نقل قول:[h=3]Jewish settlement in Hijaz[/h] “The Jews of the Hejaz claimed that they had come to settle in Arabia during the last stage of the life of the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him). They said that the Prophet Moses had dispatched an army to expel the Amalekites from the land of Yathrib and had commanded it not to spare even a single soul of that tribe. The Israelite army carried out the Prophet's command, but spared the life of a handsome prince of the Amalekite king and returned with him to Palestine. By that time the Prophet Moses had passed away. His successors took great exception to what the army had done, for by sparing the life of an Amalekite it had clearly disobeyed the Prophet and violated the Mosaic Law. Consequently, they excluded the army from their community, and it had to return to Yathrib and settle there forever. Thus the Jews claimed that they had been living in Yathrib since about 1200 B.C.
The second Jewish immigration, according to the Jews, took, place in 587 BC. when Nebuchadnezzer, the king of Babylon, destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jews throughout the world. The Arab Jews said that several of their tribes at that time had come to settle in Wadi al-Qura, Taima, and Yathrib.(Al-Baladhuri, Futuh al-Buldan).”
Maududi rejects both these claims and says that “these have in fact no historical basis and probably the Jews had invented this story in order to overawe the Arabs into believing that they were of noble lineage and the original inhabitants of the land.”
However he maintains, “what is established is that when in A.D. 70 the Romans massacred the Jews in Palestine, and then in A.D. 132 expelled them from that land, many of the Jewish tribes fled to find an asylum in the Hejaz, a territory that was contiguous to Palestine in the south. There, they settled wherever they found water springs and greenery, and then by intrigue and through money lending business gradually occupied the fertile lands. Ailah, Maqna, Tabuk, Taima, Wadi al Qura, Fadak and Khaiber came under their control in that very period, and Bani Quraizah, Bani al-Nadir, Bani Bahdal, and Bani Qainuqa also came in the same period and occupied Yathrib.”
Since there are no compelling historical evidences for us to accept Maududi’s version of the History we may as well conclude that Muslims (perhaps Maududi himself) invented this story in order to undermine “the noble lineage of the Jews as the original inhabitants of Yathrib”. It seems that the Jews, who were well established in Yathrib and by the very admission of Maududi were “practically the owners of this green and fertile land” (2) had little use for making such false claim about their origin. On the other hand Muslims whose enmity of the Jews dates back to the time of Muhammad and even a reputed scholar like Maududi cannot contain his hatred of them when he writes about them, are more likely to invent false stories to justify their expulsion and their ethnic cleansing of the Jews from their homeland.