and international law, and was decapitated at Medina accordingly. The
mode of execution was a sudden violence or deception, but Mohammad never
fulminated any harsh commands against him either for his assassination
or for his murder. He deserved capital punishment for his treachery,
which was duly measured out to him in the absence of any legal tribunals
for trials of criminals by jury, for in that case any man was authorized
to execute the sentence of the law. Even if it be taken for granted that
the Prophet had prayed "O Lord, deliver me from the son of Ashraf, in
whatsoever manner seemeth good unto thee, because of his open sedition
and verses;" or said, "Who can ease me of the son of Ashraf?"[210] This
does not amount to a fiat for murder or execution, much less for
assassination.

[Sidenote: 50. Mohammad could not have any share in his murder.]

The biographers and narrators of the campaigns of Mohammad generally
relate untrustworthy and fabulous details of such events, and are by no
means to be relied upon. Mohammad Ibn Ishak, the earliest biographer,
whose work exists, does not relate that Mohammad the Prophet ever prayed
for, or said to his followers, to be got rid of Kab; whereas the latest
biographers and traditionalists give us to understand that the Prophet
sanctioned the murder of Kab by his own express orders. "I am far from
asserting," says Sir W. Muir, "that every detail in the foregoing
narrative, either of instigation by Mahomet or of deception by the
assassins, is beyond suspicion. The actors in such scenes were not slow
to magnify and embellish their own services at the expense of truth.
There may also have been the desire to justify an act of perfidy, at
which even the loose morality of the day was startled, by casting the
burden of it on the infallible Prophet. But, after allowing all due
weight to both of these considerations, enough remains to prove, in this
case, the worst features of assassination, and the fact that they were
directly countenanced, or rather prompted, by Mahomet himself."[211]
There is no substantial proof in this case which tends to establish the
instigation Mohammad offered for the murder of Kab. The best traditions
for the story of Kab's assassination rest with Jabir-bin Abdullah,[212]
and Ibn Abbas through Ikrama.[213]

None of them can be an authority, for they were neither eye-witnesses,
nor they heard the Prophet countenancing or prompting the assassination,
nor they a