Earth is God's? and that ye have neither patron nor helper save
God?"--_The Kuran_.

The expectancy which burned like revivifying fire in the hearts of the
Meccan Muslim, kindled and nourished by their leader himself, was to
culminate at the time of the yearly pilgrimage in 622. In that month came
the great concourse of pilgrims from Yathreb to Mecca, among them seventy
of the "Faithful" who had received the faith at Medina, headed by their
teacher Musab and strengthened by the knowledge that they were before
long to stand face to face with their Prophet.

Musab had reported to Mahomet the success of his mission in the city, and
had prepared him for the advent of the little band of followers secured
for Islam. Secrecy was essential, for the Muslim from Medina were in
heart strangers among their own people, in such a precarious situation
that any treachery would have meant their utter annihilation, if not at
the hands of their countrymen, who would doubtless throw in their lot
with the stronger, certainly at the hands of the Kureisch, the implacable
foes of Islam, in whose territory they fearfully were. The rites of
pilgrimage were accordingly performed faithfully, though many breathed
more freely as they departed for the last ceremony at Mina. All was now
completed, and the Medinan party prepared to return, when Mahomet
summoned the Faithful by night to the old meeting-place in the gloomy
valley of Akaba.

About seventy men and two women of both Medinan tribes, the Beni Khazraj
and the Beni Aus, assembled thus in that barren place, under the
brilliant night skies of Arabia, to pledge themselves anew to an unseen,
untried God and to the service of his Prophet, who as yet counted but few
among his followers, and whose word carried no weight with the great ones