the episode. He asserts that Twoyearslater,the men of Nadirlost theirlives, theirwealth,and theirwomenwhen the Muslimstook Khaybar.104 In anticipation of the approachingmurderof Abu Rafic, al-Waqidi finds it sensible to provide additional information (comparedto that of Ibn Ishaq) in "the raid on the Banu Nadir."He explains that Abu Rafic was an importantand powerful leader of that tribe who maintained close associations with the Jews of Khaybar:
Abu Rafic Sallam shouted to them, "If the CAjwaare cut over here, surely to us in Khaybar

are CAjwa... Surelymy confederates Khaybar ten thousand at are warriors."105 Al-Waqidi also suggests that Abu Rafic was an influential moneylender, declaring that "AbuRafic Sallam b. Abi al-Huqayq was owed a hundredand twenty dinars."'06 Regarding the events following the raid on the B. Nadir and leading to the battle of the Trench, the most noticeable difference between the narratives of al-Waqidi and Ibn Ishaq is that the latter places both the murderof Sallam and the raid of Muraysica after the battle of the Trench, whereas al-Waqidi places them before. As far as al-Waqidi is concerned, Abu Rafic cannot participate in the battle of the Trench because he has already been killed. The battle of the Trench-or the battle of al-Khandaq,as it is also known-was according to both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi inspired by the Jews of the B. Nadir with others of their confession in Khaybar.Importantly,however, it is just prior to his account of the battle (in Dhu'l Qacda, A.H. 5) that al-Waqidi informs us of the dissension caused in the community by the scandal about CA'isha,107 affair which is an dated by Ibn Ishaq just previous to al-Hudaybiya.108 Al-Waqidi thus conceives the battle as happening at a quite inopportune moment as far as Muhammad and the Muslims were concerned. Again, the outline of Ibn Ishaq's narrativeis maintained by al-Waqidi: both describe Muhammad'sparticipationin the digging of the trench and the various miracles which indicate his prophethood,such as the changing of hard rock into sand by

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pouring water on it'09and the increasing of the quantity of dates so that they were Both authors tell of CAmiribn sufficient to feed all those working on the trench.110 CAbdu Wudd's challenge, which is answered finally by CAli;lll of the Prophet sending for CUyaynaibn Hisn in an attempt to bribe him to leave the enemy forces;1l2 and of the mischief of Nucaym ibn Mascud, who aroused anger and hostility against the Jews among the Ghatafanand the Quraysh."3 Yet the two authors differ on significant details. Though both date the battle of Khandaqto A.H. 5, Ibn Ishaq places the event in the month of Shawwal; al-Waqidi in Dhu'l Qacda. Whereas Ibn Ishaq simply indicates that the notion of building a trench was not an Arab one, al-Waqidi explicitly states that the idea was recommended by Salman al-Farisi."14 While both authors attributeSacd ibn Mucadh'sinjury in battle to the shortness of his sleeve, it is Ibn Ishaq who has Sacd ibn Mu'adh cry out at this point against the Jews of the B. Qurayza.115 While both authors tell us that the Prophet sent Hudhayfa to spy on the camp of Abu Sufyan, Ibn Ishaq merely says that "so and so" was seated beside Hudhayfa, while al-Waqidi informs ibn us that CAmr al-CAssat on one side of Hudhayfa and MuCawiyaibn Abi Sufyan on the other (surely an indication of his anti-Umayyad sentiments). In addition, al-Waqidi characterizes the return of Hudhayfa as a miracle."6 Then there are the traditions that seem to be exclusively al-Waqidi's. It is alWaqidi who informs us that the Jews participated along with the Quraysh and the Ghatafanin a pagan ritual under the curtains of the KaCba, indicating their obvious that the B. Qurayza had lent their basof their own Jewish practices;117 ignorance kets and spades to the Muslims in order to build their trenches, pointing to the that the two SaCdsof the Ansar existence of an agreement with Muhammad;118 pleaded with the B. Qurayza to return to the Prophet rather than obey Huyayy;"9 and that the Prophet expressed the hope that he would circumambulate the Kacba and take possession of its key in the near future.120 Interestinglyand importantly,both biographersshow the B. Qurayzabetrayingthe Prophetat the last moment, preferringto join forces with the unreliableHuyayy and his associates to keeping the accord with Muhammad,who, even in their own assessBut ment, had always been fair to them.121 while Ibn Ishaq'sposition on the issue is unclear because in his earlier chapteron "The Cow" he establishes the considerable hostility of Kacbibn Asad to the Prophet,122al-Waqidistresses the claim thattherewas a writtenagreementbetween Muhammadand the B. Qurayza.Significantly,the agreeibn ment as explainedby CAmr SuCda123 implies a promiseof active supportfor the defense of the Muslims, the betrayalof which, accordingto al-Waqidi,is the primaryact which brings about Muhammad's aggression against them and finally their execution. Given the above, it is difficult to appreciate the position of M. J. Kister, who declares:
The suspicions that Qurayza attempted to plot with Quraysh against the Prophet would probably not justify the cruel punishment of execution.124

Citing the work of CAliibn Burhan al-Din, Kister attempts to explain the actions of the Prophet by relating them to his desire to acquire the land of the B. Nadir in order to provide the Muhajirun with property and help them become selfsupporting.125 There are two problems with Kister's reasoning, both of which are essentially methodological. First, he has misunderstood the interpretationalnature

