1.  Mahomet was the grandson of the most powerful and honourable family in Mecca; and although the early death of his father had not left him a patrimony suitable to his birth, he had, long before the commencement of his mission, repaired this deficiency by an opulent marriage.  A person considerable by his wealth, of high descent, and nearly allied to the chiefs of his country, taking upon himself the character of a religious teacher, would not fail of attracting attention and followers.

2.  Mahomet conducted his design, in the outset especially, with great art and prudence.  He conducted it as a politician would conduct a plot.  His first application was to his own family.  This gained him his wife’s uncle, a considerable person in Mecca, together with his cousin Ali, afterwards the celebrated Caliph, then a youth of great expectation, and even already distinguished by his attachment, impetuosity, and courage.* He next expressed himself to Abu Beer, a man amongst the first of the Koreish in wealth and influence.  The interest and example of Abu Beer drew in five other principal persons in Mecca, whose solicitations prevailed upon five more of the same rank.  This was the work of three years; during which time everything was transacted in secret.  Upon the strength of these allies, and under the powerful protection of his family, who, however some of them might disapprove his enterprise, or deride his pretensions, would not suffer the orphan of their house, the relict of their favourite brother, to be insulted, Mahomet now commenced his public preaching.  And the advance which he made during the nine or ten remaining years of his peaceable ministry was by no means greater than what, with these advantages, and with the additional and singular circumstance of there being no established religion at Mecca at that time to contend with, might reasonably have been expected.  How soon his primitive adherents were let into the secret of his views of empire, or in what stage of his undertaking these views first opened themselves to his own mind, it is not now easy to determine.  The event however was, that these, his first proselytes, all ultimately attained to riches and honours, to the command of armies, and the government of kingdoms.  (Gibbon, vol. ix. p 244.)

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* Of which Mr. Gibbon has preserved the following specimen:  “When Mahomet called out in an assembly of his family, Who among you will be my companion, and my vizir?  Ali, then only in the fourteenth year of his age, suddenly replied, O prophet I am the man;—­whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his belly.  O prophet!  I will be thy vizir over them.”  Vol. ix. p. 215. _________