Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/179

Rh There were three classes of people in Arabia whom it was Muhammed's wish to conciliate, — the Koreish and other tribes who were idolaters — the Christians — and the Jews. The conversion of the Koreish was always the first object of his desire. The possession of the Kaaba would give him an influence over that vast number of pilgrims who yearly repaired to it; he changed indeed the name but not the form of their rites, and the idolatrous worshippers of its idols continued to encompass it with their steps in the name of the prophet. When he entered Mecca as a conqueror, he gave immediate orders for the destruction of its idols, but he appeased their exasperated adorers by his extravagant tales of the sanctity of their abode. He declared to them that the place was the immediate choice of God; that the same day in which the Almighty had created the heaven and the earth, he had