His quest was for a time unsuccessful. Those who had come to worship at
the Kaaba[49] drew back from a man stigmatized as an apostate; and the
worldly-minded were unwilling to befriend one proscribed by the powerful
of his native place.
At length, as he was one day preaching on the hill Al Akaba, a little to
the north of Mecca, he drew the attention of certain pilgrims from the
city of Yathreb. This city, since called Medina, was about two hundred
and seventy miles north of Mecca. Many of its inhabitants were Jews and
heretical Christians. The pilgrims in question were pure Arabs of the
ancient and powerful tribe of Khazradites, and in habits of friendly
intercourse with the Keneedites and Naderites, two Jewish tribes
inhabiting Mecca, who claimed to be of the sacerdotal line of Aaron. The
pilgrims had often heard their Jewish friends explain the mysteries of
their faith and talk of an expected messiah. They were moved by the
eloquence of Mahomet, and struck with the resemblance of his doctrines
to those of the Jewish law; insomuch that when they heard him proclaim
himself a prophet, sent by heaven to restore the ancient faith, they
said, one to another, "Surely this must be the promised messiah of which
we have been told.
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