39. "Say to the unbelievers: If they desist,[191] what is now past shall be forgiven them, but if they return _to it_,[192] they have already before them the doom of the former."[193] 40. "Fight then against them till _fitnah_ (civil strife or persecution) be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's, and if they desist, verily God beholdeth what they do." This shows that the fighting prescribed here against the Koreish was only in the case of their not desisting, and it was only to prevent and suppress their _fitnah_, and when their intolerance and persecution was suppressed, or was no more, then the Moslem religion was to become all of it God's. They were not forced to join any god with the true God. [Sidenote: 37. Sir W. Muir quoted.] Sir W. Muir, in his last chapter on the person and character of Mohammad, observes in reviewing the Medina period: "Intolerance quickly took the place of freedom; force, of persuasion." ... "Slay the unbelievers wheresoever ye find them" was now the watchword of Islam:--"Fight in the ways of God until opposition be crushed, and the Religion becometh the Lord's alone!"[194] Here, Sir W. Muir plainly contradicts himself. He has already admitted at the 136th page of the fourth volume of his work that the course pursued by Mohammad at Medina was to leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished without compulsion, and the same measure he intended to adopt at his triumphal entry into Mecca. His words are: "This movement obliged Mahomet to cut short of his stay at Mecca. Although the city had cheerfully accepted his supremacy, all its inhabitants had not yet embraced the new religion, or formally acknowledged his prophetic claim. Perhaps, he intended to follow the course he had pursued at Medina, and leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished without compulsion." This was at the end of the eighth year after the Hegira.