I was going through one of Robert Spencer's latest Qur'an blogs: Surah 33. He discusses the abolishment of adopted children taking the names of their foster parents, the Battle of the Trench, and the marriage of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, to Zainab bint Jahsh, may God be pleased with her. I'm going to discuss the Battle of the Trench and the Prophet's marriage to Zainab, may God be pleased with her.
Let's start with what Spencer had to say on the Battle of the Trench:
As the Quraysh, along with another tribe, the Ghatafan (known collectively in Islamic tradition as “the Confederates,” as in v. 20), laid siege to Medina, the trench prevented the invaders from entering the city. Yet the Muslims were unable to force them to end the siege. Then to make matters even worse, a tribe of Jews in Medina, the Banu Qurayzah, broke their covenant with Muhammad (perhaps after seeing how Muhammad had exiled two other Jewish tribes, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir) and began collaborating with the Quraysh...
The Qurayzah agreed to attack the Muslims from one side while the Quraysh besieged them from the other. But then a new convert to Islam, Nu’aym bin Mas’ud, came to Muhammad offering to trick the Confederate tribes, since his own people, the Ghatafan, did not know that he had become a Muslim. Muhammad responded, according to Ibn Ishaq: “You are only one man among us, so go and awake distrust among the enemy to draw them off us if you can, for war is deceit.” Nu’aym’s deception turned the Confederates against each other and against their Jewish allies; soon afterward, they ended the siege. Nu’aym’s deception had saved Islam.
There are two core issues here:
2. Nu'aym's slick double agent move.
Notice how Spencer is quick to find an excuse for the Bani Qurayzah in their selling out of the Muslims. Imagine if the opposite had occurred - if the Muslims had sold out the Jews - what Spencer's reaction would be. The answer to that is obvious and needs no mentioning.
The Bani Qurayzah were the third of three Jewish tribes the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, had betray him. The first were the Bani Qaynuqah who were exiled shortly after the Battle of Badr for mistreating a Muslim woman in the marketplace and then openly declaring threats of war against the Prophet and the Muslims. The second tribe, the Bani Nadir, were exiled for plotting to assassinate the Prophet not so long after the Battle of Uhud. Their plan to assassinate the Prophet was discovered and the Muslims laid siege to their fortress. They eventually gave up and were exiled from Madinah.
What the Bani Qurayzah did though was out right treachery. They were signatories of the constitution of Madinah (as were the Bani Qaynuqah and Bani Nadir) and swore to defend the city against attackers. By siding with the Quraysh they believed they would be able to rid themselves of the Muslims once and for all - despising the fact that the Arabs of Madinah had become followers of the Prophet and no longer sought the alliance and friendship of their tribe like they used to. So their men were executed for this blatant treachery and the women and children and property distributed as war booty. If the Bani Qurayzah had not committed open treason then they would not have been killed - but they did and suffered the consequences of their actions. Could you imagine the fate of the British if they had double crossed the United States in WWII? They would have been executed along with the Nazis following the conclusion of the war.
As for Nu'aym's story, this is where the taqiyya/deception debate originates from. Notice that Nu'aym did what he did during a time of war. Similarly, the assassination of K'ab ibn Ashraf, a leader of the Bani Nadir who openly sided with the Quraysh by lamenting the loss of their leaders following the Battle of Badr in contravention of the treaty his tribe had signed with the Muslims (and who was warned by the Prophet to cease and desist), was done during a time of declared war. Now, setting aside allegations made by Spencer and others that Muslims can deceive non Muslims in order to overthrow non Muslim governments, Nu'aym's actions were nothing but typical espionage. Tricking your opponent during a time of war is not only common sense, but is a principle shared by many cultures and war strategists from time immemorial (including Sun Tzu who said "All warfare is based on deception" and Carl von Clausewitz who mentions a story about Fredrick the Great using deception to escape his enemy). This is what the Prophet's statement, "war is deceit," has always meant. To connote that this statement means what Spencer and others think it means is based upon nothing within Sunni sources. I asked Spencer this before - to provide Sunni sources that say Muslims can deceive non Muslims in order to over throw that non Muslim community's government. The only lying Muslims can do to non Muslims while in non Muslim lands or under the power of non Muslims is to lie in order to avoid physical punishment (the example of Ammar ibn Yasir is sufficient as an example).
As for taqiyya, Spencer didn't seem to care too much for my argument about that subject, where I demonstrated clearly based upon different tafsirs (the very one's Spencer uses) that "taqiyya" for Sunnis meant to avoid physical harm from non Muslims by the use of lying. The most glaring example of that from the Seerah is the story of Ammar ibn Yasir, who was tortured to the point of madness. He said whatever the Quraysh told him to say in order to save his life. The two verses Spencer cites as evidence that Sunnis practice taqiyya in the sense that he mentions - Muslims living in non Muslim lands lying about their true intentions for take over by posing as moderates - has no basis whatsoever in the Qur'an or the Sunnah of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him.
Let's move on to what he had to say about adoption and the Prophet's marriage to Zainab bint Jahsh, may God be pleased with her. I put in bold the points I will discuss below.
