Jewish tribe. They surrendered
after a siege of fifteen days, and Mohammed ordered all the prisoners to
be killed; but at last, at the urgent request of a powerful chief in
Medina, allowed them to go into exile, cursing them and their intercessor.
Mr. Muir mentions other cases of assassination of the Jews by the command
of the prophet. All these facts are derived from contemporaneous Moslem
historians, who glorify their prophet for this conduct. The worst action
perhaps of this kind was the deliberate execution of seven or eight
hundred Jewish prisoners, who had surrendered at discretion, and the sale
of their wives and children into slavery. Mohammed selected from among
these women one more beautiful than the rest, for his concubine. Whether
M. Saint-Hilaire considers all this as "yielding to the political
necessities of his position," we do not know. But this man, who could
stand by and see hundreds of captives slaughtered in cold blood, and then
retire to solace himself with the widow of one of his victims, seems to us
to have retained little of his early purity of soul.

About this time Mohammed began to multiply wives, and to receive
revelations allowing him to do so beyond the usual limit of his law. He
added one after another to his harem, until he had ten wives, besides his
slaves. His views on such subjects are illustrated by his presenting three
beautiful female slaves, taken in war, one to his father-in-law, and the
others to his two sons-in-law.

So, in a series of battles, with the Jewish tribes, the Koreish, the
Syrians, passed the stormy and triumphant years of the Pontiff King. Mecca
was conquered, and the Koreish submitted in A.D. 630. The tribes
throughout Arabia acquiesced, one by one, in the prophet's authority. All
paid tribute, or accepted Islam. His enemies were all under his feet; his
doctrines accepted; the rival prophets, Aswad and Museilama, overcome.
Then, in the sixty-third year of his age, death drew near. On the last day
of his life, he went into the mosque to attend morning prayer, then back
to the room of his favorite wife, Ayesha, and died in her arms. Wild with
grief, Omar declared he was not dead, but in a trance. The grave Abu Bakr
composed the excited multitude, and was chosen caliph, or successor to the
prophet. Mohammed died on June 8, A.D. 632, and was buried the next day,
amid the grief of his followers. Abu Bakr and Omar offered the prayer:
"Peace be unto thee, O prophet of God