476 Rizwi S. Faizer of the work, and therefore has not given sufficient consideration to what both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi are saying. It seems obvious that according to both portrayals of the incident, the problem was one not of mere suspicion but of clear evidence. The betrayal of the Prophet by the B. Qurayza is depicted as having led to considerable insecurity for those on the Prophet's side: witness the inclusion by both compilers of traditions referring to the Jewish advance on the fortress of Faric, in which the Muslim women and children were being housed during the battle of alMoreover, while Ibn Ishaq has the Prophet himself listen to their perKhandaq.126 sonal insults and their denial that they had an agreement with him, al-Waqidi goes even further, having the two Sacds plead with the B. Qurayza to return to their agreement with the Prophet. According to al-Waqidi, the pleas of the Medinans were not heeded, and the abrogation of the agreement by Kacb ibn Asad held.127 Kister prefers to ignore all of this evidence. He maintains that the agreement drawn up between Muhammadand the Jews, contraryto what al-Waqidi informs us of through Ibn Sucda, was a simple muwadaca agreement, an agreement of neutrality, and then proceeds to explain that the behavior of the B. Qurayza was indeed in accordance with such a neutral position-they did not participate in the war, he says, but they did aid the Prophet with baskets and spades-information that has been carefully selected from the text of al-Waqidi.128 Second, Kister does not appreciatethe decontextualized natureof these traditions, which the compilers of sira-maghazi quite confidently seem to have placed where they wished, according to their purposes. It is this ability to move the achronological material around, and even repeat it, that enables al-Waqidi boldly to shift the tradition regarding the exile of the Jews, mentioned in connection with the B. Nadir by It Ibn Ishaq, in order also to assert the exile of the B. QaynuqaC.129 is in a similar that al-Waqidiincludes parallel traditionsregardingthe fortress of Faricin the spirit context of the battles at Uhud and Khandaq,which in the narrativeof Ibn Ishaq is It found only in his description of the latter event.130 would appear that in the narrative of 'Ali ibn Burhan al-Din to which Kister referred, the tradition concerning the grant of land to the Muhajirunhad probablybeen moved from the position given it by both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, who speak of it in connection with the B. Nadir, Kister'sjusto the section of his work dealing with the raid on the B. Qurayza.131 tification for selecting the traditions of 'Ali ibn Burhan al-Din is probably his identification of what he would categorize as "genuine tradition."I believe, however, that Kister misunderstands the fundamental nature of these traditions and, ignoring the interpretationsof both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, attempts to explain Muhammad'sactions as the result of his desire for more land. The shift in the setting from the battle of the Trenchto the raid on the B. Qurayza is immediate in the texts of both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi. As always, al-Waqidi provides chronological details as well as information regarding who had been left in charge of Medina for that time. He then foreshadows what is to follow through a tradition which tells of the dream of the wife of Nabbash ibn Qays: towardsus, She said:I saw the trench,therewas no one in it. I saw thatthe people turned like and while we were in ourfortresses, we wereslaughtered goats.132 The rest of the episode is very similar to that presented by Ibn Ishaq: al-Waqidi how cAli attempted to tells of how the prophet handed over the banner to cAli;133

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how cAmribn Sucda', "a protect the Prophet from the insults of the B. Qurayza;'34 man of God," was rescued for his faithfulness;135 how the Prophet'saunt asked that he spare the life of Rifaca ibn Samaw'al, with whom she had "a relationship";136 and, most importantly, how the Prophet had the consent of the Aws in choosing Sacd ibn Mucadh to pass sentence on their Jewish confederates.137 Yet despite many similarities, some of these traditions are presented by alWaqidi in a different manner.Thus, both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi show the Prophet withdrawing from the battle, only to be called out again by the angel Gabriel. AlWaqidi,however, providesthe additionaldetail that Muhammadwithdrewto CA'isha's house.138Both authors depict the Prophet as alerting those around him to the fact that they had really seen the angel Gabriel, not Dihya al-Kalbi, ride by, but alBoth Waqidi informs us that it was the B. Najjar whom Muhammad addressed.139 relate that Kacb ibn Asad offered his people three alternatives to escape death,140 but interestingly, in the al-Waqidi text, we have already heard of a similar offer being made to the Jews of the B. Nadir by Kinana ibn Suwayra'; thus, a certain fatalism is conveyed.'41 Even as Kacb starts to speak, the reader knows that his advice will not be heeded. Some traditions that are barely mentioned by Ibn Ishaq are skillfully drawn out by al-Waqidi and extended, I believe, for the purpose of providing a kind of relieforiented entertainmentin the style of the qissa. One example is the tale of Nabbata. Ibn Ishaq informs the reader that a single Jewess was executed, and that she was killed for having committed some unspecified crime. Al-Waqidi gives not only her name but also her exact offense. Nabbata had been persuaded by her husband to drop a millstone from atop their fortress onto the Muslim soldiers below-the very means by which they had earlier attemptedto kill the Prophet. One of the Muslims had been killed as a result. Again, by providing more information, al-Waqidi suggests that he is the better informed. Both narrativesagree concerning the hysterical laughter with which Nabbata faces the knowledge of her impending doom.142 Sometimes the traditions are differently recalled. For instance, al-Waqidi introduces Abu Lubaba through traditions describing his behavior even before Uhud143 and relates details about his stubbornand insubordinateattitudetoward the Prophet, including his refusal to give a cluster of dates first to Muhammad,so that he might hand it to an orphan,and then directly to the orphanin returnfor a similar cluster in This episode in al-Waqidi'stext devalues the impact of Abu Lubaba's paradise.144 well-known betrayalof God and Muhammadwhen he goes to advise the B. Qurayza, a narrativewhich, in the Ibn Ishaq context, evokes the biblical persona of Judas.145 The traditionthat probablymakes a greaterimpact, however, is the one regarding Sa'd's prayer.Ibn Ishaq relates this traditionduring his narrativeof the battle of alKhandaq,indicating Sa'd ibn Mu'adh's anger at the hostility of the B. Qurayza,who had, since before the coming of Islam, joined with him against his opponents, even when those opponents were the B. Qurayza'sfellow Jews.146 Al-Waqidi inserts this tradition into his chapter on the raid on the B. Qurayza. Thus in al-Waqidi'sKitdb al-maghazl, it is in the episode concerning the B. Qurayza that we have Sa'd ibn Mucadh pray after passing sentence on the Jews that every male adult be executed:
O God, if you have anything left of the war with the Quraysh, keep me for it. Indeed there is no tribe that I want to fight more than a tribe which has disbelieved in the Messenger of

