The main Jewish tribes of Medina had left, but various Jewish individuals and families still lived there. Many of the Jews had moved to Khaybar, a much larger town to the north. It may have been mostly Jewish; it certainly had defensive walls and fortresses. From this base, some of the Jews had joined the attack on Medina (which was fended off by the trench). The Islamic state of Medina was also tacitly threatened by the Bedouin tribes of Ghatafan, who lived near Khaybar and were allied with it.
The trigger for open war came when Muhammad and those around him believed that he had been oppressed by a curse put on him by a Jewish magician in Medina. (His name, given as Labid, is recognizable as the Hebrew word lapid which means torch.) He confessed to receiving a bribe from Jews in Khaybar so that he would tie 11 knots in a strand of Muhammad’s hair and hide it in a well, with hostile spells woven into the knots. Two short surahs of the Quran are lines to say to reverse such spells; Ali spoke them over the well, and then the well was filled in. In the 7th century, of course, nobody doubted that this was all possible, so it was considered entirely factual.
An attempt on a ruler’s life was considered a fair casus belli. Muhammad told the Muslims that they would now attack Khaybar, but only those who had gone along on the pilgrimage that ended at Hudaybiyah were allowed to go. He was sure of victory and great wealth, and wanted only those of true faith to be rewarded. It probably took a few weeks to get supplies; word eventually got around to Mecca and Khaybar. The Jews of Khaybar offered their Ghatafan neighbors half of their date harvest to come join them in defense.
Khaybar’s fortresses were separated by clan, as they had been in Medina, though they may have been within sight of each other. In order to defend themselves, they would need to join the defense of each fortress with all of their men, whose number is given as 10,000 in Muslim sources. Muhammad’s army had fewer than 1500. But the Jewish clans had quarreled at times, and when the Muslims singled out the weakest fortress to besiege, the others stayed in their own fortresses. The defenders used bows and arrows to wound many of the besiegers, but otherwise it was a stalemate for about a week.
Everything changed when a spy was caught inside the Muslim camp. Soon the Muslim leadership knew which fortresses would be easiest to take, and which ones had siege engines stored inside, from times when they had besieged each other. After that, the Muslims took each fortress one by one, taking its weapons and catapults for the next assault. The best fortress was high on a rock, with sheer cliffs and walls on all sides, and it had an underground stream inside the walls. But here, too, someone informed the Muslims where they could dig down and divert the stream so that the fortress would be thirsted out. I’m skipping past the battles occasioned by each fortress; this particular battle was deadly.
The Bedouin Ghatafan tribes had indeed set out to relieve the sieges, but they heard a voice crying out, warning them to look after their people, so they returned home. Khaybar’s leaders were left to wonder if allies would ever arrive. The last fortress held out for two weeks, but finally gave up. This last fortress had many of the Bani Nadir Jews from Medina, so Muhammad felt he had a special right to their wealth. He negotiated a truce in which all of the property went to the Muslims, but anyone who tried to hide some of his property would also be executed. As the treasure was rounded up, it turned out that the leader of the fortress was hiding some, telling Muhammad that they had sold it to buy weapons. When the treasure was discovered, he and his kin were executed.
In the final surrender, the Jews of Khaybar offered a tribute deal. They would stay on farming their oasis, but they would send half their produce to Medina. A Jewish settlement farther to the north heard of this treaty and sent word to Muhammad, offering half their produce if he would not attack them at all. Another Jewish settlement to the west also surrendered on those terms. Effectively, all of this area became part of the Medinan Islamic state.
- Revelation: The Story of Muhammad, by Meraj Mohiuddin and Sherman Jackson.
- Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, by Martin Lings.