Ancient Yathrib, commonly called Medina, was familiar to the Arabs as “the pleasing” city, for it lay in a fertile plain teeming with “green fields, running water, every blessing the Eastern mind can desire.” For ages it had been inhabited by expatriated Jews; but early in the fourth century two Arab tribes, the Aus and the Khazraj, settled there. But the Hebrew residents were much superior to the newcomers in general culture, in agriculture and wealth, and, it was darkly rumored, in the black art of magic; for the Pagan usurpers held to the primitive belief that the perfect man was one who could write Arabic, swim and shoot--and not many of them could write Arabic. Jealousy of the more competent Jews, therefore, impelled the Yathribites to make war against them, and the sons of Abraham were decidedly disinclined to battle and bloodshed. Accordingly, having fought the Jews with very fair success, the two victorious clans had speedily decided to fight each other, with the result that Medina, for some generations, had been continually rent by tribal and civil wars. At present all parties were so tired of this everlasting strife that they had chosen one of the chief men among the Khazraj, Abdallah ibn Obei, to direct their fortunes; for the battle of Boath (616) had completely exhausted all the factions involved. Nevertheless, everybody was still dissatisfied, since it was feared that the truce was only temporary. Now, for many centuries, despite one or two notable disappointments, the Jews had expectantly awaited the coming of a genuine prophet--a longing that had been communicated, probably through racial miscegenation, even to the Aus and the Khazraj--and lo! the news of Mohammed’s ministry was already common knowledge at Medina. When the little troop of Medinese chanced to meet Mohammed at the sacred fair, therefore, they spoke thus with each other: “Know surely that this is the prophet with whom the Jews are ever threatening us; wherefore let us make haste and be the first to join him.” For it was clear that languishing Medina, long disrupted by internecine struggles, needed above all else a leader capable of harmonizing all discordant elements and balancing the scales of justice impartially for all--except, it might be, the Jews--a leader, too, who would introduce no dangerous foreign ideas, but whose vital beliefs were grafted on a common Arabian stock. Perhaps there was some truth in the saying of Mohammed’s child-wife, Ayesha, that the battle of Boath had been engineered by Allah for the benefit of the Moslems.