Destiny Disrupted

THE HIJRA 25

When you look at the verses revealed in Medina, you still find much

passionate, lyrical, and imprecatory language, but you also find passages

like this one:

God charges you, concerning your children:

to the male the like of the portion

of two females, and if they be women

above two, then for them two-thirds

of what he leaves, but if she be one

then to her a half; and to his parents

to each one of the two the sixth

of what he leaves, if he has children

but if he has no children, and his

heirs are his parents, a third to his

mother, or, if he has brothers, to his

mother a sixth, after any bequest

he may bequeath, or any debt.

Your fathers and your sons-you know not

which out of these is nearer in profit

to you. So God apportions; surely God is

All-knowing, All-wise.

This is legislation, and this is what the Muslim enterprise expanded to,
once it took root in Medina.
After the Hijra, the native Arabs of Medina gradually converted to
Islam, but the city's three Jewish tribes largely resisted conversion, and over
time a friction developed between them and the Muslims. Among the
Arabs, too, some of the men displaced by Mohammed's growing stature
harbored a closely guarded resentment.
Meanwhile, the Quraysh tribe had not given up on assassinating Mo-
hammed, even though he now lived 250 miles away. Not only did
Quraysh leaders put a huge bounty of a hundred camels on Mohammed's
head, they remained fixated on stamping out his whole community. To fi-
nance an assault on Medina, the wealthiest merchants of Mecca stepped
up their trading expeditions. Mohammed countered by leading Muslims
in raids on these Meccan caravans (which helped solve another problem