ll!~din{/, Lift, and War^97
er intelligence about their leaders' intentions. Coming upon a caravan,
Abdullah ibn Jahsh and the members of his group decided to attack it
despite the fact that it was the last night of Rajab, one of the four sacred
months during which all the tribes considered war to be forbidden. A
Quraysh man was killed, another managed to escape, and nvo members
o f the caravan were taken prisoner. When they went back to Medina, the
Prophet reacted very angrily to this action, which was totally at variance
with his instructions. This event marked a turning point in the relations
between 1'1edina and l\'lccca.
For more than a year, the Prophet had been setting up pacts with some
tribes aJong the Red Sea coast, on a route generaUy taken by 1Iecca cara-
vans traveling notth, beyond iVfcdina, to Iraq or Syria. T his was bound to
inconvenience the Q uraysh, who had to find new routes to the east.
Tensions were growing steadily, and the Quraysh, who wished to tar nish
the exiles' reputation and mobilize the area's tribes against them, found an
excellent pretext in the attack on the caravan, which had taken place dur-
ing the sacred month. The intelligence gathered here and there by
Muhammad's envoys pointed to the fact that a clash was imminent.
RevelationD uring this same period, the Prophet received two successive Revelations,
totally different in nature, but whose consequences were equally to con-
stitute a break with the past. For more than thirteen years, Muslims had
been called upon to exercise patience and passive resistance in the face of
the persecution and terror they suffered at the hands of the Q uraysh lead-
ers and other clans. They had endured, persevered, then emigrated, with-
out responding to aggressions, avoiding confrontation.
Once the :Muslims had settled in M edina, it had become obvious that
the Quraysh wete going to step up their opposition and fInd other means
to put an end to the Prophet's mission, which now no longet threatened
only the political balance in Mecca but also the order of powers thtough-
out the Peninsula. \'(That was at stake was the Qutaysh's position with
regard to all the other tribes and dans; their religious and military stand-
ing was at risk. H!Jmh, which was liberation, also meant confucts and
struggles to come.