community
Yathrib (Medina) and its Jewish tribes
Medina, Saudi Arabia · Arabia & Arab frontier
24.465, 39.616
Same slug as the bridge run's place_id 'medina' (nodes najran-delegation-631, believers-movement).
Attested. The Jewish tribes are known only from Islamic sources (sira, hadith, the Constitution of Medina). No excavation has been possible. Numbers and details of the 627 events are debated.
Pre-Islamic Yathrib had three main Jewish tribes, the Qaynuqa, Nadir and Qurayza, alongside the Arab Aws and Khazraj. The 'Constitution of Medina' names Jewish groups as part of the community. Islamic sources report the expulsion of the Qaynuqa and Nadir and the killing of the Qurayza men in 627. Islamic tradition also reports a few Christian converts in the town.
Added from later research
abrahamic
Yathrib (Medina): Jewish tribes
Before Muhammad's emigration (622), Yathrib's oasis was shared by the Arab Aws and Khazraj with Jewish tribes: the Qaynuqa', Nadir and Qurayza. The 'Constitution of Medina' named Jews as part of the community. By 627 the three main tribes had been expelled or, in the case of the Qurayza, killed.
attested. The events are known from Islamic sources written 120 years or more later (Ibn Ishaq, al-Waqidi). Some numbers and details, e.g. the Qurayza executions, are debated by historians.
Source stance: neutral. Islamic sources, outsiders to the Jewish communities and part of a conquest narrative; no Jewish source survives.
People and groups named here
- Banu Qaynuqa
- Banu Nadir
- Banu Qurayza
- Abu 'Amir al-Rahib (Christian ascetic, per tradition)
Sources
- Jewish tribes of Arabia (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Banu Qurayza (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors. Accessed 2026-11-11.
- Pleiades place 814688: Iathrippa
Pleiades Gazetteer (ISAW, NYU). Accessed 2026-11-11.
- "Medina", Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
Jewish Encyclopedia / Funk & Wagnalls (public domain). Accessed 2026-11-11.
Further reading
Councils here
None in this list.