times a day. Return thou and beg that the number be lessened."

So Mahomet returned again and again at Abraham's command, until he had
reduced the number to five, which the father of his people considered
was sufficient burden for his feeble subjects to bear. Wherefore the five
periods set apart for prayer in the Muslim faith are proportionately
sacred, and with this divine mandate the vision ceased.

With his hopes now set on founding an earthly dominion with the help of
Allah, he had perforce to consider the political situation, and to mature
his policy for dealing with it as soon as events proved favourable. The
achievements of the Persians on the Greek frontier had already attracted
his attention in 616; there is an allusion to the battle and the Greek
defeat in the Kuran, and a vague prophecy of their ultimate success, for
Mahomet was in sympathy with the Greek Empire, seeing that, from the
point of view of Arabia, it was the less formidable enemy.

But really the events of such outlying territories only troubled him in
regard to Medina, for his whole thoughts were centred now upon the chosen
city of his dreams. His followers became less aggressive in Mecca when
they knew that the Prophet had the nucleus of a new colony in another
city. Persecution within Mecca therefore died down considerably, and the
period is one of pause upon either side, the Kureisch watching to see
what the next move was to be, Mahomet carefully and secretly maturing his
plans.

During this year there fell a drought upon Mecca, followed by a famine,
which the devout attributed directly to divine anger at the rejection of
the Prophet's heavenly message, and which Mahomet interpreted as the
punishment of God, and this doubtless added to the sum of reasons which