[Footnote 30: Mr. G. Sale writes: "He gave out that God had allowed him and his followers to defend themselves against the infidels; and at length, as his forces increased, he pretended to have the divine leave even to attack them." _The Prelim. Dis. Sect. 11._ Mr. Henry Coppee writes regarding Mohammad: "But he soon found that he must take up arms in self defence, and in the thirteenth year of his mission, he announced that God permitted him not only to fight in his self-defence, but to propagate his religion by the sword." History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, by Henry Coppee. Vol. I, page 39. Boston, 1881. But Dr. A. Sprenger makes the object of the wars of Mohammad purely defensive. He writes:--"The Prophet now promulgated, in the name of God, the law to fight their enemies, in order to put a stop to persecutions; and this became henceforth the watchword of his bloody religion." The Life of Mohammad, p. 207: Allahabad, 1851.] [Footnote 31: M. Bluntschili, a modern authority on the International Law, holds: "A war undertaken for defensive motives is a defensive war, notwithstanding that it may be militarily offensive." The International Law, by William Edward Hall, M.A., Oxford, 1880, page 320.] [Footnote 32: Kent's Commentary on International Law. Edited by J.T. Abdy, LL.D., Second Edition, page 144.] [Sidenote: Caravans, if waylaid, were by reprisal.] 17. As regards the threatened attack on the caravans or capturing of it, there are not any satisfactory grounds of proof; but if they were attacked and captured, I do not see any reason why they should be objected to. When hostilities commence, the first objects that naturally present themselves for detection and seizure are the person and property of the enemy. Even under the International Law of most civilized countries, the legitimacy of appropriating the enemy's property rests on the commencement of the state of war. Under the old customs of war a belligerent possessed the right to seize and appropriate all the property belonging to an enemy's state or its subjects, of whatever kind they be or in whatsoever place where the acts of war are permissible. So those who object to the early Moslems' threatening, or capturing, or appropriating the person or property of the enemy, and call them robbery, rapine or brigandage, show their complete ignorance of the International Law, ancient or modern. [Sidenote: Intolerance--no compulsory conversion enjoined, or took place during Mohammad's life-time.] 18. The subject of the alleged intolerance on the part of Mohammad, the Prophet, towards the unbelievers has been fully discussed in paragraphs 34-39 (pp. 41-51). It is altogether a wrong assumption of European writers that the Koran enjoins compulsory conversion of the unbeliever, or that Mohammad proselytized at the point of the sword. Sir W. Muir writes:-- [Sidenote: Sir W. Muir quoted.]