Spread of Islam in the surrounding tribes at Medina after the Hegira I-VI.
24. During the six eventful years of Mohammad's sojourn at Medina, from the Hegira to the truce of Hodeibia, where he was every year attacked or threatened by other hostile Arab tribes, acting always in self-defence, he had converted several members or almost entire tribes residing round Medina.
Among them were the following:—
1. The Bani Aslam.[45]
2. Joheina.[46]
3. Mozeina.[47]
4. Ghifár.[48]
5. Saad-bin-Bakr.[49]
6. Bani Ashja.[50]
We never find a single instance even in the Magházis (accounts of the campaigns of Mohammad, however untrustworthy they be) of Mohammad's converting any person, families, or branches of tribes by the scimitar in one hand and the Koran in the other.
Mecca a barrier against the conversion of the southern tribes.
25. Up to this time, notwithstanding the persecutions, exiles and wars against Islam, it had spread by the mere force of persuasion among the Meccans, some of whom had emigrated to Abyssinia and most to Medina, the whole of the influential tribes of Aws and Khazraj at Medina, as well as among the Jews there, and among some of the tribes in the north, and east of Medina and the centre of Arabia. But as Mecca in the south had declared war against Islam, most of the Arab tribes connected somehow with the Meccans, and those inhabiting the southern and south-eastern parts of Arabia, to whom Mecca served geographically as a barrier, watched the proceedings of the war and the fate of Islam, and had no opportunity of coming to Medina to embrace Islam, nor of having friendly intercourse with the Moslems, nor of receiving Mohammadan missionaries in the face of the wars waged by the Koreish who were looked upon as the guardians of the Kaaba, the spiritual or religious centre of the idolatrous Arabs. At the end of the last or the fifth year many Bedouin tribes, among whom might be counted the Bani Ashja, Murra, Fezara, Suleim, Sad-bin-Bakr and Bani Asad, had furnished several thousand Arabs to the Koreish for the siege of Medina. Only when the aggressions of the Koreish against the Moslems were suspended that the warring tribes and those of the Central, Southern and Eastern Arabia could think of what they had heard of the reasonable preaching of Islam against their idolatry and superstitions.
Tribal conversions in the sixth year.
26. Since the truce of Hodeibia at the end of the sixth year after the Hegira Mecca was opened for intercourse, where there were some more and fresh conversions. The Bani Khozaa, descendants of Azd, were converted to Islam at the truce of Hodeibia. At the pilgrimage in the following year some influential men of Mecca adopted Islam. The movement was not confined to these leading men, but was wide and general. In the seventh year the following tribes were converted to Islam and their deputations joined Mohammad at Khyber: