Fight in the Way of God 93dictory accounts derived from Jewish chroniclers who wished to por-
tray the Qurayza as heroic martyrs of God.
In recent years, contemporary scholars of Islam, arguing that
Muhammad’s actions cannot be judged according to our modern ethi-
cal standards, have striven to place the execution of the Qurayza in its
historical context. Karen Armstrong, in her beautiful biography of the
Prophet, notes that the massacre, while revolting to a contemporary
audience, was neither illegal nor immoral according to the tribal ethic
of the time. Likewise, Norman Stillman, in his The Jews of Arab Lands,
argues that the fate of the Banu Qurayza was “not unusual according
to the harsh rules of war during that period.” Stillman goes on to write
that the fact that no other Jewish clan in Medina either objected to
Muhammad’s actions or attempted to intervene in any way on behalf
of the Qurayza is proof that the Jews themselves considered this event
“a tribal and political affair of the traditional Arabian kind.”
And yet, even Armstrong and Stillman continue to advocate the
enduring view that the execution of the Qurayza, while understand-
able for historical and cultural reasons, was nonetheless the tragic
result of a deeply rooted ideological conflict between the Muslims and
Jews of Medina, a conflict that can still be observed in the modern
Middle East. The Swedish scholar Tor Andrae most clearly encapsu-
lates this view, arguing that the execution was the result of Muham-
mad’s belief “that the Jews were the sworn enemies of Allah and
His revelation. [Therefore] any mercy toward them was out of the
question.”
But Andrae’s view, and the views of so many others who agree with
him, is at best ignorant of Muslim history and religion and at worst
bigoted and obtuse. The fact is that the execution of the Banu
Qurayza, while undeniably a dreadful event, was neither an act of
genocide nor part of some comprehensive anti-Jewish agenda on the
part of Muhammad. And it most certainly was not the result of an
entrenched and innate religious conflict between Islam and Judaism.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
To begin with, the Banu Qurayza were not executed for being
Jews. As Michael Lecker has demonstrated, a significant number of
the Banu Kilab—Arab clients of the Qurayza who allied with them as
an auxiliary force outside Medina—were also executed for treason.