we pay allegiance to thee, and God gives thee the victory over thy adversaries, shall we receive the dominion after thee? "Mohammed answered, "Dominion belongs to God He gives it to whomsoever He pleases." To this Beihara replied, "Shall we expose our necks to the Arabs for thee, and, if God makes thee victorious, leave the dominion in the hands of others? We will have nothing to do with thee." Thus they also turned away from him.' Surely we need no clearer proof than this, that Mohammed's plans of conquest were not engendered by his favourable circumstances in Medina; but that they formed a chief feature of his aspirations already in Mecca, by means of which he sought to attract the Arabs. But the latter were clear-sighted enough to perceive that their desired conversion was but to furnish him with the means of establishing his own dominion, and for such a purpose they did not wish to risk their lives.

Mohammed's failure in Mecca was complete, and all the Kabiles he tried were too wary to cast in their lot with his. All the means at his disposal as the unarmed Prophet of Mecca — his personal virtues, his eloquence, his high social position, his family connection with the keepers of the Kaaba, his deistic teaching, the prospects of political domination and worldly gain which he held out with undisguised plainness — availed for him only to procure a small number of partisans amongst interested persons. The many means in his favour proved wholly inadequate to convince the intelligence of Mecca, or even the bulk of the common population, that he was a messenger of God whose words had to be believed and his behests obeyed.

(11.) Mohammed succeeds in gaining a number of Partisans amongst the People of Medina.

To all appearance the Meccan Prophet and his Islam would have been nipped in the bud, had not Mecca's old rival, the city of Yathreb, snatched at the chance of supremacy now offering, and opened its gates to the desperate suppliants. Yathreb, or Medina, i.e. 'the city,' as it was named by the Mohammedans for becoming the first home of their politico-religious organisation, was not, as we have

already learned, a stranger to Mohammed. His great-grandmother and his grandfather were natives of that town. His father died and was buried there. When he was six years of age, his mother paid a visit to the place, and took him with her to form the acquaintance of his distant relatives and to see his father's grave. The sickly mother never returned to Mecca, but died on her homeward journey. An interest in the orphan child and his fate must, therefore, have survived in Medina, and when the tidings reached it that he professed himself God's Prophet to the Arab nation, this could not but form a subject for frequent lively conversations in that city.

Mohammed tenaciously clung to his own tribe, the Koreish, and would infinitely have preferred his native Mecca; but when all hopes from that quarter had vanished and he was driven to look abroad for safety and shelter, what was more natural for him than to turn his hopes and enthusiasm to the other town with which he was likewise connected by such strong links? And what could offer more attraction to the ancient jealousy of the Yathrebites, than an accession of strength from the Meccans themselves, including such men of mark as Abu Bekr, Hamza, Omar, Othman, together with the much-talked-of new prophet? Moreover, the strong Jewish colony in Yathreb, with their ancient Monotheism, must have in a sense prepared the way for the reception of a religious reformer. Without Yathreb, Mohammed would in all probability have died as a derided enthusiast, and his name been utterly forgotten. By opening herself as a refuge to him and his partisans, Medina became the real birthplace of Islam, the cradle of its political power, and the centre of its conquests throughout Arabia. It fully deserves its name as 'the city,' and its early converts that of 'the assistants or helpers' of Islam.

The biographers duly appreciate the nature and importance of the transfer of incipient Islam from Mecca to Medina, and give a detailed account of the manner in which it was brought about. It is highly instructive as showing the predominantly political and secular character of the Mohammedan movement, already at this period. For now