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?uyayy Ibn Akh?ab

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Chief of the BANU AL-NA?IR; executed at Medina March, 627. ?uyayy was a courageous warrior and the most inveterate enemy of Mohammed, so that Ibn Hisham, Mohammed's biographer, calls him "the enemy of Allah." He was also a learned man, and on one occasion had a discussion with Mohammed upon the mystical letters beginning some of the suras in the Koran. At first, when the Banu al-Na?ir were located at Medina, ?uyayy's hostility to Mohammed was not pronounced, and when Abu Sufyan, the ?urai?ite leader and an enemy of Mohammed, presented himself before ?uyayy's house. ?uyayy, fearing to compromise himself, refused to admit him. But when the Jews, driven by Mohammed from Medina, settled at Khaibar, ?uyayy incited them, with the Arab tribes of ?uraish and Gha?afan, into active revolt against Mohammed. When ?uyayy came to Ka'b ibn As'ad, the chief of the BANU ?URAI?A, the latter, having sworn allegiance to Mohammed, hesitated to receive him; but ?uyayy convinced him of the danger which threatened the Jews from Mohammed, and induced the Banu ?urai?a to support him. Later, Mohammed took ?amu?, the fortress of the ?urai?ites, carried to Medina from seven to eight hundred Jews, among them being ?uyayy, and executed them in the market-place. When ?uyayy was brought before Mohammed, he said to him: "I reproach not myself for having carried on war against thee." ?uyayy's daughter Safiyyah was also captured by Mohammed, and a few months afterward embraced Islam and became a wife of the prophet.