The Camel Was Offered As A Gift, But Mohammed Insisted Upon Paying Its Price, Because, Say The Moslem Casuists, He Being Engaged In The Work Of God Would Receive No Aid From Man.

According to M.C. de Perceval, the Prophet preached from the back of Al-Kaswa the celebrated pilgrimage sermon

At Arafat on the 8th March, A.D. 632. [FN#26] The Prophet is generally supposed to have started from Meccah on the first of the same month, on a Friday or a Monday. This discrepancy is supposed to arise from the fact that Mohammed fled his house in Meccah on a Friday, passed three days in the cave on Jabal Saur, and finally left it for Al-Madinah on Monday, which therefore, according to Moslem divines, was the first day of the "Hijrah." But the aera now commences on the 1st of the previous Muharram, an arrangement made seventeen years after the date of the flight by Omar the Caliph, with the concurrence of Ali. [FN#27] The distance from Kuba to Al-Madinah is little more than three miles, for which six hours-Friday prayers being about noon-may be considered an inordinately long time. But our author might urge as a reason that the multitude of people upon a narrow road rendered the Prophet's advance a slow one, and some historians relate that he spent several hours in conversation with the Benu Salim. [FN#28] Mohammed never would eat these strong smelling vegetables on account of his converse with the angels, even as modern "Spiritualists" refuse to smoke tobacco; at the same time he allowed his followers to do so, except when appearing in his presence, entering a Mosque, or joining in public prayers.

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