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By Root 20325 0

some verses of Ali, which are still extant, exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider's web and a pigeon's nest is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. "We are only two," said the trembling Abubeker. "There is a third," replied the prophet; "it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable aera of the Hegira, ^118 which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. ^119

[Footnote 116: In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was punished by the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I blush for a respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650, 651, edit. Michaelis; and letter of a late professor in the university of Oxford, p. 15 - 53,) who justifies and applauds this patriarchal inquisition.]

[Footnote 117: D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a particular history of the flight of Mahomet.]

[Footnote 118: The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second caliph, in imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the Christians, (D'Herbelot, p. 444;) and properly commenced sixty-eight days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year which coincides with Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham, c. 22, 23, p. 45 - 50; and Greaves's edition of Ullug Beg's Epochae Arabum, &c., c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.)

Note: Chronologists dispute between the 15th and 16th of July. St. Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p. 70. - M.]

[Footnote 119: Mahomet's life, from his mission to the Hegira, may be found in Abulfeda (p. 14 - 45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 134 - 251, 342 - 383.) The legend from p. 187 - 234 is vouched by Al Jannabi, and disdained by Abulfeda.]

The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb, before it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs, they introduced the taste of science and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were converted by the preaching of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the belief of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites united in faith and love, protested, in the name of their wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would forever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital spark of the empire of the Saracens. ^120 Seventy-three men and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his kinsman, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a confederate, obey