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Updated: May 27, 2025
They now saw themselves face to face not only with a religious revolution, but also with political absorption in the victorious sect if they did not make good their opposition to this overwhelming enemy in their midst. They assembled at Autas, in the range of mountains north-east of Taif, and threatened to raid the sacred city itself.
Mahomet was now in dire straits; he could not return to Mecca at once, because the object of his Taif journey was known; as Taif had spurned him, so he was forced to halt in Hira until he obtained the protection of Mutaim, an influential man in Mecca, and after some difficulty made his way back to the city, discredited and solitary, except for his former followers.
The Egyptian and Turkish Governments have thus, during the present century, exercised some of the functions of sovereignty in Hejaz. At the present moment Sultan Abd el Hamid's position in the country is this. His troops occupy Jeddah and Yembo, the two seaports, and the towns of Medina and Taïf in the interior.
Alak ber Tata is said to have gone to Johore, where he was converted to Islam, given the daughter of Sultan Bakhei and the title of Sultan, and was confirmed in his claim to rule over Sarawak and his other conquests. Sultan Mohammed was succeeded by his brother Akhmad, son-in-law of the Chinese chief, and he was in turn succeeded by an Arab from Taif who had married his daughter.
Taif was a very distant objective for an expeditionary band from Medina, and that Mahomet contemplated attack upon his enemy by a company so far removed from its base is convincing proof, should any be needed, of his confidence in his followers' prowess and his conciliation of the tribes lying between the two hostile cities.
At this time, the Sherif Abd el Muttalib arrived at Meccah, from Taif, and almost simultaneously Reshid Pasha came from Constantinople with orders to seize him, send him to the capital, and appoint the Sherif Nazir to act until the nomination of a successor, the state prisoner Mohammed bin Aun. The tumult redoubled.
But Taif remained inviolate, and each attack upon her walls made with massed troops in the hope of scaling her fortresses was received by heated balls flung from the battlements which set the scaling ladders on fire and brought destruction upon the helpless bodies of Mahomet's soldiery. But if he could not impress the city Mahomet wreaked his full vengeance upon its neighbourhood.
But the walls of Taif were strong, its citadels like towers, its garrison well provisioned, its inmates determined to resist to the end. A shower of arrows from the walls wrought such destruction among his Muslim force that Mahomet was forced to withdraw out of range where the camp was pitched, two tents of red leather being erected for his favourite wives, Omm Salma and Zeineb.
He established himself at Taïf, the summer residence of the Meccans; deposed the Grand Sherif Ghaleb, and appointed in his stead another member of the Sherifal family; declaring the Sultan sovereign of the country acts which the Meccans acquiesced in through dread of the Wahhabis, from whom Mehemet Ali promised to deliver them.
The first important conversion after his return from Taif was that of Jeyfar, King of Oman, followed closely by the districts of Mahra and Yemen, which localities had been hovering for some time between Islam and idolatry. The tribes of Najran were inclined to Christianity, and Mahomet was now anxious to gain them over to himself.
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