KAʿB AL-ASHRAF

KAʿB AL-ASHRAF (d. 625), poet and chief opponent of Muhammad at medina . A member of the Naḍīr tribe or of mixed Arab-Jewish descent (his mother was a Naḍīr), Kaʿb espoused the cause of Judaism and composed verses against Muhammad and islam . He went to Mecca to incite the Quraysh tribe to fight against Muhammad and later lamented its defeat. His lament and other poetry are extant. On his return to Medina, he allegedly seduced Muslim women. Anxious for his death, Muhammad ibn Maslama led Muhammad's followers into enticing Kaʿb to leave his house one night on the pretext of plotting against the Prophet; they then assassinated Kaʿb. The poet was mourned by the Naḍīr, who were expelled from Medina one year after his death. The story is recorded in the eighth-century Arab history by Muhammad ibn Isḥāq, Sīrat Rasūl Allah (tr. by Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (1955), 364–9); EIS2 4 (1978), 315 (incl. bibliography).. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H.Z. Hirschberg, Yisrael be-Arav (1946), index; W.M. Watt, Muhammad at Medina (1956), 209f.; EIS, 2 pt. 1 (1927), 583.