User:Devotus/Banu Qurayza Analysis

Influence on Islamic public international law (Siyar)
Muslim jurists were acquainted with the incident regarding the demise of the Banu Qurayza and based their judgements and decrees on the account of the demise. The well known Muslim jurist Ash-Shafii (767-820), for example, examined the incident and on this basis elucidated the problem of individual and collective punishment: he decreed that those that remained passive while being in the territory of a people breaking a compact with the Muslims should be punished even if they themselves did not actively participate. Another famous scholar, al-Mawardi (972-1058), put the incident in a religious context, opining that it was a religious duty of the prophet and his companions to kill the Qurayza. According to Meir J. Kister, al-Mawardi's opinion reflects the current Sunni position regarding the reason for the demise of the Qurayza. Ash-Shaybani (750-805) uses the case of the Qurayza to argue that the killing of the fighting men is permitted after the fighting has ceased. He furthermore explains that it is preferable to execute the men with their hands untied; but if there should be the danger of the men fleing or killing a Muslim they have to be executed with their hands tied. He also emphasizes that the suffering of the men designated to be executed should be lessened by providing them with food and water; here ash-Shaybani has recourse to the prophet as precedent, for he ordered that the captives of the Qurayza should be given dates, be allowed to rest at mid-day and that their execution be delayed so that it would not take place at the hottest time of the day.

However, the demise of the Qurayza was no model for normal behaviour of Muslim rulers towards their Jews subjects: In spite of the religious polemics the following principle was established, in the form of a saying ascribed to the Prophet: "'He who wrongs a Jew or a Christian will have myself (Muhammad) as his accuser on the day of judgement.'"

In accordance with this principle the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab is supposed to have told his successor on his deathbed to "abide by the rules and regulations concerning the Dhimmis of God and His Apostle, to fulfill their contracts completely and fight for them and not to tax them beyond their capabilities."