Prophet is dead. By such casual means, by decrees born out of the
circumstances of his age and personal temperament, did Mahomet institute
the customs which are more vital to the position and fate of Muslim women
than all his utterances as to their just treatment and his injunctions
against their oppression.

Power was already taking its insidious hold upon him, and his feet were
set upon the path that led to the despotism of the Chalifate and the
horrors of Muslim conquests. Allah is still omnipotent, but He is making
continual and indispensable use of temporal means to achieve His ends,
and His servant does likewise.

After the interlude of peace, Mahomet was called upon in July, 626,
to undertake a punitive expedition to Jumat-al-Gandal, an oasis
midway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia. The expedition was
successful, and the marauders dispersed. He had now reached the confines
of Syria, and, with the extension of his expeditionary activities, his
political horizon widened. He began to conceive himself as the predatory
chief of Arabia, one who was regarded with awe and fear by the
surrounding tribes, with the one exception of the stiff-necked city,
Mecca, whose inhabitants he longed in vain to subdue. The success
fostered his love of plunder, and inclined him more than ever to hold out
this reward of valour to his followers. His stern and wary policy was
justified by its success, for by it he had recovered from the severe blow
at Ohod, but it threatened to become his master and set its perpetual
seal upon his life.

In December, 626, he heard of the defection of the Beni Mustalik, a
branch of the Khozaa tribe. They joined the Kureisch for mixed motives,
chiefly political, for they hoped to make themselves and their religion