216 LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 



renounce all communication with the Hashemites ; 

 neither to buy nor sell with them, to marry nor give 

 in marriage ; but to pursue them with implacable 

 enmity until they should deliver up this dangerous 

 innovator to the resentment of the nation, and the 

 justice of the gods whose worship he had deserted. 

 The deed was written on parchment, and sus- 

 pended on the wall of the Kaaba, that all eyes might 

 read it. 



Having no security in the city, the persecuted 

 faction withdrew to a stronghold in the neighbour- 

 hood. Here they remained three years in a state 

 of siege ; the only intervals of their captivity being 

 the sacred months, when hostilities were prohibited. 

 During the ceremonies of the pilgrimage, the two 

 factions regularly met, and frequently came to blows. 

 The orations of Mohammed in the temple were often 

 drowned amid the clashing of swords and the ex- 

 hortations of the idolaters in behalf of their ancient 

 divinities. 



Hitherto the credit of Abu Taleb had been the 

 main asylum of the apostle and his followers, and 

 was perhaps the true cause of rescinding the pro- 

 hibitory edict, after it had subsisted five years. 

 Death deprived him of that support ; and within a 

 month this domestic calamity was followed by an- 

 other, — the loss of Kadijah in her 65th year. The 

 Prophet was inconsolable ; for he had always re- 

 garded her with ardent and undivided affection. 

 During the five-and-twenty years of their marriage 

 his fidelity was irreproachable ; and the rights or 

 feelings of the wife were never insulted by the 

 society of a rival. His tears and praises spoke his 

 sorrow long after she was in the grave ; and his ex- 

 cessive encomiums wounded the pride of her suc- 

 cessor, the youthful Ayeslia. " Was she not old," 

 said the petulant and blooming daughter of Abu 

 Beker, " and has not God given you a younger and 

 a better in her place !" — " No, truly," replied the 



