"I will not forsake this cause" (thus he is said to have answered Abú Ṭálib, who informed him of the threatening attitude of the Quraysh and begged him not to lay on him a greater burden than he could bear) "until God shall make it prevail or until I shall perish therein--not though they should set the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left!"[304] But progress was slow and painful: the Meccans stood obstinately aloof, deriding both his prophetic authority and the Divine chastisement with which he sought to terrify them. Moreover, they used every kind of pressure short of actual violence in order to seduce his followers, so that many recanted, and in the fifth year of his mission he saw himself driven to the necessity of commanding a general emigration to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, where the Moslems would be received with open arms[305] and would be withdrawn from temptation.[306] About a hundred men and women went into exile, leaving their Prophet with a small party of staunch and devoted comrades to persevere in a struggle that was daily becoming more difficult. In a moment of weakness Muḥammad resolved to attempt a compromise with his countrymen. One day, it is said, the chief men of Mecca, assembled in a group beside the Ka‘ba, discussed as was their wont the affairs of the city, when Muḥammad appeared and, seating himself by them in a friendly manner, began to recite in their hearing the 53rd Súra of the Koran. When he came to the verses (19-20)-- "Do ye see Al-Lát and Al-‘Uzzá, and Manát, the third and last?" Satan prompted him to add:-- "These are the most exalted Cranes (or Swans), And verily their intercession is to be hoped for." The Quraysh were surprised and delighted with this acknowledgment of their deities; and as Muḥammad wound up the Súra with the closing words-- "Wherefore bow down before God and serve Him," the whole assembly prostrated themselves with one accord on the ground and worshipped.[307] But scarcely had Muḥammad returned to his house when he repented of the sin into which he had fallen. He cancelled the idolatrous verses and revealed in their place those which now stand in the Koran-- "Shall yours be the male and his the female?[308] This were then an unjust division! They are naught but names which ye and your fathers have named." [Sidenote: Muḥammad's concession to the idolaters.]