=Truce with the Meccans.=—After great difficulty, a truce of ten years was concluded with the Meccans. The Exiles seized the occasion to perform the time-honoured pilgrimage to the Kaaba. To avoid coming in contact with the hated Faithful, the heathen Koreish retired to the hills, whence they watched the large concourse that came with the Prophet to visit the Holy Shrine. The simple dignity and benevolence of Mohammed, the quietness and purity of behaviour of his followers perceptibly affected the Koreish; and before he left Mecca many came and accepted the Faith. The same old pledge which had been exacted from the early converts was taken from them. ‘They would not associate anything with God; they would not commit larceny, adultery, or infanticide; they would not utter falsehood, nor speak evil.’ =Embassies to Heraclius and the Chosroes.=—On his return from the pilgrimage, Mohammed sent envoys to Heraclius the Emperor of the Greeks, and to the Chosroes of Persia to invite them to Islâm. Heraclius returned a polite reply; whilst the proud Persian tore the missive to pieces and drove the messenger from his presence with contumely. ‘Thus will the empire of the Khusrû [the Chosroes] be torn asunder,’ remarked the Prophet on hearing of the incident. The fate of Persia is engraved on the pages of history.[32] Hardly a year was over before the Meccans broke the truce by murdering a number of tribesmen allied to the Medinites. The reign of iniquity had lasted long enough, and the time had arrived when the paganism of Mecca should come to an end. =Conquest of Mecca.=—In 630 A.C. the Prophet marched with ten thousand men on the city from which he and his followers had been so cruelly driven only nine years before. The proud Koreish were thoroughly demoralised at the rapid approach of the Moslems and offered slight resistance. The people who had pursued Mohammed with unrelenting hatred, had subjected him and his followers to a fierce persecution, and had all this time endeavoured by every means to compass their destruction, were now at his mercy. But in the moment of the Faith’s triumph every injury was forgotten, and the Koreish were treated with a kindness and generosity which have but few parallels in history. Not a house was robbed, not a citizen molested. The idols of the nation were, however, relentlessly struck down. Weeping the heathens stood round, fully hoping that the sacrilegious Moslems would be overwhelmed with some dire calamity. But as one idol after another fell to pieces and no help came from outside to stop the hands of the iconoclasts, they felt the force of the words at which they were used to scoff: ‘Truth has come and falsehood vanisheth, for verily it is evanescent.’ And they adopted Islâm in a body.