(8.) Mohammed seeks to tighten his grasp on Arabia by the despatch of Collectors or Residents to its different provinces, and then directs his earnest attention to a fresh attack upon the Roman empire, by collecting an army to invade Syria.

Returned from his pilgrimage, and conscious of the great power which he wielded, and with which the immense multitude of pilgrims had just strongly impressed him, Mohammed speedily reverted to his grand idea of conquering Syria and began active preparations for making another vigorous attempt in that direction. He had reached Medina before the end of March 632; but finding that Badzan, the chief of Yemen, whom he had confirmed in his post after making his submission, had just died, his attention necessarily had first to be directed to affairs in the south. He permitted Shahr, Badzan's son, to succeed his father at Sana; but ordained that the highest political power should pass into the hands of Mohajir, whom he had sent thither from Medina as collector of the taxes. Similar collectors of taxes and political agents had, for some time past, been sent forth from Medina, to promote the interests of Islam, by replenishing the Prophet's treasury and by controlling the action of the native chiefs. Ibn Ishak furnishes us with the following list of such collectors or residents: Mohajir to Sana, Ziyad to Hadramaut, Adi to the Beni Asad and Tay, Malik to the Beni Hanzala, Ala to Bahrein, Ali to Najran.

What the biographers say about this last-mentioned mission requires some elucidation. Ali was sent at the head of a body of troops to that portion of Najran which had already made its submission, in order to 'collect the alms and the capitation-tax.' This mission seems to have
taken place in the summer of the year 631. Some time after he had left, Khalid was despatched with more troops to second him, and received the instruction, ' If you meet, then Ali is to have the chief command.' We do not read that they met, but Khalid remained in Najran and brought the still refractory Beni Harith to terms. Their deputies accompanied him to Medina, to make their submission to

the Prophet in person, according to superior orders, and Ibn Ishak remarks that they returned to their own country 'not quite four months before Mohammed's death,' that is, about a month before the farewell pilgrimage. Ali appears to have marched further south than Khalid, to the remoter parts of Yemen, but to have returned to Medina about the same time as he did. Now as Ibn Hisham states that Ali, at this period, undertook two expeditions to Yemen, he can only have remained a very short time at head-quarters, and must have started again soon after, with a fresh body of troops. In all probability the object of this second mission was, to keep order and quiet in the province, whilst the collector, who had been sent in company with the returning Najranite deputies, was entering upon his unpopular office. It must have been at the close of this second expedition, that he rejoined Mohammed, during the farewell visit to Mecca in March 632, as already mentioned. His own actual collectorship can only have lasted a very short time.

The great number of men who were responding to Mohammed's pressing invitation to swell the bulk of his followers, on his ostentatious pilgrimage to Mecca, naturally caused, by their departure from home, an almost complete disappearance of the more decided and trusted supporters of Islam. Ali also, with his army, departing soon after, to join the pilgrim-throngs at Mecca, Still further denuded the south of the guardians of public tranquillity. This was seized upon by those who had only from sheer necessity submitted to the new order of things, as the opportune moment for casting off the hated yoke of Mussulman domination. The rival prophet, El Aswad, as we have already seen, forthwith placed himself at the head of the discontented, and, for the brief space of two or three months, held up the banner of independence in the south. The patriots of Najran received him with open arms, and Mohammed's delegate had to flee for his life. As Mohammed had hitherto pursued the political aim of 'Arabia for the Arabians,' so El Aswad, in adapting the same principle to his own circumstances, insisted on the project of 'The South for the Southerners,' and treated Moham-