At Mecca, surrounded by
enemies, he taught toleration. He was simply the preacher commissioned
to deliver a message, and bidden to leave the responsibility with his
Master and his hearers. He might argue with the disputants, but it must
be "in a way most mild and gracious;" for "in religion" (such was his
teaching before he reached Medina) "there should be neither violence nor
constraint."[37] At Medina the precepts of toleration were quickly cast
aside and his whole policy reversed. No sooner did Mohammed begin to be
recognized and obeyed as the chief of Medina than he proceeded to attack
the Jewish tribes settled in the neighborhood because they refused to
acknowledge his claims and believe in him as a prophet foretold in their
Scriptures; two of these tribes were exiled, and the third exterminated
in cold blood. In the second year after the Hegira[a], or flight from Mecca
(the period from which the Mohammedan era dates), he began to plunder
the caravans of the Coreish, which passed near to Medina on their
mercantile journeys between Arabia and Syria. So popular did the cause
of the now militant and marauding prophet speedily become among the
citizens of Medina and the tribes around that, after many battles fought
with varying success, he was able, in the eighth year of the Hegira[b] to
re-enter his native city at the head of ten thousand armed followers.
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