Answering Objections to Islam · Prophetic Biography

The Banu Qurayza Judgement

In short

1.The tribe picked the judge themselves, and the Prophet (SAW) accepted their choice.
2.The charge was betrayal during a siege that almost destroyed Medina, under the written treaty of Medina.
3.Sa'd's ruling follows Deuteronomy 20:12-14 — the law their own scripture held.

The claim being examined

Ibn Ishaq's (PBUH) biography records that the fighting men of Banu Qurayza were executed after the Battle of the Trench. People call this a massacre ordered by the Prophet (SAW).

The Islamic position

The Prophet did not pass the sentence. Banu Qurayza asked to be judged by Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, their own former ally, and he gave the ruling. What he ruled matches the law of the Torah for a city under siege that breaks its treaty.

Analysis

This was a wartime treason case, judged under a written agreement the tribe had signed, by a judge the accused chose. To weigh it fairly you have to place it in the warfare of that region and century, where the closest legal parallel is the biblical law of herem — the command to destroy a city that fights against Israel. The numbers are also disputed. They come from Ibn Ishaq (PBUH) without a chain of narrators strong enough for standards, and some historians think they are inflated. None of this makes the event comfortable to modern ears. It does show it was a legal judgement of its time, not personal cruelty.

From the Bible

Hebrew

If a besieged city makes war against you, you shall put all its males to the sword — the law under which Sa'd ruled.

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From the Sunnah

Banu Qurayza accepted the judgement of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh.

Sources

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