The suras of this period show some of the discouragement he felt at the time, but through them all beats a note of endurance and confidence:  God is continually behind his cause, therefore that cause will prevail against all obstacles.  Mahomet has become more familiar with the Jewish Scriptures, and many of the suras are recapitulations of the lives of Jewish heroes, especial preference being given to Abraham as mythical founder of his race, and to Lot as the typical example of one righteous man sent to warn the iniquitous.  The style has certainly matured, and in so doing has lost much of its primal fire.  It is still stirring and vibrant, but passages of almost bald narrative are interposed, shadows upon the shining floor of his original zeal.  He has become increasingly reiterative, too,—­a quality easily attained by those who have but one message, in this case a message of warning and exhortation, and are feverishly anxious to brand its urgency upon the hearts of their fellow-men.

Confined within so limited an area, his energy recoiled upon itself, and the despondency that so easily besets men of action when that necessity is denied them, overcame his mind.  Only at the yearly pilgrimage was he able to gain a hearing from his Meccan brethren, and then, says the chronicler bitterly, “none would believe.”  The Hashim could not trade or intermarry with any outside their clan, and there seemed no chance of circumstances removing their disabilities.  Mahomet’s hopes of embracing all Mecca in his faith wavered and fled, until it seemed as if Allah no longer protected his chosen.

But after two years of negation and impotence, an end to the persecution of the Muslim was in sight, and in 619 the ban was removed.  Legend has it that when the chiefs of the Kaaba went to look upon the document they found it devoured by ants, and took this as a sign of the displeasure of their gods.  The ban was thus removed by supernatural agency when its prolongation would have meant final disaster for Mahomet.  In the light of later knowledge it is evident that the removal of the ban was the result of the exertions of Abu Talib, and it was owing to his high reputation among the Kureisch that they pardoned his turbulent and blasphemous nephew.  At the end of two years also, the Muslim were considerably weakened, both in staying powers and reputation.  They were now allowed to go freely in the city, and the immediate prospect seemed certainly brighter for Mahomet when there fell the greatest blow that could have afflicted his sensitive spirit.

Khadijah, his companion and sustainer through so many troublous years, died in 619, having borne with him all his revilings and discouragements, his source of strength even when there appeared no prospect of the abatement of his hardships, much less for the success of his cause.  Mahomet’s grief was too profound for the passing shadow of it even to darken the pages of the Kuran.  He paid her the compliment of silence; but her memory was continually with him, even when he had taken many fairer women to wife.  Ayesha, in all the insolence of beauty, scoffed at Khadijah’s age and lack of comeliness: