illusions and scarcely any secrets, he retained by the force of
personality the reverence of the faithful, and ever in this hour of
defeat and negation remained their leader and lord--the symbol, in fact,
of their loyalty to Allah, and their supreme belief in his guidance and
care.




CHAPTER VII


THE CHOSEN CITY

Medina, city of exile and despairing beginnings, destined to achieve
glory by difficult ways, only to be eclipsed finally by its mightier
neighbour and mistress, became, rather by chance than by design, the
scene of Mahomet's struggles for temporal power and his ruthless wielding
of the sword for God and Islam. The city lies north-east of Mecca, on the
opposite side of the mountain spur that skirts the eastern boundary.
Always weakly peopled, it remained from immemorial time an arena of
strife, for it was on the borderland, the boundary of several tribes, and
was far enough north for the outer waves of Syrian disturbances to fling
their varying tides upon its shores--a meagre city, always fiercely at
civil warfare, impotent, unfertile.

In the dark days of Judaea's humiliation at the hands of Titus, two
Jewish tribes, the Kainukua and the Koreitza, outcast and desolate, even
as they had been warned in their time of dominion, lighted upon Medina in
desperate search for a dwelling-place and a respite from persecution, and