The great work was completed in six days, and on the evening of its achievement the Muslim army encamped between the trench and the city in the open space thus formed.  A tent of red leather was set up for Mahomet, where Zeinab and Omm Salma, as well as his favourite and companion, Ayesha, visited him in turn.  Around him rested his chief warriors, Ali, Othman, Zeid, Omar, with his counseller Abu Bekr and his numerous entourage of heroes and enthusiasts.  They were infused with the same exalted resolve as their leader, and waited undismayed for the Infidel attack.  But with the rest of the citizens, and especially with the Disaffected, it was otherwise.  Ever since the rumour of the onrush of their foe reached Medina, they had murmured openly against their leader’s rule.  They had refused to help in the digging of the ditch, and now waited in ill-concealed discontent mingled with a base panic fear for their own safety.

The Meccan host advanced as before by way of Ohod, and pursued their way to the city rejoicing in the freedom from attack, and convinced thereby that their conquest of Medina would be rapid and complete.  They penetrated to the rampart wall of houses and marched past them to the level ground, intending to rush the city and pen the Muslim army within its narrow streets, there to be crushed at will by the sheer mass of its foes.  Then as the whole army in battle array moved forward, strong in its might of numbers, the advance was checked and thrown into confusion by the opposing trench.  Abu Sofian, hurrying up, learnt with anger of this unexpected barrier.  Finding he could not cross it, he waxed indignant, and declared the device was cowardly and “unlike an Arab.”  The traditionalist, as usual, was disconcerted by the resourceful man of action, and the Muslim obstinately remained behind their defence.

The Kureisch discharged a shower of arrows over the ditch among the entrenched Muslim and then retired a little from their first position, so as to encamp not far from the city and try to starve it into surrender.  Mahomet was content that he had staved off immediate attack, and set to work to complete his defences and strengthen his fighting force, when grave news reached him from the immediate environs of the city.  Successful as he had been in extirpating two of the hated Jewish tribes, Mahomet was nevertheless forced to submit to the presence of the Beni Koreitza, whose fortresses were situated near the city on its undefended side.  It is uncertain whether there was ever a treaty between this tribe and the Prophet, or what its provisions were supposing such a document to have existed, but it is evident that there must have been some peaceable relations between the Muslim and the Koreitza, and that the latter were of some account politically.  Now, the Jewish tribe, resentful at the treatment of their fellow-believers, and seeing the t me ripe for secession to the probable winning side, cast away even their nominal allegiance to Mahomet and openly joined his enemies.  A Muslim spy was sent to their territory to discover their true feeling, and his report was so disquieting that the Prophet immediately set a guard over his tent, fearing assassination, and ordered patrols to keep the Medinan streets free from any attempts to disturb the peace and threaten his army from within the city’s confines.