The conditions prevailing at Medína were singularly adapted to his design. Ever since the famous battle of Bu‘áth (about 615 A.D.), in which the Banú Aws, with the help of their Jewish allies, the Banú Qurayẓa and the Banú Naḍír, inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Banú Khazraj, the city had been divided into two hostile camps; and if peace had hitherto been preserved, it was only because both factions were too exhausted to renew the struggle. Wearied and distracted by earthly calamities, men's minds willingly admit the consolations of religion. We find examples of this tendency at Medína even before the Migration. Abú ‘Ámir, whose ascetic life gained for him the title of 'The Monk' (_al-Ráhib_), is numbered among the _Ḥanífs_.[331] He fought in the ranks of the Quraysh at Uḥud, and finally went to Syria, where he died an outlaw. Another Pre-islamic monotheist of Medína, Abú Qays b. Abí Anas, is said to have turned Moslem in his old age.[332] "The inhabitants of Medína had no material interest in idol-worship and no sanctuary to guard. Through uninterrupted contact with the Jews of the city and neighbourhood, as also with the Christian tribes settled in the extreme north of Arabia on the confines of the Byzantine Empire, they had learned, as it were instinctively, to despise their inherited belief in idols and to respect the far nobler and purer faith in a single God; and lastly, they had become accustomed to the idea of a Divine revelation by means of a special scripture of supernatural origin, like the Pentateuch and the Gospel. From a religious standpoint paganism in Medína offered no resistance to Islam: as a faith, it was dead before it was attacked; none defended it, none mourned its disappearance. The pagan opposition to Muḥammad's work as a reformer was entirely political, and proceeded from those who wished to preserve the anarchy of the old heathen life, and who disliked the dictatorial rule of Muḥammad."[333] [Sidenote: Parties in Medína.] There were in Medína four principal parties, consisting of those who either warmly supported or actively opposed the Prophet, or who adopted a relatively neutral attitude, viz., the Emigrants (_Muhájirún_), the Helpers (_Anṣár_), the Hypocrites (_Munáfiqún_), and the Jews (_Yahúd_). [Sidenote: The Emigrants.] The Emigrants were those Moslems who left their homes at Mecca and accompanied the Prophet in his Migration (_Hijra_)--whence their name, _Muhájirún_--to Medína in the year 622. Inasmuch as they had lost everything except the hope of victory and vengeance, he could count upon their fanatical devotion to himself. [Sidenote: The Helpers.] The Helpers were those inhabitants of Medína who had accepted Islam and pledged themselves to protect Muḥammad in case of attack. Together with the Emigrants they constituted a formidable and ever-increasing body of true believers, the first champions of the Church militant. [Sidenote: The Hypocrites.]