a good effect.1 The men of Mecca saw that acceptance of Muhammad's
teaching might mean war and possible defeat, and this feeling no doubt added
strength to their increasing opposition. They now called him liar, sorcerer,
poet, soothsayer, demoniac. Even at the door of the Ka'ba, they assailed him.
Once he lost his temper and said: 'Hear, ye Quraish, I come to you with
slaughter,' 2 a threat which he was not able to carry out for many
years; but the Quraish could not know this and so the next day they attacked him
again. Abu Bakr had to come to his aid, and there 'was no man that day,' says
Ibn Ishaq, 'free or slave, who did not call him a liar and insult him.' All
through these troubles his uncle Abu Talib, though not at all convinced of the
truth of his nephew's claims, was his steady protector. The Quraish urged him to
withdraw his protection, but all that he would do was to remonstrate with his
troublesome nephew thus: 'Spare me and thyself, and do not burden me with more
than I can bear;' but Muhammad was firm, and so his uncle, true to the ties of
relationship, dismissed the deputation and told him to go on, adding these
words, 'By Allah, I shall in no wise surrender thee to them.'
The conception of Muhammad as a poor man, a mere camel driver, forcing his
own way, unaided,