care of his uncle, Abu Talib. This was a man of no great
force of character, well-disposed and kindly, but of straitened means,
and lacking in the qualities that secure success. Later, he seems to have
attained a more important position, mainly, one would imagine, through
the lion courage and unfaltering faith in the Prophet of his son, the
mighty warrior Ali, of whom it is written, "Mahomet is the City of
Knowledge, and Ali is the Gate thereof." But although Abu Talib was
sufficiently strong to withstand the popular fury of the Kureisch against
Mahomet, and to protect him for a time on the grounds of kinship, he
never finally decided upon which side he would take his stand. Had he
been a far-seeing, imaginative man, able to calculate even a little the
force that had entered into Arabian polity, the history of the foundation
of Islam would have been continued, with Mecca as its base, and have
probably resolved itself into the war of two factions within the city,
wherein the new faith, being bound to the more powerful political party,
would have had a speedier conquest.

With Abu Talib Mahomet spent the rest of his childhood and youth--quiet
years, except for a journey to Syria, and his insignificant part in the
war against the Hawazin, a desert tribe that engaged the Kureisch for
some time. In Abu Talib's house there was none of the ease that had
surrounded him with Abd al Muttalib. But Mahomet was naturally an
affectionate child, and was equally attached to his uncle as he had been
to his grandfather.

Two years later Abu Talib set out on a mercantile journey, and was minded
to leave his small foster-child behind him, but Mahomet came to him
as he sat on his camel equipped for his journey, and clinging to him
passionately implored his uncle not to go without him. Abu Talib could
not resist his pleading, and so Mahomet accompanied him on that magical
journey through the desert, so glorious yet awesome to an imaginative
child, Bostra was the principal city of exchange for merchandise
circulating between Yemen, Northern Arabia, and the cities of Upper
Palestine, and Mahomet must thus have travelled on the caravan route
through the heart of Syria, past Jerash, Ammon, and the site of the
fated Cities of the Plain. In Syria, too, he first encountered the
Christian faith, and planted those remembrances that were to be revived
and strengthened upon his second journey through that wonderful land--in
religion, and in a lesser