130 1 n tb~ FOOf!lqJi 0/ lin ProphttBanu Nadir
Many Muslims were taken prisoner during those years after falling into
ambushes or simply being outnumbered by theif enemies. They were
often tortured and dreadfully put to death, and tradition reports their
courage, patience, and dignity in the face of death. 1.fost of the time they
asked, like Khubayb, to be allowed to perform two cycles of prayer before
they were executed, and they prolonged them with invocations to God,
the One, for \'X'hom they had given their possessions and their lives.
One day, a man from the Sanu Amir tribe called Abu Rata came to the
Prophet and asked him to send back with him a group of about forty
~vluslims to tcach his whole tribe Islam. J\o[uhammad, who was apprised of
local alliances, expressed his fear that they might be attacked by other
tribes who were hostile to I slam or had entered into pacts ·...,ith the
Quraysh He received the pledge that his men would be protectL-xl. by the
Banu Amir, who enjoyed unchallenged prestige and could also rely on
many alliances. However, he had not takcn into account the internal rival-
ries in the Banu Amir clan. Abu Sara's own nephew caused the ]-[uslim
group's scout (who carried a letter from the Prophet) to be killed; then,
when he saw that his clan wanted to remain faithful to the protection pact
offered by his uncle, he commissioned two other clans to kill the \vhole
Muslim group near Bir a1-Maunah, apart from two men who escaped
because they had gone to fetch water.^1 One of them preferred to die
fighting the enemy, while the other, Amr ibn Umayyah, went back to
Medina to inform the Prophet that his men had been slaughtered. On his
way there, he met two members of the Banu Amir, whom he thought to
be responsible for the ambush, and he killed them in revenge.
The Prophet was shocked, worried, and deeply grieved by what had
happened to his men. It indicated that the situation was getting more and
more dangerous and that alliances as well as betrayals were taking on com-
plex and subtle features. The Banu Amir had been faithful to Abu Bata's
pledges and were therefore not responsible for his men's death; the
Prophet, scrupulously respectful of the terms of his pacts, immediately
decided :hat blood money must be paid for the two men whom Amr had
mistakenly killed. He decided to go to the Banu Nadir Jews and ask for
their help in paying the blo od debt, since this was part of the terms of