Bedr should be sung by numberless bards, and that the very names of the combatants engaged in it should have been carefully preserved by the Mohammedan historians.

(6.) The Meccans, under a sense of their disgraceful defeat at Bedr, stir up their Confederates against Mohammed, and avenge themselves by the decided Victory at Oho.

The battle of Bedr, which had taken place early in spring 624 A.D., inaugurated a period of bitter warfare between the two rival communities of Mecca and Medina, in which, for three years, the former took the offensive and the latter defended itself with more or less success. Then, for three years longer, Mohammed indeed refrained from open attack, but indirectly worked against the Koreish, by steadily pursuing a policy of conquest elsewhere, and stealthily concluding treaties of amity with sundry Bedouin tribes, up to the very confines of the Meccan territory. He was evidently much impressed with the power of his great adversary, and perhaps also not a little influenced by the kinship subsisting between the refugees and leading Meccan families, and by a lingering regard for his native city with its cherished sanctuary. His slow and prudent tactics proved eminently successful. At the end of the six years under consideration, the coveted prize fell into his lap, like a ripe fruit. Proud Mecca, after a bare semblance of resistance, tamely submitted to its wily adversary, and became a Moslem city in the year 630 A.D.

It may also be mentioned in this place, though the subject will be more fully treated further on, that the first half of this sexennial period, or the three years' defensive warfare against Mecca, was at the same time marked by active aggression and exterminating persecution against the three Jewish tribes of Medina. They persistently rejected Mohammed's prophetic claims, and were therefore looked upon by him as disguised enemies, or, at best, as doubtful allies. He therefore determined to get rid of them by any means, so as to free the Seat of his power from all appearance of religious discord and from every possible danger of political treachery. Thus relieved of anxieties

about home affairs, he could hope to direct his attention with safety to the extension of his conquests in Arabia and to deal a successful blow against Mecca. The three Jewish tribes of Medina fell victims to this policy, in rapid succession, and only a year after he had got rid of them, Mohammed consummated his anti-Jewish plans by the unprovoked and cruel conquest of the flourishing colony of Khaibar, A.D. 628. The rich spoil taken from the Jews greatly increased his means for effectually operating against the Arabs.

The defeat of Bedr was keenly felt as a vexatious surprise and galling humiliation by the over-confident Koreish. They mourned their dead in silence, abstaining from the usual lamentations, 'lest Mohammed and his companions should hear of it and maliciously rejoice in their misfortune.' They also purposely avoided all appearance of haste, in treating for the release of their prisoners of war, 'lest Mohammed and his companions should demand too high a ransom.' It was no easy matter to stir this cautious city of traders into measures of a magnitude sufficient to ensure the overthrow of their formidable enemy and to vindicate their own tarnished honour. But Abu Sofyan — who had already, on several occasions, shown his superiority over Mohammed, as a strategist — possessed confidence in himself, and did not allow the Moslems to believe that Mecca was cowed and afraid of meditating retaliation. Ibn Hisham narrates that when Abu Sofyan arrived at Mecca, simultaneously with the fugitives from Bedr, he made a vow, not to wash his head with water until he had made a warlike demonstration against Mohammed. After a delay of only a few weeks, he started with 200, or, according to another account, with only 40 horsemen, marched warily along the pathless highlands and reached the neighbourhood of Medina unobserved. During the night he went alone to the house of a chief of the Beni Nadhir, at some distance from the town, received refreshments and information, and, having rejoined his party, set fire to some huts and date-plantations, belonging to Medina, and killed several of its people. So rapidly did he execute this feat, that Mohammed was again signally