An adopted son should be known by the name of his natural father: he can never truly enter into his adoptive household (v. 5).Why was Allah so intent on ending the practice of adoption? Because Muhammad wanted to marry Zayd’s ex-wife, Zaynab bint Jahsh — and as a result of his dalliance with his former daughter-in-law, says Maududi, “the hypocrites and the Jews and the mushriks [unbelievers] who were already bent on mischief would get a fresh excuse to start a propaganda campaign against Islam.” So Allah here emphasizes that an adopted son cannot be a true son, and so by extension Zaynab was never really Muhammad’s daughter-in-law at all, and there is no cause for scandal...
Spencer continues the story in his next blog posting regarding Surah 33.
Allah sometimes seem anxious to grant his prophet his heart’s desires. In verses 28-35 Allah addresses Muhammad’s wives, enjoining upon them modesty and piety; then verses 36-37 refer obliquely to one of the most notorious incidents of Muhammad’s prophetic career. Zaynab bint Jahsh had been married to Muhammad’s adopted son Zayd bin Haritha. According to the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, Muhammad asked for Zaynab’s hand on behalf of Zayd; Zaynab and her brother “were loathe” to agree, “for they had thought that the Prophet (s) wanted to marry her himself.” But they ultimately agreed because of the admonition that “it is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path” (v. 36).
The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that Muhammad “caught sight” of Zaynab “and felt love for her,” while Zayd “lost his affection for her” and told Muhammad, “I want to part with her.” But Muhammad told him: “Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear Allah” (v. 37). Aisha later remarked, “If Allah’s Apostle were to conceal anything (of the Quran) he would have concealed this Verse” – because it shows him unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab. Then one day, according to Tabari, an esteemed, if not the most esteemed, historian and expositor of the Qur’an, Muhammad went to Zayd’s house and found her wearing only a chemise. Muhammad hastened away, murmuring, “Glory be to God the Almighty! Glory be to God, who causes hearts to turn!”
Soon afterward, according to Tabari, Muhammad was talking with Aisha when “a fainting overcame him.” Then he smiled and asked, “Who will go to Zaynab to tell her the good news, saying that God has married her to me?” He then recited the revelation Allah had just given him, scolding him for being concerned about what people might think and thus refusing to marry Zaynab (v. 37). The Tafsir al-Jalalayn explains what Allah is telling Muhammad here: “But you had hidden in your heart what God was to disclose, [what] He was to manifest of your love for her and of [the fact] that should Zayd part with her you would marry her, and you feared people, would say, ‘He has married his son’s wife!’, though God is worthier that you should fear Him, in all things, so take her in marriage and do not be concerned with what people say.”
Spencer says that the Prophet "wanted to marry" Zainab. He offers no evidence for such an allegation. In fact, Spencer provides evidence against his assertion where he quotes Aisha stating "because it shows him unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab." If he "wanted to marry" Zainab, then why was he "unwilling to accept Allah’s will, which was that he marry Zaynab"? It was well known that Zainab had hoped to be married to the Prophet prior to her being married to Zaid by the Prophet. Spencer could have said that, but his allegation that the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, wanted to marry her is not based on any evidence or proof. It's an assumption that Spencer is making. But even Spencer knows he can't say to know for sure what was in the Prophet's heart.
The historical account that Spencer mentions from Tabari has been discussed within the Sunni Muslim scholarly community for centuries and most have found the reports of the Prophet falling in love with Zainab to be not only inappropriate but flat out impossible. The idea that he all of a sudden fell in love with her upon catching sight of her at Zaid's house makes little sense considering the fact that she was his cousin and he had been seeing and visiting her for almost his whole life. Spencer should show all relevant opinions on this subject, especially the weightier ones. The most authoritative opinion on this subject in the Sunni sources comes from Qadi Iyad's ash-Shifa (pages 352-354). The wonderful folks at Sunni Path have recorded the relevant section here. In that section Qadi Iyad says that the only thing the Prophet hid in himself was the decree of Allah, not his love for Zainab, as the Tafsir al-Jalalayn stated:
Amr ibn Fa'id said that Az-Zuhri said that Jibril came to the Prophet to tell him that Allah would make him marry Zaynib bint Jahsh. That was what he concealed in himself. The commentators verify this by Allah's saying, "The command of Allah must be performed", i.e. you must marry her. This makes it clear that the only thing Allah revealed about the matter was that he was going to marry her. He indicated that what the Prophet concealed was part of what Allah had intimated to him.Then Spencer mentions that the Prophet had flirted with Zaynab. I don't know how that can be construed as dalliance. He had seen her in a chemise and then "hastened away" murmuring a prayer, i.e. he did not stick around once he saw her. He saw her in inappropriate attire and left. Nowhere does it say that he stuck around and chit chatted with her. I'll quote Qadi Iyad to conclude this discussion: "If we allow this, it must be that he saw her and suddenly thought her beautiful. Things like this are unobjectionable since it is the nature of the Banu Adam to find beauty beautiful. The sudden glance is forgiven. Then he restrained himself from her and told Zayd to keep her."
And God knows best.
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