A.D. 682.

Remarkable characters give consequence to insignificant places; Richard Coeur de Lion, who had filled two continents with his fame, was killed at the siege of a paltry castle, and the name of Chaluze is preserved in history. But Kaibar, a city of Arabia, is associated with, and saved from oblivion by, the name of even a greater man than Richard.

The Jews spread throughout Arabia attempted to cross the ambitious projects of Mahomet. They took up arms, and shut themselves up in the strongly fortified city of Kaibar. Although he had beaten them several times, Mahomet knew that he must not lose his prestige, and at once marched to attack them. Kaibar was carried, but the conquest proved fatal to the conqueror. He lodged at the house of one of the principal inhabitants, whose daughter, named Zainab, gave him for supper a poisoned shoulder of mutton. Mahomet vomited the meat; but such was the activity of the poison that from that moment he became a valetudinarian: he died from the effects of the poison three years after. When questioned as to what could lead her to the commission of such a crime, Zainab coolly replied, “I wished to know if Mahomet were really a prophet.” Notwithstanding such a death would discredit the holiness of his mission, the followers of Mahomet do not deny this poisoning.