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God, causedinjuryto him andexiled him. And if the warhas endedbetweenus andthem, makeme a martyr. me not die untilI have seen my desireuponthe B. Qurayza.147 Let The shift is significant. By placing the prayer of SaCdin the midst of the battle of Khandaq, Ibn Ishaq suggests that Sacd had requested that he himself be permitted to decide the fate of the B. Qurayza. In other words, Ibn Ishaq puts the responsibility for the sentence of execution on Sa'd ibn MuCadh.It was this act which resulted in his being sanctified, as it were. By placing the tradition after the passing of the sentence upon the B. Qurayza, al-Waqidi removes the responsibility for the verdict from Sacd ibn Mu'adh's shoulders and places it, if indirectly, on those of Muhammad. Of course, according to al-Waqidi, the Jews had broken their agreement with Muhammad, and this, together with the fact that the Muslims had been dangerously exposed to the enemy forces, justified the verdict. At this point, it would be instructive to compare Watt'sanalysis of this sequence of events. He writes: was Caetani's that to suggestion thejudgment attributed Sacdin orderto avoidmakingMuhammad for massacre completely is baseless.In the earlidirectly responsible the "inhuman" as est periodhis familyandtheirfriendsremembered appointment judgeas an honor... his Caetani's alternative that not best suggestion SaCd pursued the coursethathe thought but that dictatedto him by Muhammad moredifficult disposeof. The prayerof Sacdfor venis to to geancemighthavebeenintroduced defendhimfroma chargeof subservience.148 The fact is that while Ibn Ishaq indicates that Sacd was responsible for the execution of the Jews by citing Sacd'sprayer during the battle of al-Khandaq, al-Waqidi once again projects the notion that it was because the Jews had abrogated their agreement that the Prophet attacked them by displacing that tradition and citing it during the raid on the B. Qurayza. Neither Caetani nor Watt, however, notices how the tradition was manipulated and used by the two authors to suggest subtly different positions. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that the two historians did not notice the shift in the tradition and that, even if they did, they chose not to regard it as significant. This failure to perceive the nuances in the text results from isolating and selecting particulartraditionswithout taking their context into consideration, and from not appreciating sufficiently the essentially interpretativenature of this material.The point is that these traditionsare not chronologically fixed. Thus, each author-collator is at liberty to place the traditions where he will in order to establish his interpretation.It is therefore important, if one desires to appreciate sira-maghazi for what it is, to seek out the differences and try to understandthem. As for the course of these events, it was by establishing a sequence for the series of events-a chronology, if not a precise one-that compilers such as Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqididetermine most effectively their interpretationsof the life of Muhammad. Chronology which determines cause and effect is clearly the key to interpretation. In this regard, Ibn Ishaq's insinuation of an essential periodization of the Prophet's life, despite the fact that the Islamic calendar was established several years after the Prophet'sdeath, during the caliphate of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab,is interesting:
[T]he apostle came to Medina on Monday at high noon on the 12th of Rabic al-Awwal. The apostle on that day was fifty-three years of age, that being thirteen years after God called

him.149

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It is nevertheless importantto understandthat the day and date stipulated by Ibn Ishaq are at best a rough indication. The fact that according to Ibn Ishaq the Prophet Muhammadwas born, emigrated, and died on a Monday suggests that the chronology has become mythologized. Indeed, Ibn Ishaq often indicates his uncertainty as to the chronology of specific events. According to him, the Prophet'sdecision to change the direction of the qibla may have occurred in either Rajab or Sha'ban.150 Again, Ibn Ishaq does not seem certain as to when the murder of Ibn al-Ashraf took place, either.151 Al-Waqidi's approach to the chronology of this literature is comparable to Ibn Ishaq's. After commencing his work with a list of the traditionists who constitute his main sources, al-Waqidigoes on to list the various events of the maghdzi of the The Prophetin chronologicalorder.'52 basic structureof al-Waqidi'sKitab al-maghazi resembles in broad lines Ibn Ishaq's. The battles of Badr, Uhud, and Khandaq are followed by the raids on the B. Qaynuqac,the B. Nadir, and the B. Qurayza, respectively. Then there are the advances into Khaybar,Fadak, Wadi al-Qura, and Tayma' before the taking of Mecca. But if one scrutinizes the material more thoroughly, one finds a myriad differences in detail. It has been suggested that al-Waqidi'semphasis on chronological detail is due to his more careful investigation of the traditions. Once again it is necessary to stress the fact that the traditions themselves are not chronologically fixed and that the genre of sira-maghazi does not impose a definite chronology. It is therefore extremely importantto recognize that al-Waqidi'schronology is not the outcome of a more thorough investigation of tradition.It is rathera chronology that he devised in order to establish his unique rendition of sira-maghdzi. Such an interpretationis substantiatedby the fact that al-Waqidi gives much of his chronology on his own authority, and that he commends Ibn Ishaq as a traditionist even though he differs with him regardingthe sequence of events and dates. Because both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi date the raid of al-Sawiq in Dhu'l-Hijja, Jones believes that this was indeed when the event occurred.153 This misunderstanding of the issue is probably due to Jones's focus on the date per se. He is unable to appreciate the use of chronology as essentially a litmus test of cause and effect ratherthan a deliberation regarding an exact point in time. Thus, although both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi declare that the raid on al-Sawiq took place in Dhu'l-Hijja, in Ibn Ishaq the raid on the B. Qaynuqac(for which he does not give a precise date) follows the raid on al-Sawiq, while according to al-Waqidi the raid on the B. Qaynuqacprecedes that on al-Sawiq, aroundthe month of Shawwal. Al-Waqidi is clearly rationalizing the sequence of events in order to justify why Muhammad first attacked the B. Qaynuqacratherthan the B. Nadir. As for the traditions concerning the chronology of the assassination of Kacb and the raid on the B. Nadir, Ibn Ishaq has effectively separatedthe two incidents in his historicizing of these events, placing Kacb'sassassinationafterBadr and before Uhud, and the exile of the B. Nadir after Uhud. He thus maintains the traditions which associate Muhammad'sanger toward KaCb with his having been provoked soon after the battle of Badr. According to both Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi, Kacb ibn al-Ashraf had gone to Mecca after Badr and had incited the Quraysh to fight the Prophet. Kacb had also composed verses mourning the death of the brave Meccan victims killed at Badr; on returning to Medina, he had then composed love poems of a

