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Quran,Translation and Commentary in Brief (Vol. 06)
verses 22-25verses 20-21

MORE BLESSINGS OF HODAYBEYEH PEACE TREATY
VERSE NO.20-21
The argument is still about the Peace Treaty of Hodaybeyeh, in which, some of its profits have been mentioned:-
``Allah has promised you a lot of spoils that you shall get, but he hastened to you this one.''
To carry on with His promise, Allah did give a wide variety of spoils, in short term and long term periods, but the Peace Treaty of Hudaybeyeh, which was indeed full of profits, He hastened for Moslims.
In Hodaybeyeh, Moslims were few and unarmed, and could easily be defeated and crushed by the pagan Arabs, but Allah restrained the hands of the heathens from the believers, and by signing the peace treaty, the position of prophet and his new religion was established, and Moslims were offlicially recognized by all Arabs as the followers of a new religion. Besides; the Peace Treaty had a good spiritual comfort and tranquillity after that long period of wars, disturbances, and unrest, that the new religious revolution had brought in Arabia.
It was so that the pagans and idolaters always rushed upon the believers for their faith in God, and they had to defend themselves; and the wranglings and quarrel existed everywhere in Arabian Peninsula.
The first of the blessings of the Peace Treaty was that, a general peace was declared for a long time with Quraish, and the hands of Arabs were restrained from harming each other. Outcome of the treaty was a general tranquillity of hearts, and comfort for the bodies, in foe and friend equally. So far, wars had beaten Quraish, as well as Moslims; and from now on there had to be a cease fire and peace for a long period.
Greater gains were still to follow for all of them in its spiritual sense of meanings, through the rapid spread of Islam; which soon after overwhelmed the idolatrous autocracy.
In the next verse, Allah promised the believers with more blessings of the Peace Treaty, in the form of future victories that now were not within the power of Moslims; but Allah had them encompassed. These promises might have been the near conquest of Khaibar. The later conquest of Mecca, and then Iran's Kingdom, and Roman Empire, that all were conquered by Moslims within a couple of decades after the incident of Hodaybeyeh. Less than two months after the Peace Treaty of Hodaybeyeh, the prophet set out in accompany with 1400 believers who had taken the Oath of Pleasure, and went to KHAIBAR, the place which was the focal center of Jewish conspiracy against Islam and Moslims.
The General Commander of Khaibar's hosts, was a very brave Jew, called, ``MARHAB''.
ABUBEKR AND OMAR, the later Khalif's of Islam, were appointed as the commander of the believers successively and both of them did their best to conquer Khaibar, but they failed. For the third invasion, the prophet appointed HAZRAT Imam Ali as the General Commander of God's host. Imam Ali (AS) and his hosts attacked the castles and strongholds of Khaibar, and a fearful battle broke in, and both parties fought bravely, and in a hand to hand fighting of the two commanders, Hazrat Ali slayed MARHAB, and the battle was won, and Khaibar conquered; and the Jewish problem was solved once and for all.
*****

THE CONQUEST OF KHAIBAR
KHAIBAR was some sort of an island in desert, about 150 Km. to the north of Medina. It consisted of seven important strongholds built on the top of hills. They were well watered, and considered impregnable, because the castles were surrounded with moats and trenches. Several springs were gushing out of the rocks, which were channeled to water the fertile lands and green farms that surrounded the castles.
YAGHOOT HAMAVI has named the seven fortresses as follows:-
1-NAEM. 2-NATTAT. 3-AMOOS. 4-SHAGH. 5-SALALIM. 6-VATIH and 7-KATIBEH.
In the prophet's time, the Jewish colonies were settled there, and finally it turned to the central nest for those Jews who were expelled out from Medina. The Jews of Khaibar, and in particular those who were exiled there from Medina were very incensed at Mohammad. They made lavish use of their wealth to induce the neibouring Arabs to take arms against Moslims. By now they were similar to a grown cancer tumour, that it had to be operated somehow. They were a constant source of troubles and intrigues for the newly born Islamic society. They were counted as a force of twenty thousands of warriors, very well armed!
It was MAY-JUNE 628 A.D. when our prophet took a force that consisted of five regiments, most of whom were those who had taken part in HODAYBEYEH incident. The Messenger of God had decided to give an end to the intrigues of Jews once and for all.
Although the prophet's troops marched to Khaibar swiftly and secretly, the Jews were not completely unaware. They were beginning their routine duties in the early morning, when they found themselves surrounded by the prophet's forces! The Jews who were taken by surprise swiftly returned to their fortress, closed the gates, and began to shout warnings and to call for defensive preprations.
The Jews of Khaibar were allied with the tribe of GHATFAN, whose warriors very soon organized themselves and came out to help the Jews; but quicker than them, the prophet stationed one of his five regiments between KHABIBAR and GHATFAN. GHATFAN found their household in a serious danger of attack from behind the field, and thus were compelled to ignore helping the Jews.
The castle NAEM was attacked first, but the Jews who were very confident about their position defended with pride and vanity, while Moslims attacked them seriously and with faith. There was a lot of shooting with bow and arrow, and rarely a single combat. The Jews cast down from their roofs stones and poured upon the invaders hot water. Two Moslims namely Mohammad-Ibn-Moslemeh and a shepherd called ASLAMEH were killed in this stonning down.
After a great amount of attack and defence, the first castle was conquered, and most of its defensive forces fled up and joined the defenders of the second fortress, (NATTAT). When Moslems attacked the second castle of Khaibar, the Jews made sure that their question was now, to be or not to be; and began to defend their strongholds with more seriousness and by all means. So a fierce fight went on around the second castle. Moslims too increased their vigour, and showed their sincere desire for martyrdom for the sake of Allah their only one Lord God.
After a relatively long and bloody combat, the second fortress too gave up and surrendered.
Then, ``Amus'' the third important castle of Khaibar was invaded by Moslims and the Jews also showed a great resistance of themselves, but at last they too were defeated, and the fortress fell in the hands of Moslims with a lot of spoils and many captives. Among the captives was SAFIYEH the daughter of HAY-IBN-AKHTAB, the expelled chief of the Jewish tribe of BANINAZIR.
BALAL captivated SAFIYEH and her cousin, and passed them from a road in which several of their men had been killed in the fight. Seeing their men killed, the two women grieved and wept bitterly, and when they were presented to the prophet, they were still shedding tears.
The prophet became very sad and sorry when he saw the Jewesses grieved and in tears. So the Messenger of God severely reproached Balal and in anger said to him:-
``Why did you take a woman bereaved of her kinsfolk through a way in which she could see her murdered men? Was there not any mercy in your heart?''
Then the Messenger of God condoled with them and showed his deep-felt sympathy to the women who had lost their men. Then the prophet gave them their freedom. Then to respect the prominent position of Safiyeh who was the daughter of a chief tribe, the prophet told her that she could go wherever she willed, or could remain with the Messenger, or even become his wife. Seeing such a great kindness and behaviour, the woman asked the prophet to take her for his wife, and the prophet agreed. Safiyeh in the position of prophet's wife was a good condolence conveyed to her defeated Jewish tribe.
In the next day, the fourth stronghold too was opened within which was the bulk stores and food supplies of the Jews. Moslims were then near to starving, and had already eaten some horsemeat, when the castle, SalÌlim, was yielded to them, and a lot of corn and grains fell in their hands as booty.
The strongholds were conquered one after another; of course not easily, until they reached the last two,and the most important of them. All the warriors who had lost their posts had gathered there together.
The general commander of VATIH castle was a veteran and with the fame of a hero in the warfare, whose name was MARHAB OF KHAIBAR. He was the only cause for a long defensive resistance which lengthened the siege for a relatively long time.
IBNSAA in his TABAGHAT V.2 111, AHMADI NOVAIRI in his NAHAYTULARB V.2-226 and IBN HESHAM, in his SEEREH, have written the conquest of the two strongholds; VATIH and KATIBEH as follows:-

