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Qurayẓa (Banū)
One of the Jewish tribes of Medina and traditionally part of the triad that also
includes the Banū Qaynuqāʿ (q.v.) and the Banū l- Naḍīr (see naḍīr *banū al-]).
Although the origin of the Qurayẓa, like that of the other Medinan Jews, and their
coming to Medina (q.v.) are not known with certainty, the sources provide some
information concerning their role in pre-Islamic times. Thus, members of the
Qurayẓa allegedly persuaded the Yemenite ruler Asʿad Abū Qarib (Karib!) not to
attack Medina and caused him to convert to Judaism (see jews and judaism; yemen;
pre-islamic arabia and the qurʾān; south arabia, religion in pre-islamic). Other reports
state that in pre-Islamic Medina, the Qurayẓa were in constant conflict with their
fellow tribe of the Banū l-Naḍīr (cf. q 2:84 f.), yet both are often called “brothers”
and commonly referred to as the “two Israelite tribes” (al- sibṭān) or the “two priest
clans” (al- kāhinān). In pre-Islamic poetry (see poetry and poets ), the Qurayẓa are
variously mentioned, and the poems of their own members were, as it seems,
collected in a (now lost) Kitāb Banī Qurayẓa (see Āmidī, Muʾtalif, 211). The area
inhabitated by the Qurayẓa — and their sub-clans such as the Banū Kaʿb b. Qurayẓa
and the Banū ʿAmr b. Qurayẓa — on the outer fringes of Medina, most notably the
Wādī Mahzūr, can be assessed from geographical accounts, and a Medinan cemetery
as well as a later mosque, built upon their land, were known by their name. Some
details in the story of Salmān al-Fārisī suggest that the Qurayẓa had parental ties
with the Jews of Wādī l-Qurā in the northern Ḥijāz.
The conflict of the Muslims with the Qurayẓa after the “Battle of the Ditch” in 5/627
is the most conspicuous story of the Prophet's dealing with the Medinan Jews in the
prophetic biography tradition ( sīra; see sīra and the qurʾān). The Muslim attack and
siege of the Qurayẓa was a response to their open, probably active support of the
Meccan pagans and their allies during that battle (see mecca; polytheism and
atheism; hypocrites and hypocrisy). After bloody fighting the Jews surrendered and
the male members of the Qurayẓa were executed, the women and children taken
captive and sold into slavery (see captives; slaves and slavery); and the booty (q.v.)
gained — money, weapons and land — were distributed among the Muslim fighters,
according to most sources. The execution itself, during which between 400 and 900
men were killed, is largely undisputed in the Islamic sources and has aroused much
dismay in the western perception of early Islam. It is not the Prophet himself,
however, who is portrayed as having pronounced the condemnation but rather his
Companion, Saʿd b. Muʿādh (see companions of the prophet), who was fatally
wounded by an arrow in the battle before this event took place. The qurʾānic
passage commonly associated with these events is q 33:26 f. (see expeditions and
battles; fighting; bloodshed):
And he brought down those of the People of the Book (q.v.) who supported them
from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you slew, some you made
captive. And he bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their
possessions, and a land that you never trod; God is powerful over everything.
Rayḥāna l-Quraẓiyya, of uncertain parentage but most probably belonging to the
Banū ʿAmr b. Qurayẓa, was captured after the Banū Qurayẓa episode. She then either
became the Prophet's concubine or, according to many reports, was married to him
and later divorced; she eventually died before the Prophet (see wives of the
prophet; concubines). The Islamic tradition knows a number of descendants from
the Qurayẓa by name, most famous among them being the traditionist Muḥammad
b. Kaʿb al-Quraẓī, who was born a Muslim and died in Medina in 120/738 or some
years before (see ḥadīth and the qurʾān). Others include his father Kaʿb b. Asad b.
Sulaym and his brother Isḥāq, as well as ʿAṭiyya al-Quraẓī, al-Zubayr (?) b. ʿAbd alRaḥmān b. al-Zabīr, ʿAlī b. Rifāʿa and the progeny of Abū Malik al-Quraẓī. This
suggests that, in contrast to what is reported in the Islamic tradition, several male
persons of the Qurayẓa did survive the conflict in Medina, probably because of their
young age at the time.
Marco Schöller
Bibliography
Primary (All sīra writings provide information about the Qurayẓa; the “orthodox” version of
events, adopted in most later sources, is that by Ibn Isḥāq. Much material contains works about
the so-called “occasions of revelation” [asbāb al-nuzūl], and further information is found in many
Qurʾān commentaries: see in particular the classical works of tafsīr at q 2:84 f., 214; 3:124 f.;
5:42, 51 f.; 8:27 f., 56 f.; 33:26 f. and 59:2 f. Additional notices are found in legal compendia,
especially in the “war chapters,” and ḥadīth collections. Even dictionaries [s.v. q-r-ẓ] and
geographical writings yield interesting notices. On Rayḥāna al-Quraẓiyya see also writings on the
Prophet's wives and concubines. The following is only a partial list of these works.):
al-Āmidī, Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan b. Bishr, al-Muʾtalif wa-l-mukhtalif, Cairo 1961, 211
(for the abovementioned Kitāb Banī Qurayẓa)
al-Dimyāṭī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin b. Khalaf, Kitāb Nisāʾ rasūl Allāh, ed. F. Saʿd, Beirut
1989 (on Rayḥāna al-Quraẓiyya)
Ibn Durayd, Kitāb Jamharat al-lugha, 3 vols., Beirut 1987-8 (a dictionary)
Ibn Isḥāq, Sīra
Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume
Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Ṭabarī, al-Simṭ al-thamīn fī manāqib ummahāt al-muʾminīn, var.
eds., e.g. Cairo 1996 (on Rayḥāna al-Quraẓiyya)
Secondary:
W. Arafat, New light on the story of Banū Qurayẓa and the Jews of Medina, in jras
n.s. (1976), 100-7
J. Bouman, Der Koran und die Juden. Die Geschichte einer Tragödie, Darmstadt
1990, 73 f.
M. Kister, The massacre of the Banū Qurayẓa.
A reexamination of a tradition, in jsai 8 (1986), 61-96
M. Lecker, Jews and Arabs in pre- and early Islamic Arabia, Aldershot 1998
id., Muslims, Jews and pagans. Studies on early Islamic Medina, Leiden 1995
id., Did Muḥammad conclude treaties with the Jewish tribes Naḍīr, Qurayẓa and
Qaynuqāʿ? in ios 17 (1997), 29-36
M. Schöller, Exegetisches Denken und Prophetenbiographie. Eine quellenkritische
Analyse der Sīra-Überlieferung zu Muḥammads Konflikt mit den Juden, Wiesbaden
1998
W.M. Watt, The condemnation of the Jews of Banū Qurayẓah, in mw 42 (1952), 16071
A.J. Wensinck, Muhammad and the Jews of Medina, trans. W.H. Behn, Berlin 19822
[Print Version: Volume 4, page 333, column 2]
Citation:
Schöller, Marco. "Qurayẓa (Banū)." Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. General Editor:
Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Brill, 2011. Brill
Online.