3. Give an account of the conversion of some one convert. 4. Is persecution good or bad for a religion? How far did Mohammed and his followers suffer? 5. To what do you attribute Mohammed's failure to make his way at Mecca? What circumstances led to the flight to Medina? Was this flight a good thing? {66} CHAPTER V THE UNSHEATHING OF THE SWORD 'Too oft religion has the mother been, Of impious act and criminal.' LUCRITIUS. As Al Caswa, the favourite camel, swung slowly with loose rein through the streets of Medina, allowed by her master to choose the place where he should alight, she bore him not only to a new home but to new circumstances, and to a new act in the drama of his life. [Sidenote: Mohammed's Claim.] There is nothing to show that Mohammed was ever a man of great foresight, or that he saw in the distance a clear, guiding star towards which he shaped his course. Indeed, the constantly changing and contradicting suras of the Korân show how his views were altered and modified from time to time. He was pre-eminently a man of the present, who understood how to deal with present circumstances and make them serve his ends. How would he act now {67} that his chance had come? He had claimed to be a Prophet, nay _The Prophet of God_. In Mecca he had been a preacher and a warner only. Was that all it meant? The new opportunities of Medina made him face the claim. He had started with a two-clause creed, 'There is no God but God: Mohammed is the Prophet of God.' But he lost the emphasis on God, and with that he lost his balance. 'Mohammed is the Prophet of God'--that was the clause men resisted most. That was what drove him to persecute the Jews--when he no longer needed their friendship--more harshly than he persecuted others. Moreover, what did this claim involve? What did it mean in Medina--this city without a visible head or any central authority--to be _the Prophet_ of God? What was its meaning for Mecca, where he had defied the many idols of the Kaaba? What was his relation to Arabia? What was Arabia's relation to him? Obviously 'the man who determined the fate of the Kaaba must _ipso facto_ be the chief of the nation and remodel its entire structure.' Who would gainsay the Prophet of God? {68} [Sidenote: First Year in Medina: Institution of Religious Observances.]