opposers of the prophets. It was he who restrained their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca." The entrance into Mecca on this occasion is vaunted of by the apostle as the fulfilment of a prophetic dream. "Now hath God in truth verified unto his apostle the vision, wherein he said, Ye shall surely enter the holy temple of Mecca, if God please, in full security."

This event tended greatly to confirm the power of Mohammed; and not long after, he was solemnly inaugurated and invested with the authority of a king by his principal men. With the royal dignity he associated that of supreme pontiff of his religion, and thus became at once the king and priest of his Moslem followers, whose numbers had by this time swelled to a large amount. So intense had their devotion to their leader now become, that even a hair that had dropped from his head, and the water in which he washed himself, were carefully collected and preserved, as partaking of superhuman virtue. A deputy, sent from another city of Arabia to Medina to treat with the prophet, beheld with astonishment the blind and unbounded veneration of his votaries. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia, and the Cæsar of" Rome, but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mohammed among his companions."

With this new addition to his nominal authority, he began to assume more of the pomp and parade due to his rank. After the erection of the mosque at Medina, in which the prophet himself officiated

as leader of worship, he had for a long time no other convenience in the way of stand, desk, or pulpit, than the trunk of a palm-tree fixed perpendicularly in the ground, on the top of which he was accustomed to lean while preaching. This was now become too mean an accommodation, and by the advice of one of his wives he caused a pulpit to be constructed, with a seat and two steps attached to it, which he henceforth made use of instead of the "beam." The beam, however, was loath to be deprived of its honour, and the dealers in the marvellous among his followers say, that it gave an audible groan of regret when the prophet left it. Othman Ebn Affan, when he became Caliph, hung this pulpit with tapestry, and Moawiyah, another Caliph, raised it to a greater height by adding six steps more, in imitation, doubtless, of the ivory throne of Solomon, and in this form it is said to be preserved and shown at the present day, as a holy relic, in the mosque of Medina.

This year he led his army against Chaibar, a city inhabited by Arab Jews, who offering him a manly resistance, he laid siege to the place and. carried it by storm. A great miracle is here said to have been performed by Ali, surnamed "The Lion of God." A ponderous, gate, which eight men afterward tried in vain to lift from the ground, was torn by him from its hinges, and used as a buckler during the assault! Mohammed, on entering

*"Abu Rafe, the servant of Mohammed, is said to have affirmed that he was an eye-witness of the fact; but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?" Gibbon.

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the town, took up his quarters at the house of Hareth, one of the principal inhabitants, and here met with a reception which eventually cost him his life. Zeinab, the daughter of Hareth, while preparing a meal for the conqueror and his attendants, inserted a quantity of poison into a shoulder of mutton which was served up at the table. Bashar, a companion of Mohammed, had scarcely began to eat of it, before he was seized with convulsions, and died upon the spot. Mohammed, by spitting out the greatest part of what he had taken into his mouth, escaped immediate death, but the effects of the fatal drug had entered his system, and, resisting every effort of medicine to expel or counteract it, in somewhat more than three years afterward it brought him to his end. If, as the reporters of Mohammed's miracles affirm, the shoulder of mutton informed the prophet of its being poisoned, it is certain the intelligence came too late. The seeds of death were henceforth effectually sown in his constitution; and his own decline ever after kept pace with his growing power. When Zeinab was asked, how she had dared to perpetrate a deed of such unparalleled enormity, she is said to have answered, "that she was determined to make trial of his powers as a prophet: if he were a true prophet," said she, "he would know that the meat was poisoned; if not, it would be a favour to the world to rid it of such a tyrant." It is not agreed among the Mohammedan writers what was the punishment inflicted upon this second Jael, or whether she suffered any. Some affirm that she was pardoned; others that she was put to death,

The progress of the prophet's disease was not such as to prevent him from prosecuting that successful course of conquests in which he was now engaged. The Jews, the constant objects of his vengeance, again tempted his victorious sword. He proceeded against Beder, Watiba, and Selalima; places which he brought under subjection, permitting their inhabitants to retain possession on condition of paying him one half the product of their date-trees as an annual tribute. On these terms they remained undisturbed in their towns and villages during the lifetime of the prophet; till at length, in the reign of Omar, who pretended that Mohammed in his last sickness had given him a charge not to permit two religions to coexist in Arabia, they were all expelled from their ancient settlements.

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CHAPTER XIII.

Mohammed alleges a Breach of Faith on the part of the Meccans, and marches an Army against them-The City surrendered to the Conqueror-Abu Sophyan and Al Abbas, the Prophet's Uncle, declare themselves Converts-Mecca declared to be Holy Ground-The neighbouring Tribes collect an Army of four thousand men to arrest the growing power of the Prophet-The Confederates entirely overthrown -A rival Prophet arises in the person of Moseilama-Is crushed by Caled.

Two years had scarcely elapsed when Mohammed accused the Meccans of violating the truce, and made their alleged breach of faith a pretence for summoning an army of ten thousand men with a design to make himself master of the city. He was now strong, and his enemies were weak. His superstitious reverence for the city of his birth, and the temple it contained, served to influence his determination for war. The time since the concluding of the truce had been skilfully employed in seducing the adherents of the Koreish, and converting to his religion, or enticing under his standard, the chief citizens of Mecca. By forced marches he urged his large army rapidly towards the city, and so unexpectedly was the place invested by the Moslem troops, that they had scarcely time to put themselves in a posture of defence before they were driven to such extremities, that the surrender of the city at discretion, or total destruction, seemed to be the only alternative. In these cir