The Keeper of the Keys 49him back to Mecca. The unusually high reward attracted dozens of
Bedouin tribesmen who combed the surrounding area night and day
looking for the Prophet and his friend.
Meanwhile, Muhammad and Abu Bakr had taken cover in a cave
not far from Mecca. For three days they hid from view, waiting for the
hunt to subside and the Bedouin to return to their camps. On the
third night, they carefully crept out of the cave and, making sure no
one was following, mounted two camels brought to them by a sympa-
thetic conspirator. They then quietly disappeared into the desert on
their way to Yathrib.
It is a wonder—some would say a miracle—that this same man,
who had been forced to sneak out of his home under cover of night to
join the seventy or so followers anxiously awaiting him in a foreign
land hundreds of miles away, would, in a few short years, return to
the city of his birth, not covertly or in darkness, but in the full light
of day, with ten thousand men trailing peacefully behind him; and
the same people who once tried to murder him in his sleep would in-
stead offer up to him both the sacred city and the keys to the Ka‘ba—
unconditionally and without a fight, like a consecrated sacrifice.