The Emigrants were those Moslems who left their homes at Mecca and accompanied the Prophet in his Migration (_Hijra_)--whence their name, _Muhájirún_--to Medína in the year 622. Inasmuch as they had lost everything except the hope of victory and vengeance, he could count upon their fanatical devotion to himself.
The Helpers were those inhabitants of Medína who had accepted Islam and pledged themselves to protect Muḥammad in case of attack. Together with the Emigrants they constituted a formidable and ever-increasing body of true believers, the first champions of the Church militant.
"Many citizens of Medína, however, were not so well disposed towards Muḥammad, and neither acknowledged him as a Prophet nor would submit to him as their Ruler; but since they durst not come forward against him openly on account of the multitude of his enthusiastic adherents, they met him with a passive resistance which more than once thwarted his plans, their influence was so great that he, on his part, did not venture to take decisive measures against them, and sometimes even found it necessary to give way."[334]
These are the Hypocrites whom Muḥammad describes in the following verses of the Koran:--
(7) And there are those among men who say, 'We believe in God and in the Last Day'; but they do not believe.
(8) They would deceive God and those who do believe; but they deceive only themselves and they do not perceive.
(9) In their hearts is a sickness, and God has made them still more sick, and for them is grievous woe because they lied.[335]
Their leader, ‘Abdulláh b. Ubayy, an able man but of weak character, was no match for Muḥammad, whom he and his partisans only irritated, without ever becoming really dangerous.
The Jews, on the other hand, gave the Prophet serious trouble. At first he cherished high hopes that they would accept the new Revelation which he brought to them, and which he maintained to be the original Word of God as it was formerly revealed to Abraham and Moses; but when the Jews, perceiving the absurdity of this idea, plied him with all sorts of questions and made merry over his ignorance, Muḥammad, keenly alive to the damaging effect of the criticism to which he had exposed himself, turned upon his tormentors, and roundly accused them of having falsified and corrupted their Holy Books. Henceforth he pursued them with a deadly hatred against which their political disunion rendered them helpless. A few sought refuge in Islam; the rest were either slaughtered or driven into exile.