girl-bride, and who even now showed exceeding loveliness and force of
character.

Mahomet himself had no separate house, but dwelt with each of his wives
in turn, favouring Ayesha most, and as his harem increased a house was
added for each wife, so that his entourage was continually near him and
under his surveillance. On the north side the ground was open, and there
the poorer followers of Mahomet gathered, living upon the never-failing
hospitality of the East and its ready generosity in the necessities of
life.

As soon as the Mosque was built, organised religious life at Medina came
into being. A daily service was instituted in the Mosque itself, and the
heaven-sent command to prayer five times a day for every Muslim was
enforced. Five times in every turn of the world Allah receives his
supplicatory incense; at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset, and
at night the Muslim renders his due reverence and praise to the lord of
his welfare, thanking Allah, his supreme guide and votary, for the gift
of the Prophet, guide and protector of the Faithful. Lustration before
prayer was instituted as symbolic of the Believers' purification of heart
before entering the presence of God, and provision for the ceremony made
inside the Mosque. The public service on Friday, instituted at Coba, was
continued at Medina, and consisted chiefly of a sermon given by Mahomet
from a pulpit, erected inside the Mosque, whose sanctity was proverbial
and unassailed. Thus the seed was sown of a corporate religious life, the
embryo from which the Arabian military organisation, its polity, even its
social system, were to spring.

In spite of the increasing numbers of the Ansar, there still remained a
party in Medina, "the Disaffected," who had not as yet accepted the