(11.) Mohammed, making good use of his armistice with the Koreish, seeks to extend h is influence abroad, by sending messengers to neighbouring Potentates, summoning them to embrace Islam.

It surely was no small triumph for Mohammed to conclude, on even terms, a formal treaty with proud Mecca, and thus to see himself recognised as the sovereign head of a rival commonwealth, entitled to form alliances and extend his power, as he might see fit. The state of long and bitter warfare between the two rival powers was now succeeded by one of tranquillity and peace, secured by a solemn treaty. The Beni Khoza, who lived in the immediate neighbourhood of Mecca, and had hitherto been united with the Koreish, though of late secretly favourable to Mohammed, forthwith availed themselves of the treaty-stipulation, by entering into an open league with him, even before he started on his return journey.

There can also be no doubt, that the circumspect prophet made good use of his proximity to the city and of the constant passing to and fro of messengers, amongst them his own son-in-law Othman, for seeking to convert influential men, by various promises, from open enemies into secret friends. The Meccans, especially those of them who were near relatives, shrewdly calculating the chances of the future in genuine Arab fashion, were now much more open to influences of this kind than formerly. It is certainly remarkable that, within a few weeks of the apparently unsuccessful pilgrimage, he despatched a messenger with rich presents to the king of Abyssinia, in order to woo the widowed daughter of his old adversary Abu Sofyan, the most prominent man of Mecca; and that she at once consented to return with the messenger and swell the number of the Prophet's wives. This points to a probability that he had found means to act even on the feelings of Abu Sofyan and secretly to inspire him with more benevolent sentiments.

From underhand inquiries Mohammed ascertained with satisfaction, that the general current of opinion was beginning to take a turn in his favour. This could not but

greatly raise his expectations as regards the future. He was so fully cognisant of the military weakness of the trading city in which he had grown up and which he had now again observed from the close proximity of Hodeibia, and he had so high an appreciation of his own strength, as the chief commander of a devoted army of tried warriors who looked upon his orders as Divine injunctions, that, to his sanguine mind, the time already seemed near, when the two greatest cities of Arabia would own him as their head, and he be acknowledged as the virtual dictator of the entire Arab nation. Once beholding, with the eager eye of hopeful anticipation, all Arabia united under his more than Imperial sceptre, it was not too great a step for him to go still further, by casting his longing eyes beyond the borders of the Arabian Peninsula, and to indulge the hope of one day imposing his religion and his dominion upon the rulers and people of the surrounding countries, in every direction.

The Mohammedan biographers agree in recording that, immediately after his return home from Hodeibia, their prophet addressed formal letters, stamped with a seal specially made for the occasion, to a number of neighbouring potentates. He boldly summoned them to embrace Islam, and thus to accept him as their virtual suzerain whose utterances were to be regarded as the law paramount. These letters were forwarded to their respective destinations by special messengers. The whole ceremony appears to have been intended as a parallel to the mission given by Jesus Christ to His twelve apostles, to 'go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every nation.' But it is clear that, by seeking to substitute and enforce a universal dominion of the Koran, in place of the universal destiny of the Gospel, which was already in course of realisation, the Arab Prophet only gave an historical expression to the essentially anti-Christian character both of himself and of his new religion.

Ibn Ishak's account of the transaction is in these words 'One day, after his return from Hodeibia, Mohammed came to his companions and said, "O ye people! God has sent me to you with grace and to avert evil from you; therefore do not resist me, as the apostles resisted Jesus, the Son of