Qussay next convinced the Quraish and the surrounding tribes that it was more profitable to trade and to protect the caravans than to raid them. Taxing traders and selling them safe conduct, it turned out, paid better than plundering a shrunken, fearful traffic.26 The Quraish continued to settle in Mecca in increasing numbers, grew wealthy, and gradually drifted away from their intensely communal, nomadic heritage. Their lives henceforth revolved around trade, not the precarious existence of oases and desert tents.
