In the autumn of the year 630, Mohammed conducted his final military expedition. Setting out at the head of a Moslem army that seems to have totaled nearly thirty thousand men, he planned to chastise a Byzantine force that was reputed to have gathered on the Syrian border near Tebuk; but when that place was reached, it was found that there was no Byzantine or any other force to be conquered. Mohammed, thus finding himself in much the same position as the French King in the doggerel ballad, proceeded to march home again after exacting pledges of conversion and immense booty from contingent tribes. His followers, who stated their belief that the “wars for religion now are ended,” foolishly began to sell their weapons; but the far-sighted Prophet sternly stopped them and uttered the fateful remark: “There shall not cease from the midst of my people a party engaged in fighting for the truth, until Antichrist appear.” Scarcely had he returned to Medina when his heart was gladdened by two events: the death of his only important rival, Abdallah ibn Obei--to whom the Prophet deemed it safe and expedient to pay tribute by following his bier and praying at his grave--and the surrender of At-Taif, the single stronghold that had ever successfully defied his might. He was so exhilarated by the downfall of this fort, indeed, that he let its defenders off from the necessity of breaking their own idols, and, in their stead, elected two Moslems to perform the peculiarly pleasant task. But perhaps Mohammed most enjoyed the multitudinous activities inherent in his position as a kind and fatherly counselor of his people. The matters which he was besought to adjudicate were extraordinary in their range. One day his prayers would be requested by some prospective bridegroom, who hoped, by the aid of such divine sorcery, to win a wife of unusual goodness and humility; next day he would be begged to specify the precise hour when the world was destined to end; another day would find him busily laying down oracles governing the proper boiling of meat. Only two types of interrogation were taboo: matters that were wholly rational or wholly metaphysical; and Mohammed probably barred these topics on the sensible grounds that preceding prophets who had tampered with either of them had almost uniformly come to grief. Thus it came about that countless apothegms, whose absolute authenticity can never be nicely determined, were confidently claimed to be the children of his brain. Yet, despite the fact that most of these sayings betray a hard-headed and close-fisted sagacity, he was in debt when he died; and perhaps, therefore, the stories concerning his senile delight in the children of his body deserve more credence. Sonless though he was, he could partially console himself by playing with his grandsons, Al-Hasan and Al-Hosein, the progeny of Ali and Fatima, and by reflecting on the transcendent heritage that awaited them as male descendants of himself.