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natureinsulting to some Muslim women.'54Ibn Ishaq does not refer to any Qur'anic citations, but he does suggest that traditions did exist which linked the assassination of Kacbto the exile of the B. Nadir. This he does by placing a poem apparently composed by the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, CAli,at the end of the chapter on the exile of the B. Nadir, which he associates in turn with the revelation of the surat al-.Hashr. Al-Waqidi, on the other hand, associates the murder with the revelations of verses from the suras al Clmranand al-Baqara. There are more details to contend with. Early sira literaturedates the raid on the B. Nadir as having taken place six months after Badr on the authorityof Zuhri from 'Urwa ibn al-Zubayr,155 Musa ibn CUqba.l56 the same time, traditions also and At exist indicating that, according to CUrwa,the conflict with both the B. Qaynuqac157 and the B. Nadir took place around the same time-that is, six months after Badr. Why then did Ibn Ishaq place the raid on the B. Nadir after the battle of Uhud? Ibn Ishaq may have been falling back on exegetical tradition.In that genre, not only is the assassination of Kacb linked to the exile of the B. Nadir, but both events are Moreover, as alreadyexplained, Ibn Ishaq, like chronologically placed after Uhud.158 the exegetes, links the chapter with surat al-.Hashr.On the other hand, it seems that there also existed traditions tying the assassination of Kacb to a subsequent agreement between Muhammad and the Jews.159 is this latter tradition that al-Waqidi It makes use of in his Kitab al-maghazi. This tradition implies that there must have been a considerable lapse of time between the assassination of Kacband the exile of the B. Nadir160-a lapse sufficient to allow for the making of an agreementbetween Muhammad and the B. Nadir. This justifies al-Waqidi's arrangement, which, like Ibn Ishaq's, sees the placing of KaCb's assassination after Badr but the exile of the B. Nadir after Uhud. Why then was Ibn Ishaq'snarrationof the assassination not followed by information regarding an agreement between Muhammadand the B. Nadir? I suggest that he deliberately left it out, just as, when he described the agreement which has come to be called the "Constitution of Medina,"he deliberately left out the names of the three most important Jewish tribes. Significantly, an agreement between Muhammad and the Jews is never categorically mentioned in Ibn Ishaq's narrationof the raid on either the B. Qaynuqacor the B. Nadir. An important theme in his biography of the Prophet is the representationof Muhammadas a prophet like any other: a prophet who has come as God's messenger and who therefore must be obeyed. Whether an agreement was broken or not was, as far as Ibn Ishaq was concerned, beside the point. Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi differ regardingthe chronology of the murderof Sallam ibn Abi'l-Huqayq as well. Al-Waqidi dates the event sometime in the month of Dhu'l-Hijja in the year A.H. 4, suggesting that Sallam ibn Abi'l-Huqayq was murdered for his activities during the raid on the B. Nadir.161 In contrast, Ibn Ishaq places the murder soon after al-Khandaq, implying that Sallam ibn Abi'l-Huqayq was being punished for joining with the Meccans in their attack on Medina.162 Moreover, Ibn Ishaq explains the murder by citing the conflicts and competition that existed between the Aws and the Khazraj.'63 Al-Waqidi makes no reference to the traditions regarding factionalism and indicates that it was the Prophet who took the initiative in sending the expedition out against Abu Rafi'c,just as he did in the case of Kacb. Al-Waqidi's earlier dating-A.H. 4-suggests that the Prophet's

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actions were such that they did not encourage the development of factionalism. According to al-Waqidi, it makes sense to fix the date of the murderat a point closer to the exile of the B. Nadir.164 justify his chronology, al-Waqidi brings many To new details (i.e., information not provided by Ibn Ishaq) into his account of the exile of the B. Nadir, informing the reader of the authorityof Abu Rafic and indicating that he had links to the Jews of the formidable fortress of Khaybar, events which explain the attack on Abu Rafic in A.H. 4. Although al-Waqidi mentions an alternative date in A.H. 6,165the fact that he does not mention Abu Rafic during the battle of al-Khandaqnevertheless gives a certain finality to his original chronology. As for the chronology of the battle of al-Khandaq,al-Waqidiplaces the battle soon after the raid on Muraysic.On this occasion, the Prophet'sauthorityis challenged by importantmembersof the community who question his wife's faithfulness. The community'smorale seems to have been at a low ebb when the Prophet'senemies decided to attack him at what later came to be known as the battle of al-Khandaq. Al-Waqidi also differs from Ibn Ishaq with regard to the chronology of many asbab al-nuzul. Ibn Ishaq, who, as we have seen, is not overly disturbed by the existence of contradictory traditions regarding an event, gives two explanations for the occasion of the revelation of the verse Remember God'sfavorto you, how a peopleweremindedto stretchout theirhandsagainst you, but He withheldtheirhandsfromyou.166 One explanation, according to Ibn Ishaq, is that this revelation referredto the B. Nadir's attempt to drop a stone on the Prophet;167 other explanation is that the the verse was revealed on the occasion of the raid on Dhat al-Riqac, when Ghawrath Ibn of the B. Muharib failed in his attempt to kill Muhammad.168 Ishaq seems to be indicating the various situations that may have provoked the particularQur'anic revelation concerned. Al-Waqidi disagrees: according to his account, the verse was revealed during the raid on Dhu Amarr.169Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi also have a difference of opinion regardingthe verses revealed duringthe conflict with the B. Qaynuqac. The point is that these narratives were not inspired by QurDanic verses, as Crone seems to believe; rather, each compiler sought out the Qur'anic citations which best suited the interpretationor bias he desired to impose on various events in the life of the Prophet. For his part, al-Waqidi, seeking a passage that would accommodate his interpretationof sira-maghazi, did not blindly include the verses cited by his predecessor. Instead, he carefully selected his own. As for their styles, there is a striking symmetry to the narrativesof Ibn Ishaq and The al-Waqidi.170 synchronization of the traditions so that the account of the battle of Badr is followed by the raid on the B. Qaynuqac,the battle of Uhud by the raid on the B. Nadir, and the battle of al-Khandaqby the raid on the B. Qurayza is, at the very least, a convenient mnemonic. The similarity may stop there, but the symmetry does not: for whereas Ibn Ishaq describes an escalation of violence against the Jews, it is a kind of patternedrepetitiveness which characterizes the account in al-Waqidi's Kitab al-maghazi. His depiction of Ibn Ubayy as a hypocrite, for instance, can be seen in his accounts of the raids on both the B. Qaynuqac and the B. Nadir, a theme which is absent in Ibn Ishaq'sdiscussion of the raid on the B. Qaynuqac. It is the same style of repetitiveness that leads al-Waqidi to mention the advance of a party of Jews on the fortress of Faric not only in his account of the

