own, a material centre for his new religion round which all the converts might cluster, as their common headquarters, to whatever family, or clan, or tribe, they might otherwise belong. But with all this, the artifice cannot be ethically justified. It throws a prejudicial light on the man; and the ease with which he had already accustomed himself in Mecca to handle the sacred subject of Divine revelation, to his own advantage, bodes ill for his future conduct in the same line, when his power will have increased, and his perplexities become more pressing.

The Arab population of Medina was mainly composed of two great tribes, the Awsites and the Khazrajites, the former more powerful than the latter, and each joined by Jewish confederates who for long had been settled amongst them. The Awsites had allied themselves with the two Israelitish clans the Beni Nadhir and the Beni Koreiza; and the Khazrajites with the Beni Keinoka. The jealousy between the two Arab tribes sometimes led to sanguinary encounters which were shared by their Jewish allies. In their most recent battle, that of Buath, where many leading men were slain, the victory had remained with the Awsites. This naturally all the more disposed the defeated Khazrajites to welcome the addition of strength offering in the Moslem party from Mecca. It is true, a small number of Awsites also embraced Islam; but the great majority of Mohammed's adherents as yet belonged to the Khazrajites, who included the Beni Najjar. Thus the ancient jealousy between these leading tribes was only moderated a little, but by no means wholly removed. Under these circumstances Mohammed could not but see, from the very outset, that his great aim must be to bring these two tribes more closely together and to neutralise their old antipathies, by placing before them attractive objects for their common aspiration, and by imposing on them a supreme authority which both would have to respect equally.

Living no longer far off, but in their very midst, on property he had acquired by the supposed intervention of a miraculous agency, the Prophet could now personally press his wishes upon them by all his powers of persuasion. What wonder, that the number of his followers from both sides

daily increased, and that, ere long, entire families and clans were amongst his declared partisans? The Meccan disciples who had not previously emigrated to Medina or who had fled elsewhere for protection, now also speedily joined. their master in his place of safety. They were hospitably received by the converts of the city which had freely opened its gates to Islam. There were thus two main bodies of professed believers, the natives and the immigrants; and these had first of all to be welded into one homogeneous whole, to form the attracting nucleus round which all the still isolated and hostile elements might gradually gather. By their means Mohammed hoped soon to unite all Medina under his leadership and to confer upon it the distinction which Mecca had so contemptuously rejected, that of becoming the powerful centre for extending the triumph of Islam throughout all Arabia. This plainly was the object he aimed at; and the following pages will show us that, by the means, fair and foul, which he employed, in concert with his chief friends, he also carried out his plan with astonishing success.

Union of all in the bonds of Islam, and, what was its indispensable correlative, submission of all to the Prophet, as the highest authority — this was the great principle which had now to be practically carried out in Medina, in order to heal its divisions and to provide it with the needed supreme authority. In doing so, Mohammed made use of the means at his disposal with a dexterity and efficacy which testify to his eminent talents as a ruler of men.

The refugees from Mecca, on whose fidelity he could naturally rely most, were now no longer to be regarded as strangers, dependent on the charity of their new fellow believers, but formally united with them, as if they had always belonged to one and the same tribe, or even as if they were all members of one family, brothers of a common parent. To this end Mohammed arranged a feast of fraternisation between his fellow-refugees and the Medinan converts, whereby the former, at that time amounting to about fifty, were one by one united with selected individuals of the latter, in the bonds of a brotherhood so close and complete that, in case of death, they were even to inherit from each other, to the exclusion of their natural heirs.