LIFE OF MOHAMMED. 251 



protection of their houses, while many fled to the 

 hills to escape the carnage of the merciless bar- 

 barian. 



The apostle himself, having caused the troops to 

 desist from slaughter, entered not with military- 

 triumph, but in the humble guise of a pilgrim, with a 

 black turban, and the ihram or sacred habit, repeating 

 aloud the 48th chapter of the Koran. He rode a 

 white camel, and was attended by a body-guard of 

 his principal officers. Seven times he went in 

 procession round the Kaaba, each time touching 

 the black stone with the end of his cane in profound 

 reverence ; he then made his devotional inclina- 

 tions, drank copiously of the Zemzem, and per- 

 formed his sacred lustrations in a pail of that holy 

 water ; the rest of the Believers observing the same 

 solemnities. The idols, the objects of his earhest 

 and strongest indignation, were now within his 

 reach, and everywhere presenting their hideous 

 forms before his eyes. With his staff he struck a 

 wooden pigeon to the ground, and broke it to pieces ; 

 and touching with the same implement all the ima- 

 ges Avithin the enclosure, he gave the signal for their 

 demolition. " Curse your idolatries ! what have our 

 pious forefathers, mortals like ourselves, to do \v'iX\\ 

 your sorceries and your sacrilegious worship"!" 

 And instantly Abraham and Ishmael were dragged 

 from their pedestals. Hobal, with his hoary beard 

 and his divining arrows, was laid prostrate. Mounted 

 on the shoulders of the Prophet, Ali pulled down the 

 idol of the Khozaites from the top of the Kaaba. 

 Saints and angels, male and female, with the whole 

 fantastic group of heathen divinities, were ignomiv 

 niously swept from the place in one common ruin, 

 until the pride of ancient paganism was brought low, 

 and the temple cleansed from, the accumulated vani:: 

 ties of 2000 years. Over the wrecks of their shat^ 

 tered deities the victor harangued the tremblii^g 

 idolaters on the folly of their senseless adorations ; 



