Banu Qurayza: The Babi Yar of Arabia

As a scholar of genocide, Babi Yar has always stood out in my memory as it was not only a site of one of the worst atrocities committed in the Second World War, it was also a site that human rights activists fought for decades to preserve site in our memory and served as an important event for Holocaust scholars to understand the Nazi Leaderships drastic decision to initiate the Final Solution against the Jewish population of Europe.  However, there is another massacre of the Jewish people that should be bought to light and preserved in memory, and that is the Massacre of the Banu Qurayza Jews of Arabia at the hands of Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith.  This massacre, like Babi Yar, forever changed the dynamic of the relations between Judaism & Islam.  To understand the dynamic between the two massacres, some background on each one must be provided.  

In September 29-30, 1941, the Nazi Death Squads committed one of the worst mass killings in world history.  On these days, over 33,000 Jews from Kiev were taken out of the city to a Ravine known as Babi Yar.  Once there, all the Jews, every man, woman, and child, were systematically murdered by firing squads and buried in the ravine.  The massacre was overseen by Paul Blobel, leader of Sonderkommando 4a in Einsatzgruppen C.  With a well thought out campaign, Blobel's Einzatzgruppen along with SS and Ukrainian auxiliaries led thousands of Jews to their deaths.  Babi Yar became one of the best known atrocities committed by the Nazi death squads during the Holocaust, but it was not the only one.  By the time the Red Army retook control of the Ukraine in late 1943, nearly 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews fell victim to the "Final Solution."  

Babi Yar illustrated the dramatic change in Nazi policy toward the Jews after the invasion of the Soviet Union.  It transformed from massive repression, exploitation, enforced isolation, harsh subjugation, and random execution into mass extermination.  The Killing Fields of the Ukraine and the Soviet territories as a whole illustrated the beginning of the final Nazi doctrine against the Jewish people.  Babi Yar grew to infamy not only because it was the site of one of the largest mass killings of the entire war, but because it was also marked with a long-standing fight to preserve its memory.  This fight for preservation was waged not only for the sake of honoring those who tragically lost their lives and for preserving the memory, but it also serves as the focal point for Holocaust survivors to understand the factors that ultimately led the Nazi leadership to enact the "Final Solution" of the Jewish people of Europe.  Babi Yar marked the point when the Nazi position on the Jewish people became final, absolute, and unchangeable.  It set the precedent for all future policy of the Nazis toward the Jews throughout all of occupied Europe.  Ironically, a similar massacre in Arabia in the year 627 at the hands of Muhammad's military force marked the same precedent that the descendants of his followers was to show to the Jewish people for any an all future interaction between the two communities.  

The Banu Qurayza massacre took place after the Battle of the Trench which took place in the Spring of 627 A.D.  In this battle,  Muhammad and his Muslim forces who were based in the Arabian City of Medina, fended off an assault by pagan Arab forces from Mecca.  Prior to the advent of Islam, Arabia was a region of great religious diversity.  Pagan Arabs, Jews, heretical Christian groups (Nestorians & Ebionites) and Orthodox Christians all lived in relative peace, though tribal warfare was a common theme in the region.  In the years prior to this battle, the city of Mecca witnessed the rise of a New Faith, a faith known today as Islam.  The founder, Muhammad, initially was a preacher with a few hundred followers who eventually fled Mecca due to persecution.  After settling in Medina, he began launching armed raids against Meccan trade caravans and gradually gained power.  

Muhammad initially pursued friendly relations with Jewish communities, but later turned against them when the Jews did not accept him as a prophet of God.  Muhammad began to covet their land and began attacking Jewish communities in regions like Khaybar and Nadii, seizing their possessions and demanding tribute money to stay and remain unmolested by his forces.  However, after the Battle of the Trench, Muhammad turned his wrath on the neighboring Jewish community of Banu Qurayza.  Initially, the pagan Arabs proposed an alliance with the Jewish community against a common enemy, but this attempt broke down as neither side was able to facilitate complete trust in the other, leading the Banu Qurayza to remain neutral during the battle.  Nevertheless, Muhammad attacked the community and demanded an unconditional surrender.  After the surrender, Muhammad ordered that their possessions be taken as spoils of war and the women and children taken as slaves.  The Muslim scholar Shaybani (Died 803 A.D.) wrote in Siyar that “I heard the Apostle of God in the campaign against Banu Qurayza saying ‘He [of the enemy] who has reach puberty should be killed, but he who has not should be spared.’”  With Muhammad supervising the execution, over 800 Jewish men and boys where taken to the massive trench that was dug, publicly beheaded, and buried in a mass grave.  

