The Ka‛ba itself, within which were ranged many idols, was in the special care of the prophet’s tribe, the Kuraysh, which was the leading tribe of Mecca. Before the birth of the prophet a city to the south of Mecca, called Sana, had been a competing shrine but had lost prestige in favor of Mecca. All Arabs had felt a thrill of triumph in the defeat inflicted on the forces of Persia at the battle of Dhu Qar in 610 A.D. Just as the ancient Greeks had felt an increased sense of solidarity when they discovered the decline of the supposedly powerful Persia of their day through the campaign of the younger Cyrus, so now the Arabs felt relief and gathered encouragement from the revelation of Persia’s weakness. Thus in the early lifetime of the prophet a number of forces, linguistic, religious and political, had joined with his sense of revelation and mission to make him an invincible leader. He was a thoroughly representative Arab, superior in mental power and religious fervor, sincere, of the order of Semitic prophets, the man for the hour in Arabia. He shrank at first from his call but was encouraged by his wife and by the devotion of a few friends and converts to go forward. He summoned the Meccans to renounce idols and to worship the one god. He was persecuted severely and would doubtless have lost his life except for his powerful family connections, which made it unsafe for his enemies to risk a blood feud. At last he took the step that made him the non-partisan apostle to Arabia and in 622 A.D., accepting the invitation of the citizens of Yathrib, he fled from his own house, where he was enduring a state of siege, and made his way to the town that was henceforth to be known as Medinet en-Neby, the Prophet’s City, or in its shorter form, Medina, The City. There he waxed prosperous and used the sword of vengeance as well as of conquest. Converts came individually and in groups. He campaigned against his own home city, Mecca, conquered it and purged it of many of its grosser abuses, including the idols. He sent letters to the sovereigns of Persia and Constantinople demanding submission. In 632 A.D. he died and was buried in Medina, where his tomb is the principle treasure of the great mosk. Within seventy years of Muhammad’s death his Arabs had conquered the whole of Egypt, North Africa to the Atlantic, the Spanish peninsula, and parts of India. Surely this was no ordinary man or influence that could thus turn the desert ranger into a citizen of Europe, Africa, and Asia, and turn so many provinces and kingdoms to the speech and doctrine of the Arab. Native populations in the conquered countries secured exemptions and brotherhood if they accepted the faith of Islam. Otherwise they paid tribute or were harried by the sword.