72 Alfred von Kremer's edition of Wakidy. [No. 1. 



he contents himself by showing to the world that the wrongs which 

 the iTorayshites committed against him were much greater than 

 those which he committed against them, and that they had taken 

 the initiative, for it was their display of brute force during the 

 sacred months which prevented him from visiting the Ka'bah agree- 

 ably to the Haramite institutions. And in order to put them 

 entirely in the wrong he accused them of disbelief in the primitive 

 religion of the holy temple for which he professed the highest 

 veneration. And he now ordered the Moslims who had hitherto 

 been in the habit of turning their faces in prayers towards Jerusalem 

 like the Jews, to direct their prayers towards the Ka'bah.* In order 

 fully to appease the popular feeling he was obliged to pay the price 

 of the blood of Ibn al-iZadhramy.f As to the manner in which he 

 disposed of the booty and prisoners, there is a great variety of 



■verse had been revealed which absolved 'Abd Allah b. Ja^sh from guilt, they 

 came to the prophet and said, that they would now expect some reward from God 

 for their exploit, and upon this, the second verse was resolved, which, he conceived, 

 contains a promise of farther reward." 



* According to Ibn Ishak the qiblah was altered in Sha'ban (February, 624) 

 and consequently just when this affair was in agitation. 



f " The prophet paid the price of the blood of Ibn al-Hadhramy to his iToray- 

 shite heirs. Mojahid and others say, he paid it, because there existed a truce of 

 two years between the prophet and the iforayshites." (Baghawy Comm. on the 

 iforan, 2, 214). 



" The prophet paid the price of blood for 'Amr b. al-i/adhramy, and he pro- 

 claimed that the sacred month is to be respected as it had been. It was subse- 

 quently that God made it lawful to fight in it." (Wakidy p. 10, from Ma'raar, 

 from Zohry, from Orwah) but in page 11 is another tradition from Ibn Aby Sabrah 

 in which Ibn 'abbas declares that the prophet did not pay the price of the blood, 

 and Wakidy adds that he and his contemporaries considered this as the true version. 

 I adhere to the view first expressed, because the authority of Zohry is stronger than 

 that of Ibn 'Aby Sabrah, secondly, Ibn 'abbas was a liar, thirdly, as it places the 

 prophet into an unfavorable light, if he had to pay the price of blood (by doing 

 so, he acknowledged that his followers were murderers), it is more likely that the 

 fact, if it happened, would be denied than that such a statement, if not true, was 

 invented. Fifthly, Mojahid who is one of those men who, during the first century 

 of the Hijrah put the Islam into shape, admits that he paid the price of blood; 

 but states a reason which we know to be a lie, because not a month was allowed to 

 elapse during the two years in which the Moslims did not waylay the Tfbrayshites. 