482 Rizwi S. Faizer affair of al-Khandaq (in which Ibn Ishaq brings to the fore the issue of increased risk to the Muslims of Medina, possibly to justify the execution of the B. Qurayza), but also in the earlier sequence of Uhud in which al-Waqidigives us an early version of Safiya's bravery in the face of Hasan's cowardice.'7 The repetitiveness in alWaqidi's method brings to the narrative a certain flatness. Sometimes, howeveras in the case of Ibn Sucda'sreference to the jizya, or the Prophet'sreference to his desire to hold the key to the Kacba (made during the battle of al-Khandaq)-alWaqidi uses repetition to foreshadow what will follow, conveying a ritualistic effect which his audiences must have found attractive. This is quite different from the style of Ibn Ishaq, who tends to cite a number of different accounts while building to a climax. The originality of al-Waqidi's method lies largely in his restatement of siramaghazl in the light of his unique interpretation of the Prophet's life. The compiler, aware of the unattachedand decontextualized nature of traditions, assigns to them various and altered positions within the scheme of sira-maghazi to effect a re-creation. The success of such a re-creation depends on the skill with which the traditions are resituated and manipulatedwithin the given genre. By this means alWaqidi gives the traditionsthat constitute the story of the maghdzi of the Prophet a new relevance. The changed, and sometimes more detailed, information that he introduces stems not from a desire to provide more accurate information, but largely from a stylistic impulse to use the data for his own purposes. In effect, he very successfully pours old wine into a new bottle, so to speak, to become the compiler of a new and original biography of the Prophet. Various conclusions may be drawn from the above discussion. What this study has made clear, however, is that the differences established by al-Waqidi are deliberate and often the result of stylistic considerations. Nevertheless, throughout this analysis I have indicated that despite the differences, there is an extraordinarysimilarity between the two compilations. It is this similarity which has led authors such as Wellhausen to accuse al-Waqidi of plagiarism, and others such as J. N. Mattock to explain the variations in the different compilations as comparable to the oral transmission of Greek epic.172Yet it is also very noticeable that al-Waqidi never cites Ibn Ishaq. I suggest therefore that al-Waqidi, knowing the work of Ibn Ishaq and being aware of the numerous recensions of it that were being written at the time,173 deliberately set out to compile an original sira-maghazi of his own. Because Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi are not only using different traditions but are also saying different things, it is therefore incorrect to use the material provided by al-Waqidito supplement the narrativeof Ibn Ishaq. In the works of both compilers, the chronology of events is artificial and imposed; it is based on the purposes of the compiler and the interpretation that he desires to impose on this material rather than on a search for factual data. Moreover, al-Waqidi's interesting technique of foreshadowing, which is a part of his repetitiveness, should be noticed for the chronological ambiguity it introduces. More importantly,while Qur'anic influence is evident in the way Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi each use the motif, or topos, of Muhammad and the Jews, it is only in this broad sense that such a linkage can be established. To see individual passages of the Qur'an as the inspiration for particulartraditions regardingthe Prophet used

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in sira-maghazi would, I believe, be incorrect. Traditions regarding the Prophet seem to have had an origin and evolution of their own. The linking of these traditions with Qur'anic citations is a characteristic of sira-maghazi. But this linkage depended on the compiler concerned, who chose his citations according to his unique interpretationof the Prophet'slife. Finally, I would emphasize thatthe genre sira-maghazi is not a confused collection of traditionalmaterials,as Crone would have us believe. Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidiare not saying the same thing, but we as readers will appreciatethis material only if we try to understandeach author'swork as an integral statement that is distinct from any other. To isolate various traditions and try to understandthem out of context as they are transmittedthrough time is a meaningless exercise and will not produce an appreciationof the processes at work. This unsympatheticapproachhas, disappointingly, been the nature of most modern research on the biographical literatureabout the Prophet.What is really requiredis an approachwhich places the author-compiler at the center of his work, for it is the author-compiler'sinterpretation the Prophet's of rather than some body of absolute data, that we hold. life,
NOTES Author'snote: This article is based on my Ph.D. dissertation, "Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi Revisited: A Case Study of Muhammadand the Jews in BiographicalLiterature"(Montreal:McGill University, 1995). I thank the editor of IJMES, Professor R. S. Humphreys, for the valuable suggestions and comments which have helped make this article a more lucid one. 1Muhammadibn Ishaq, Kitdb sirat rasul Alldh, in the recension of CAbdal-Malik ibn Hisham, ed. FerdinandWiistenfeld, under the title Das Leben Muhammed'snach Ibn Ishdk, 2 vols. in 3 (G6ttingen: Dieterichsche Universitats-Buchhandlung, 1858-60); Muhammad ibn Ishaiq,The Life of Muhammad, ed., trans., and with an introduction by Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1955). 2Muhammad 'Umar al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzi, edited with an English preface and Arabic introibn duction by J. M. B. Jones, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). 3In this article, I refer to this work as either Kitab sirat rasul Allah or Sira by Ibn Ishaq. 4Nabia Abbott explains the nature of learning in the early years of Islam, dividing the students who attended the "recitals" of shaykhs/lecturersinto three groups: (a) those who attended for the purpose of listening only (such a session was termed a sam'); (b) those who had previously read and copied the text of the shaykh's lecture and brought their manuscriptsto him to be checked, a process known as the Card; and (c) those who combined the samc and the Card.The correction could be done in any of three ways: by correcting the manuscript from a second reading of the shaykh, either by memory or the use of his own notes, by reading the text back to the shaykh so that he might correct it, or by comparing the text with another authenticated text established by the shaykh himself. See Nabia Abbott, Historical Texts, vol. 1, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 93. 5The Kufan, al-Bakka'i, is recognized as the most reliable transmitterof Ibn Ish.aqbecause his text is supposed to have been dictated to him twice by the author.See R. G. Khoury, "Sources islamiques de la 'Sira,'" in La Vie du Prophete Mahomet: Colloque de Strasbourg, October 1980 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983), 10. 6See the translator'sforeword to al-Tabari,The Last Yearsof the Prophet, vol. 9, The History of alTabari, trans. and ed. Ismail K. Poonawala (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), xi. 7See Gregor Scholer, "Die Frage der schriftlichen oder mtindlichenUberlieferung der Wissenschaften im fruihen Islam,"Der Islam 42 (1985): 201-30, who makes the case for the early existence of fixed texts, as against Sadun Mahmud al-Samuk, who believes that these early authorsdid not establish a fixed text; see Sadun Mahmudal-Samuk, Die historischen Uberlieferungennach Ibn Ishaq (diss., Frankfurt,1978). 8Abbott, Historical Texts, 94. 9Al-Tabari,Ta'rikhal-rusul wa'l-muluk, ed. M. J. De Goeje (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879), 1:1073-1837.

