themselves of their flocks, and returned to Medina with the booty of 1500 camels and 3000 sheep.

In the summer of the same year, the Prophet himself headed a select army to take revenge on the Beni Lihyan, near the sea-coast to the north-west of Mecca, for the share they had had in massacring some Moslem emissaries, not long after the battle of Ohod. These being first invited to come and teach the new religion, were treacherously attacked in their sleep at the station of Raji, as already mentioned (p. 160). Though Mohammed tried to take the Lihyanites off their guard, by starting in an opposite direction, they had obtained timely information of his approach, to enable them to withdraw to the heights of the Hejaz mountains where they were beyond his reach. Thus finding his plan of vengeance frustrated, he contented himself with a harmless demonstration against the Koreish, by advancing on the way to Mecca as far as Osfan, accompanied by 200 mounted followers, and then returned to Medina, with the sole satisfaction of having shown a bold front to his enemies.

But the Bedouins were not behind him in boldness, where there was a prospect of plunder. Ibn Ishak tells us that Mohammed had only slept a few nights at home, after his return from the Beni Libyan, when, early one morning, a cry of alarm was raised, because the Fezara chief Oyeina, with a score of Ghatafan horsemen, had suddenly shown himself near Medina and driven away Mohammed's valuable shecamels, killing their keeper and carrying off his wife. Mohammed at once despatched some horsemen to hang on their rear, he himself following with several hundred warriors. They pursued them as far as Zu Karad, and succeeded in killing a few and retaking some of the camels, whilst the rest retreated unscathed. Mohammed had to slaughter some of his own camels to provide food for his men, who, in the hurry of starting, had been unable to bring the necessary provisions with them.

The camel-keeper's widow afterwards escaped from her captors, on one of the camels they had carried away. Mohammed showed in her case that he did not humour the pious emotions of his followers, if they ran counter to his own interests. When she told him that she had vowed to

sacrifice the camel, if it became the means of her escape, he smiled and, as Ibn Ishak informs us, said to her, 'Thou badly recompensest the animal, by wishing to slay it, after God had lifted thee upon it and made it the means of thy safety. A vow displeasing to God is not binding. Thou canst not sacrifice what thou dost not possess, for this camel belongs to me. Therefore, go thou home, with God's blessing.'

In this same year, 627, several more plundering expeditions were undertaken, not by Mohammed himself, but by his lieutenants at his request. Thus Okasha, with forty horsemen, was sent to attack the Beni Asad and brought back 200 captured camels. Ibn Maslama, with only ten companions, had to march against the Beni Ghatafan, whose flocks were encroaching on the Moslem pasture-lands near Zu Kassa; but instead of taking booty, his men were slain, he himself wounded, and when troops were sent in pursuit, they found the Bedouins gone. Zeid Ibn Haritha was despatched against the Beni Soleim from whom he took flocks and prisoners, including Mohammed's wet-nurse, Halima, and her husband, both of whom were naturally set at liberty on reaching Medina. Zeid also attacked the Beni Talab, of whom he seized forty camels, and a Meccan caravan which he surprised at Iss and robbed of its treasure of silver. On this same occasion he took a number of captives, amongst whom was Abu-l-As, Mohammed's son-in-law, who was set free in Medina and there embraced the religion of his father-in-law. Soon after, Zeid started with a trading caravan for Syria, but on reaching the neighbourhood of Wadi el Kora was plundered and wounded by the Beni Fezara. As soon as he had recovered from his wounds, at the beginning of the following year, he took his revenge, by attacking them with several hundred men. he seized the aged wife of one of their chiefs and ordered her to be torn asunder, by having a camel tied to each of her legs.

That such inhuman punishments were quite in keeping with the spirit of Islam, appears from one which the Prophet himself inflicted on some offenders about the same time. A small number of poor and sickly Bedouins, of the Orain and Okla families, professed their faith in the Prophet and then