wished to be present, in order to secure a sure covenant for his nephew. After taking their seat, Abbas first took the word, saying, "Ye know, O ye Khazrajites — as then all the Arabs of Medina were called, inclusive of the Awsites — that Mohammed is one of us. We have hitherto protected him against those of the people who share my opinion respecting him. Though he now lives in power amongst his people and enjoys the shelter of his home, yet he wishes to go and unite himself with you. Now if you are sure that you can fulfil what you promise him, and that you will protect him against his enemies; then accept the burden with which you wish to load yourselves. But if you think that you might deceive and betray him, then leave him here; for in his own home he is strong and protected." We returned this answer, "We have heard thy words, and Mohammed has only to declare what is to be our obligation with regard to him and to God." Then Mohammed made a speech to us, invited us to Allah, recited the Koran, awakened in us a love to Islam, and concluded by saying, "Now, swear that you will preserve me from everything from which you preserve your own wives and children." El Bara, seizing his hand, replied, "Yea, by Him who hath sent thee a prophet with truth, we shall protect thee as our bodies: receive our allegiance, O Apostle of God! By Allah! we are the sons of war and men of arms which we, the valiant, have inherited from the valiant." While he thus spake, another interposed, saying, "O Apostle of God, there are ties between us and others — he meant the Jews — which now we shall have to tear asunder; but if we do this, and God gives thee victory, wilt thou then leave us again and return to thy own home?" Mohammed made answer in this wise: "Your blood is my blood; what you shed, I also shed; you belong to me and I belong to you; I declare war to whom you declare war, and make peace with whom you make peace."'

What a light this covenant throws on Mohammed as a prophet and on the nature and bearings of the religion he undertook to establish! That this whole movement was essentially of a secular and political kind into which religion merely entered as an element, is abundantly evident from

the fact that the actual contractor on Mohammed's side was his uncle Abbas, who positively repudiated his nephew's religious pretensions, but was naturally eager to rid his family of so troublesome a client, without dishonour, by assisting to secure for him the protection of a distant town. The stipulations entered into, the promises given between Mohammed and the Khazrajites of Medina, only reveal what kind of relationship he had all along striven to establish, though unsuccessfully, with the Koreishites of Mecca. It was plainly a civil and political compact, defensive and offensive, with express reference to the contingencies of war, bloodshed, and conquest, but based on a profession of Deism and the recognition of Mohammed as its prophet, or highest authority in all religious and secular matters. His own prerogatives and personal protection always constituted a prominent feature of his scheme. But he had to advance step by step. On the first pilgrimage his sympathisers from Medina had only to avow the fealty of women; but on the second, when further progress had been made, so that their number exceeded seventy, they had to promise the fealty of men and of warriors.

Consequently the view propounded in this work is fully justified that, although indeed the ulterior design of worldly gain and military conquest is less apparent in Mohammed's earlier period, this was not the case because the design did not exist, but because the suitable time for its prominent manifestation had not yet arrived. The calculating prophet could not help seeing that a premature resort to arms would infallibly have led to a complete frustration of all his plans. As soon as he could command about a hundred men able to fight, and before he had actually set out to place himself at their head in Medina, he received the commission from God, as Ibn Ishak tells us, to make war and to resist by force of arms all those who molested him or his followers. Hitherto Mohammed had tried hard, but tried in vain, to accomplish his first step amongst the Koreish and other tribes, that of inducing them to accept him as the prophet of Deism. Had he succeeded in this, the next step would have followed as naturally and necessarily in their case, as it now did in that of the more confiding people of Medina. The