city his cause remained stationary, neither gaining nor losing adherents,
during the years 617-619.

The suras of this period show some of the discouragement he felt at the
time, but through them all beats a note of endurance and confidence:
God is continually behind his cause, therefore that cause will prevail
against all obstacles. Mahomet has become more familiar with the Jewish
Scriptures, and many of the suras are recapitulations of the lives of
Jewish heroes, especial preference being given to Abraham as mythical
founder of his race, and to Lot as the typical example of one righteous
man sent to warn the iniquitous. The style has certainly matured, and in
so doing has lost much of its primal fire. It is still stirring and
vibrant, but passages of almost bald narrative are interposed, shadows
upon the shining floor of his original zeal. He has become increasingly
reiterative, too,--a quality easily attained by those who have but
one message, in this case a message of warning and exhortation, and
are feverishly anxious to brand its urgency upon the hearts of their
fellow-men.


Confined within so limited an area, his energy recoiled upon itself, and
the despondency that so easily besets men of action when that necessity
is denied them, overcame his mind. Only at the yearly pilgrimage was he
able to gain a hearing from his Meccan brethren, and then, says the
chronicler bitterly, "none would believe." The Hashim could not trade or
intermarry with any outside their clan, and there seemed no chance of
circumstances removing their disabilities. Mahomet's hopes of embracing
all Mecca in his faith wavered and fled, until it seemed as if Allah no
longer protected his chosen.