Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

62 STUDIES IN A MOSQUE.
boldly surrounding' the Kaaba, and performing the
rites of their religion in the face of all the people.
The Kureysh resolved 6n extreme measures. They
determined to shut off the obnoxious family of the
Hashimis from the rest of their kindred. The chiefs
drew up a document, in which they vowed that
they would not marry with the Hashimis, nor buy
and sell with them, nor hold with them any com-
munication soever ; and this they hung up in the
Kaaba.
The Hashimis were not many enough to fight the
whole city, so they went, every man of them, save
one, to the shi-b (or quarter) of Abii-Talib,—a long,
narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of Mekka,
cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one
narrow gateway,—and there they shut themselves up.
For though the ban did not forbid them to go about
as heretofore, they knew that no soul would speak
with them, and that they would be subject to
the maltreatment of the common crowd. So they
collected their stores and waited. Every man of
the family, Muslim or Pagan, cast in his lot with
his kinsman, Mohammad, saving only his own
uncle, Abfi-Lahab, a determined enemy to Islam,
to whom a special denunciation is justly consecrated
in the Koran.
For two long years the Hashimis remained shut
up in their quarter. Only at the pilgrimage-time
when the blessed institution of the sacred months
made violence sacrilege—could Mohammad come forth
and speak unto the people of the things that were in
—