Note 55 — Chapter VII · BATTLE OF YEMAMA. End of A.H. XI. Beginning of 633 A.D.

In some accounts of the battle, Khâlid is spoken of as challenging his enemy to single combat, and slaying, one after another, all who came out against him. But the circumstances would hardly have admitted of this. These single combats are the conventional drapery of all the early battles, and need not always be taken as facts. Here they are specially introduced to give place to an apocryphal story about Moseilama. He came forth to answer the challenge of Khâlid, who, in reference to the offer made by him to Mahomet, ironically asked whether he was now prepared ‘to share the Kingdom’; whereupon Moseilama turned aside ‘to consult his dæmon.’ Khâlid then rushed at him, and he fled. ‘Where is that now which thou didst promise us?’ cried his followers to the prophet, but all that he could reply was to bid them fight for their honour and their families.