A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Introduction/28

by Moulavi Gerágh Ali

[Sidenote: The Meccans not compelled to believe.]

28. Though Mecca had surrendered, all its inhabitants had not already become converts to Islam. Mohammad did not take any compulsory means to convert the people: "Although the city had cheerfully accepted his supremacy," writes Sir W. Muir, "all its inhabitants had not yet embraced the new religion, or formally acknowledged his prophetical claim. Perhaps he intended to follow the course he had pursued at Medina and leave the conversion of the people to be gradually accomplished without compulsion."^[1]

Footnotes

1. The Life of Mahomet, by Sir W. Muir, Vol. IV, page 136. Those who had newly joined the Moslem Camp at Mecca to repel the threatening gathering of Hawázin, and those of them who preferred submission to the authority of Mohammad, are called by Sir W. Muir "his new converts." (IV., 149). But in fact they were not called believers. They are called simply Muallafa Qolubohum in the Koran (IX., 60) which means whose hearts are to be won over.