The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS

by Robert Spencer

  After the murder of K’ab, Muhammad issued a blanket command: “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.”34 This was not a military order: the first victim was a Jewish merchant, Ibn Sunayna, who had “social and business relations” with the Muslims. The murderer, Muhayissa, was rebuked for the deed by his brother Huwayissa, who was not yet a Muslim. Muhayissa was unrepentant. He told his brother: “Had the one who ordered me to kill him ordered me to kill you I would have cut your head off.”

  Huwayissa was impressed: “By God, a religion which can bring you to this is marvelous!” He became a Muslim.35

  UHUD: ALLAH DOES NOT REWARD THE IMPIOUS

  Muhammad would need his help. After their defeat at Badr, the Quraysh were itching for revenge. They assembled three thousand troops against one thousand Muslims at a mountain near Mecca named Uhud. Muhammad, brandishing a sword, led the Muslims into battle. This time, the Quraysh were far more determined, and the Muslims were routed. Muhammad’s child bride, Aisha, later recounted that the Muslims were initially winning at Uhud, but then their lines collapsed in confusion due to a supernatural intervention: “Satan, Allah’s Curse be upon him, cried loudly, ‘O Allah’s Worshippers, beware of what is behind!’ On that, the front files of the [Muslim] forces turned their backs and started fighting with the back files.”36

  Muhammad himself had his face bloodied and a tooth knocked out; rumors even flew around the battlefield that he had been killed. When he was able to find water to wash the blood off his face, Muhammad vowed revenge: “The wrath of God is fierce against him who bloodied the face of His prophet.”37 When Abu Sufyan, the Quraysh commander, taunted the Muslims, Muhammad told his lieutenant Umar to respond: “God is most high and most glorious. We are not equal. Our dead are in paradise; your dead in hell.”38

  After Uhud came revelations to explain the setback. While Badr was Allah’s victory, Uhud was not Allah’s defeat but the result of the Muslims’ failure of courage and lust for the things of this world, specifically in this case the spoils of war, the goods and women they hoped to win from the Quraysh: “And Allah had certainly fulfilled His promise to you when you were killing the enemy by His permission until when you lost courage and fell to disputing about the order and disobeyed after he had shown you that which you love. Among you are some who desire this world, and among you are some who desire the Hereafter. Then he turned you back from them that He might test you. And He has already forgiven you, and Allah is the possessor of bounty for the believers.” (Qur’an 3:152)

  Another revelation exhorted the Muslims to fight valiantly, assuring them that their lives were in no danger until the day Allah had decreed that they must die: “And it is not for one to die except by permission of Allah at a decree determined. And whoever desires the reward of this world, We will give him thereof; and whoever desires the reward of the Hereafter, We will give him thereof. And we will reward the grateful.” (Qur’an 3:145)

  Allah reminded them of his help given to the Muslims in the past, and reminded them that piety was the key to victory:

  And already had Allah given you victory at Badr while you were few in number. Then fear Allah; perhaps you will be grateful, when you said to the believers, “Is it not sufficient for you that your Lord should reinforce you with three thousand angels sent down?” Yes, if you remain patient and conscious of Allah and the enemy come upon you in rage, your Lord will reinforce you with five thousand angels having marks. And Allah made it not except as good tidings for you and to reassure your hearts thereby. And victory is not except from Allah, the Exalted in Might, the Wise, that He might cut down a section of the disbelievers or suppress them so that they turn back disappointed. (Qur’an 3:123–127)

  The lesson was clear: the only path to success was Islam, and the cause of all failure was the abandonment of Islam. Allah promised that the Muslims would soon be victorious again, provided that they depended solely on him and rejected all accord with non-Muslims: “O you who have believed, if you obey those who disbelieve, they will turn you back on your heels, and you will become losers. But Allah is your protector, and He is the best of helpers. We will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve for what they have associated with Allah of which He had not sent down authority. And their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers.” (Qur’an 3:149–151)

