A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Chapter 11/73
2.—Urnee Robbers.
[Sidenote: 73. The alleged mutilation of the Urnee robbers.]
Some Urnee robbers, lately converted, had plundered the camels of Medina and barbarously handled their herdsman, for they cut off his hands and legs, and struck thorny spikes into his tongue and eyes, till he died. The bandits were pursued, captured, and executed by Kurz-bin-Jabir. "They had merited death," says Sir W. Muir, "but the mode in which he inflicted it was barbarous and inhuman. The arms and legs of eight men were cut off, and their eyes were put out. The shapeless, sightless trunks of these wretched Bedouins were then impaled upon the plain of Al Ghâba, until life was extinct."[1] As the robbers had mutilated the herdsman, this gave currency to their having been mutilated in retaliation. But in fact Mohammad never ordered mutilation in any case. He was so averse to this practice, that several traditions from various sources emanating from him to the effect, prove that he prohibited mutilation lest he himself be mutilated by divine judgment.[2]
Footnotes
[edit]- ↑ Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 19. In the collections of Bokharee the story is traced to Ans. But Ans could not be a witness to Mohammad's command for mutilation, as Ans did not come until the expedition to Khyber; and the execution of those robbers took place before that. The story from Jábir in Ibn Mardaveih's collections to the same effect is not authentic, as Jábir, who says he was sent by Mohammad in pursuit of the robbers, and committed the act, was not a convert at that time. Koostalanee, the author of Mooahib, has declared the tradition of Ibn Jarir Tabari on the subject as an apocryphal, i.e., "Zaeef." Vide Zoorkanee on Movahib, Vol. II, p. 211.
- ↑ Ibn Hisham (p. 463) relates from Ibn Is-hak that Omar asked permission to mutilate Sohail, but Mohammad replied, "I would not mutilate him; if I do, God will mutilate me, though I be a Prophet."