I have already explained (from paras. 21-24) that these early expeditions, numbered 1 to 8, are not corroborated by authentic and trustworthy traditions, and I have also given the probable nature of those marked 4, 5 and 6.
It was impossible for Mohammad and his adherents, situated as they were, to make any hostile demonstrations or undertake a pillaging enterprise. The inhabitants of Medina, where the Prophet with his followers had sought a safe asylum, and at whose invitation he had entered their city, had solemnly bound themselves on sacred oaths to defend Mohammad, so long as he was not himself the aggressor, from his enemies as they would their wives and their children.[202] Mohammad, on his own part, had entered into a holy compact with them not to plunder or commit depredations.[203]
Upon these considerations it was impossible that the people of Medina would have permitted or overlooked the irruptions so often committed by Mohammad upon the caravans of the Koreish: much less would they have joined with their Prophet, had he or any of his colleagues ventured to do so. But granting that the Medinites allowed Mohammad to manifest enmity towards the Koreish by a display of arms, or that no restraint was put by them upon him when he encroached upon the territories of the neighbouring tribes, and that the caravans were molested without any grounds of justice, was it possible, I ask, for the people of Medina to avoid the troubles they would be necessarily involved in by the refuge they had given to their Prophet? They had long suffered from internal feuds, and the sanguinary conflict of Boás, a few years ago, which had paralyzed their country, and humiliated its citizens, was but too fresh in their memory yet.
43. The interceptions, if occurred, were justified by way of reprisals.
Let us suppose that these alleged interceptions of the Meccan caravans by the Moslems did actually take place, as related by the biographers of Mohammad, were they not all justified by the International Code of the Arabs, or the ancient usage and military law of nations. It has been proved beyond all dispute that the Meccans were the first aggressors in persecuting the Moslems, and expelling them from their dear homes at Mecca with the unbearable annoyance, they caused the converts of the new faith in the peaceful prosecution of their religion; taking all these causes of offence into consideration, as well as the International law and the law of Nature, the Moslems might be said to have law and justice both on their sides in waging war with their harassers for the restoration of their property and homes, and even in retaliating and making reprisals until they attained the object long sought by them. When the Meccans, on their own part, had first trumpeted hostility against the Moslems, the right of self-defence, as well as military necessity, compelled the latter to destroy their property, and obstruct the ways and channels of communication by which their traffic was prospering; for, "from the moment one State is at war with another, it has, on general principles, a right to seize on all the enemy's property of whatsoever kind and wheresoever found, and to appropriate the property thus taken to its own use, or to that of the captors."[204]
The alleged Assassinations.
44. Instances of alleged assassinations cited.
There were certain executions of culprits who had perpetrated the crime of high treason against the Moslem Commonwealth. These executions, and certain other cases of murders not grounded on any credible evidences, are narrated by European biographers of Mohammad as assassinations committed through the countenance and connivance which he lent them. They were about five or six in number, and they are styled assassinations from there being no trials of the prisoners by a judge and a jury, nor by any systematic court-martial. The punishment of death was inflicted upon the persons condemned, either from private enmity or for the unpardonable offence of high treason against the State, but it cannot be said, as I will hereafter show, that these so-called cases of assassinations had received the high sanction of Mohammad, or they were brought about at his direct instigation and assent for their commission. The alleged instances are as follows:—