Raihana for his own harem, and the rest he bartered away to Bedouins for horses and arms. By such means as these, a man who called himself an ambassador of God solved his difficulties, and smoothed the way to wealth and power for himself and his followers.

Seeing that Mohammed himself did not scruple to own and sell his fellow-men as slaves, how can we wonder that slavery has always been a recognised institution throughout the Mohammedan world? It is but natural, that the religion of such a prophet should be as tolerant and favourable to the continuance of slavery, as the religion of Jesus Christ tends surely, though perhaps slowly, to bring about the cessation of this degraded condition of humanity.¹

Medina was now clear of the Jews: two of the tribes had been banished, the third massacred, and those individuals who still remained, conformed, at least outwardly, to the new order of things and professed Islam. Mohammed had completely triumphed and all his rivals were humbled to the dust. The Jews were relatively weak, forming mere colonies of strangers in a land not originally their own, and the alliances they had formed with native Arabs could, therefore, be disregarded by the latter with comparatively little risk. This, Mohammed and his friends were shrewd enough to perceive and to turn to their own advantage. They succeeded in getting rid of the three Jewish tribes, one by one, without having to encounter armed forces of confederates, hastening to their assistance.

Thereby they became emboldened to extend their anti-Jewish policy still further and to aim at subjugating all other Jews of Arabia to their power, so that, thus strengthened,

their ulterior object of uniting all Arabia under the banner of Islam might be all the more easily accomplished. The massacre of the Beni Koreiza took place A.D. 627, and in the spring, or, according to others, the autumn, of the year 628, the Moslem army marched against the Jewish colonies situated four or five days' journey to the north of Medina, the richest and most flourishing of which was that of Khaibar, with its extensive and fertile plantations of far-famed date-palms. This expedition was to deal the finishing stroke against Jewish independence and Jewish nationality in Arabia.

But some time before it was actually carried out, the inhabitants of Khaibar were horrified by one of the dastardly assassinations to which Mohammed did not scruple to stoop, for the purposes of revenge. The victim selected this time was Sallam, a leading man of the Beni Nadhir who, after the expulsion of the tribe from Medina, had settled in Khaibar and enjoyed great influence there. He was accused of having had a hand in stirring up the Meccans to the war in which they laid siege to Medina. Mohammed never had any difficulty in finding amongst his followers willing tools for executing such secret missions. Ibn Ishak mentions it as one of the Divine favours to Mohammed, that 'the two tribes of the Awsites and Khazrajites were as jealous about his head as two male camels.' Accordingly, as the former had assassinated Kab Ibn Ashraf, the latter aspired after an equal distinction and asked the Prophet's permission, which was gladly given, to do away with Sallam. Five Khazrajites, one of whom Mohammed had appointed chief for the occasion, reached Khaibar after dark, and, professing to have come for the purpose of buying corn, were admitted to Sallam's upper apartment, where he was already lying on his bed. But as soon as they had him thus in their power, they fell upon him with their daggers and massacred the defenceless man, without the slightest shame or compunction. By the time the startled Jews came to see what had happened, the assassins had decamped and were on the way to their master, to receive his thanks.

Mohammed, with a considerable army of followers, intended to celebrate the pilgrimage festival of the year 628, at