Banu Qaynuqa

The Banu Qaynuqa were the largest of the three Jewish tribes of Madinah, some seven hundred men, goldsmiths with the biggest market in the city, and the first to break with the Prophet ﷺ. Ibn Ishaq gives the affair less than a page, as the early historians did with every falling-out, and records only that after Badr they grew openly hostile and were grieved by the Muslim victory. The Prophet ﷺ went to their market, gathered them, and reminded them of the Constitution they had signed, each to protect the other against outsiders. One of their leaders answered him to his face: he should not be fooled by beating a handful of nobodies; had he fought men, men like them, he would have seen a different result. Then a crude incident lit the fuse. An Ansari woman sold her goods in the market and sat down at a goldsmith's to buy. He pestered her to uncover herself and she refused; he signalled to a man behind her, who pinned her garment so that when she stood it fell away, and she was left uncovered while the men of the market laughed. She screamed for help. A Muslim who was there drew his sword and killed the goldsmith, and the Banu Qaynuqa, on their own ground, closed round him and killed him. The Prophet ﷺ sent them word that the treaty was at an end, for Islam does not break a treaty in secret; the Qur'an says that if you fear betrayal from a people, throw their treaty back to them openly. They did not expect him to do more, trusting their numbers and their walls, but he marched at once, and they shut themselves in their fortress. The Muslims had no means of breaching it, so they cut off its supplies, and after fifteen days the Banu Qaynuqa surrendered. The Prophet ﷺ had the men bound while their fate was decided. In the days before Islam the tribe had two allies among the Khazraj, and they appealed to both. Ubadah ibn al-Samit went straight to the Prophet ﷺ and renounced them: his protector now was Allah and His Messenger ﷺ, and he had cut his ties with the Banu Qaynuqa. Abdullah ibn Ubayy ibn Salul went to the camp where they were held and told the Companion guarding them to release them or he would, and was told that if he tried he would be killed. So he found the Prophet ﷺ and 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. He asked again and the Prophet ﷺ turned away, and then Ibn Ubayy thrust his hand into the neck of his armour and held him. Let go of me, the Prophet ﷺ said, and Ibn Ishaq says the anger showed in his face; woe to you, let go. Ibn Ubayy swore he would not until the Prophet ﷺ promised to treat them well: seven hundred men, three hundred in mail, who had shielded him from every enemy, red and black, and was he to cut them down in a morning? He was afraid, he said, of a turn of fortune. The Prophet ﷺ said: they are yours. He had never said he would kill them; but he gave Ibn Ubayy their lives in public, and there was wisdom in it, for the man was still the most respected chief of old Yathrib, and there was still hope of him. The verdict was three days to leave Madinah. They begged for more, tried Ubadah, who told them he would not have given them three, and Ibn Ubayy tried again to have the sentence lifted and failed. Ubadah saw them out. They took their gold and what they could carry and left the rest, which came to the Muslims. Allah sent down the verses of Surah al-Ma'idah on not taking Jews and Christians as protectors, quoting Ibn Ubayy's fear of a turn of fortune from the mouths of those with sickness in their hearts, and praising the choice Ubadah had made: your only protectors are Allah, His Messenger ﷺ and the believers. It was the lightest of the three punishments the Jewish tribes of Madinah brought on themselves, and the true colours of the hypocrites had begun to show.