  DIVINE TERROR DEFEATS THE JEWS

  Not long after the Battle of Uhud, some members of one of the Jewish tribes of Medina, the Banu Nadir, conspired to kill Muhammad by dropping a large stone on his head as he passed by one of their houses. However, some of the Muslims learned of the plot and notified Muhammad. Rather than appealing to the leaders of the Nadir to turn over the guilty men, Muhammad sent word to the Nadir: “Leave my country and do not live with me. You have intended treachery.”39

  Muhammad told the Muslims, “The Jews have declared war.”40 He ordered his men to march out against the tribe and lay siege to them.41 Finally the Nadir agreed to exile themselves. Muhammad commanded them to turn over their weapons and allowed them to keep as much of the rest of their property as they could carry on their camels.42 Some of the Nadir destroyed their houses, loading as much on the backs of their camels as they possibly could.43 The rest of their belongings became Muhammad’s personal property, which he distributed as booty among the muhajiroun, the Muslims who had emigrated with him from Mecca to Medina.44

  In a revelation, Allah told Muhammad that it was divine terror that had defeated the Banu Nadir, and that they were all bound for hell:

  Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth exalts Allah, and He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise. It is He who expelled the ones who disbelieved among the People of the Book from their homes at the first gathering. You did not think they would leave, and they thought that their fortresses would protect them from Allah; but Allah came upon them from where they had not expected, and He cast terror into their hearts; they destroyed their houses by their hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O people of vision. And if not that Allah had decreed for them evacuation, He would have punished them in this world, and for them in the Hereafter is the punishment of the Fire. (Qur’an 59:2–3)

  PROPHECY OF CONQUEST

  After the expulsion of the Qaynuqa and Nadir Jews from Medina, some of those who remained approached the Quraysh, offering an alliance against Muhammad and the Muslims. The Quraysh readily accepted.45 Muhammad, forewarned of this new alliance, had a trench dug around Medina. During the digging of the trench, Muhammad had visions of conquering the areas bordering Arabia. One of the earliest Muslims, Salman the Persian, the story goes, was working on the trench when he began having trouble with a particularly large rock. “The apostle,” explained Salman, “who was near at hand, saw me hacking and saw how difficult the place was. He dropped down into the trench and took the pick from my hand and gave such a blow that lightning showed beneath the pick.”46 The flash of lightning “shot out, illuminating everything between the two tracts of black stones—that is, Medina’s two tracts of black stones—like a lamp inside a dark room.” Muhammad shouted the Islamic cry of victory, “Allahu akbar,” and all the Muslims responded with the same shout.47 This happened again and then a third time, in exactly the same way. Finally, Salman asked Muhammad: “O you, dearer than father or mother, what is the meaning of this light beneath your pick as you strike?”

  The Prophet of Islam responded: “Did you really see that, Salman? The first means that God has opened up to me the Yaman; the second Syria and the west; and the third the east.”48 Or, according to another version of the same story: “I struck my first blow, and what you saw flashed out, so that the palaces of al-Hirah [in what is today southern Iraq] and al-Madai’in of Kisra [the winter capital of the Sassanian Empire] lit up for me as if they were dogs’ teeth, and Gabriel informed me that my nation would be victorious over them.” The second blow illuminated in the same way “the palaces of the
pale men in the lands of the Byzantines,” and the third, “the palaces of San’a”—that is, Yemen.49 Gabriel promised Muhammad victory over each, repeating three times: “Rejoice; victory shall come to them!” To this Muhammad replied, “Praise be to God! The promise of One who is true and faithful! He has promised us victory after tribulation.”

