who were his bitterest enemies, made an attack upon him and he was roughly handled. Then there were threats leveled at his family. So came the first flight, (or Hegira) when a little band of Mahometans, consisting of eleven men and four women, crossed to Abyssinia to take refuge with the Nestorian Christians. Others followed later, until, in the fifth year of Mahomet's mission there were eighty-three men, eighteen women and many children belonging to them, overseas, spreading the new evangel. Meanwhile, the Koreishites passed a law banishing all who chose to embrace the new religion. Mahomet, like a wise man, hid from the storm that he could in no wise control, and his seclusion lent a new charm, the charm of secrecy, to his teaching, so that converts went to him from all parts of Arabia. Persecution Was an asset, as it ever is.
We pass over minor incidents, tales of how this one and that pledged to persecute or kill Mahomet were converted to the faith, how the decree of banishment against the Mahometans mysteriously disappeared and of how Mahomet returned to Mecca, to come to the death of Kadijah in her sixty-fifth year. A month later he was bethrothed to Ayesha, a child of seven years of age, the marriage being postponed for two years. To avoid loneliness during the years of the education of the child Ayesha, he married Sawda, the widow of one of his followers. Many other wives had Mahomet afterwards, but Ayesha remained the favorite, the only one, said Mahomet, who came a pure unspotted virgin to his arms.
