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The Murder of the Jewish Chieftain Ka‘b b. al-Ashraf: A Re-examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2020

EHSAN ROOHI
EHSAN ROOHI*
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar ehrh69@gmail.com
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Abstract

The murder of the Prophet's chief Jewish opponent, Ka‘b b. al-Ashraf, led to grave consequences for the tribe of Banū al-Naḍīr and for the Jews as a whole. The incident ushered in a series of hostile Muslim-Jewish encounters that reached its climax in the battle of Khaybar. Despite the constructive study undertaken by previous scholars, there still seem to be some contradictory elements and vague accounts that have been either utterly ignored or for which a satisfactory explanation is lacking. In the light of certain striking pieces of evidence, scattered in unlikely places in the sīra and tafsīr compendia, the present study sets out to examine critically the extent to which the accounts of Ka‘b's murder can be trusted. It will be argued that what we are faced with is seriously distorted material with logical absurdities and discrepancies that cannot easily be reconciled. Apart from the historical reconstruction, special attention will be devoted to a momentous historiographical point—that our reports have been doctored for political reasons. This helps us adopt a more realistic view of the individuals whose names occurred in the accounts of the event in question.

Keywords

Ka‘b b. al-Ashrafbattle of Khaybarthe Banū al-Naḍīr's expulsionsīra and tafsīr compendiaearly Muslim-Jewish hostile encountersIslamic origins
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 103 - 124
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Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2020

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Hadi Taghavi, Hadi Sabouhi and Muhammad Ghandehari for their valuable suggestions. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees for their constructive comments.

References

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14 Shoemaker, S. J., “In Search of ʽUrwa's Sīra: Some Methodological Issues in the Quest for ‘Authenticity’ in the Life of Muḥammad”, Der Islam, 85 (2011), p. 259CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Oxford, 1954), pp. 364-369

16 Ibid., p. 367.

17 Ibid.

18 al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa (Beirut, 1985), III, p. 195. The same tradition is reported on the authority of al-Zuhrī in Ibn Shabba, Taʾrīkh al-Madīna (Qumm, 1410 ah), II, p. 456.

19 al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī (Beirut, 1989), I, p. 188; Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 210; Faizer, “The Issue of Authenticity”, p. 106. Al-Bukhārī also speaks of Ka‘b's foster-relationship both with Abū Nā’ila and Muḥammad b. Maslama, al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (Beirut, 1981), V, p.26. See also Ibn Kathīr and Maqrīzī who quote from al-Bukhārī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya fī al-Taʾrīkh (Beirut, 1986), IV, p. 6; Maqrīzī, Imtā‘ al-Asmā’ (Beirut, 1999), XII, p. 189.

20 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 95.

21 al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf (Beirut, 1996), I, p. 374.

22 Juynboll also makes mention of the confusion in the sources as to “who was whose foster brother”, Juynboll, G. H. A., Encyclopedia of Canonical Ḥadīth (Leiden, 2007), p. 577CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 This is the way in which the “sanguine” scholars often deal with the accounts of Islamic origins, see, for instance, Schoeler, G., The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity, U. Vagelpohl (trans.), (New York, 2010) p. 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Any study of the formative period of Islam should admittedly be undertaken with an “awareness of the fluid nature of oral transmission”. This may account in part for the presence of contradictory material in the narratives of Islamic origins. Be that as it may, the omnipresent political and religious tendencies within the Islamic sources, among other things, entail one's being “very wary” about putting undue confidence in the material that may well be tendentious in one way or another, see Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, pp. 13, 212.

24 al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa, III, p. 195. The same tradition is to be found in al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, V, pp. 25-26.

25 See the above quoted verse.

26 More evidence will be adduced below concerning the assassins’ association with the Jews.

27 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā (Beirut, 1990), II, p. 25.

28 Ibid.; ‘Abd al-Razzāq, al-Muṣannaf (Beirut, 1403 ah), V, p. 203; Ibn Shabba, Taʾrīkh al-Madīna, II, p. 460.

29 See Ibn ‘Asākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq (Beirut, 1415 ah), LV, p. 274.

30 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 367.

