“Hast thou laid aside thine arms?  Lo, the angels have not yet put down their weapons, and I am come to bid thee go against the Beni Koreitza to destroy their citadel.”

Mahomet’s swift nature, alive to the value of speed, had realised in a flash that now was the time to strike at the Koreitza, the treacherous Hebrew dogs, before they could grow strong and gather together any allies to help them ward off their certain chastisement.  The enterprise was proclaimed at once to the weary Muslim, and the great banner, still unfurled, placed in the hands of Ali.  The Faithful were eager for rest, but at the command of their leader they forgot their exhaustion and rallied round him again with the same loving and invincible devotion that had sustained them during the terrible days of siege.

The expedition marched to the Koreitza fortress, and laid siege to it in March, 627.  For twenty-five days it was besieged by Islam, says the chronicler, until God put terror into the hearts of the Jews, and they were reduced to sore straits.  Then they offered to depart as the Kainukaa had departed, empty-handed, with neither gold nor cattle, into a strange land.  But Mahomet had not forgotten their treachery to him under the suasion of the Kureisch, and he determined on sterner measures.  The Jews were now thoroughly terrified, and sent in haste to crave permission for a visit from Abu Lubaba, an ally of the Beni Aus, their former confederates.  Mahomet consented, as one who grants the trivial wish of a doomed man.  In sorrow Abu Lubaba went into the camp of the Koreitza, and when they questioned him he told them openly that they must abandon hope.  Their doom was decreed by the Prophet, sanctioned by Allah; it was irrevocable.

When the Koreitza heard the sentence they bowed their heads, some in wrath, some in despair, and charged Abu Lubaba with supplications for Mahomet’s clemency.  The messenger returned and told the Prophet what he had disclosed to the Jews concerning their impending fate.

“Thou hast done ill,” declared Mahomet, “for I would not that mine enemies know their doom before it is accomplished.”

Thereupon, says tradition, Abu Lubaba was filled with remorse at having displeased his master, and entering the Mosque bound himself to one of its pillars, whence it is called the Pillar of Repentance to this day.  At last the Jews, worn out with the siege, without resources, allies, or any hope of relief, surrendered at discretion to the Beni Aus.  Immediately their citadel was seized and plundered, while their men were handcuffed and kept apart, their women and children given into the keeping of a renegade Jew.  Their cattle were driven into Medina before their eyes, and soon the whole tribe was withdrawn from its ancestral habitation, awaiting what might come from the hand of their terrible foe.

Then Mahomet pronounced judgment.  He sent for Sa’ad ibn Muadh, the chief of the Beni Aus, and into his hands he gave the fate of all those souls who belonged to the tribe of Koreitza.  Sa’ad was elderly, fat, irritable, and vindictive.  He had a long-standing grudge against this people, and knew nothing of the mercy which greater men bestow upon the fallen.