at Ohad. And last, not least, the
Moslem missionaries were cut to pieces at Raji and Bir Mauna. At the
close of the year, the people of Medina were alarmed by an exaggerated
account of the preparations at Mecca to attack Medina as promised last
year (Sura III, v. 176). During the fifth year certain tribes of
Ghatafan were assembling with suspicious purposes at Zat-al-Rikaa and
the marauding bands near Dumatal Jandal threatened a raid upon Medina.
The Bani Mustalik, a branch of Khozaa, hitherto friendly to Mohammad's
cause, took up arms with a view of joining the Koreish in the intended
attack upon Medina. At the end of the year, the Koreish, joined by an
immense force of the Bedouin tribes,[11] marched against Medina, and
laid siege to it for many days. The Bani Koreiza, having defected from
Mohammad, joined the Koreish army when Medina was besieged.

In the beginning of the sixth year Uyeina, the chief of the Bani
Fezara, had committed an inroad upon Medina.[12] A Medinite caravan,
under the charge of Zeid-bin-Haris, was seized and plundered by the Bani
Fezara.[13] In the month of Zul-Kada, (the eleventh month of the Arab
lunar year), when war was unlawful throughout Arabia, but much more so
within the sacred precincts of Mecca, Mohammad and his followers,
longing to visit the house of their Lord and the sacred places around
it, and to join the yearly pilgrimage which they had grown from their
childhood to regard as an essential part of their social and religious
life, not to mention their intense desire of seeing their houses and
families from which they were unjustly expelled, started from Medina for
performing the lesser pilgrimage. They were under the impression that,
in the peaceful habits of pilgrims, the Koreish would be morally bound
by every pledge of national faith to leave them unmolested, and Mohammad
had promised them a peaceful entry. But the Koreish armed themselves and
opposed the progress of the Moslems towards Mecca, notwithstanding the
pious object and unwarlike attitude of the pilgrims. At length a treaty,
in terms unfavourable to the Moslems, but in fact a victory won by
Islam, was concluded by Mohammad and the Koreish at Hodeibia. By this
peace war was suspended for ten years.

From my brief sketch of Mohammad's first six years' sojourn in Medina,
it is evident that during this time Medina was constantly in a sort of
military defence. The Moslems were every moment in the danger of an
invasion, at