On the death of these two persons the Koreish began to be more troublesome than ever to their prophet, and especially some who had formerly been his intimate friends; insomuch that he found himself 1 Idem, Ebn Shohnah. 2 Dr. Prideaux seems to take this word for a proper name, but it is only the title the Arabs give to every king of this country. See his Life of Mahomet, p. 55 3 Ebn Shohnah 4 Al Jannâbi. 1 Abulfed. p. 28. Ebn Shohnah. obliged to seek for shelter elsewhere, and first pitched upon Tâyet, about sixty miles east from Mecca, for the place of his retreat. Thither therefore he went, accompanied by his servant Zeid, and applied himself to two of the chief of the tribe of Thakîf, who were the inhabitants of that place; but they received him very coldly. However, he stayed there a month; and some of the more considerate and better sort of men treated him with a little respect: but the slaves and inferior people at length rose against him, and bringing him to the wall of the city, obliged him to depart and return to Mecca, where he put himself under the protection of al Motáam Ebn Adi.2 This repulse greatly discouraged his followers: however, Mohammed was not wanting to himself, but boldly continued to preach to the public assemblies at the pilgrimage, and gained several proselytes, and among them six of the inhabitants of Yathreb of the Jewish tribe of Khazraj, who on their return home failed not to speak much in commendation of their new religion, and exhorted their fellow-citizens to embrace the same. In the twelfth year of his mission it was that Mohammed gave out that he he had made his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence to heaven,3 so much spoken of by all that write of him. Dr. Prideaux4 thinks he invented it either to answer the expectations of those who demanded some miracle as a proof of his mission, or else, by pretending to have conversed with GOD, to establish the authority of whatever he should think fit to leave behind by way of oral tradition, and make his sayings to serve the same purpose as the oral law of the Jews. But I do not find that Mohammed himself ever expected so great a regard should be paid to his sayings, as his followers have since done; and seeing he all along disclaimed any power of performing miracles, it seems rather to have been a fetch of policy to raise his reputation, by pretending to have actually conversing with GOD in heaven, as Moses had heretofore done in the mount, and to have received several institutions immediately from him, whereas before he contented himself with persuading them that he had all by the ministry of Gabriel. However, this story seemed so absurd and incredible, that several of his followers left him upon it, and it had probably ruined the whole design, had not Abu Becr vouched for his veracity, and declared that if Mohammed affirmed it to be true, he verily believed the whole. Which happy incident not only