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this article the terms tradition, transmitter,and tradent have been used in the Islamic 10Throughout sense. I have not used the Arabic terminology, because the terms akhbar and hadlth are subtly different. Distinguishing one from the other is difficult and, as far as this article is concerned, unnecessary. 1 In fact, the Kitdb al-maghazi of al-Waqidi has come down to us throughthe four Iraqis Ibn al-Thalji, Ibn Abi Hayya (d. 931), Ibn Hayawayhi (d. 992), and al-Hasan ibn CAlial-Jawhari(d. 1062); see Jones, English preface to al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazl, v. 12See J. M. B. Jones, "The Chronology of the Maghdzi-A Textual Survey,"Bulletin of the School of in Oriental and African Studies 19 (1957): 245-80; idem, "The Maghiiz Literature," Arabic Literatureto the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A. E L. Beeston et al. (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983), 344-51, and Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), respectively. 13Martin Hinds, "Maghazl and Sira in Early Islamic Scholarship,"in La vie du Prophet Mahomet, 62. 14LeoneCaetani,Annali dell'Islam, vol. 1 (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1905); Crone, Meccan Trade;Moshe Gil, "The Medinan Opposition to the Prophet,"Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987): 65-96; Hartwig Hirschfeld, "Essai sur l'histoire des Juifs de Medine," part 1, Revue des Etudesjuives 7 (1883): 167-93 and part 2, Revue des Etudesjuives 10 (1885): 10-31; Jones, "Chronologyof the Maghazi";M. J. Kister, "The Expedition of BiDrMacuna,"in Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honour of Hamilton A. R. Gibb, ed. George Makdisi (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), 337-57; M. Lecker, "Muhammadat Medina: A Geographical Approach," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985): 29-62; R. B. Serjeant, "Haramand Hawtah, the Sacred Enclave in Arabia,"in Melanges TahaHusain, ed. A. R. Badawi (Cairo: Al-Maaref, 1962), 41; William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (Oxford: Clarendon Press, in 1953); idem, Muhammadat Medina (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1956); idem, "Muhammad," P. M. Holt and Bernard Lewis, Cambridge History of Islam (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1970), 3056; Arent Jan Wensinck, Mohammeden de Joden te Medina (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1928), trans. Wolfgang Behn under the title Muhammadand the Jews of Medina (Freiburgim Breisgau: K. Schwarz, 1975). 15JuliusWellhausen, preface to Al-Waqidi, Muhammadin Medina, trans. Julius Wellhausen (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1882), 12. 16j. M. B. Jones, "Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi,"Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 22 (1959): 41-51. 17Crone,Meccan Trade, 225. 18See, for instance, G. R. Hawting's analysis of the traditions of the fath in "Al-Hudaybiyya and the Conquest of Mecca," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 18, in which he discusses the use of hadith. As for the use of akhbdr, see Stefan Leder, "Authorshipand Transmissions in Unauthored Literature,"Oriens (1988): 67. 19Thisis essentially the position toward literaryanalysis taken by Ferdinandde Saussure;see Jonathan Culler, Ferdinand de Saussure (New York:Cornell University Press, 1986). 20Caetani,Annali, 1:391-95; Gil, "The Constitutionof Medina,"Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974): 4466, 203-24; Uri Rubin, "The 'Constitutionof Medina': Some Notes," Studia Islamica 42 (1985): 5-20; R. B. Serjeant, "The Sunnah JdmiCah, Pacts with the YathribJews, and the Tahrimof Yathrib:Analysis and Translationof the documents Comprised in the so called 'Constitutionof Medina',"Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 41 (1978): 1-42; idem, "The Constitution of Medina,"Islamic Quarterly 8 (1964): 3-16; W. Montgomery Watt, "Condemnation of the Jews of Banu Qurayzah,"in Early Islam: Collected Articles (Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversity Press, 1990), 1-12; Julius Wellhausen, "MuhammadsGemeindeordnungvon Medina," in Skizzen und Vorarbeiten(Berlin: G. Reimer, 1889), 4:65-83; Wensinck, Muhammadand the Jews of Medina. 21W.N. Arafat, "New Light on the Story of Banu Qurayza and the Jews of Medina,"Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1976): 100-107; and BarakatAhmad, Muhammadand the Jews (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1979). 22M. J. Kister, "The Massacre of the BanuiQurayza: A Reconsideration of a Tradition,"Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986): 68. 23IbnIshaq, Kitib sirat rasul Allah, 3-7. 24Ibid., 552. 25Ibid., 672. 26Rudolf Sellheim, "Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte. Die Muhammed-Biographie des Ibn Ishaq," Oriens 18-19 (1967): 3-91.

