Ibn ʿUmar relates that the Prophet said, “The office of K͟halīfah should be in the Quraish as long as there are two persons left in the tribe, one to be ruler and the other to be ruled.” (Mishkāt, book xxiv. c. xii.)
The Sharīf, or Sheriff of Makkah, is always of the Quraish tribe, but ever since the extinction of the Abbaside K͟halīfahs, the Sultāns of Turkey have held the office of K͟halīfah, who are not of this tribe. [[KHALIFAH].]
For an account of the Quraish, refer to Sir William Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. i. Intro. cxcv. See also article [ARABIA].
Muḥammad T̤āhir, in his Majmaʿu ʾl-Biḥār, vol. ii., p. 133, says Quraish is the name of a great marine monster which preys on fish, and was given to this tribe on account of its strength and importance amongst the tribes of Arabia. Quraish is the title of the CVIth Sūrah of the Qurʾān.
QURAIZ̤AH (قريظة). A tribe of Jews located near al-Madīnah in the time of Muḥammad. They at first professed to support his mission, but afterwards became disaffected. The Prophet asserted that he had been commanded by God to destroy them, and a complete massacre of the men took place, and the women and children were taken captive. The event is referred to at length in the XXXIIIrd Sūrah of the Qurʾān.
Sir William Muir thus records the event:—
“The men and women were penned up for the night in separate yards; they were supplied with dates, and spent the night in prayer, repeating passages from their Scriptures, and exhorting one another in constancy. During the night graves or trenches sufficient to contain the dead bodies of the men were dug in the chief market-place of the city. When these were ready in the morning, Mahomet, himself a spectator of the tragedy, gave command that the captives should be brought forth in companies of five or six at a time. Each company was made to sit down by the brink of the trench destined for its grave, and there beheaded. Party after party they were thus led out, and butchered in cold blood, till the whole were slain. One woman alone was put to death. It was she who threw the millstone from the battlements. For Zoheir, an aged Jew, who had saved some of his allies of the Bani Aus in the battle of Boâth, Thâbit interceded and procured a pardon, including the freedom of his family and restoration of his property. ‘But what hath become of all our chiefs,—of Kâb, of Huwey, of Ozzâl, the son of Samuel?’ asked the old man. As one after another he named the leading chiefs of his tribe, he received to each inquiry the same reply,—they had all been slain already. ‘Then of what use is life to me any longer? Leave me not to that bloodthirsty man who has killed all that are dear to me in cold blood. But slay me also, I entreat thee. Here, take my sword, it is sharp; strike high and hard.’ Thâbit refused, and gave him over to another, who, under Ali’s orders, beheaded the aged man, but attended to his last request in obtaining freedom for his family. When Mahomet was told of his saying, ‘Slay me also, that I may go to my home and join those that have preceded me,’ he answered, ‘Yea, he shall join them in the fire of hell!’
“Having sated his revenge, and drenched the market-place with the blood of eight hundred victims, and having given command for the earth to be smoothed over their remains, Mahomet returned from the horrid spectacle to solace himself with the charms of Rîhâna, whose husband and all whose male relatives had just perished in the massacre. He invited her to be his wife, but she declined, and chose to remain (as, indeed, having refused marriage, she had no alternative) his slave or concubine. She also declined the summons to conversion, and continued in the Jewish faith, at which the Prophet was much concerned. It is said, however, that she afterwards embraced Islâm. She lived with Mahomet till his death.
“The booty was divided into four classes—lands, chattels, cattle, and slaves; and Mahomet took a fifth of each. There were (besides little children who counted with their mothers) a thousand captives; from his share of these, Mahomet made certain presents to his friends of slave girls and female servants. The rest of the women and children he sent to be sold among the Bedouin tribes of Najd, in exchange for horses and arms; for he kept steadily in view the advantage of raising around him a body of efficient horse.” (Life of Mahomet, vol. iii. p. 276.)
QURʾĀN (قران). The sacred book of the Muḥammadans, and believed by them to be the inspired word of God. It is written in the Arabic language.