In any event, a reason for attacking Mecca was soon found. The Khozaa, a tribe in the neighborhood of the sacred city, had chosen under the provisions of the treaty between Islam and Mecca to join the Moslem cause; another adjacent clan, the Beni Bekr, that contrariwise had gone over to the Koreish, had proceeded, with the assistance of some disguised Koreishites, to attack the Khozaa who of course hurried to Mohammed for redress. Here, at last, was the long deferred opportunity. The spokesmen of Khozaa had barely finished the tale of their wrongs when the happy Prophet, who was only half clothed, bounded to his feet and made this fervent promise: “If I help you not in like wise as if the wrong were mine own, then let me never more be helped by the Lord! See ye not yonder cloud? As the rain now poureth from it, even so shall help descend upon you speedily from above.” When the Koreish heard of this affair, their perturbation was so great that they dispatched Abu Sufyan to see if it were possible to obtain a renewal and extension of the treaty; but Abu, the diplomat, turned out to be no more successful than Abu, the general. Upon arriving at Medina, he went straight to his daughter, Um Habiba, wife of the Prophet; but, as he started to seat himself on her carpet, she drew it away from him. “My daughter!” he remonstrated, “whether is it that thou thinkest the carpet is too good for me, or that I am too good for the carpet?” “Nay, but it is the carpet of the Prophet, and I choose not that thou, an impure idolator, shouldst sit upon the Prophet’s carpet,” she coldly answered. “Truly, my daughter, thou art changed for the worse since thou leftest me,” Abu sighed; then, stepping out of doors in front of the Mosque, he loudly cried: “Hearken unto me, ye people! Peace and protection I guarantee for all.” Mohammed, who was standing near by, thereupon interrupted to remark, “It is thou that sayest this, not we, O Abu Sufyan!” At this point Abu decided that it was time for him to return home.