Banu Qaynuqa

The Banu Qaynuqa were the largest of the three Jewish tribes of Madinah, with some seven hundred men. They were goldsmiths, and they had the biggest market in the city. They were also the first tribe to break with the Prophet ﷺ. Ibn Ishaq gives the affair less than a page, as the early historians did with every such falling-out. He records only that after Badr they became openly hostile, and that the Muslim victory upset them. The Prophet ﷺ went to their market and gathered them together. He reminded them of the Constitution they had signed, under which each side would protect the other against outsiders. One of their leaders answered him to his face. He told the Prophet ﷺ not to be fooled by beating a handful of nobodies at Badr. If he had fought real men, men like them, he said, he would have seen a different result. Then a crude incident lit the fuse. An Ansari woman had sold her goods in the market, and sat down at a goldsmith's shop to buy something. The goldsmith kept pestering her to uncover herself, and she refused. He signalled to a man behind her, who pinned her garment so that it would fall away when she stood up. When she rose, she was left uncovered, and the men of the market laughed. She screamed for help. A Muslim man who was there drew his sword and killed the goldsmith. The Banu Qaynuqa, who were on their own ground, surrounded him and killed him. The Prophet ﷺ sent them word that the treaty was at an end. Islam does not break a treaty in secret. The Qur'an says that if you fear betrayal from a people, you should throw their treaty back to them openly. They did not expect him to do any more than that, because they trusted in their numbers and their walls. But he marched against them at once, and they shut themselves inside their fortress. The Muslims had no way of breaking in, so they cut off its supplies. After fifteen days the Banu Qaynuqa surrendered. The Prophet ﷺ had the men tied up while their fate was decided. Before Islam, the tribe had had two allies among the Khazraj, and they appealed to both of them. The first was Ubadah ibn al-Samit. He went straight to the Prophet ﷺ and renounced the alliance. He said that his protectors now were Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, and that he had cut his ties with the Banu Qaynuqa. The second was Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul. He went to the camp where they were being held. He told the Companion guarding them to release them, or else he would do it himself. The guard told him that if he tried, he would be killed. So Ibn Ubayy went to find the Prophet ﷺ. He called him by his bare name, Muhammad ﷺ, as he always did, and asked him to be generous to his allies. The Prophet ﷺ said nothing. Ibn Ubayy asked again, and the Prophet ﷺ turned away. Then Ibn Ubayy pushed his hand into the neck of the Prophet ﷺ's armour and held on to him. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Let go of me." Ibn Ishaq says the anger showed in his face. Ibn Ubayy held on tighter, and the Prophet ﷺ said, "Woe to you, let go of me." Ibn Ubayy swore that he would not let go until the Prophet ﷺ promised to treat them well. He said they were seven hundred men, three hundred of them in armour. They had protected him from every enemy, white and black, and was the Prophet ﷺ going to cut them down in a single morning? He said he was afraid of a turn of fortune. The Prophet ﷺ answered, "I give them to you." The Prophet ﷺ had never said he would kill them. But he gave Ibn Ubayy their lives in public, and there was wisdom in that. Ibn Ubayy was still the most respected chief of old Yathrib, and there was still hope for him. The verdict was that they had three days to leave Madinah. They begged for more time. They tried asking Ubadah, who told them he would not even have given them three. Ibn Ubayy tried again to have the sentence lifted, and failed. Ubadah escorted them out of the city. They took their gold and whatever else they could carry, and left the rest behind. What they left passed to the Muslims. Allah then revealed the verses of Surah al-Ma'idah about not taking Jews and Christians as protectors. The verses quote Ibn Ubayy's fear of a turn of fortune, putting it in the mouths of those with sickness in their hearts. They also praise the choice Ubadah had made, saying that your only protectors are Allah, His Messenger ﷺ and the believers. It was the lightest of the three punishments that the Jewish tribes of Madinah brought on themselves. And the true colours of the hypocrites had begun to show.