in several places of the Koran. During the whole time of his
ministry, Mohammad was persecuted, rejected, despised and at last made
an outlaw by the Koreish at Mecca, and a fugitive seeking protection in
a distant city; exiled, attacked upon, besieged, defeated, and prevented
from returning to Mecca or visiting the Holy Kaaba by the same enemies
at Mecca and other surrounding tribes who had joined them, and even from
within Medina plotted against by the Jews who were not less aggressive
towards him than their confederates of Mecca, the Koreish, whom they had
instigated to make war on him and had brought an overwhelming army, had
proved traitors, and, even more injurious than the Koreish themselves.
Consequently, he was constantly in dangers and troubles, and under such
circumstances it was impossible for him to be aggressive, to get time or
opportunity to pursue any aggressive course, or enforce, at the point of
the sword, any attempt of his for universal acceptance, or universal
supremacy even if he had designed so. But it was far from his principles
to have cherished the object of universal conquest. "That Islam ever
stepped beyond the limits of Arabia and its border lands," admits Sir.
W. Muir in his Rede Lecture for 1881, just twenty years after he had
written the passage I am dealing with, "was due to circumstances rather
than design. The faith was meant originally for the Arabs. From first to
last, the call was addressed primarily to them." He writes in a footnote
of the same lecture (page 5):

"It is true that three or four years before, Mahomet had addressed
dispatches to the Kaiser, and the Chosroes, and other neighbouring
potentates, summoning them to embrace the true faith. But the step
had never been followed up in any way."[308]

[Sidenote: 116. Mr. Freeman quoted.]

Mr. Freeman writes regarding Mohammad:--

"Mahomet had before him the example of Mosaic Law, which preached a far
more rigorous mandate of extermination against the guilty nations of
Canaan. He had before him the practice of all surrounding powers,
Christian, Jewish, and Heathen; though, from the disaffection of Syria
and Egypt to the orthodox throne of Constantinople, he might have
learned how easily persecution defeats its own end.... Under his
circumstances, it is really no very great ground to condemnation that he
did appeal to the sword. He did no more than follow the precedents of
his own and every surrounding nati