Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

MOHAMMAD. 71
of Medina, a vigorous warfare was being carried on
outside with his old persecutors, the Kureysh. On
the history of this war, consisting as it did mainly of
small raids and attacks upon caravans, I need not
dwell ; its leading features were the two battles of
Bedr and Ohud, in the first of which three hundred
MusHms, though outnumbered at the odds of three
to one, were completely victorious (a.d. 624, a.h. 2)
whilst at Ohud, being outnumbered in the like pro-
portion and deserted by the " DisaflFected " party, they
were almost as decisively defeated (a.h. 3). Two
years later the Kureysh, gathering together their
allies, advanced upon Medina and besieged it for
fifteen days ; but the foresight of Mohammad in
digging a trench, and the enthusiasm of the Muslims
in defending it, resisted all assaults, and the coming
of the heavy storms for which the climate of Medina
is noted drove the enemy back to Mekka. The next
year (a.h. 6) a ten years' truce was concluded with
the Kureysh, in pursuance of which a strange scene
took place in the following spring. It was agreed
that Mohammad and his people should perform the
Lesser Pilgrimage, and that the Kureysh should for
that purpose vacate Mekka for three days. Accord-
ingly, in March 629, about two thousand Muslims,
with Mohammad at their head on his famous camel
El-Kaswa— the same on which he had fled from Mekka
—trooped, down the valley and performed the rites
which every Muslim to this day observes.
" It was surely a strange sight which at this time
presented itself in the vale of Mekka,—a sight unique
;