from their ranks by utterly severing the party of the Prophet from social and friendly communication with them. In the seventh year of the Prophet's mission the ban commenced, and lasted for full three years. There could be very few conversions during the period of this weary seclusion. The efforts of the Prophet were chiefly confined to the conversions of the members of his own noble clan, the Bani Hashim, who, though unbelievers in his mission, had resolved to defend his person, and were with him in their confinement. The time of pilgrimage alone afforded Mohammad a wider field. He preached against idolatry at the fairs and assemblages of the pilgrims[38]. After his release from imprisonment in the tenth year of his mission, he went to preach at Tayif, but was ignominiously expelled the city[39]. On his return to Mecca he converted a party of the tribe of Jinn[40] (not Genii according to the vulgar notion)[41] at Nakhla. After his return from Tayif he preached to an audience of six or seven persons from Medina, who believed and spread Islam there. [Footnote 34: I do not mean to say that flourishing under persecution is a convincing proof of the divine origin of a religion. Not that a religion established by force is altogether of human invention. Almost all religions are divine however they may have been established, but flourishing under opposition and persecution is a natural course. Christianity suffered from persecutions and other harrowing evils for 300 years, after which time it was established, and paganism abolished by public authority, which has had great influence in the propagation of the one and destruction of the other ever since.] [Footnote 35: "The severity and injustice of the Cureish, overshooting the mark, aroused personal and family sympathies; unbelievers sought to avert or to mitigate the sufferings of the followers of the Prophet; and in so doing they were sometimes themselves gained over to his side." The Life of Mahomet, by Sir W. Muir, Second Edition, page 68.] [Footnote 36: Among them were the representatives of the following tribes or clans of the Koreish, the Hashimites, Omiyyiads, Bani Abd Shams, Bani Asad, Bani Abd bin Kosayy, Bani Abd-ud-Dar, Bani Zohra, Bani Taym bin Morra, the Mukwhumites, the Jomahites, and the Bani Sahm. _Vide_ Sprenger, page 190, Allahabad, 1851.] [Footnote 37: _Vide_ Hishamee, page 259. An allusion to these converts may be found in Sura V, verses 85 and 86, if it does not refer to those of Najran.] [Footnote 38: He preached to the following tribes among others:--Bani Aamr bin Sasaa, Bani Moharib, Bani Hafasa (or Khafasa), Bani Fezara, Bani Ghassan, Bani Kalb, Bani Haris, Bani Kab, Bani Ozra, Bani Murra, Bani Hanifa, Bani Suleim, Bani Abs, Bani Nazr, Bani Bakka, Bani Kinda, and Bani Khozaimah.]