A complete change now came over Mohammed,--the dreamer became a
red-handed soldier. “The sword,” cried he, “is the key of heaven and
hell,” and by the sword Islam was to be forced upon all men. Tribe after
tribe was subdued; and before the lapse of ten years the whole Arabian
peninsula acknowledged the sovereignty of Mohammed, and could boast of
an unmixed population of _Moslems_, or True Believers. The prophet was
preparing to carry the new religion beyond the bounds of Arabia, when he
was cut off by a fever at Medina in A.D. 632.