  Decades later, when the countries named in this legend were indeed conquered by the warriors of jihad, an old Muslim used to say: “Conquer where you will, by God, you have not conquered and to the resurrection day you will not conquer a city whose keys God had not given beforehand to Muhammad.”50

  As the Quraysh, along with another tribe, the Ghatafan (known collectively in Islamic tradition as “the Confederates”), laid siege to Medina, the trench prevented their breaking through and entering the city, but the Muslims were unable to force them to end the siege. Meanwhile, the Banu Qurayza began collaborating with the Quraysh. As the siege dragged on (it lasted three weeks), the Muslims’ situation grew more perilous. Conditions got so bad that one Muslim remarked bitterly about Muhammad’s territorial ambitions and his designs on the two great powers that bordered Arabia, the Persian Empire of Chosroes and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire of Caesar: “Muhammad used to promise us that we should eat the treasures of Chosroes and Caesar and today not one of us can feel safe in going to the privy!”51

  The Qurayzah agreed to attack the Muslims from one side while the Quraysh besieged them from the other. But then events took a turn for the Muslims. A strong wind blew up around this time, making it impossible for the Quraysh to keep their tents up or fires going. Abu Sufyan had had enough. He said to his men: “O Quraysh, we are not in a permanent camp; the horses and camels are dying; the [Banu] Qurayza have broken their word to us and we have heard disquieting reports of them. You can see the violence of the wind which leaves us neither cooking-pots, nor fire, nor tents to count on. Be off, for I am going!”52 The Quraysh began to abandon their positions around Medina. Islam was saved.

  MASSACRING THE JEWS

  After the successful resolution of the Battle of the Trench, the angel Gabriel himself made sure that Muhammad settled accounts with the Qurayzah Jews. According to Aisha, “When Allah’s Messenger returned on the day [of the battle] of Al-Khandaq [Trench], he put down his arms and took a bath. Then Jibril [Gabriel] whose head was covered with dust, came to him saying, ‘You have put down your arms! By Allah, I have not put down my arms yet.’ Allah’s Messenger said, ‘Where [to go now]?’ Jibril said, ‘This way,’ pointing towards the tribe of Bani Quraiza. So Allah’s Messenger went out towards them.”53

  As his armies approached the fortifications of the Qurayzah, Muhammad addressed them in terms that have become familiar usage for Islamic jihadists when speaking of Jews today—language that, as we have seen, also made its way into the Qur’an: “You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you?” The Qur’an in three places (2:62–65, 5:59–60, and 7:166) says that Allah transformed the Sabbath-breaking Jews into pigs and monkeys.

  The Qurayzah Jews tried to soften Muhammad’s wrath, saying: “O Abu’l-Qasim [Muhammad], you are not a barbarous person.” But the Prophet of Islam was in no mood to be appeased. He told the Muslims who were with him that a warrior who passed by on a white mule was actually Gabriel, who had “been sent to Banu Qurayza to shake their castles and strike terror to their hearts.” The Muslims laid siege to the Qurayzah strongholds for twenty-five days, until, according to Ibn Ishaq, “they were sore pressed” and, as Muhammad had warned, “God cast terror into their hearts.”54

  After the Qurayzah surrendered, Muhammad decided to put the fate of the tribe into the hands of the Muslim warrior Sa’d ibn Mu’adh. Sa’d pronounced: “I give the judgment that their warriors should be killed and their children and women should be taken as captives.”

  The Prophet of Islam was pleased. “O Sa’d! You have judged amongst them with [or, similar to] the judgment of the King [Allah].”55 He confirmed Sa’d’s judgment as that of Allah himself: “You have decided in confirmation to the judgment of Allah above the seven heavens.”56 Sa’d’s sentence was duly carried out, with Muhammad himself actively participating. According to Ibn Ishaq, “The apostle went out to the market of Medina [which is still its market today] and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for [the men of the Qurayzah] and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches.” One of the Prophet’s fiercest enemies among the Qurayzah, Huyayy, proclaimed: “God’s command is right. A book and a decree, and massacre have been written against the Sons of Israel.” Then Muhammad struck off his head.