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27The Prophet'sdeath is mentioned incidentally in the course of the chapter on the raid on Khaybar, and Usama's raid on Mu'ta, for instance, but these are only references to the event. See al-Waqidi, Kitdb al-maghazi, 678, 1,120. On the other hand, there are other traditions regarding the Prophet'sdeath narratedby al-Waqidi which are recorded for us by Ibn Sacd, but as we are concerned with the Kitdb al-maghdzi, which is essentially a literary genre, these traditions will be considered to have been intentionally excluded by al-Waqidi and therefore considered irrelevant for the purposes of this study. 28See al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 571-633, 741-54, 873-74, 1088-1103. 29Thus for instance the ghazwat muraysic is but a mnemonic for the recollection of the traditions regarding the scandal about CA'isha.See al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 426-40. 30Accordingto Horovitz, Ibn Ishaq cited more than one hundredtraditionistsfrom Medina alone. See Josef Horovitz, "The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet and their Authors,"trans. MarmadukePikthall, in Islamic Culture 1 (1928): pt. 3, 170. 31Borninto notoriety, his father having been one of the Meccans who had sworn to kill Muhammad, Ibn Shihab built up a reputation for his scrupulous scholarship and honesty, and for his collection of traditions of the Prophet. See Horovitz, "The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet,"pt. 2, 33-50; and Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums(GAS) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), 1:280-83. 32Sonof CAsma',daughterof Abu Bakr, and sister of CA'isha,the wife of the Prophet, and al-Zubayr, son of al-CAwwam, brother of Khadija, the first wife of the Prophet. See Horovitz, "The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet,"pt. 1, 542; and Sezgin, GAS, 1:278. 33Traditionhas it that CAbd Allah's great-grandfather was sent by the Prophet as judge to the Yemen, and asked to instruct the inhabitantsin the teachings of Islam. His grandfatheris said to have been killed at the battle of the harra in A.H. 63, and his father was appointedjudge in Medina in A.H. 86, when 'Umar ibn CAbd al-'Aziz took over its governorship. It was he whom 'Umar II is supposed to have sought out to obtain the hadith of the Prophet and write them down. See Horovitz, "The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet,"pt. 2, 22-33; Sezgin, GAS, 1:284. 34Hisgrandfatherwas the famous Qatadawhose eyeball was replaced in its socket by the Prophet,and who is reportedto have declared that he could see better with that eye than with the one that had not been wounded. See Eduard Sachau, "Studien zur altesten Geschichtsiiberlieferungder Araber,"Mitteilungen des Seminarsfiur orientalische Sprachen 7 (1904): 168. 35Khoury,"Sources islamiques," 12-13; Sezgin, GAS, 1:279-80. 36Khoury,"Sources islamiques," 13. 37Horovitz, "The Earliest Biographies of the Prophet,"pt. 4, 518. According to Horovitz, al-Waqidi must have been about twenty-five years old or younger when he began to collect traditions, for some of his authorities died only a little after A.H. 150. 38IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 351-52. 39Ibid., 355-61. 4?Forthe names of those who witnessed Badr, see al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 152. 41As for instance those who were martyredat the battle of al-Khandaq,ibid., 495-96; those who were killed during the raid on the B. Qurayza, ibid., 529; and those who were martyred at Khaybar, ibid., 699-700. 42Those who were taken prisoner at Badr, ibid., 138-44. 43Portionsallotted from what was taken from the B. Nadir, ibid., 379-80. 44Thatthese communitieswere not included in the "Constitution" indicatedby the fact that when listis ing the various Jews who opposed the Prophet,he not only mentions the Jewish confederates of the Arab groups mentioned in the agreement, but also includes the B. Qaynuqac,the B. Nadir, and the B. Qurayza. See Ibn Ishaq, Kitaibsirat rasul Allah, 351-52; see also Watt, Muhammadat Medina, 22; and Rubin, "The Constitution of Medina," 10. 45Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 341-44. 46Ibid., 304-5. 47Ibid., 393-94. 48Ibid., 395-96. 49Ibid., 388. 50Ibid., 427. 51Ibid., 545. 52A1-Waqidi,Kitdb al-maghdzi, 454.

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53"TheProphet wrote a document concerning the emigrants and helpers in which he made a friendly agreement with the Jews...." See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 341; Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, 231. 54According to al-Waqidi, Ibn Ishaq was "a chronicler, genealogist, and traditionist, ... a man to be trusted."See al-Tabari,Ta'rikh, 3:2512, Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad,xxxii. 55See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 714. 56See idem, Life of Muhammad,482. 57Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 379. 58See ibid., 184. 59Ibid., 176. 60Ibid., 192. 61Ibid., 370-71. 62Ibid., 445. 63Ibid., 503-4. Constitutionof Medina,"in Muhammad and the Jews of Medina, 128-29. 64Wellhausen,"Muhammad's 65The archaic nature of the language of the information that has been differentiated as the "Constitution of Medina" is not sufficient to establish its historical nature. Such language could very well have been affected to generate the impression of age, and it is interesting that Watt himself should admit this possibility. See Watt, "Condemnationof the Jews of Banu Qurayzah,"in Early Islam, 6. It is known that students of law were attempting to simulate documents pertaining to the meaning of the term dhimmi and its legal implications. The document which claims to go back to the time of 'Umar, the second caliph of Islam, is a notorious example. See A. S. Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects: A Critical Study of the Covenant of 'Umar (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 12. 66JosephCampbell,The Hero with a ThousandFaces (Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1973), 30. 67Sellheim, "Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte," 69. 68Hirschfeld, "Essai sur l'histoire,"pt. 2, 174. 69Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 24. 70Fromwhat we know of earlier sira-maghazi, such as those of Macmaribn Rashid and Musa ibn 'Uqba, it was the raid on the B. Nadir that took place six months after Badr-the raid on the B. QayCampaignagainst nuqacnot being mentioned. See Kister, "Notes on the PapyrusText about Muhammad's the Banu al-Nadir,"Archiv Orientalni 32 (1964), 235; and Jones, "The Chronology of the Maghazi,"249, 268. This episode increases the number of significant Jewish tribes attacked by Muhammadfrom two to three. Given that three is a well-recognized numerical mnemonic, and that Ibn Ishaq was famous for his oral performances of this collection of traditions about the Prophet'slife, the possibility that the inclusion of the raid accompanied by the escalation of violence was established for mnemonic reasons must be considered. For the uses of the mnemonic in oral tradition, see Rudolf Bultmann, who writes of the law of repetition in The History of the Synoptic Tradition(New York:Harperand Row, 1963), 191, 314; and Jan Vansina, Oral Traditionas History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), for an appreciation of how oral tradition works. It is importantto rememberthat historical fact is not necessarily behind these incidents. According to S. D. Goitein there is only Arabic literary evidence to support such an opinion; see The Islam of Muhammad,cited in Ronald C. Kiener'sreview article on GordonD. Newby, Religious Studies Review (July 1992): 183. 71IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 545-47. I would remind the readerthat while al-Waqidi'sProphet also demands conversion of the Jews, he does this only after defeating them in war, and it is an offer made as a last resort. 72See al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 176-77. A similar story is narratedby Ibn Hisham in his recension of Ibn Ishaq's Kitab sirat rasul Allah, but he takes the precaution to add that the woman referred to refused to uncover her face, an implausible situation as the Prophet had not yet prescribed the veil for his women. This leads one to suppose, therefore, that the tradition cited was false. See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 546. 73See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 545. 74Ibid., 543-44. 75Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 176. 76Thus,for instance, the isnads used by Ibn Ishaiqare (a) a report about the B. Qaynuqac,(b) a freeman from the family of Zayd ibn Thabit from Sacid ibn Jubayrfrom Clkrimafrom Ibn 'Abbas, (c) 'Asim

