7.3 The Struggle Continues Mohamed became more and more active in calling to Allah as more verses of the Koran were sent down and the number of his followers continued to increase. So once again Quraysh went to his uncle. This time they took the handsomest youth of all Quraysh called Umara, with them and asked him to take that youth as a son and deliver Mohamed to them. Abu Talib refused and Mohamed continued to call to the new religion with vigor and wisdom. Mohamed was protected outside his home by his tribe. Inside his house he was comforted and consoled by a most understanding and affectionate wife who had total trust in him. Patient and wise, Khadija dissipated the slights, the injuries, the insults he received outside his house. Although the deniers would not kill him, fearing his tribe's retaliation, they did all the mean and spiteful things they could. They used to throw the innards of animals they had killed as offerings to their gods over him while he prayed. They threw filth at his house. He had particularly vicious neighbors in Abu Jabhl and Abu Lahab. At first he used to keep someone on guard in front of his house, but one day the holy verses said that Allah had made him immune from men so he stopped keeping a guard. His life was protected, but he was not safe from their injuries. Like all prophets he had to drink from the bitter cup of rejection. The leaders of Quraysh did not fight Mohamed for the sake of their gods alone, but to maintain the reign of the strong over the weak in Mecca that Mohamed's teaching was bound to break up. There was a certain monopoly of rich merchants who ruined smaller merchants, particularly strangers from other tribes. They controlled the economy of Mecca by force and fraud. The Koran teaches: "You shall not eat your money unrighteously between you, or hand it to the rulers to eat up the money of a group of you in sin, when you know." (2:188) There was much in the teaching of the Koran that was against the practices of the powerful Quraysh is. It was against injustice, against usury, against the strong tyrannizing the weak. It struck at the very root of the evils of their social and economic system. Even without attacking the idols and proclaiming the worship of Allah alone, Mohamed had made powerful and implacable enemies.