In that state of mind, he sent for Mohammad. 'O son of my brother!' quoth he; 'our fellow-citizens of the Quraish have returned and made solemn declarations to me. Reflect; take compassion on me; have pity for thyself, and do not put upon me a burden too heavy to bear.

'O my uncle!' replied the Prophet; 'if in order to make me renounce my Mission, they placed the Sun on my left and the Moon on my right, I swear that, by Allah, I would not yield before I fulfilled my task triumphantly or perished in the attempt!'

Thinking that Abu Talib had spoken as he did as a hint that he would have to cast him adrift, by reason of his inability to protect him, his nephew burst into tears and went away. Abu Talib, much moved, called him back at once and said to him affectionately: 'Go, O son of my brother! Go forth and preach as thou wilt. By God, I'll never turn away from thee!'

Finding that no threats succeeded in estranging uncle and nephew, the delegates went back to Abu Talib for the third time, taking with them Ammarah ibn Walid, and then the deputation made the following proposal:

'O Abu Talib! here is Ammarah ibn Walid, one of the most accomplished and handsome young men among all the youths of Makkah. We bring him to thee. Adopt him for thy son. He belongeth to thee. In exchange, hand over to us thy brother's son thou didst adopt, so that we put him to death, for he hath stirred up strife in our tribe.'—'By God!' replied Abu Talib, 'what's this fine bargain ye now put forward? You would fain give me your son, so that I feed and clothe him; and I should have to let you take mine to be killed by you! That could not be! No, by God!—never!'

With rage in their hearts, the delegate's left him. The Mausam—the time for the pilgrimage—drawing nigh, the Quraish idolaters held a meeting at the dwelling of Walid ibn Moghayrah so as to consult together with regard to the way in which they ought to behave to the Prophet. Walid was spokesman, and he said: 'O assembly of Quraish men! the Mausam will soon bring innumerable pilgrims to Makkah. Of a surety, they have heard about Mohammad, and they will question you concerning him. How will ye answer? Ye must be all of one mind, so as not to contradict each other, which would nullify the effect of your utterances.'—'It is for thee to advise us, O Walid!'—'It is for you to speak first. I will listen and discuss your opinions.'—'Well then! we shall say that Mohammad is a diviner.'—'No! We know the diviners! He hath none of their mutterings or rhyming emphasis.'—'We'll say that he is possessed.'—'No! We have seen men possessed; and unlike them, he is not subject to fits of suffocation and convulsions.'—'We'll say he is a poet.'—'No! He is no poet. We know all the styles of versification as used by the poets, and his speech does not resemble that of any one of them.'—'We'll say he is a sorcerer.'—'No! for we have fallen across sorcerers, and he performeth none of their magical operations. Of a truth, his success is due to the charm and beauty of his discourse.'

Arraigned before the tribunal of their own conscience, the citizens assembled were forced to acknowledge the rigorous truth of this last remark. All of them, more or less, had felt the words springing from the ecstatic soul of Allah's Apostle go home to them. All of them had ofttimes been about to give way to the fascination caused by his accents, ringing with the inspiration of superhuman faith. The Quraish men were only restrained by the importance of their material interests and the violence of their earthly passions, thus seriously threatened by his pure doctrine.

Nevertheless, they were bound to come to a decision at once, so as to prevent, at all costs, the Arabs belonging to distant tribes from undergoing the same ordeal. Therefore, they agreed to say that Mohammad possessed potent spells by which he stirred up strife in families, estranging a brother from his brother, a son from his father, and a husband from a wife.