Though the Jews were an inconsiderable and despised people in other parts of the world, yet in Arabia, whither many of them fled from the destruction of Jerusalem, they grew very powerful, several tribes and princes embracing their religion; which made Mohammed at first show great regard to them, adopting many of their opinions, doctrines, and customs; thereby to draw them, if possible, into his interest. But that people, agreeably to their wonted obstinacy, were so far from being his proselytes, that they were some of the bitterest enemies he had, waging continual war with him, so that their reduction cost him infinite trouble and danger, and at last his life. This aversion of theirs created at length as great a one in him to them, so that he used them, for the latter part of his life, much worse than he did the Christians, and frequently exclaims against them in his Korân; his followers to this day observe the same difference between them and the Christians, treating the former as the most abject and contemptible people on earth. It has been observed by a great politician,7 that it is impossible a person should make himself a prince and found a state without opportunities. If the distracted state of religion favoured the designs of Mohammed on that side, the weakness of the Roman and Persian monarchies might flatter him with no less hopes in any attempt on those once formidable empires, either of which, had they been in their full vigour, must have crushed Mohammedism in its birth; whereas nothing nourished it more than the success the Arabians met with in 6 Vide Boulainvill. Vie de Mahom. ubi sup. 7 Vide Sozomen. Hist. Eccles. l. r, c. 16, 17. Sulpic. Sever. ubi supra. 1 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. 6, c. 33. 2 Idem ibid. c. 37. 3 Epiphan. de Hæresi. l, I; Hær. 40. 4 Idem ibid. l. 3; Hæres. 75, 79. 5 Elmacin. Eutych. 6 Cap. 5. 7 Machiavelli, Princ. c. 6, p. 19.