Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/150

 100 STATESMEN AND SAGES Of the Moslems, only fourteen were slain. The names of the slaughtered war- riors have been handed down to posterity, and enrolled among the list of pious .martyrs whom the faithful Mussulman is taught to worship. Space will not permit us to enumerate the various battles fought by Ma- homet ; according, however, to the computation of some authors, no less than twenty-seven expeditions were undertaken, in which he personally commanded, and in which nine pitched battles were fought. During the same period, he was besieged in Medina, by the implacable Koreish ; but, by his own skill, and the bravery of his troops, he repelled all their attacks. In the sixth year of the Hegira, with 1,400 men, he meditated what he asserted to be a peaceful pil- grimage to the holy temple of Mecca. Entrance into the city being refused by the people, the prophet, in his anger, determined to force his way. At this critical juncture an ambassador was despatched from Mecca to demand a peace. The policy of Mahomet induced him to lay aside his determination of assault- ing his native city, and to accept the peaceful offers of his countrymen. A truce of ten years was consequently concluded between the prophet and the Koreish. Two years had hardly elapsed when Mahomet accused the people of Mecca of a breach of their engagement. When a man is really desirous of quarrelling, a pretext is never wanting. He was now strong, and his enemies were weak. His superstitious reverence for the city of his nativity, and for the temple it contained, served also to influence his determination for war. The time since the concluding of the truce had been skilfully employed in seduc- ing the adherents of the Koreish, and converting to his religion the chief citi- zens of Mecca. With an army of 10,000 men he marched to besiege it, and no sooner did he appear before the walls than the city surrendered at dis- cretion. The religion of Mahomet may be considered now to have been permanently settled. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreish was the signal for the sub- mission of the rest of Arabia The events of the prophet's after-life cease, there- fore, to possess an interest for a Western reader. They were, for the most part, merely expeditions undertaken for the purpose of reducing the petty tribes who still resisted his authority, and were all of them eventually successful. The influ- ence and religion of Mahomet continued rapidly to extend ; his difficulties were over ; and the hour of his prosperity has nothing to instruct or to amuse the general reader. Between the taking of Mecca and the period of his death, not more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia ; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires ; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms ; had tried his arms against the undisciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta. His throne was now firmly established, and an impetus given to the Arabian nations that in a few years induced them to invade, and enabled them to subdue, a great portion of the globe. India, Persia, the Greek Empire, the whole of Asia Minor, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain,