In the attack upon the Khozaa, allies of the Prophet, the Beni Bekr, who gave their allegiance to the Kureisch, supplied Mahomet with the necessary _casus belli_. He declared upon the evidence of his friends that the Kureisch had helped the Beni Bekr in disguise and announced the swift enforcement of his vengeance. In alarm the Kureisch sent Abu Sofian to Medina to make their depositions as to the rights of the case and to beg for clemency. But their emissary met with no success. Mahomet felt himself powerful enough to flout him, and accordingly Abu Sofian was sent back to his native city discomfited. There follows a tradition which has become obscured with the passing of time, and whose import we can only dimly investigate. Abu Sofian was returning somewhat uneasily to Mecca when he encountered the chief of the Khozaa, the outraged tribe. An interview of some length is reported, and it is supposed that the chief represented to the Meccan citizen the hopelessness of his resistance and the advantages in belonging to the party that was rapidly bringing all Arabia under its sway. Abu Sofian listened, and it may be that the chief's words induced him to consider seriously the possibility of ranging himself beneath the banner of the Prophet. Meanwhile Mahomet had summoned all the matchless energy of which he was capable, and set on foot preparations for the overwhelming of Mecca. Every Believer was called to arms; equipment, horses, camels, stores were gathered in vast concourse upon the outskirts of Medina, awaiting only the command of the Prophet to go up against the scornful city whose humiliation was at hand. The order to march was given on January 1, 630, and soon the whole army was bearing down upon Mecca with that rapidity which continually characterised the Prophet's actions, and which was more than ever necessary now in face of the difficult task to be performed. In a week the Prophet, with Zeinab and Dram Salma as his companions, at the head of 10,000 men, the largest army ever seen in Medina, arrived within a stage of his goal. He encamped at Mar Azzahran and there rested his army from the long desert march, the toilsome and difficult route connecting the two long-sundered cities that had given feature to the origin and growth of Islam. While he was there he received what was perhaps the most important asset since the conversion of Khalid. Abbas, his uncle, still timorous and vacillating, but now impelled into a firmer courage by the powerful agency of Mahomet's recent triumphs, quitted Mecca with his following and joined his nephew, professing the creed of Islam, and enjoining it also upon those who accompanied him.