Islam critiqued revisits ancient battle; Muslims attack the Jews of Khaibar?

In answer to the video "Allahu Akbar"

This was an epic Muslim victory and defeat of the warmongerers.

The defeat the Jews had suffered at the battle of the Trench, where they had allied with the near totality of the Arab pagan tribes for the purpose of exterminating the Muslims, did not deter them. They were making preparations behind their settlements of Khaybar and the gardens of Fadak where 14000 of them lived inside 7 well fortified strongholds, for a final showdown with the Muslims.

Their chief, Yusayr ibn Razam, joined with the Arab tribe of Ghatfan, along with the banished Jewish tribes of Nadir and Qaynuqa that were allowed, by the prophet, despite their former treacheries, to find refuge within the fortress with their Jewish brethren.

A little prior to the battle, the prophet authorized the assassination of Abu rafi'. The Khazraj tribe asked for the Prophet’s permission to kill him. Permission was granted provided that no women or children would be harmed, an instruction that was respected despite Abu Rafi's wife almost foiling the attempt. This happened prior to the siege of Khaybar, where he was mercifully allowed to remain following the defeat of the Jewish-Meccan alliance that nearly decimated the Muslims at the battle of the Trench. Abu rafi' kept on actively inciting the Muslims' enemies from within the fortress. Wars were started and innocent people lost their lives because of such incitements. The prophet thought that such a move would dissuade the people of Khaybar from pursuing their belligerent attitude but it did not.

To demonstrate their strength, Ghatfan captured 20 camels of the Prophet after killing their herdsman and capturing his wife. Their intriguing and use of their wealth to incite tribes against the Muslims left the prophet Muhammad with no choice but to put an end to their machinations and betrayals. Leaving them to freely behave in that way and slowly build up their opposing alliances would again put the Muslim survival at risk, just as they had almost caused the extermination of the Muslim community in the previous battle of the Trench.

Ibn Ishaq reports that when the prophet first arrived at Medina he invited the peaceful Jews of Khaybar to Islam with a letter, which after reminding them of the prophetic history and how he fits in it, does not put any blame on them if they sincerely reject his call

"I adjure you to tell me if you find in that revelation which Allah sent down to You, that you should believe in Muhammad. If you cannot find that in your scripture, no displeasure will fall on you. Guidance will be distinguishable from error, and I invite you to Allah and to His prophet".

This call, from which they arent liable in case of rejection after sincerely and objectively considering the prophet's message, in light of their own scriptures, was made at a time where they had not yet displayed the machinations, war incitements and enemy alliances they would actively participate in a few years later against the Muslims at the battle of the Trench. A few years later then, as he reached the fortress and to make sure that he would not inadvertently cause innocent Muslim casualties, who would have accepted the invitation he had made a few years back in times of peace, he waited for the sound of the morning call to prayer. This was a common practice of the prophet which he had done in other cases

"Whenever the Prophet went out with us to fight (in Allah's cause) against any nation, he never allowed us to attack till morning and he would wait and see: if he heard Adhan he would postpone the attack and if he did not hear Adhan he would attack them".

When the time came and the call to prayer wasnt heard, the green light was given to attack and to apply the unalterable divine law of retribution, as amply demonstrated in both their scriptures and the Quran. Whenever a messenger is sent to a people with an undeniable manifestation of the truth, and that the people reject it knowingly and attempt to kill him, then they are destroyed either by a heavenly disaster or by the hands and swords of the prophet and his partisans. Those believers and their prophet are then are then made their successors in the land. This is an unquestionable pattern in the semitic prophetic history.

When Ali spearheaded the assault he asked the prophet on which basis (not that there were no basis, rather which among the basis) should he fight them, the prophet replied, on the basis of that very divine law alluded to earlier

"O Messenger of Allah, on what basis should I fight the people?” He said: “Fight them until they bear witness that none has the right to be worshiped but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. If they do that, then they have protected from you their blood and their wealth, except for a right that is due, and their reckoning will be with Allah".

Again, a very important point to reiterate, these Jews were peacefully invited to Islam many years back and were never bothered for their refusal to accept it. The prophet only engaged them in battle when they initiated hostile activities against him and the Muslim community. It is the mercy of the prophet that, despite having full authority of applying the divine penalty for continuously rejecting a prophet's call, in addition attempting to murder him and his followers, gave them nevertheless the option of surrendering to the divine law and walk free. This also shows that the Muslims' priority in their case was not their wealth rather the application of the divine law. Yet they still refused, just as they had in the past stubbornly and arrogantly rejected prophets from their own people telling them to adhere to their own books.

