Destiny Disrupted

(Ann) #1
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

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