After the swordless triumph of Dzul Cada, 629, Mahomet rested in Medina for about nine months, while he sent out his leaders of expeditions into all parts of the peninsula wherever a rising was threatened, or where he saw the prospect of a conversion by force of arms. The Beni Suleim, whose more powerful allies, the Ghatafan, had given Mahomet much trouble in the past, were still recusant. Mahomet sent an expedition to essay their conversion early in the year, but the Suleim persisted in their enmity and received the Muslim envoys with a shower of arrows. They retired hastily, being insufficiently equipped to risk an attack, and came back to Medina. The Prophet, unabashed, now sent a detachment against the Beni Leith. The encampment was surprised, their camels plundered, their chattels seized, while they themselves were forced to flee in haste to the fastnesses of the desert. The Beni Murra, conquerors of Mahomet's expeditionary force at Fadak, received now at his hands their delayed but inevitable punishment. The Prophet found himself strong enough, and without any compunction he inflicted the severest chastisement upon them, more especially as an example to the neighbouring tribes of the retribution in store for all who dared to revolt against his newly-won but still precarious power. Soon after an expedition of fifteen men was sent to Dzat Allah upon the borders of Syria. The men journeyed confidently to their far-off goal, but instead of finding, as they expected, a few chiefs at the head of ill-organised armies, they found arrayed against them an overwhelming force, well led and disciplined. They called upon them to embrace Islam with the fine courage of certain failure. The Bedouin hordes scoffed at the exhortation, and forthwith slew the whole company except one, who managed to escape to Medina with the tale. The catastrophe was a signal for a massed attack upon Mahomet's power from the whole of the border district, led by the feudatories of Heraclius, who were bent upon exterminating the upstart. Hastily the Muslim army was mobilised, given into the leadership of Zeid, who with Jafar and Abdallah was commissioned to resist the infidels to the last and to continue their attack upon the foe until they were either slain or victorious. The army marched to Muta in September, 629, and while on the way heard with alarm of the massing of the foe, whose numbers daunted even their savage bravery.