They were thus forcefully subdued for 2 completely legitimate reasons, first their wordly crimes, and then the transgression of rejecting a prophet in their midst. It is to be noted, as said in the report, had they accepted Islam at that moment then it would have only warded off the divine wordly destruction from them but not their moral accountability before God for their past crimes.

As a quick side note, before getting into the details of that battle, it would be appropriate to compare the progressive manner that inevitably led the prophet Muhammad finally engaging to war with the settlement of Khaybar, and the Jews' own standards of behavior in wars. Along with the known, compulsory genocidal warfare, during which no atrocities towards men, women, children, cattle and plants may be spared, there are laws relating to optional warfare, for the sole purpose of Israel's "national glory" as labelled by their rabbis. In such cases, any random nation the Israelites arbitrarily choose, and set themselves out to conquer can either be "peacefully" submitted, resulting in the enslavement and taxation of its population, or in case of their rejection of the "peace offer", a military subjugation resulting with the execution of all adult males, the capture as spoils of war of their women, children, and livestock

Deut20:10-14"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby".

In addition, should it be necessary to completely subdue that nation

2Kings3:19"you shall fell every good tree, and you shall stop up all springs of water, and you shall clutter every good field with stones".

In the land of Canaan, those natives that werent driven out or exterminated as per the Torah's injunctions during the invasion, were subdued into slavery Josh17:13. Their descendants suffered the same fate under Solomon's rule 1Kings9:20-1. After all and as stated in both the HB and the Talmudic writings (Eleazar ben Shammua) , the purpose of creation and the reason why the heavens and earth are maintained is for the chosen race to observe Torah. That is what the Quran would have looked like, and how it would have instructed its people to behave towards the foreign nations and the weak that come under their possession, had it been penned by the ancients of its time to whom such attitude was regarded as expected and acceptable.

At Khaybar it was a different story, thank God not in anyway comparable to the Jews' own standards.

A detachement of above 1000 men was sent to their fortresses. It took the Muslims 20 days of siege and several assaults led by Abu Bakr then Umar and finally Ali who vaillanty pierced the fortress and inflicted heavy casualties in the Jews and pagan ranks. After their defeat, the tribes of Bani Nadir and Qaynuqa were expelled and over those that remained, Muhammad proposed putting their own chief Yusayr ibn Rizam as Governor of Khaybar over his fellow Jews. In exchange he had to recognize the Prophet's legislative authority, not religious, he was allowed to keep his and his people's religion. He in addition was to ensure that none among his people would ever again engage in hostilities or stir up anyone against the Muslims. He accepted but on his way back to Khaybar where he was escorted with his 30 men and some armed Muslim men, he regretted his decision and attacked the Prophet's messenger, killing him. Followed a heavy fight from which no Muslim died and all Jewish soldiers were killed except 1 who escaped.

With the collapse of their last fortress, the Jews did not pose any more threat to the Muslims. Those that were expelled had their immovable properties confiscated and redistributed to the homeless among Muslims, who still had no dwelling places since their migration from Mecca. Those that were allowed to stay, remained on the condition that they could be expelled anytime should they return to treachery, desire for war or instigating others against the Muslims. They could keep their property but in exchange had to provide the Muslims with part of their crops, they had to relinquish their insularity and participate in the life of the whole community with the rights and obligations that naturally ensue.

Following the death of Yusayr ibn Rizam, another Jew, Ibn Rawahah was placed as governor. This is the prophet's mercy, as a chief of state and having that community entirely subdued to him, did not place a Muslim nor a tyrant above them. Instead, he instructed the Jews be allowed free practice of their religion. Now the believers had inherited under divine sanction their lands and wealth just as other unrighteous people's possessions were entirely given to them as spoils

Neh9:25"And they captured fortified cities and fat soil, and they inherited houses full of all good, hewn cisterns, vineyards, and olive trees, and fruit trees in abundance, and they ate and were sated, and they became fat, and they enjoyed pleasures with Your great goodness".

The Ishmaelites and their prophet however did not behave anywhere remotely like the Israelites and their prophets did whenever the lands of their enemies were granted to them by God, disregarding all ethics of war and humanitarian principles.