1. Asma-bint Marwán.
2. Abú Afak.
3. Káb-ibn Ashraf.
4. Sofian-ibn Khalid.
5. Abú Ráfe.
6. Oseir-ibu Zárim.
7. The attempted assassination of Abú Sofian.
45. Mr. Poole quoted.
Before reviewing the truth and falsity of evidence in each of these cases, and showing how far the Prophet was privy to them, I will avail myself of a quotation from Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, who has remarked with his usual deep discernment and accurate judgment, in his Introduction to Mr. E.W. Lane's Selections from the Koran:
"The execution of the half-dozen marked Jews is generally called assassination, because a Muslim was sent secretly to kill each of the criminals. The reason is almost too obvious to need explanation. There were no police or law-courts, or even courts-martial, at Medina; some one of the followers of Mohammad must therefore be the executer of the sentence of death, and it was better it should be done quietly, as the executing of a man openly before his clan would have caused a brawl and more bloodshed and retaliation, till the whole city had become mixed up in the quarrel. If secret assassination is the word for such deeds, secret assassination was a necessary part of the internal government of Medina. The men must be killed, and best in that way. In saying this I assume that Mohammad was cognisant of the deed, and that it was not merely a case of private vengeance; but in several instances the evidence that traces these executions to Mohammad's order is either entirely wanting or is too doubtful to claim our credence."[205]
1.—Asma-bint Marwán.
46. Asma-bint Marwán.
"The first victim was a woman," writes Major Osborn, "Asma, daughter of Marwan; she had composed some satirical verses on the Prophet and his followers; and Muhammad, moved to anger, said publicly: 'Who will rid me of this woman?' Omeir, a blind man, but an ardent Moslem, heard the speech, and at dead of night crept into the apartment where Asma lay asleep surrounded by her little ones; he felt about in the darkness till his hand rested on the sleeping woman, and then, the next instance his sword was plunged into her breast."[206]
The story of Asma's murder has been variously related by the Arabian writers, and the testimonies on which it rests are contradictory and conflicting in themselves. Wákidi, Ibn Sád, and Ibn Hishám relate a very strange thing about it, that she was killed by Omeir the blind at the dead of night. A blind person commits murder in a stranger's house during nocturnal quietness, and is not arrested by any one! Doctor Weil writes, that Omeir was a former husband of Asma, and the origin of the murder may be traced to a long-brooding and private malice. Ibn Asákar in his history (vide Seerat Shámee) relates that Asma was a fruit-seller; some person of her tribe asked her if she had better fruits. She said 'yes,' and entered her house followed by that man. She stooped down to take something up, the person turned right and left, and seeing that nobody was near, gave a violent blow on her head, and thus dispatched her.
47. The story deserves not our belief.
The historians even relate that Omeir, being offended at the verses composed by Asma, had volunteered himself of his own free-will to kill her.[207] She might have been a sacrifice to envy or hatred by the sword of her assassin, but Mohammad really had no hand in her death. She had made herself an outlaw by deluding the people of Medina to a breach of treaty with the Moslems, whereby the rights and jurisdictions of Jews and Moslems were definitively settled.