The Arabia Prophet from Chinese Sources - Isaac Mason

PROPAGANDA AT MECCA 95Prohibition of idolatry at Ta'if.— Ta'if was a city100 H to the South-east of Mecca, whose people were fondof idolatry and witchcraft and wizardry. In the secondyear of the Prophetship they saw a comet which wasregarded as an evil omen: they offered sacrifice andenquired of their gods and got the answer that the cometwould not stop, unless it should be that by the sacrifice ofone third of all their domestic animals the desired resultmight be obtained. When all their animals had perished,the elders met together in conference and said, "Ourwealth is used up and our strength is exhausted, yet thecomet has not been destroyed: whatever shall we do?" Awizard said: "There has now appeared a holy king,whose religion is exalted and whose virtue is abundant: heis able to have the kings of the earth as his ministers, andto amend all the teachings of the past : he regards theputting away of heresies as the most important work ofmerit, and the returning to the True Lord as the correctfruition of life. We ought to follow him and wait for hiscommands, then these calamities will disappear." So thepeople of Ta'if stopped idolatry and did not sacrifice anymore to get rid of their calamity, but waited for the transformingteaching of the Prophet; the hearts of the peoplewere then at peace and the comet disappeared.Public propaganda at Mecca.—At first when theProphet began propagating theFaith, he did not dare to doso openly, but confined himself to his near relatives andfriends, of whom between ten and twenty followed him.After the third year of the Prophetship he graduallyentered upon more open efforts, and in the fourth year he