n at the hands of Titus, two
Jewish tribes, the Kainukua and the Koreitza, outcast and desolate, even
as they had been warned in their time of dominion, lighted upon Medina in
desperate search for a dwelling-place and a respite from persecution, and
forthwith took possession of the little hill-girt town. They settled
there, driving out or conciliating the former inhabitants, until in the
fourth century their tenuous prosperity was disturbed by the inroads of
two Bedouin tribes, the Beni Aus and the Beni Khazraj. The desert was
wide, and these tribes were familiar with its manifold opportunities and
devious ways. Against such a foe, who swooped down suddenly upon the
city, plundered and then escaped into the limitless unknown, the Jews had
no chance of reprisal.

Before long the Beni Aus and Khazraj had subjugated the Jewish
communities, and their dominion in Medina was only weakened by their
devastating quarrels among themselves. The city therefore offered a
peculiar opening for the teaching of Islam within it. Its religious life
indeed was varied and chaotic. Jews, Arabian idolaters, immigrants from
Christian Syria, torn by schisms, thronged its public places, and this
confusion of faiths sharpened the religious and debating instincts of its
people. The ground was thus broken up for the reception of the new creed
of one God and of his messenger, who had already divided Mecca into
believers and heretics, and who was spoken of in the city with that awe
that attaches itself to distant marvels.

Intercourse with Mecca was chiefly carried on at the time of the yearly
Pilgrimage; the Greater Pilgrimage, only undertaken during Dzul Hijj,
corresponding then to our March, and in Dzul Hijj, 620, came a band of
strangers over the hills, along the toilsome caravan route to the Kaaba,
the goal of their intentions, the shrine of all their prayers. They
performed all the necessary ceremonies at Mecca, and were proceeding to
Mina, a small valley just east of Mecca, for the completion of their
sacred duties, when they were accosted by Mahomet.

The Prophet was despondent and sceptical of his power to persuade, though
his belief in Allah's might never wavered. He had failed so far to
produce any decisive impression upon the Meccan people, but might there
not be another town in Arabia which would receive his message? The little
band of pilgrims seemed to him sent in answer to his self-distrust, and
his failure at Taif as eclipsed by th