Stratos wrote on Apr 7^th, 2014 at 6:37am:


I feel like this has been explained a million times before. They were traitors not POWs. They had supported and incited an invading enemy, and then turned their swords on people whose state they were living in.


Stratos wrote on Apr 7^th, 2014 at 6:37am:


Execution should be reserved for the worse cases.

After WWII the general attitude in Australia was outrage that not enough Japanese POWs were executed by the American-dominated war crimes tribunals.

traitorous POWs then?

freediver wrote on Apr 8^th, 2014 at 9:00pm:



Can you provide one case of Muslim army killing Jewish POWs? If you search through history you will find that Muslim armies did not kill Jewish POWs.

The only Jewish captives ever killed were the traitors from the Qurayza tribe.  They were not POWs because to be a POW you have to be a soldier from a foreign state. The Qurayza were traitors inside the Islamic state who helped the enemy in time of war.

In wars fought between Muslims and Jews POWs were not killed, but rather routinely released. In Prophet Muhammed's time thousands of Jewish POWs  were mercifully given their freedom. This occurred in a time when freeing POWs was unheard of - in 7th century Arabia the norm had been to kill all POWs or at least enslave them.

To be POWs, the Qurayza would had to have openly renegged on the treaty they had with Muhammad, and declared their sessession from the Medinan state they were then part of. Then we would have two separate, independent powers, who could wage war against each other, and take POWs from each other.

That is not what happened. The Qurayza led the muslims to believe they remained faithful to the treaty, and therefore remained as part of the medinan state. However at the same time they secretly conspired with the Meccans - who at that stage were trying to anhialate the Medinan state - to open up a second front from within - and according to the Sealed Nectar, conducted actual operations against the muslims. All the while the Qurayza were 'keeping up appearances' by sending the muslims supplies, so as to not arouse suspicion. The negotiations they were having with the Meccans fell through over the issue of hostages (each side would take hostages as insurance policies). Since the Qurayza were in the business of treachery, they knew full well the danger of themselves being stabbed in the back.

When the Meccans abandoned the siege and went home, the Qurayza knew the game was up. Their treachery exposed, they immediately barricaded themselves inside their fort. Muhammad, having barely survived an attempted genocide, wasn't about to let one of the conspirators in that attempted genocide to remain a threat. Having let another hostile tribe leave with all their possessions and watched as they launched hostilities against Medina, Muhammad wasn't about to make the same mistake. So after offering a reprieve for any individuals who abandoned their treacherous tribe (which a few accepted), off came their heads.