Fighting Words: Religion, Violence, and the Interpretation of Sacred Texts

5. Finhas of Medina: Islam, “The Jews,” and the Construction of Religious Militancy

101 5 Finhās of Medina Islam, “The Jews,” and the Construction of Religious Militancy Michael A. Sells Group names are inevitable. We cannot live without them. But we do not find it easy to live peacefully with them. A group name occupies an ambiguous zone between generalizationandspecification.Taketheexpression,whichIinventforthepurposes ofillustration,“theAlberianscarriedoutacrimeagainsthumanity.”Thegroupname designates a group and does not make any exceptions to the group designation. If found in a newspaper or history book, it might refer to a particular army or irregular militia unit that carried out a particular crime at a particular time and place, but which—for whatever valid or invalid reason—the author of the text associates with the people in whose name or under whose authority the subgroup committing the crime claims to operate.A group name, once used, sets into operation assumptions regarding authority, responsibility, and blame that can erupt suddenly and are controlledonlywithdif ficulty.Andindivinelyrevealedorinspireddiscourse,recorded in sacred text, the questions surrounding such a group are particularly fraught. Everythingdependson establishingtheframeofreferencewithinwhichagiven group is named. That frame will indicate that the reference is to some members of the named group at a particular time and place, all the people of the group at that time, all members of that group at all times, to mention only the largest sets of possibilities. I take up here the group names in the Qur’an, qur’anic commentaries, and early Islamic historical accounts of the life of Muhammad that have been translated as “the Jews” or associated with Jews. As a test case, I examine the remarkable story of a Jewish elder from Medina named Finhās, whose words and actions were said to have led to several qur’anic revelations and to have played a dramatic role in the foundational events of Islam. 102    Michael A. Sells Early Islamic sources refer to him variously as Finhās bin ‘Āzurā’, Finhās alYah ūdī, or simply as Finhās.1 He was viewed as a habr (a religiously learned elder or teacher) from an important Jewish tribe in Medina who took part in dispu­ tations with the Prophet Muhammad as well as Muhammad’s companion and the future first Caliph Abū Bakr. By “traditional sources,” I mean reports (akhbār) that record the words and actions of the Prophet and his companions and that were passed down orally for several generations before they were written down and incorporated into the major genres of Islamic literature. The Finhās-related reports are found in two interconnected genres: sīra and tafsīr. Sīra is sometimes translated as “biography” and in the early Islamic con­ text refers to accounts of the life, actions, and battles of Muhammad. Tafsīr refers to compilations of word-by-word commentary on the Qur’an. The two genres are symbiotic. Portions of the sīra were composed as attempts to explain passages of the Qur’an; that is, the effort to explain passages of the Qur’an at least to some extent appears to have been a part of a larger effort to record the life and deeds of the Prophet. The exegetical works, conversely, cited episodes of the Prophet’s sīra in order to explain passages in the Qur’an.2 Finhās the Yahūdī may or may not have lived, spoken, and acted as the sources examined below claim. There may have been more than one Finhās involved in disputations between Muhammad and Jews in Medina. Alternatively, one man named Finhās might have been involved in some disputes with Muhammad and his companions, and then later he may have been inserted into other incidents for which the names of the Jewish protagonists were unknown. It is possible to call into doubt the entire set of incidents and disputes involving a Medinan Jew by the name of Finhās. But however we judge the reliability or the veracity of the akhbār relating to Finhās, he emerges as a complicated and intriguing character and his words resound with theological, political, and social implications. In addition to playing a dramatic role in Muhammad’s break with Jewish groups in Medina, the words of Finhās were said to have been either paraphrased or quoted verbatim within the Qur’an, and to have been the occasion for divine rebukes and curses against Finhās and those Jews associated with him. Discussions of the Finhās episodes by classical Muslim scholars contribute as well to wider questions, not con...