The prophet gave the commanding banner to UMAR-IBN-KHATTAB in order to open the last castles. The Jews encountered vigorously and Umar fled away, and his men too, escaped behind him! At presence of the prophet, Umar accused his men of being cowards, and his men accused him of throwing the banner and fleeing in disorder! Next day the banner was given to ABUBEKR. He attacked the Jews but failed and gained no progress. Then the prophet said:- ``If God speeds, tomorrow I will give the commanding banner to a man who loves God and His Messenger, and God and His apostle love him, and he shall conquer the castles by the will of Allah.''
Some of the verterans from among the forces, thought of themself to be the lucky lover of God and His Messenger, and the victorious commander; and some desired to be him.
Next morning, when the prophet was passing review of his forces, Hazrat Imam Ali was absent for suffering of a severe pain in his eyes. Then prophet sent for him to come urgently. Hazrat Ali came with his eyes dressed. The prophet blessed him and moistened his eyes from his mouth and prayed to Allah to cure him instantly. His prayer was answered and immediately Imam Ali's eyes were cured. Later, he said that henceforth he never felt the least pain in his eyes.
The prophet then gave the commanding flag to Hazrat Imam Ali and said:-
``Go forth in the name of Allah, and He will help you to win.''
Hazrat Ali went up and installed the standard of Islam on the top of a high wall of the sixth stronghold. A group of warriors came out of the castle commanded by Marhab, the said famous hero of the Jews. He was dressed in chain mail, helmet, and brassard.
Marhab came forth proudly and asked for a hand to hand fighting in a single combat, while he was declaiming epic verses. Hazrat Ali went in front of him and answered his declamations with epical verses. Then, the Jewish hero and the lion of God grappled, and in a fearful hand to hand fighting, Hazrat Imam Ali slayed Marhab. When their commander was killed, the Jews fled into their stronghold and closed the extraordinary big Iron gate of their castle.
Soon after Hazrat Ali, miraculously jumped over the water moat that surrounded the castle, and pulled strongly a leg of the iron gates out of the frame, meanwhile shouting ``Allah my Lord help me''
The lion of God, then turned the most heavy iron gate round his head as if it was a light shield, and then put the gate over the moat and made a bridge of it for his troops to enter the castle!
There in the castle, the jews fought vigorously but in vain, and when several of them were slayed, they surrendered and stopped fighting.
Later on, eight young strong men did their best simultaneously to move the gate, but the attempt failed!
They asked Hazrat Imam Ali:- ``How did you pull out and lift up such a heavy gate alone!?'' In answer, Imam said:- ``I did not raise the gate with my physical power and strength. I took it with power of my Merciful Lord!''

Then the Jews found resistance useless and negotiated for peace and submission. After his wonderful victory, our prophet said to Imam Ali;-
``O, Ali! Had it not been for fear that a group of Moslims would say about you, what the Christians said about Jesus, I would say something that, Moslims for demand of blessings would pick up the dusts from the tracks of your feet. Your position to me is the position of AARON to MOSES, with the exception that there shall be no prophet after me.
EXTRACTED FROM: MOHAMMAD THE MESSENGER OF GOD
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

verses 22-25verses 20-21
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Lotus
Mitra
Nazanin
Titr
Tahoma