A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 9/50

[Sidenote: 50. Mohammad could not have any share in his murder.]

The biographers and narrators of the campaigns of Mohammad generally relate untrustworthy and fabulous details of such events, and are by no means to be relied upon. Mohammad Ibn Ishak, the earliest biographer, whose work exists, does not relate that Mohammad the Prophet ever prayed for, or said to his followers, to be got rid of Káb; whereas the latest biographers and traditionalists give us to understand that the Prophet sanctioned the murder of Káb by his own express orders. "I am far from asserting," says Sir W. Muir, "that every detail in the foregoing narrative, either of instigation by Mahomet or of deception by the assassins, is beyond suspicion. The actors in such scenes were not slow to magnify and embellish their own services at the expense of truth. There may also have been the desire to justify an act of perfidy, at which even the loose morality of the day was startled, by casting the burden of it on the infallible Prophet. But, after allowing all due weight to both of these considerations, enough remains to prove, in this case, the worst features of assassination, and the fact that they were directly countenanced, or rather prompted, by Mahomet himself." There is no substantial proof in this case which tends to establish the instigation Mohammad offered for the murder of Káb. The best traditions for the story of Káb's assassination rest with Jábir-bin Abdullah, and Ibn Abbás through Ikrama.

None of them can be an authority, for they were neither eye-witnesses, nor they heard the Prophet countenancing or prompting the assassination, nor they allude to their own authorities. Jábir-bin Abdullah was a mere boy at that time. He was not allowed to appear even at the battle of Ohad, which took place after the alleged execution of Káb, on account of his tender age. Ibn Abbás was even younger than Jábir, and besides, was putting up at Mecca at the period in question. Ikrama was a slave of Ibn Abbás, and was notoriously given to the forging of fictitious traditions.