In the tenth year of his mission the Prophet suffered two grievous losses in the death of his faithful wife Khadîjah, and his life-long protector Abu Talib. Mohammed is said to have tried unsuccessfully to get his dying uncle to pronounce the Islamic confession. He, therefore, was doomed to hell, and the utmost that his nephew could procure for him was that while others would be in a lake of fire, he should be only in a pool! The Prophet assured Khadîjah, on her death-bed, that she, with the Virgin Mary, Potiphar's wife, and 'Kulthum, Moses' sister,' should be with him in Paradise. When men recover quickly from a loss, unworthy souls are all too quick to say that they don't feel it. And yet one cannot {59} suppress an exclamation of surprise and shame when we find that within two or three months of the death of the noble Khadîjah, the wife, friend, and adviser of Mohammed, he was married to another widow, by name Saudah, and had betrothed himself also to Ayesha, the seven-year-old child of Abu Bakr. Yet in these two months of pain and darkness and apparent hopelessness Mohammed had set forth upon an expedition which, for sheer pluck and determination, is hardly rivalled in the story of his life. A solitary man, despised and rejected in his own city, he went forth to try to plant his teaching in another. As it turned out, his choice was an unhappy one, for he was quickly mobbed and driven forth, and Taif proved in future years the last city of Arabia to hold out against the new Faith. [Sidenote: Mohammed's Failure to impress Mecca.] For six years or nearly seven Mohammed had been patiently seeking to make an impression on Mecca. A very mixed band of about a hundred converts of no particular influence was the result. There was no turn of public opinion in his favour. The outlook was dark, when a gleam of hope shot across his path. {60} [Sidenote: The men of Yathreb.] It was the time of the yearly pilgrimage: Mohammed happened on a group of men more open-eared than those of Mecca. He asked the city whence they came. 'We come from Yathreb,' they said. 'Ah,' said he, 'the city of the Jews. Why not sit ye down a little with me and I will speak with you?'