31 Ibid.

32 See Faizer, “Muhammad and the Medinan Jews”, p. 480.

33 See al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, pp. 152-172; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya (Beirut, 1375 ah), I, pp. 685- 706. The mention of various individuals’ names as participating in a certain battle, like any other mention in the Islamic sources of personal names as doing great deeds, may have been motivated by tribal or political interests and should not thus be accepted at face value, Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, pp. 111-128, Robinson, C. F., Islamic Historiography (Cambridge, 2003), p. 23Google Scholar. However, we have cogent reason to believe that the accounts concerning the assassins of Ka‘b's participation in the battle of Badr are of historical basis. As the members or confederates of ‘Abd al-Ashhal, the assassins should have fought at Badr, since the chief of their clan, Sa‘d b. Mu‘ādh, was among the most solid supporters of the Prophet whose participation in Badr can in no way be rejected as valueless. On Sa‘d b. Mu‘ādh see below.

34 Serjeant, “The Sunnah Jāmi‘ah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews”, p. 32.

35 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 367; Rubin, “The Assassination”, p. 65.

36 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 365; Faizer, “Muhammad and the Medinan Jews”, p. 479; Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 11.

37 Rahman, “The Conflicts between the Prophet and the Opposition in Madina”, p. 282.

38 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, pp. 174-175.

39 See Ibid., p.184.

40 Lecker, M., “The Assassination of the Jewish Merchant Ibn Sunayna according to an Authentic Family Account”, in Voort, N. A. Boekhoff van der et al. (ed.), The Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam (Leiden, 2011), p. 189Google Scholar.

41 Rubin, “The Assassination”, p. 66. On the association of Ka‘b with the exile of al-Naḍīr see also Schöller, “In Welchem Jahr Wurden die Banū L-Naḍīr aus Medina Vertrieben?”, pp. 16-22.

42 Rubin, “The Assassination”, p. 70.

43 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, pp. 440-441; Faizer, “The Issue of Authenticity”, p. 104.

44 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 437; Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 211-212. Donner, F. M., Muhammad and the Believers (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 46-47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 al-Ṭabarānī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr (Irbid, 2008), VI, p. 234; al-Tha‘labī, al-Kashf wa al-Bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān (Beirut, 1422 ah), IX, p. 267; al-Qurtubī, al-Jāmi’ li Aḥkām al-Qurʾān (Tehran, 1364 ah), XVIII, p. 4; al-Bayḍāwī, Anwār al-Tanzīl wa Asrār al-Taʾwīl (Beirut, 1418 ah), V, p.198. See also Rubin, “The Assassination”, pp. 66-68; Schöller, “In Welchem Jahr Wurden die Banū L-Naḍīr aus Medina Vertrieben?”, p. 18; Rahman, “The Conflicts between the Prophet and the Opposition in Madina”, pp. 282-283.

46 Schöller, “In Welchem Jahr Wurden die Banū L-Naḍīr aus Medina Vertrieben?”, p. 16.

47 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, p. 366; Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 211; Aḥmad, B., Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination (New Delhi, 1979), p. 64Google Scholar.

48 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, p. 374; Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, II, p. 44.

49 On Muḥammad b. Maslama as the protagonist of the story of Ka‘b's assassination see Faizer, “The Issue of Authenticity”, p. 106; Rose, P. L., “Muhammad, the Jews and the Constitution of Medina: Retrieving the Historical Kernel”, Der Islam, 86 (2011), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 W. Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge, 2004), p. 145.

51 (Pseudo-?) Ibn Qutayba, al-Imāma wa al-Siyāsa (Beirut, 1990), I, p. 73. The famous episode concerning those who did not pledge allegiance to ‘Alī is found in a number of sources, (see for example al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-Dhahab (Beirut, 1409 ah), II, p. 352; al-Dīnawarī, al-Akhbār al-Ṭiwāl (Qumm, 1368 ah), p. 141) but all of them have deprived us of the crucial information on Ibn Maslama's Jewish sympathies.

52 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 463; Fishbein, M. (ed.), The History of al-Ṭabarī: The Victory of Islam (New York, 1997), VIII, p. 32Google Scholar. See also Lecker, M., “Abū Mālik ‘Abdallāh b. Sām of Kinda, a Jewish Convert to Islam”, Der Islam, 71 (1994) p. 282Google Scholar.

