These episodes relating to the Beni Kainuka and the Beni an-Nadir
are only two of many like illustrations, that might be discussed
at wearisome length, which demonstrated two significant facts:
Mohammed had succeeded in ridding Medina of its indwelling foes,
and he had decided to destroy the Jewish settlements throughout
all Arabia. The massacre of the Beni Koreiza followed as a matter
of course; and in 628 the last Hebraic stronghold of much account
was also dismantled. In the summer of that year Mohammed, heading
sixteen hundred men, pounced upon the opulent city of Kheibar, which
lay about one hundred miles to the north of Medina--a distance
that shows how wide the sweep of the Prophet’s victorious arm had
reached. The motive which inspired him to assault this people
appears to have sprung from the consideration that they had failed
to avenge the murder of one of their own tribesmen by a Moslem;
for the Prophet may well have believed that such an aggressively
peace-loving clan merited the severest punishment. In any case, they
were not true believers; and, at this stage of Islam, that fact in
itself constituted a more than ample pretext for the opening of
hostilities. Kheibar’s forts fell in rapid succession before the
impetuous rush of the now veteran Moslem army. As Mohammed gaily
charged from one conquered stronghold to another, he continually
raised the rapturous shout: “Allah Akbar! Great is the Lord! Truly
when I light upon the coasts of any People, woe unto them in that
day!” After the conquest was complete, Kinana, chieftain of Kheibar,
was tortured in the hope that he would reveal his hidden treasure.
Fires were burnt upon his breast until he was so nearly dead that
he could not have confessed even had he so desired; and Mohammed,
who realized that he had carried the thing too far, ordered his
head to be chopped off.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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