Code of the
Arabs, or the ancient usage and military law of nations. It has been
proved beyond all dispute that the Meccans were the first aggressors in
persecuting the Moslems, and expelling them from their dear homes at
Mecca with the unbearable annoyance, they caused the converts of the new
faith in the peaceful prosecution of their religion; taking all these
causes of offence into consideration, as well as the International law
and the law of Nature, the Moslems might be said to have law and justice
both on their sides in waging war with their harassers for the
restoration of their property and homes, and even in retaliating and
making reprisals until they attained the object long sought by them.
When the Meccans, on their own part, had first trumpeted hostility
against the Moslems, the right of self-defence, as well as military
necessity, compelled the latter to destroy their property, and obstruct
the ways and channels of communication by which their traffic was
prospering; for, "from the moment one State is at war with another, it
has, on general principles, a right to seize on all the enemy's
property of whatsoever kind and wheresoever found, and to appropriate
the property thus taken to its own use, or to that of the captors."[204]

[Footnote 201: I have closely followed Sir W. Muir in these expeditions;
_vide_ The Life of Mahomet, Vol. III, pp. 64-69.]

[Footnote 202: "The people of Medina were pledged only to defend the
Prophet from attack, not to join him in any aggressive steps against the
Coreish." Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. III, p. 64.]

[Footnote 203: Bokharee relates from Obada-bin Samat with the usual
chain of narrators, that "I am one of the _Nakeebs_ who pledged to the
Prophet. We pledged that we will not join any other god with the God,
and will not commit theft, and will not commit fornication, and will not
commit murder, and will not plunder." Saheeh of Bokharee, Book of
Campaigns, chapter on Deputations from Ansars.]

[Footnote 204: Wheaton's Elements of International Law, p. 419, Boston,
1855; Lieber's Miscellaneous Writings; Political science, Vol. II, p.
250, Philadelphia, 1881.]

_The alleged Assassinations._

[Sidenote: 44. Instances of alleged assassinations cited.]

There were certain executions of culprits who had perpetrated the crime
of high treason against the Moslem Commonwealth. These executions, and
certain other cases of murders not grounded on any credible evidences,