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625-627] Arabs of that period, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that the act of Hind was long afterwards a topic on which the enemies of her posterity loved to dwell.

When the Meccans began to retreat, Mahomet, realising that Medina was no longer in danger, endeavoured to efface the shame of his defeat by a great show of activity. Although he had himself received some slight wounds he marched a few miles in the track of his victorious foes, obviously not with the intention of attacking them but in order to reassure his own followers. This plan attained its object, and there is no reason to suppose that after the battle his influence at Medina was in any way diminished.

A few months later he made a second attack upon the Jews. The Banu-n-Naḍīr, a Jewish clan who owned some of the most valuable palm-gardens in the neighbourhood of Medina, were suspected, rightly or wrongly, of plotting to murder him. He accordingly declared war against them, and after a siege which lasted about three weeks forced them to emigrate to Khaibar, an oasis inhabited chiefly by Jews, about 100 miles north of Medina. The lands of the Banu-n-Naḍīr were partly appropriated by Mahomet and partly divided among the Emigrants, who thus ceased to depend on the charity of the Helpers.

That Mahomet's conduct should have been bitterly resented by the Jewish population of Arabia is quite natural; but on this, as on other occasions, the Jews shewed themselves wholly incapable of combining in order to resist him by force. The utmost that they attempted was to stimulate the enmity of the heathen Meccans and of the neighbouring nomadic tribes. By this time the chiefs of the Ḳuraish had perceived the fruitlessness of their victory at Uḥud and they therefore listened readily to the Jewish emissaries who urged them to make another and a more serious effort. Accordingly, in the year 627, an alliance against Mahomet was formed between the Ḳuraish and a number of Bedouin tribes, of whom the most important were the Fazāra, the Sulaim and the Asad. The combined forces of the Ḳuraish and their allies proceeded to march towards Medina. They are said to have numbered 10,000 men, which is perhaps an exaggerated estimate, but in any case it is certain that they formed an army much larger than that which had fought at Uḥud two years earlier. Meanwhile the Khuzā'a, a tribe who dwelt in the immediate neighbourhood of Mecca, had sent to Mahomet full information as to the impending attack; their conduct was probably due much more to jealousy of the Ḳuraish than to any special sympathy with Islam. By the time the assailants reached Medina the town was well prepared to stand a siege. In most places nothing more was necessary than to erect a few barricades between the houses; but on one side there was a large open space, across which Mahomet caused a trench to be dug. This device, which appears to us so obvious, struck the Arabs with astonishment; by Mahomet's