“The prophet frowned and turned aside
    Because the blind man came to him. 
    Who shall tell thee if he may not be purified? 
    Or whether thy admonition might not profit him? 
        The rich man
        Thou receivest graciously,
        Although he be not inwardly pure. 
    But him who cometh earnestly inquiring,
    And trembling with anxiety,
        Him thou dost neglect."[393]

Mohammed did not encourage his followers to martyrdom.  On the contrary, he allowed them to dissemble to save themselves.  He found one of his disciples sobbing bitterly because he had been compelled by ill-treatment to abuse his master and worship the idols.  “But how dost thou find thy heart?” said the prophet.  “Steadfast in the faith,” said he.  “Then,” answered Mohammed, “if they repeat their cruelty, thou mayest repeat thy words.”  He also had himself an hour of vacillation.  Tired of the severe and seemingly hopeless struggle with the Koreish, and seeing no way of overcoming their bitter hostility, he bethought himself of the method of compromise, more than seven centuries before America was discovered.  He had been preaching Islam five years, and had only forty or fifty converts.  Those among them who had no protectors he had advised to fly to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia.  “Yonder,” said he, pointing to the west, “lies a land wherein no one is wronged.  Go there and remain until the Lord shall open a way for you.”  Some fifteen or twenty had gone, and met with a kind reception.  This was the first “Hegira,” and showed the strength of faith in these exiles, who gave up their country rather than Islam.  But they heard, before long, that the Koreish had been converted by Mohammed, and they returned to Mecca.  The facts were these.

One day, when the chief citizens were sitting near the Kaaba, Mohammed came, and began to recite in their hearing one of the Suras of the Koran.  In this Sura three of the goddesses worshipped by the Koreish were mentioned.  When he came to their names he added two lines in which he conceded that their intercession might avail with God.  The Koreish were so delighted at this acknowledgment of their deities, that when he added another line calling on them to worship Allah, they all prostrated themselves on the ground and adored God.  Then they rose, and expressed their satisfaction, and agreed to be his followers, and receive Islam, with this slight alteration, that their goddesses and favorite idols were to be respected.  Mohammed went home and began to be unhappy in his mind.  The compromise, it seems, lasted long enough for the Abyssinian exiles to hear of it and to come home.  But at last the prophet recovered himself, and took back his concession.  The verse of the Sura was cancelled, and another inserted, declaring that these goddesses were only names, invented by the idolaters.  Ever after, the intercession of idols was condemned with scorn.  But Mohammed records his lapse thus in the seventeenth Sura of the Koran:—­