53 Fishbein, The History of al-Ṭabarī, p. 32.

54 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 463; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, I, pp. 238-239. See also Aḥmad, Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination, p. 85.

55 Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, p. 54; Judd, S. C., Religious Scholars and the Umayyads: Piety-Minded Supporters of the Marwānid Caliphate (London and New York, 2014), p. 25Google Scholar; Brockopp, J. E., Muhammad's Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities, 622–950 (Cambridge, 2017), p. 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, p. 191.

57 We shall see that Ibn Maslama belonged to the social circle around the ruling party.

58 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 509; Maqrīzī, Imtā‘ al-Asmā’, I, p. 248.

59 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 504. On Ibn Maslama's offspring see Lecker, “Wāqidī's Account on the Status of the Jews of Medina”, p. 26

60 al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa, III, pp. 361-362. In another speech, allegedly made by ‘Amr b. Su‘dā during the siege of Qurayẓa, he reproached his people for “breaking their treaty with the Prophet”, see Lecker, M., “Did Muḥammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes Naḍīr, Qurayẓa and Qaynuqāʿ?” Israel Oriental Studies, 17 (1997), p. 32Google Scholar; al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 503.

61 Lecker, M., “Muhammad at Medina: A Geographical Approach”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 6 (1985), pp. 32, 33, 37Google Scholar; Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 15; Lecker, “Did Muḥammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes?”, pp. 29-30.

62 Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 16.

63 See Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 239; Spoerl, J., “Muhammad and the Jews According to Ibn Ishaq”, The Levantine Review, 2 (2013), pp. 89-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, I, p. 266, 285.

64 Faizer, “Muhammad and the Medinan Jews”, pp. 72-73; Watt, Muḥammad at Medina, p. 257.

65 Lecker, M., The ‘Constitution of Medina’ Muḥammad's First Legal Document (Princeton, 2004), p. 71Google Scholar; al-Samhūdī, Wafā’ al-Wafā, (Beirut, 2006), III, p. 150.

66 Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 16. See also al-Samhūdī, Wafā’ al-Wafā, III, p. 151.

67 Lecker, “Did Muḥammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes?”, p. 30.

68 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, I, p. 389.

69 Ibid.; Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 384; Watt, W. M. (ed.), The History of al-Ṭabarī: The Foundation of the Community (New York, 1987), VII, p. 136Google Scholar.

70 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 128. See also Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 384.

71 al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 503; al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa, III, p. 362.

72 Ibid.,

73 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 247.

74 On the use of literary devices in Islamic historical writings see Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, pp. 109- 218; Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, pp. 266-271; Conrad, L. I., “Seven and the Tasbī‘: On the Implications of Numerical Symbolism for the Study of Medieval Islamic History, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 31 (1988), pp. 42–73Google Scholar; Pavlovitch, “The Sīra”, p. 73.

75 Noth, “Iṣfahān-Nihāwand”, p. 253. For the necessity of unearthing the motivations behind topoi see also Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, pp. 267-268.

76 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, I, p. 389.

77 On Banū Za‘ūra and Ibn Maslama's connections with the members of this clan see below.

78 Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 214. The same is reported concerning al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Khalīfa and Mu‘attab b. Qushayr, Ibid. As we shall see, the former, Ibn Maslama's father-in-law, was a Jew, and the latter's name occurs in Ibn Isḥāq's list of Muḥammad's adversaries.

79 See for instance M. Lecker, “Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān and ‘Ammār b. Yāsir, Jewish Converts to Islam”, Quaderni di Studi Arabi (1993), p. 157. See also Mazuz, Jews of Medina, pp. 44-47.

80 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, VIII, p. 253.

81 Lecker, “Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān and ‘Ammār b. Yāsir”, p. 157; Lecker, M., Muslims, Jews, and Pagans: Studies on Early Islamic Medina (Leiden, 1995), p. 144Google Scholar; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, I, p. 281.

82 Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans, p. 41.

83 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 183.

84 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 782; Ibn Ḥajar al-‘Asqalānī, al-Iṣāba fī Tamyīz al-Ṣaḥāba (Beirut, 1995), III, p. 384.

