14 .4 Short History of the Middle East
have in the past declared that he was never anything more than an
ambitious politician who insincerely professed a new religion as a
vehicle for attaining political power. But this cynical interpreta-
tion will not bear analysis: there are too many hazards in the
preaching of a new religion to commend it to the politically am-
bitious. Mohammed himself had to endure twelve years of neg-
lect, derision, and growing hostility before he attained political
authority over the small band who followed him into exile. It is far
more reasonable to suppose that his original religious experience
was entirely genuine, but that when the call came to undertake the
governance of the Muslim community at Madina, it opened up or
confirmed in him a rich vein of practical authority which from
now on superseded his spiritual powers. 'Had not God laid upon
him the duty of conveying the revelation of God's truth to his
fellow-men, and would he not be executing this duty if he em-
braced tliis heaven-sent opportunity of providing the new reli-
gion, whose path had been obstructed for ten years by human
force-majeure, with a human political vehicle without which, as
personal experience showed, Islam could make no further practical
progress?'1
He now proclaimed a holy war (jihad) against the people of
Mecca who had rejected his teaching and driven him out, and in-
duced some of his followers to attack a Meccan caravan during the
truce of a holy month. This was the prelude to a series of minor
skirmishes with the Meccans (622-28), in most of which the Mus-
lims gained the upper hand. During this period he expelled two of
the Jewish tribes from Madina, and had the third tribe massacred
on suspicion of treasonable correspondence with his enemies in
Mecca. By this time an increasing number in Mecca had grown
tired of the desultory warfare which interfered with the caravan-
trade and was prepared to compromise with Mohammed, especi-
ally now that he had incorporated the Pilgrimage into the Muslim
ritual In 628 they agreed by the Pact ofHudgibiyg. to allow him to
make the Pilgrimage in the following year, on which occasion some
of the leading personalities of Mecca embraced the new faith. In
630 he advanced upon Mecca at the head of his armed forces and,
meeting with resistance only from a few'irreconcilables, received
1 A. J. Toynbee, cThe Political Career of Mohammed*, an appendix to Vol. Ill
of A Study of History, 466 ff. For a modern Muslim commentary, see Abdul
Latif Tibawi, in Journal of the Middle East Society, I3 No. 3-4 (Jerusalem,
1947), 23 ft.