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ibn CUmar Qatada;and (d) Ishaq ibn Yasar from CUbadaibn al-Walid ibn 'Ubada ibn al-Samit. The ibn isnads used by al-Waqidi are (a) CAbdAllah ibn Jacfar from al-Harith ibn Fudayl from Ibn Kacb alAllah from Zuhri from 'Urwa, (c-d) two traditions that begin "they Qurazi, (b) Muhammad ibn CAbd said," probably referring to the collective tradition given at the beginning of the book, (e) Muhammad ibn Maslama "said," (f) "Muhammadrelated to me from al-Zuhri, from CUrwa," "Muhammadibn (g) al-Qasim related to me from his father from al-RabiCibn Sabra from his father," and (h) "Yahya ibn CAbd Allah ibn Abi Qatada related to me from CAbd Allah ibn Abi Bakr ibn Hazm." See Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad,363-64, and al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 176-80, respectively. 77Jones, "The Maghazl Literature,"348. 78See Qur'an, 3:10, cited in Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 545. 79Qur'an,trans. Yusuf Ali, 8:58, cited in Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 177. 80IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 543-44. 81Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazl, 181. 82Ibid., 185. 83See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasil Alldh, 548-53. 84Ibid., 657-58. 85Ibid., 552-54. 86Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzt, 192. 87Ibid. 88Serjeant,"The Sunnah Jamicah,"32. 89A1-Waqidi,Kitab al-maghazl, 192. 90MartinLings, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), 171. 91Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazl, 191; Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 553. 92Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzl, 288. 93IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 680. 94A1-Waqidi,Kitab al-maghdzi, 462. 95Ibid., 346; Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasil Alldh, 648-51. 96Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 652-55; Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzi, 363-74. 97Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 365. 98Ibid., 209-13. 99Ibid., 444-45. 100Ibid.,379. 10lIbn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 653. 102Al-Waqidi,Kitab al-maghazi, 380. 103Ibid.,375. 104NormanA. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 14. Kitab al-maghazi, 373. 05A1l-Waqidi, 106Ibid.,374. 107Ibid.,426-40. 108IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasal Allah, 731-40. 109IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 671; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 452. l0Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 672; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 476. 11Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 677-78; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 470. 112IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 676; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdaz,477. 13Ibn Ishaq, Kitsb sirat rasul Allah, 680; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzl, 480-84. 114IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasil Alldh, 677; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzl, 445. 115bn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 678-79; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzi, 469. 16IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 683; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghdzi, 489. 117Al-Waqidi,Kitab al-maghazi, 442. 118Ibid.,445. 119Ibid.,458. 120Ibid.,460. Interestingly, this same tradition is repeated in the chapter on the raid on al-Hudaybiya, but there it is recorded as a vision or dream rather than a mere hope. See ibid., 572.

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121Ibid., 455.

122IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 396, 399.

123See al-Waqidi, Kitdb al-maghazi, 503-4; for my translation see page 468.

124Kister,"The Massacre of the Banu Qurayza,"94-95. 125Ibid.,96. 126IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 680; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 462. Kitab al-maghazi, 458. 127A1-Waqidi, 128Kister,"The Massacre of the Banu Qurayza,"85. 129Ibid.,178. 130Ibid.,288, 462. 13 Ibid., 96. Kitab al-maghazi, 497. This knack of presenting the readerwith a kind of premonition 132A1-Waqidi, of what is soon to happen is a characteristic of al-Waqidi's style, which I have commented on. 133IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 684; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 497. 134IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 684; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 499. 135IbnIshaq, Kitdb sirat rasul Allah, 687-88; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 504. 36Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 692; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 515. 137IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 688; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 510. 13Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasl Allah, 684; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 497. 39IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 685; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 498-99. 140IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 685-86; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 501-3. 41Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 366. 142IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 690-91; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 516-17. 143Weknow that it happened before Uhud because the man who bought the fruit from Abu Lubaba was martyredat Uhud. See al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 505. 144Ibid. 145IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 686-87; Sellheim, "Prophet, Chalif und Geschichte," 62. 146Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 679. 47Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 512. Compare Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 679. "Condemnationof the Jews of Banu Qurayzah," 11. 148Watt, 149IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 415; Ibn Ishaq, Life of Muhammad,281. 15?IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 381, 427. 151Seemy discussion of the murderof KaCb al-Ashraf on page 479-80. ibn Kitab al-maghazi, 1-8. 152A1-Waqidi, 153Jones,"The Chronology of the Maghazi," 261. 154See Ibn Ishaq, Kitab sirat rasil Allah, 548-53; al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 184-93. 155'Abd al-Razzaq, al-Musannaf,ed. Habib al-Rahmanal-ACzami(Beirut: 1970), 5:357, cited in Rubin, "The Assassination of KaCb al-Ashraf,"Oriens 32 (1990): 69, n. 27. b. 15tSee Kister, "Notes on the Papyrus Text," 235. 157Seeal-Zurqani, Sharh cald'l mawdhib al-laduniya, 1:551, cited in Jones, "Chronology of the Maghazi," 247, n. 21. 158Exegetessuch as Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767) and Baghawi (d. 1122) are seen to associate the murder of KaCbwith the exile of the B. Nadir and surat al-Hashr. See Rubin, "The Assassination of Kacb b. al-Ashraf," 68. 159Ibid.,68, n. 23. Kitab al-maghazi, 192. 160A1-Waqidi, 16IIbid., 391. 162IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Alldh, 714-16. 163Ibid.,714. 164Jones,however, feels that the differences regarding the date of the murder of Abu Rafic was a matter of simple confusion. See Jones, "Chronology of the Maghazi," 270. 165Al-Waqidi,Kitab al-maghazi, 395. trans. Yusuf Ali, 5:12. 166QurDan, 167IbnIshaq, Kitab sirat rasul Allah, 392. 168Ibid.,663.

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'69Al-Waqidi, Kitab al-maghazi, 196. to 170According NorthropFrye, "Symmetryin any narrativealways means that historical content is being subordinatedto mythical demands of design and form."See NorthropFrye, The Great Code (Toronto: Academic Press Canada, 1982), 43. 171Al-Waqidi,Kitdb al-maghdzl, 288, 462. to 172According J. N. Mattock, the compiler is essentially sticking to the key components of the story, but inevitably changes the details to suit the immediate circumstances that he faces. See J. N. Mattock, "History and Fiction," Occasional Papers of the School of 'Abbasid Studies 1 (1986): 96. 173Accordingto JohannFlick there were at least fifteen known recensions of Ibn Ishaq available soon after his death. See Johann Fuck, "Muhammad Ibn Ishaq: Literarhistorische Untersuchungen" (diss., Frankfurtam Main: 1925), 44.