85 See the entry on Thabīta in Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb fī Ma'rifat al-Aṣḥāb (Beirut, 1992), IV, p. 1799; al-Athīr, Ibn, Usd al-Ghāba fī Ma‛rifat al-Ṣaḥāba (Beirut, 1989), VI, p. 45Google Scholar; Ibn Ḥajar, al-Iṣāba, VIII, p. 61.

86 al-Samhūdī, Wafā’ al-Wafā, III, p. 15; Lecker, “Muhammad at Medina: A Geographical Approach”, p. 45; Watt, Muḥammad at Medina, p. 192; Gil, M., “The Origin of the Jews of Yathrib”, in Peters, F. E., (ed.), The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam (New York, 2017), p. 152Google Scholar. For more information on Banū Za‘ūrā see Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’, p. 77; idem, “Muhammad at Medina: A Geographical Approach”, pp. 44-46.

87 See the entry on Muḥammad b. Maslama in Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, III, p. 338. See also the entry of Umm ‘Amr in Ibid., VIII, p. 245.

88 See the entry on Salama b. Salāma in Ibid., III, p. 335.

89 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 247.

90 Cf. Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans, p. 150.

91 Watt, The History of al-Ṭabarī, p. 158; al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, I, p. 366.

92 Ibid.; Bashīr, S., Studies in Early Islamic Tradition (Jerusalem, 2004), pp. 39-40Google Scholar.

93 According to al-Wāqidī, the Jews reportedly told Ibn Maslama that “nothing seemed to prevent him from embracing their religion, except for the fact that it was the religion of the Jews”. They also claimed that “he probably preferred the ḥanīfiyya about which he had heard”. On the basis of this account, Rubin considers Ibn Maslama to be one of the adherents of ḥanīfiyya, a sort of monotheism which was “not too far removed from the Jewish religion”, see Rubin, U., “Ḥanīfiyya and Ka‘ba: An Inquiry into the Arabian Pre-Islamic Background of Dīn Ibrāhīm”, in Peters, F. E., (ed.), The Arabs and Arabia on the Eve of Islam (New York, 2017), p. 270Google Scholar. However, given the clear evidence on Ibn Maslama's association with the Jews, even after the rise of Islam (e.g., his marriage with the daughter of the renowned Jew, al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Khalīfa) it would seem that he must have taken refuge in pretending to be a supporter of ḥanīfiyya, thus concealing his Jewish background. It is convenient to mention here the case of Abū Qays b. al-Aslat. Closely associated with Jews, Abū Qays was one the Prophet's adversaries who had allegedly been a follower of ḥanīfiyya. As was the case for Ibn Maslama, the traditional account of Abū Qays’ religious inclination is accepted by Rubin, but Lecker's opinion differs; “The claim that Abū Qays was one of the pre-Islamic ḥanīfīs”, says Lecker, was an apologetic story “created by Abū Qays’ descendants, or fellow tribesmen, in order to present him in a relatively favourable light”, Lecker, Muslims, Jews, and Pagans, pp. 154-156.

94 See Lecker, M., “Zayd B. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre-Islamic Medina (Yathrib)”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 56 (1997), p. 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar; On the midrās see also Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 13.

95 Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit”, p. 270.

96 For complementary information on the Arab individuals who converted to Judaism owing to their relationship with Medinan Jews see Serjeant, “The Sunnah Jāmi‘ah, Pacts with the Yathrib Jews”, p. 4; M. Lecker, “‘Amr ibn Ḥazm al-Anṣārī and Qurʾān 2,256: ‘No Compulsion Is There in Religion’”, Oriens, (1996), pp. 57-64.

97 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 96; Rahman, “The Conflicts between the Prophet and the Opposition in Madina”, pp. 281-282; Ibn Shabba, Ta'rīkh al-Madīna, II, p. 461; Ibn ‘Asākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq, LV, pp. 275-276.

98 Rose, “Muhammad, the Jews and the Constitution of Medina”, p. 25.

99 By this assertion Ibn Maslama must have meant that there was not a Jewish client among ‘Abd al-Ashhal in pre-Islamic era, as the story of Yūsha’ belongs to the time of jāhiliyya.

100 Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’, p. 73.

101 See for instance Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb, II, p. 741; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba, II, p. 428.

102 See for instance Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb, II, p. 801; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba, III, p. 46.

