and were truly devoted to Allâh. However, some others harboured evil intentions against the
Prophet (Peace be upon him) and his followers but were too cowardly to resist them publicly,  they were rather, under those Islamically favourable conditions, obliged to fake amicability and  friendliness. ‘Abdullah bin Ubai, who had almost been given presidency over Al-Khazraj and Al-
Aws tribes in the wake of Bu‘ath War between the two tribes, came at the head of that group of  hypocrites. The Prophet’s advent and the vigorous rise of the new spirit of Islam foiled that  orientation and the idea soon went into oblivion. He, seeing another one, Muhammad (Peace be  upon him), coming to deprive him and his agents of the prospective temporal privileges, could  not be pleased, and for overriding reasons he showed pretension to Islam but with horrible  disbelief deeply-rooted in his heart. He also used to exploit some events and weak-hearted new  converts in scheming malevolently against the true believers.
3. The Jews (the Hebrews), who had migrated to Al-Hijaz from Syria following the Byzantine and
Assyrian persecution campaigns, were the third category existent on the demographic scene in
Madinah. In their new abode they assumed the Arabian stamp in dress, language and manner of  life and there were instances of intermarriage with the local Arabs, however they retained their  ethnic particularism and detached themselves from amalgamation with the immediate  environment. They even used to pride in their Jewish-Israeli origin, and spurn the Arabs around  designating them as illiterate meaning brutal, naïve and backward. They desired the wealth of  their neighbours to be made lawful to them and they could thus appropriate it the way they  liked.
“ because they say: “There is no blame on us to betray and take the properties of the illiterates
(Arabs)” 3:75
Religiously, they showed no zeal; their most obvious religious commodity was fortunetelling,  witchcraft  and the secret arts (blowing on knots), for which they used to attach to themselves advantages of  science and spiritual precedence.
They excelled at the arts of earning money and trading. They in fact monopolized trading in cereals,  dates, wine, clothes, export and import. For the services they offered to the Arabs, the latter paid  heavily. Usury was a common practice amongst them, lending the Arab notables great sums to be  squandered on mercenary poets, and in vanity avenues, and in return seizing their fertile land given  as  surety.
They were very good at corrupting and scheming. They used to sow seeds of discord between  adjacent  tribes and entice each one to hatch plots against the other with the natural corollary of continual  exhaustive bloody fighting. Whenever they felt that fire of hatred was about to subside, they would  nourish it with new means of perpetuity so that they could always have the upper hand, and at the  same time gain heavy interest rates on loans spent on inter-tribal warfare.
Three famous tribes of Jews constituted the demographic presence in Yathrib (now Madinah): Banu
Qainuqua‘, allies of Al-Khazraj tribe, Banu An-Nadir and Banu Quraizah who allied Al-Aws and  inhabited  the suburbs of Madinah.
Naturally they held the new changes with abhorrence and were terribly hateful to them, simply  because  the Messenger of Allâh was of a different race, and this point was in itself too repugnant for them to  reconcile with. Second, Islam came to brabout a spirit of rapport, to terminate the state of enmity and  hatred, and to establish a social regime based on denunciation of the prohibited and promotion of the  allowed. Adherence to these canons of life implied paving the way for an Arab unity that could work to  the prejudice of the Jews and their interests at both the social and economic levels; the Arab tribes  would then try to restore their wealth and land misappropriated by the Jews through usurious  practices.
The Jews of course deeply considered all these things ever since they had known that the Islamic Call  would try to settle in Yathrib, and it was no surprise to discover that they harboured the most enmity  and hatred to Islam and the Messenger (Peace be upon him) even though they did not have the  courage to uncover their feelings in the beginning.
The following incident could attest clearly to that abominable antipathy that the Jews harboured  towards the new political and religious changes that came to stamp the life of Madinah. Ibn Ishaq, on  the authority of the Mother of believers Safiyah (May Allah be pleased her) narrated: Safiyah,