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 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 365 refuge on the confines of Syria. The Nadhirites were more [Sanu Nadir] guilty, since they conspired in a friendly interview to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their castle three miles from Medina, but their resolute defence obtained an honourable capitulation ; [a d. 625] and the garrison, sounding their trumpets and beating their drums, was permitted to depart with the honours of war. The Jews had excited and joined the war of the Koreish : no sooner had the natiuiis retired from the diicli, than Mahomet, without laying aside his armour, marched on the same day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha.^^^ After a resist- [a.d. 627] ance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies of Medina ; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment they ap- pealed, pronounced the sentence of their death : seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the city ; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their execution and burial ; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels were inherited by the Musulmans ; three hundred cuirasses, five hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful portion of the spoil. Six days' journey to the north-east of Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of the Jewish power in Arabia ; the territory, a fertile spot in the desert, was covered with plantations and cattle, and protected by eight castles, some of which were esteemed of impregnable strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of two hundred [a.d. 628, horse and fourteen hundred foot : in the succession of eight *" "^"^ regular and painful sieges, they were exposed to danger, and fatigue, and hunger ; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The apostle revived their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God : perhaps we may believe that an Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was cloven to the chest by his irresistible scymetar ; but we cannot praise the modesty of romance, which represents him as tearing from its hinges the gate of a fortress and wielding the ponderous buckler in his left hand.'^^ After the reduction of the castles, the town of i^-ia [On the siege of Medina and the destruction of the Kuraidha see Sura 33.] ^•'5 Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to affirm that he himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried, without success, to move the same gate from the ground (Abulfeda, p. 90). Abu Rafe was an eye-witness, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe ?