ishment according to their deserts.

[Sidenote: 77. The charitable spirit of Mohammad towards his enemies.]

The magnanimity, clemency, forbearance, and forgiveness of Mohammad at
the time of his victory at Mecca were very remarkable. Mr. Stanley Lane
Poole with his usual acumen writes:--"But the final keystone was set in
the eighth year of the flight (A.D. 630), when a body of the Kureysh
broke the truce by attacking an ally of the Muslims; and Mohammad
forthwith marched upon Mekka with ten thousand men, and the city,
defence being hopeless, surrendered. Now was the time for the Prophet to
show his bloodthirsty nature. His old persecutors are at his feet. Will
he not trample on them, torture them, revenge himself after his own
cruel manner? Now the man will come forward in his true colours: we may
prepare our horror, and cry shame beforehand.

"But what is this? Is there no blood in the streets? Where are the
bodies of the thousands that have been butchered? Facts are hard things;
and it is a fact that the day of Mohammad's greatest triumph over his
enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely
forgave the Kureysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn they had
inflicted on him: he gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mekka.
Four criminals, whom justice condemned, made up Mohammad's proscription
list when he entered as a conqueror the city of his bitterest enemies.
The army followed the example, and entered quietly and peaceably; no
house was robbed, no woman insulted."[265]

5.--_Abu Basir._

[Sidenote: 78. Abu Basir not countenanced by the Prophet in
contravention of the spirit of the treaty of Hodeibia.]

Sir W. Muir says that "Abu Basir, the free-booter, was countenanced by
the Prophet in a manner scarcely consistent with the letter, and
certainly opposed to the spirit, of the truce of Hodeibia."[266] It was
one of the articles of the treaty of Hodeibia between the Koreish and
Mohammad, that if any one goeth over to Mohammad without the permission
of his guardian, he shall be sent back to him.[267] A short time after,
Abu Basir, a Moslem imprisoned at Mecca, effected his escape and
appeared at Medina. His guardians, Azhar and Akhnas, sent two servants
to Mohammad with a letter and instructions to bring the deserter back to
his house. The obligation of surrender was at once admitted by Mohammad,
though Abu Basir pleaded the persecution which he used to suffer at
Mecca as the c