nder, is not a fact. It is only mentioned by Katib
Wackidi, and is not to be found in any other earliest account of
Wackidi, Ibn Is-hak, and Ibn Hisham. Even Katib Wackidi does not say
that the execution was ordered by Mohammad, and it is not fair on the
part of Sir W. Muir to hold Mohammad an accomplice in the ferocious act,
because he reads of no disapprobation expressed by the Prophet at such
an inhuman treatment.[257] But in the first place the narration is a
mere fiction; and secondly, the traditions are, as a rule, always
incomplete; in one place they are given shorter, and in another longer,
according to the circumstances of the occasion on which they are
originally recited. Ibn Hisham relates, that "Zaid-bin-Harisa ordered
Kays-bin-Mosahhar to execute Omm Kirfa, so he executed her with a
violent execution." ('_Katlan Aneefan_,' p. 980.) He does not relate
that Mohammad was even informed of the execution after the party had
returned from this terrible mission. I think the word '_aneef_'
(_violent_ or _severe_), as used originally by the narrator, might have
been the cause of the growth of the story of executing by tying up to
two camels, by way of a gratuitous explanation or glossary, as another
tradition relates that she was tied to the tails of two horses (_vide
Koostalanee_ in his Commentary on Bokharee, Vol. III, p. 307).

2.--_Urnee Robbers._

[Sidenote: 73. The alleged mutilation of the Urnee robbers.]

Some _Urnee_ robbers, lately converted, had plundered the camels of
Medina and barbarously handled their herdsman, for they cut off his
hands and legs, and struck thorny spikes into his tongue and eyes, till
he died. The bandits were pursued, captured, and executed by
Kurz-bin-Jabir. "They had merited death," says Sir W. Muir, "but the
mode in which he inflicted it was barbarous and inhuman. The arms and
legs of eight men were cut off, and their eyes were put out. The
shapeless, sightless trunks of these wretched Bedouins were then impaled
upon the plain of Al Ghaba, until life was extinct."[258] As the robbers
had mutilated the herdsman, this gave currency to their having been
mutilated in retaliation. But in fact Mohammad never ordered mutilation
in any case. He was so averse to this practice, that several traditions
from various sources emanating from him to the effect, prove that he
prohibited mutilation lest he himself be mutilated by divine
judgment.[259]

[Sidenote: 74. Amputation or banishment su