of the Christians was indulgent; and although I give an entirely different interpretation to this passage an interpretation borne out by every word,[1] nevertheless this very mistake of the commentators shews the importance which the Arabs attached to this conquest of the Jewish ruler, and is a proof of the greatness of his former power. That the remains of such a power, even when shattered continued to be of importance is plain in itself, and is moreover clearly shown in a passage soon to be quoted,[2] where the Himyarites are depicted as particularly unbelieving. An Arabian author[3] mentions other tribes beside the Himyarites as adherents of Judaism, viz., the Banu Kinna Banu Hareth ben Kab, and Kinda.[4]
While this physical power of the Jews inspired partly fear, partly respect in Muhammad's mind, he was no less afraid of their mental superiority and of appearing to them as ignorant ; and so his first object must have been to conciliate them by an apparent yielding to their views. That the Jewish system of belief was even then a fully developed one, which penetrated the life of each member of the community, is proved both by its antiquity and by the fact that the Talmud had already been completed. Though the Jews of that region were among the most ignorant, as is shown by the silence of the Talmud concerning them, and also by that which was borrowed from them and incorporated
- ↑ See Division H, Section II, Chapter II, Part IV.
- ↑ Baidhawi on Quran II. 91.
- ↑ Vide Pococke Spec. p. 136.
- ↑ A good voucher for the importance to which some Jewish families had attained might be found in a poem of Hamasa (ed. Freytag p. 49), which is full of the spirit of chivalry and self reliance, if only the evidence that the family referred to was a Jewish one were sufficiently certain. The only thing for it is the name of the author (Arabic text) which, as a commentator cited by Elgherar remarks, is a Hebrew name (Arabic text) but which might easily have come into use among the Arabs. Even in the verse (Arabic text) page 52, where the pure and unmixed descent of the family is praised, and where one might expect a mention of its Jewish origin, no such allusion is found.
