29, 36.
All these have been quoted in full and discussed elsewhere.[311] They
relate only to defensive wars.

[Sidenote: 118. Mr. Bosworth Smith quoted.]

Mr. Bosworth Smith says:--

"The free toleration of the purer among the creeds around him, which the
Prophet had at first enjoined, gradually changes into intolerance.
Persecuted no longer, Mohammed becomes a persecutor himself; with the
Koran in one hand, the scymitar in the other, he goes forth to offer to
the nations the threefold alternative of conversion, tribute,
death."[312]

Mohammad never changed his practice of toleration nor his own teachings
into intolerance; he was always persecuted at Mecca and Medina, but, for
all we know, he himself never turned a persecutor. The three-fold
alternative so much talked of, and so little proved, is nowhere to be
found in the Koran. This subject has been fully discussed in paras.
34-39.

[Sidenote: 119. Mr. G. Sale quoted.]

Mr. George Sale, in his celebrated preliminary discourse to the
translation of the Koran, writes, referring to the thirteenth year of
Mohammad's mission:--

"Hitherto Mohammed had propagated his religion by fair means, so that
the whole success of his enterprise, before his flight to Medina, must
be attributed to persuasion only, and not to compulsion. For before this
second oath of fealty or inauguration at al Akaba, he had no permission
to use any force at all; and in several places of the Koran, which he
pretended were revealed during his stay at Mecca, he declares his
business was only to preach and admonish; that he had no authority to
compel any person to embrace his religion; and that whether people
believed or not, was none of his concern, but belonged solely to God.
And he was so far from allowing his followers to use force, that he
exhorted them to bear patiently those injuries which were offered them
on account of their faith; and when persecuted himself chose rather to
quit the place of his birth and retire to Medina, than to make any
resistance. But this great passiveness and moderation seems entirely
owing to his want of power and the great superiority of his oppressors
for the first twelve years of his mission; for no sooner was he enabled
by the assistance of those of Medina to make head against his enemies,
than he gave out, that God had allowed him and his followers to defend
themselves against the infidels; and at length, as his forces increased,
he pretended to have the di