This atrocity became the most well-known mass killing in what should be termed as the "Arabian Holocaust."  After Muhammad conquered his Meccan enemies in 630 A.D., he ordered his followers to solidify Arabia under Islam and to expel all non-Muslim believers from the region.  All Jewish communities, including those who had previously surrendered and agreed to pay tribute in exchange for living in peace, were expelled from the region.  Muhammad's actions against the Banu Qurayza is often not mentioned in the historical field and is usually only mentioned by scholars and and critics who seek to challenge perceived "humanity" of Muhammad, but it is something that must be studied carefully as it sets a precedent for much of the history that was to follow.

Historian K.S. Lal, who wrote of the history of slavery during the Islamic conquest of India revealed in his writings that the Massacre of the Banu Qurayza set the precedence for future Islamic war policies.  In the year 1195 for instance, Raja Blim was attacked by Islamic forces and over 20,000 women and children were taken as slaves.  In 1202, Kalinjar was also attacked with another 50,000 taken as slaves.  It became the standard practice in the region for fighting age men to be put to the sword while the women and children would be taken as "spoils of war."   The massacre also forever changed how Islamic theological teachings in regards to the Jewish People.  Former Muslim and former Al-Azhar Univeristy Scholar Mark Gabriel explained in his writings that the change in policy toward the Jews is detailed in the Qur'an and verified in the Islamic Hadith writings:

The Surah's detailing the Jewish Communities rejection of Muhammad is explained in Surah 4:46 & 26:196-197, so Allah cursed them in Surah 5:78.  Surah 60:13 commanded Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as friends and Surah 2:149 ordered Muslims to stop praying facing Jerusalem and to now pray facing the Kaaba.  The negative teachings continued with Surah 5:18 condemning Jews and Christians for saying that they are children of God and with Surah 5:64 cursed the Jews for saying Allah is weak and for spreading corruption in the land.  Surah 3:110 then went on to decree that Muslims, and not Jews, are the chosen people.  Surah 2:159-162 gives the clear message that unless the Jews join the Islamic system as believers, a terrible fate would await them, and so it did.  Muhammad's decree to simply expel all Jews from the region is revealed in the Hadith of Sahih Muslim 1767: "I will expel the Jews and Christians from Arabia and will not leave any but Muslim."  Most astonishingly of all is the Hadith of Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177: which states "Allah's Messenger said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."  This verse is also written in the Hamas Charter, which shows that terrorists take this decree very seriously.  

Babi Yar set the precedence for the Final Solution.  It illustrated that the Nazi policy toward the Jews has now been solidified, it was to be a policy of complete and total extermination.  The Banu Qurayza likewise illustrated Muhammad's ambitions in regards to the Jews.  Any perceived to be a threat were to be annihilated, while the women and children were to be taken as spoils of war and brought into the belief system, by force or coercion if necessary, and this is a campaign that would have to be waged until the Day of Judgement.  Today, our politically correct society does not want to make this connection, often claiming that it's unfair to taint an entire people in this manner.  However, one must remember the truth about the Holocaust.  The truth being that there were many who opposed it, and some who even risked (and in some cases gave) their lives in an attempt to stop it, but that didn't stop those seduced by the evils of Nazism from carrying it out.  At the same time, many Muslims in the world have no animosity toward the Jews, or anybody for that matter.  Many are ordinary people who just want to live their lives in peace.  Nevertheless, the calls for Jihad against the Jews is being preached all over the world, much as the Nazis preached for war and ultimately annihilation against what they perceived as "International Jew."  Unfortunately, many are being seduced by the evils of Jihad just as they were seduced by the evils of Nazism.  If we repeat the same failures today that we committed in the 1930's, the "Day of Judgement" may finally come.  

Sources:

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Peterson, Joan.  “Iterations of Babi Yar.”  Journal of Ecumenical Studies.  46:4 (2011): 585-598.  Accessed February 1, 2014 from http://navigator-wcupa.passhe.edu/login?url=http://= search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=70640537&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Soumerai, Eve Nussbaum and Carol D. Schulz.  “Einsatzgruppen in the East.”  In Daily Life        During the Holocaust.  Westport, Connecticut: The Greenwood Press, 1998.  

Spencer, Robert.  The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.  New York: Post Hill Press, 2018.

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