on the spur of the moment, recited a poem improvised at the time,
probably with more or less premeditation. It is said that when Ka'b
reached the fifty-first verse: 'Verily the Apostle of God is a light
from which illumination is sought--a drawn Indian blade, one of the
swords of God,' Muhammad took from his own shoulders the mantle he
wore, and threw it over the shoulders of the poet as an honour and as
a mark of protection. Hence the name given to the effusion, 'The Poem
of the Mantle,' A.D. 630.

Moawia, the first Khalif of the Omaiyides, endeavoured to purchase
this sacred mantle from Ka'b for ten thousand pieces of silver, but
the offer was refused. Later on it was, however, bought from Ka'b's
heirs for twenty thousand pieces of silver, and it passed into the
hands of the Khalifs, and was preserved by them as one of the regalia
of the empire until Baghdad was sacked by the Mughals. The mantle, or
what is supposed to be the self-same mantle, is now in the treasury[2]
of the Sultan Khalif of the Ottomans at Constantinople, in an
apartment named 'The Room of the Sacred Mantle,' in which this robe is
religiously preserved, together with a few other relics of the great
prophet.

[Footnote 2: _Apropos_ of this treasury, it is much to be
regretted that a complete catalogue of its contents has
never been prepared along with a brief historical account of
them. It is difficult to obtain the order, which comes
direct from the Sultan, to visit the collection; and even
then visitors are hurried through at such a pace that it is
impossible to examine with minuteness the many curiosities
collected there.]

Ka'b has thus come to be considered as one of the friendly poets, and
the names of two others are also mentioned, viz., Abd-Allah bin Rewaha
and Hassan bin Thabit. On the other hand, the most celebrated
antagonists who attacked Muhammad, not only with their verses, but
also with their swords, were Abu Sofyan, Amr bin Al-'A'asi, and
Abd-Allah bin Zobeir. These three became great political characters,
but later on made profession of Islam, and were the staunchest supporters
of it, rendering the greatest services to the Prophet during his life,
and to the cause after his death. But Muhammad's greatest triumph over
the poets was the conversion of Labid, who, after the perusal of the
commencement of the second Surah of the Koran, tore down his own poem,
which was hung up in the Kaabah, a