  Sa’d’s judgment had been to kill the men and enslave the women and children; one of the captives, Attiyah al-Qurazi, explained how the Muslims determined who was a man and who wasn’t: “I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They [the companions] examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair [pubes] were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair.”57

  Ibn Ishaq puts the number of those massacred at “Six hundred or seven hundred in all, though some put the figure as high as eight hundred or nine hundred.”58 Ibn Sa’d said, “They were between six hundred and seven hundred in number.”59 As the Qurayzah were being led to Muhammad in groups, someone asked Ka’b bin Asad what was happening. “Will you never understand?” replied the distraught leader of the Qurayzah. “Don’t you see that the summoner never stops and those who are taken away do not return? By Allah it is death!”60

  Allah also sent down a revelation referring obliquely to the massacre: “And He brought down those who supported them among the People of the Book from their fortresses and cast terror into their hearts. A party you killed, and you took captive a party.” (Qur’an 33:26) Allah again claimed sole responsibility for the victory: “O you who have believed, remember the favor of Allah upon you when armies came to you and We sent upon them a wind and armies you did not see. And Allah ever sees what you do, when they came at you from above you and from below you, and when eyes shifted and hearts reached the throats and you assumed about Allah assumptions. There the believers were tested and shaken with a severe shaking.” (Qur’an 33:9–11).

  THE MUSLIMS TAKE SEX SLAVES

  Meanwhile, Muhammad’s cool head and trust in Allah when things looked bleakest for the Muslims stood him in good stead. Allah gave him a revelation, telling the Muslims to imitate him: “There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Last Day and remembers Allah often.” (Qur’an 33:21)

  Muhammad was now the undisputed master of Medina, and the Prophet of Islam enjoyed an immediate economic advantage. A hadith records that “people used to give some of their date-palms to the Prophet [as a gift], till he conquered Bani Quraiza and Bani An-Nadir, whereupon he started returning their favours.”61 But challengers to his consolidation of power over all Arabia remained. He received word that the Banu al-Mustaliq, an Arab tribe related to the Quraysh, were gathering against the Muslims, so he led the Muslims out to attack them. And Allah, according to Ibn Ishaq, “put the [Banu] al-Mustaliq to flight and killed some of them and gave the apostle their wives, children and property as booty.”62

  There were, according to Muslim warrior Abu Sa’id al-Khadri, “some excellent Arab women” among the captives of the Banu al-Mustaliq. “We desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, [but at the same time] we also desired ransom for them.” The Qur’an permitted them to have sexual intercourse with slave girls captured in battle—“those captives whom your right hands possess” (4:24)—but if they intended to keep the women as slaves, they couldn’t collect ransom money for them. “So,” Abu Sa’id explained, “we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing azl”—that is, coitus interruptus. Muhammad, however, told them this was not necessary: “It does not matter if you do not do it, for every sou
l that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born.”63 Conceptions and births were up to Allah alone. The enslavement and rape of the women were taken for granted.

  THE TREATY OF HUDAYBIYYA

  In 628, Muhammad and the Quraysh commenced a ten-year truce (hudna) with the treaty of Hudaybiyya. Muhammad wanted to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and he was willing to make concessions to the Quraysh to be allowed to do so. When the time came for the agreement to be written, Muhammad called for one of his earliest and most fervent followers, Ali ibn Abi Talib, and told him to write, “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.” But the Quraysh negotiator, Suhayl bin Amr, stopped him: “I do not recognize this; but write ‘In thy name, O Allah.” Muhammad told Ali to write what Suhayl had directed.

  When Muhammad directed Ali to continue by writing, “This is what Muhammad, the apostle of God, has agreed with Suhayl bin Amr,” Suhayl protested again. “If I witnessed that you were God’s apostle,” Suhayl told Muhammad, “I would not have fought you. Write your own name and the name of your father.” Again, Muhammad told Ali to write the document as Suhayl wished.

  The treaty that was finally agreed to read this way:

  This is what Muhammad b. Abdullah has agreed with Suhayl b. ‘Amr: they have agreed to lay aside war for ten years during which men can be safe and refrain from hostilities on condition that if anyone comes to Muhammad without the permission of his guardian he will return him to them; and if anyone of those with Muhammad comes to Quraysh they will not return him to him. We will not show enmity one to another and there shall be no secret reservation or bad faith. He who wishes to enter into a bond and agreement with Muhammad may do so and he who wishes to enter into a bond and agreement with Quraysh may do so.