103 Lecker, “Ḥudhayfa b. al-Yamān and ‘Ammār b. Yāsir”, pp. 153-157.

104 Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’, p. 73; Maqrīzī, Imtā‘ al-Asmā’, III, p. 355.

105 Leder, S., “The Literary Use of the Khabar: A Basic Form of Historical Writing,” in Cameron, A. and Conrad, L. I. (eds.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Princeton, 1992), pp. 280-283Google Scholar; Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origin, p. 255; Robinson, Islamic Historiography, pp. 15-16.

106 Lecker, M., “al-Wāqidī (d. 822) vs. al-Zuhrī (d. 742): The Fate of the Jewish Banū Abī l-Ḥuqayq” in Robin, C. J. (ed.), Le Judaïsme de l'Arabie Antique (Turnhout, 2015), p. 500Google Scholar.

107 Fishbein, The History of al-Ṭabarī, pp. 119-120; al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 654; Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, II, pp. 85-86; al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa, IV, p. 211; al-Ya‘qūbī, Ta'rīkh (Beirut, 1415 ah), II, p. 56.

108 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb, III, p. 1377; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba, IV, p. 337.

109 Fishbein, The History of al-Ṭabarī, p. 118; al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 657; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, II, pp. 333-334; Ibn ‘Asākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq, LV, pp. 267-268.

110 Fishbein, The History of al-Ṭabarī, p. 118.

111 Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, II, p. 337; Mazuz, Jews of Medina, p. 10. See also Aḥmad, Muhammad and the Jews: A Re-examination, p. 100.

112 Significantly, there is yet some other evidence that particularly points to Muḥammad b. Maslama's close association with the Jews of Khaybar. Having been besieged by Sulaym and ‘Abd al-Ashhal, the Banū Ḥāritha, the clan of Ibn Maslama, was sent into exile during the pre-Islamic period, living a year in the oasis of Khaybar. This, according to Lecker, suggests a “particularly close relationship between the Ḥāritha and the Jews.” Lecker also suggests another exile in which all the subdivisions of Nabīt including Ḥāritha were forced to travel to Khaybar, Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’, pp. 68-69. According to Watt, it was presumably after Ibn Maslama's return from Khaybar that he became a confederate of ‘Abd al-Ashhal, Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 161.

113 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 323.

114 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, III, p. 343.

115 Ibid.

116 al-Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-A‘shā (Beirut, 1987), III, p. 265, citing Lecker's translation from Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit”, p. 265.

117 Ibid.

118 Juynboll, G. H. A. (ed.), The History of al-Ṭabarī: The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia, and Egypt (New York, 1989), XIII, p. 190Google Scholar; Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad, p. 112.

119 Juynboll, The History of al-Ṭabarī, XIII, pp. 73-74; Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad, p. 112. On Ibn Maslama's relations with ‘Umar see also Ibn ‘Asākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq, LV, p. 277. He is reported to have been sent by ‘Umar to “raise troops for Nihāwand campaign”, Donner, F. M., The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), p. 431Google Scholar.

120 Yazigi, M., “‘Alī, Muḥammad, and the Anṣār: The Issue of Succession”, Journal of Semitic Studies, 53 (2008), p. 302CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

121 Ibn Shabba, Ta'rīkh al-Madīna, IV, p. 1280; Madelung, The Succession to Muhammad, p. 105.

122 Ibn Shabba, Ta'rīkh al-Madīna, IV, p. 1280. These Awsī clans are ascribed in Silkān's verse to a more remote ancestor of theirs, namely al-Azd which was the common progenitor of different tribes including the Ghassān, Aws and Khazraj. On al-Azd see B. Ulrich, “The Azd Migrations Reconsidered: Narratives of ‘Amr Muzayqiya and Mālik b. Fahm in Historiographic Context”, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 2008, pp. 311-318.

123 Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Taʾrīkh (Beirut, 1995), p. 88.

124 Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, III, p. 344.

125 Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba, III, p. 327. On his relations with Uthmān see also Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, III, p. 343.

126 On Usayr see Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 323.

127 Ibid., p. 94.

128 Ibid., p. 323.

129 The name of one's father is sometimes omitted in the medieval Arabic sources, Lecker, “al-Wāqidī (d. 822) vs. al-Zuhrī (d. 742)”, p. 496.

