The child, however, lived but
fifteen months.
In the ninth year of the Hegira envoys from all parts of Arabia came to
Mahomet at Medina, to declare the readiness of their several tribes to
profess his religion.
The same year Mahomet, with an army of thirty thousand men, marched
toward Syria, to a place called Tobuc, against the Romans and Syrians,
who were making preparation against him, but, upon his approach,
retreated. The Mussulmans, in their march back toward Medina, took
several forts of the Christian Arabs, and made them tributaries. Upon
his return to Medina the Thakishites, having been blockaded in the Taif
by the Mussulman tribes, sent deputies offering to embrace Islamism,
upon condition of being allowed to retain a little longer an idol to
which their people were bigotedly attached. When Mahomet insisted upon
its being immediately demolished, they desired to be at least excused
from using the Mussulmans' prayers, but to this he answered very justly,
"That a religion without prayers was good for nothing." At last they
submitted absolutely.
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