After Muhammad's forces in Medina had defeated several armies from Mecca, the Meccans tried once more to uproot the Muslims from Medina. This attack would culminate in a chain of events that drove a wedge between Muhammad's supporters and the Jews of Medina.

Reuven Firestone: When Muhammad came to town the organized Jewish community did not accept his prophecy. There were, according to the Islamic sources, some individual Jews that did accept him, but for the most part the community as a whole did not.

If the Jews would accept his Prophethood, then he has tremendous and complete confirmation of his Prophethood. But the Jews were so well respected that when they rejected his prophethood, and they did it actively, they became a very serious political threat to his very existence in Medina.

Islamic sources believe that the Jews did indeed aid the enemy in trying to defeat Muhammad. This was absolutely against the terms of the Medina agreement. The Jews and the Muslims decided that they would choose an arbitrator to determine what would be the future of the Jews. The person who was chosen was a man who was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Trench. And so he determined that the women and children of the Bani Qurayzah would be taken as slaves to the Muslims, and the men would be killed.

Hamza Yusuf: The Prophet agreed with this judgment. When he judged he said that you have judged according to God and his messenger. And then, uh, approximately 700 men, uh, were killed. Uh, they were executed. So, this definitely occurred.

Karen Armstrong: All that can be said is that, this cannot be seen as anti-Semitism, per se. Muhammad had nothing against the Jewish people per se, or the Jewish religion. The Qur'an continues to tell Muslims to honor the People of the Book. And to honor their religion as authentic. And the Jewish tribes who had not rebelled, who had not given help to the Meccans continued to live in Medina, completely unmolested. Muhammad was not trying to exterminate Jews. He was trying to get rid of very dangerous internal enemies.

M. Cherif Bassiouni: It's unfortunate that many historians and particularly in contemporary times, both on the Jewish and on the Muslim side, uh, have transformed this. On the Jewish side, they have used that as a way of saying, well, you see, the Muslims hate the Jews and they kill them. And, and on the Muslim side, it says, well, you see, the Jews are full of treachery and can't be trusted. Both are wrong.

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