130 al-Balādhurī, Ansāb al-Ashrāf, I, p. 284.

131 Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, p. 114; idem, “Iṣfahān-Nihāwand”, p. 294; Conrad, L. I., “The Conquest of Arwād: A Source-Critical Study in the Historiography of the Early Medieval Near East,” in Cameron, A. and Conrad, L. I. (eds.), The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Princeton, 1992), p. 322Google Scholar; Pavlovitch, “The Sīra”, p. 73.

132 Noth, “Iṣfahān-Nihāwand”, p. 262.

133 Rubin, “The Assassination”, p. 69; Schöller, “In Welchem Jahr Wurden die Banū L-Naḍīr aus Medina Vertrieben?”, p. 18.

134 See for example al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr (Beirut, 1412 ah), IV, p. 134; ‘Abd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr (Beirut, 1411 ah), I, p.143.

135 al-Rāzī, al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr (Beirut, 1420 ah), XXIX, p. 501.

136 See above p. 8.

137 Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr (Beirut, 1423 ah), IV, p. 275; al-Tha‘labī, al-Kashf wa al-Bayān, IX, p. 267.

138 It has to be stressed that Ibn Maslama's mission to deliver the Prophet's ultimatum is referred to in the Sunnī sīra rather than tafsīr materials. The sīra, however, does not emphasise the role of Ka‘b in the exile of al-Naḍīr.

139 Lecker, The ‘Constitution of Medina’, pp. 69-70.

140 Faizer, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, p. 317.

141 Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, p. 247.

142 “By about the time of the Hijra”, maintains Watt, “all the lesser Jewish clans or groups in as-Samhūdī's list had lost their identity, or at least had ceased to be of political importance”, Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 194.

143 See Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb, II, p. 1377; Ibn al-Athīr, Usd al-Ghāba, VI, p. 336; “al-Mas‘ūdī”, Murūj al-Dhahab, II, p. 353; al-Bayhaqī, Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa, III, p. 199; Ibn Hishām, al-Sīra al-Nabawiyya, II, p. 54.

144 Motzki, “The Murder of Ibn Abī l-Ḥuqayq,” p. 232. See also Shoemaker's comments on Motzki's argument, Shoemaker, “In Search of ʽUrwa's Sīra,” pp. 336-338.

145 As for Al-Ḥārith b. ‘Aws b. Mu‘ādh, there seems to be nothing special connecting him with the rest of the assassins in the story of Ka‘b, except the fact that they were all associated with ‘Abd al-Ashhal. Al-Ḥārith's alleged involvement in the assassination, just like the occurrence of his uncle's name, Sa‘d b. Mu‘ādh, in some, though not all, versions of the story (see Faizer,“The Issue of Authenticity”, p. 103 ), appears to be intended either to glorify the deeds of ‘Abd al-Ashhal's members, or assign a role to such figures as Sa‘d b. Mu‘ādh, who was one of “the foremost supporters of Muhammad”. On Sa‘d see Watt, W. M., “The Condemnation of the Jews of Banū Qurayẓah”, The Muslim World, 42 (1952), p. 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is worth noting that there is some doubt as to whether al-Ḥārith was even alive during the expedition of al-Naḍīr. While some reports claim that he survived his uncle and attended his funeral in 5 ah (al-Wāqidī, al-Maghāzī, II, p. 529), some others place his death in the battle of Uḥud, Ibn Sa‘d, al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, III, p. 334; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Istī‘āb, I, p. 281.

146 This is obvious in the account of (Pseudo-?) Ibn Qutayba.

147 See G. Schoeler, The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity, p. 2; idem, The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read, S. M. Toorawa (trans.), (Edinburgh, 2009), p. 40.

148 Noth, The Early Arabic Historical Tradition, p. 54.

149 Here I have borrowed Borrut's terminology who applied “the history of memory” to cast new light on the history of Islamic origins, see for example Borrut, A., “Remembering Karbalā’: The Construction of an Early Islamic Site of Memory”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 42 (2015), pp. 249-82Google Scholar; idem, “The Future of the Past: Historical Writing in Early Islamic Syria and Umayyad Memory”.