The rest of the Bani Koreiza,—male adults, women, and children,—were either liberated or got themselves ransomed. We read in Oyoon-al-Asar by Ibn Sayyad-al-Nas some account of the ransom. Osman-bin-Affan gathered much money by the transaction. But Sir W. Muir quotes from Hishamee, that the rest of the women and children were sent to be sold among the Bedouin tribes of Najd, in exchange of horse and arms.[252] But there is no authority for this story. Abul Mo'tamar Soleiman, in his Campaigns of Mohammad, gives another account which is more probable. He writes:—
"Out of what was captured from Bani Koreiza Mohammad took seventeen horses and distributed them among his people. The rest he divided into two halves. One-half he sent with Sád bin Obádd to Syria, and the other half with Ans bin Quízí to the land of Ghatafán, and ordered that they may be used there for breeding purposes. They did so, and got good horses."[253]
71. The exaggerated number of the persons executed.
The number of male adults executed has been much exaggerated, though it is immaterial, when an execution duly authorized by the international law of a country takes place, to consider the smallness or greatness of the number. I cannot do better than quote Moulvie Ameer Ali of Calcutta on the subject, who has very judiciously criticised the same: "Passing now to the men executed," he says, "one can at once see how it has been exaggerated. Some say they were 400; others have carried the number even up to 900. But Christian historians generally give it as varying from 700 to 800. I look upon this as a gross exaggeration. Even 400 would seem an exaggerated number. The traditions agree in making the warlike materials of the Bani Koreiza consist of 300 cuirasses, 500 bucklers, 1,500 sabres, &c. In order to magnify the value of the spoil, the traditions probably exaggerated these numbers.[254] But taking them as they stand, and remembering that such arms are always kept greatly in excess of the number of fighting men, I am led to the conclusion that the warriors could not have been more than 200 or 300. The mistake probably arose from confounding the whole body of prisoners who fell into the hands of the Moslems with those executed."[255]
Even 200 seems to be a large number, as all of the prisoners were put up for the night in the house of Bint-al-Haris,[256] which would have been insufficient for such a large number.
Some Miscellaneous Objections Refuted.
1.—Omm Kirfa.
72. The execution of Omm Kirfa for brigandage.
The barbarous execution of Omm Kirfa, a female, who was notorious as the mistress of a nest of robbers, by tying her each leg to a separate camel and being torn asunder, is not a fact. It is only mentioned by Katib Wáckidi, and is not to be found in any other earliest account of Wáckidi, Ibn Is-hak, and Ibn Hisham. Even Katib Wáckidi does not say that the execution was ordered by Mohammad, and it is not fair on the part of Sir W. Muir to hold Mohammad an accomplice in the ferocious act, because he reads of no disapprobation expressed by the Prophet at such an inhuman treatment.[257] But in the first place the narration is a mere fiction; and secondly, the traditions are, as a rule, always incomplete; in one place they are given shorter, and in another longer, according to the circumstances of the occasion on which they are originally recited. Ibn Hisham relates, that "Zaid-bin-Harisa ordered Kays-bin-Mosahhar to execute Omm Kirfa, so he executed her with a violent execution." ('Katlan Aneefan,' p. 980.) He does not relate that Mohammad was even informed of the execution after the party had returned from this terrible mission. I think the word 'aneef' (violent or severe), as used originally by the narrator, might have been the cause of the growth of the story of executing by tying up to two camels, by way of a gratuitous explanation or glossary, as another tradition relates that she was tied to the tails of two horses (vide Koostalanee in his Commentary on Bokharee, Vol. III, p. 307).
2.—Urnee Robbers.