Today it’s little known that Islam’s holy city Medina was predominantly Jewish city in the time of Mohammad. During that time the city was called Yatrib and it was inhabited by three large Jewish tribes: Banu-Nadir (or “Sons of Nadir,”), Banu-Korayzeh, and Banu-Kainuka. Consistent with Torah-based lifestyle of tilling the land, these tribes engaged in Date palm agriculture, unlike their Bedouin non-Jewish counterparts in the region, who made a living thru caravan trade from Yemen to Syria. Politically Arabia and Israel seem worlds apart but in reality the distance between Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city and Medina is the same as between Boston and Washington DC.
This land where Mecca and Medina stand, the Arabian stretch along the Red Sea, is the same land that was inhabited in the Biblical times by Medianites. The most famous Medianite was Yitro (Jethro) – Moses’ father-in-law. He famously joined the Israelite camp and converted to Judaism, after which he “returned to his people” (Exodus 18:27) to convert them to Judaism. Even though connection between Yatrib (Medina) and Yitro(Jethro) is more phonetic than etymological, due to the one letter variance in their roots, it is certainly an interesting conjecture based on circumstantial evidence of Jewish presence in what was historically Jethro’s homeland. The only scholarly consensus is that Yatrib is a non-Arabic word, so we know that Yatrib and its predominantly Jewish population’s origins predate Arabic culture in that land.
Muslim conquest of Medina in 630CE was of the first of Muslim conquests. Prior to becoming mighty enough to conquer the city, Mohammad tried desperately to endear the Jews of Yatrib to his newfangled religion. He sought after their validation and acceptance. For 16 months, Mohammad prayed with his few early followers along with the Jews of Yatrib in the direction of Jerusalem. After that time, Mohammad realized that Jews will not ever accept him as prophet despite his initial pleading and later threats – Jews insisted that he does not match criteria of prophet in Torah. When Mohammad took over Medina, he beheaded hundreds of Jewish men there, giving the remaining choice to leave, convert or die. His next act was to attempt and erase the Jewish past of the city by renaming it ‘Medina’. Medina means simply “city”. ‘Medina’ also sounds like tribute to Medianite- the pre-Judaic pagan past of the region. Incidentally, this is also when Mohammad turned his prayers from Jerusalem toward the pagan Kabba Stone in Mecca; it remains so until this day.
These acts of Mohamad vis-à-vis Jews of Yatrib (Medina) are clear messages from him to his followers, echoing all these fourteen centuries later. Just as Mohammad showed he cannot co-exist with Jews but must convert, erase or replace them, set the tone for Islam ever since in its attitude towards non-Muslims in general. Throughout the existence of Islam, its spread into the world, and most notably today, it is being experienced in the form of jihad- “holy war” on non-Muslims. The first to experience jihad were the Jews of Yatrib. The polemic nature of Islam evolved from the insecurity Mohammad experienced in being rejected by these Arabian Jews, and even by his own tribe members (Tribe of Qurayish). Some of his tribe could not understand why he thinks he is ‘messenger’ if his message consists of Judaism and Christianity, with which they were already familiar thru hearsay. It is important to understand that this episode in Mohammad’s evolution from unknown preacher of new faith to military and political leader impacted Islam as political ideology and as religion, making the two inseparable. Tracing the roots of this union helps understand how and why Islam majority countries simply have no substantial separation of “church and state”, which impacts social and governmental structure fundamentally.
Source: http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/09/16/muhammads-first-jihad/
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