VI
THE JEWS OF KHEIBAR
Nearly all of the people who live in the country of the camel are Mohammedans, but it was not always so. Before the days of Mohammed, the prophet, there were very many Christians in Arabia and also many Jews. The former lived mostly in the southern part of the great peninsula, but the Jews had large settlements not only in the country of the Queen of Sheba—of which we have heard—but also at Mecca and Medina, which are now the two sacred cities, and especially in the country north of Medina, Kheibar. Some of these children of Israel came to Arabia at the time of the captivity when they were driven from their own country by persecution, and settled down in the rich and fertile valleys of Nejran and on the hills of Yemen. Others came to Arabia about the time when Jesus Christ was born.
There are Jews in Arabia still but not nearly as many as in the olden time. Their condition, too, is very sad and they are often sorely oppressed by the Moslems. There is no missionary working among them at present, although they have been visited by colporteurs who brought them the New Testament in the Hebrew language so that they might read for themselves the story of the Saviour Jesus Christ. I once had the pleasure of talking to a large company of Jews in the capital city of Yemen, Sanaa, and it was very touching to realize that these Jews were not of the number whose ancestors rejected Jesus and led Him out to be crucified, because as they themselves told me their forefathers had left the Holy Land many, many years before Jesus was born at Bethlehem.
But I want to tell you about the Jews of Kheibar. Northeast of the city where Mohammed lies buried, Medina, there is a barren stretch of rocky country and in the midst of it a valley where there are some springs of water and where with great toil it is possible to produce some vegetation. Here it was that thousands of Jews settled in the days before Mohammed, tilled the soil and lived happily until the Arabian prophet with his fierce warriors came preaching a new religion and filling the valley with the dead bodies of those who would not accept it.
THE CASTLE OF KHEIBAR.
You may read the story of this expedition of Mohammed in the history of his life. So bloody was the battle fought between the Jews and the Moslems that the Bedouins of that region when they see the iron rust on the banks of the brooks still say: “Look how the earth is purging itself of the much blood of the Jews that was spilled in the conquest of Kheibar.” According to the stories told by the Arab writers it was a desperate struggle. The Jews did not give Mohammed, the prophet, any easy victory. To defend themselves against Bedouin robbers and against assault they had built in the midst of their valley several castles or forts, one of which was so wonderful that it has very often been celebrated among the Arabs. It was called the Castle of Kheibar or Kamoos. An old Jewish warrior told the people that if they would build a fort in exact obedience to his written command it would be so strong that no enemy could overcome them or enter the fort. And these were his instructions: “Build the castle with eight gates and only one entrance; the walls eightfold and square; the entrance from the fifth; the second, the fourth; the third, the first; the fourth, the second; the fifth, the third; the sixth and seventh and eighth unchanged.” I will not leave you to puzzle over these strange instructions. An Arab friend of mine who told me the story drew the castle for me and here you have it. If you will try to find your way to the keep of the castle where the Jews defended themselves, you will agree that it is not surprising that it took Mohammed twenty days to storm it. When the castle was taken, the booty divided and the captives slain in a most cruel manner, Mohammed took Safia, the widow of the chief of Kheibar to his tent as his captive. Zainab, the sister of the warrior who fought against Mohammed and who herself had lost her brother, her husband and her father in the battle, tried the next day to kill the prophet of Arabia by sending him some mutton into which she had put poison, but her attempt at vengeance was not successful. The Moslems say it was a miracle that their prophet escaped.
The conquest of the Jews was complete, for all the Jews that escaped from the siege of Kheibar were obliged to turn Moslems and there never was freedom for the Jew again in all Arabia. They are generally heavily taxed, have no redress against abuse and repression and are looked down upon by all the Moslem population. In the capital city of Sanaa they are not even allowed to carry arms or to ride in the streets. They must live in a separate part of the town and draw water from wells of their own.
Water carts used at Aden to bring water from the wells to the city