nal Arabic.--_Vide_ Ibn Hisham, p.
963. It is not clear what was meant by the two months' truce he was
advised to give them, to make terms before he could commence
hostilities, if the tradition for which there is no authority be true.
This has nothing to do with their compulsory conversions.]

[Footnote 57: Salaba was a branch of the Zobian.]

[Footnote 58: The Bani Abd-ul-Kays are a Moaddite tribe, the descendants
of Rabia. They inhabited Bahrein on the Persian Gulf.]

[Footnote 59: The Bani Tamim were branch of Tabikha, a tribe of the
Moaddite stock of Mecca and a sister tribe of Mozeina. They are famous
in the history of Najd, a province north-east of Medina, from the
confines of Syria to Yemen. Some of these branches were with Mohammad at
the expeditions to Mecca and Honain. All the branches of the tribes that
had not yet embraced Islam were now converted.]

[Footnote 60: The Bani Asad ibn Khozeima were a powerful tribe residing
near the hill of Katan in Najd. They were of the Moaddite tribe of the
Meccan stock. Tuleiba, their chief, had assembled a force of cavalry and
rapid camel-drivers to make a raid upon Medina in A.H. 4. They were
dispersed by the Moslems. In the next year they joined the Koreish in
the siege of Medina.]

[Sidenote: Surrender of Mecca. A.H., 8.]

27. The position of Islam at Mecca was greatly strengthened since the
truce in A.H. 6, by increase in the number of Moslems, influential and
leading, as well as of persons of minor note and importance there,
consequently the advocates of Islam, peace and compromise were growing
in number and confidence. Among the idolatrous Koreish there were no
chiefs of marked ability or commanding influence left at Mecca; almost
all of them had gone over to the cause of Islam. In the meantime the
infraction of the terms of the truce by the Bani Bakr and Koreish caused
the surrender of Mecca without bloodshed.

[Sidenote: The Meccans not compelled to believe.]

28. Though Mecca had surrendered, all its inhabitants had not already
become converts to Islam. Mohammad did not take any compulsory means to
convert the people: "Although the city had cheerfully accepted his
supremacy," writes Sir W. Muir, "all its inhabitants had not yet
embraced the new religion, or formally acknowledged his prophetical
claim. Perhaps he intended to follow the course he had pursued at Medina
and leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished
without compulsion