The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 08

by Unknown

CHAPTER IV. MOHAMMED

Mohammed ben Abdallah ben Abdul-Muttalib

[570-632 A.D.]

While the poets in their stories were moulding the language to a more uniform character, another work was going on in men’s minds which contributed to found Arab nationality in a more decisive manner; there was no more belief in the idols which had, at an early date, taken the place of the one God, Allah; religious sentiment burst out on every side. Already wide schisms were apparent; entire tribes had abandoned the former worship. Besides idolatry, several religions were to be found in Arabia. The Jews, driven from their country by the Assyrians, the Romans, and the Greeks, had been warmly welcomed by the children of Ishmael, who found in the traditions of the exiles a deep respect for the God of Abraham; by means of these souvenirs skilfully evoked, Judaism had made converts. It was principally seen spread throughout Hedjaz, in the neighbourhood of Khaibar and Yathreb, where powerful tribes, those of the Koraizas and the Nadhirites, had long been naturalised. A large portion of the tribes of Yemen had also adopted it; and some of the Tobbas had favoured the introduction of the faith of Moses into their states, principally towards the years 225, 310, and 495 A.D. Sabaism or magianism was also practised by the Himyarites and on the coast of the Persian Gulf; some disciples of Brahmanism were even to be found in the midst of the inhabitants of Oman.

RELIGIOUS UNREST

[520-580 A.D.]

Christianity, successfully preached in several parts of Arabia, was professed by the Ghassanides in the year 330, and by various Arab tribes of Irak, Mesopotamia, Bahrein, the desert of Faran, and Damut-Jandal. The combined efforts of the negus of Abyssinia and of the emperor of Constantinople had contributed to spread the Gospel in Yemen. The Christian colony of Nejran had been honoured by persecution under Dhu-Nowas towards 523; fifty years later, Abraha sought to make of the church of Sana the goal of Arab pilgrimages. Lastly several kings of Hira had been favourable to the religion of Christ.

In the midst of the new ideas which preaching had spread throughout the peninsula, idolatry nevertheless remained the dominant religion. The intermediary divinities which certain tribes adored bore no resemblance to those creations of the Greeks and Romans, who worshipped moral beings clothed in bodily forms; they were, as with the ancient Egyptians, animals and plants, the gazelle, the horse, the camel, palm trees, vegetables, or inorganic bodies, rocks, stones, etc. All the Arabs acknowledged one supreme God, Allah; but some of them worshipped under the figure of their idols, the angels Benat-allah (the daughters of God); others, the planets or stars such as Aldebaran, Sirius, Canope, etc. They believed in genii, Jinn, in ogres, Ghol, in witchcraft, Shir, in divination, Kehana, in sacrifices, in oracles; fate was consulted by means of arrows without points, kidah or azlam, and the most blamable superstitious rites were still almost universally practised. A great number of tribes had their special idols, Hobal, Lat, etc., who were honoured by rich offerings, and in whose honour victims were slain; however, no temple had the fame of the Kaaba, whose pre-eminence was universally admitted.

This temple, which Abraha al-Ashram had wished to destroy, had been throughout the ages the object of the greatest veneration; it was looked on as a present made by Jehovah to the Arab race to bear witness to its condition privileged beyond all others. It was the oratory of Abraham and of Ishmael, the house of Allah; on receiving the 360 idols, subordinate powers accepted by the Arabs, it included all their divinities and became the Pantheon of the nation; the traditions connected with it were dear to all. They made the Kaaba a place of pilgrimage. They laboured to adorn it, to beautify it; they would have liked it to surpass in riches all the monuments of the universe; they hung the Moallakat in it, as if to connect with it every form of illustration. The Sabians, the fire-worshippers, sent their offerings to it; even the Jews showed a deep respect for this revered spot. The guardians of the temple, the Koreish clan, had a sort of religious authority which was willingly recognised by all; for instance, they had the right to name the sacred months during which, after the pilgrimage, a suspension of arms should reign throughout Arabia. So those who could attend the fair of Okad placed their weapons in the hands of the Koreish chiefs before entering the meeting, which, without this wise precaution, would often have degenerated into bloody fights. It was therefore necessary to have influence at Mecca and with the Koreish chiefs if one wished to found a uniform and national religion in Arabia, and Mohammed saw this perfectly.

Abdul-Muttalib, the son of Hashim, born in 497, exercised supreme authority in Mecca, from 520 to 579; he had the glory of delivering his country from the invasion of the Abyssinians, and he saw a Himyarite prince drive the foreigners from Yemen with the help of the king of Persia. Father of eighteen children, he believed himself bound by a rash vow to sacrifice one of his sons, in 569, before the idols of the Kaaba; fate fixed on one he loved the most, Abdallah, about twenty-four years of age. At the moment of the sacrifice, some of the Koreish chiefs rose against so barbarous an action and so fatal an example; by their advice a witch, arrafa, was consulted, who declared that Abdallah’s life might be purchased by means of the dia (price of human blood), and by drawing lots. The dia consisting of ten camels, the number ten was inscribed on a pointless arrow, and on another the name of Abdallah; nine times the name of Abdallah appeared, and it was only the tenth time that the camels were condemned. So a hundred were killed instead of Abdallah, and this number became thenceforth among the Koreish chiefs the price of the dia.

A few days later Abdallah married Amina, daughter of Wahb, chief of the family of the Zohri, and from this marriage was born Mohammed, “the glorified,” about the month of August, 570.[b]

Mohammed’s Life

[570-595 A.D.]

Mohammed (properly Muhammad, “the much praised”; and not Mahomet), was born in Mecca five years after the death of Justinian. The small inheritance which his father left him consisted of five camels and a faithful female slave. The biographers inform us that according to the custom which prevailed among the upper classes in Mecca, his mother Amina put the child out to nurse in the country. Halima, the wife of a herdsman, was his foster-mother and nurse till his third year, and the sacred legend tells us of many wonders with which the divine favour surrounded Mohammed’s childhood. Halima’s flocks and herds increased tenfold; her fields bore a superabundant harvest; angels cleansed the child’s heart from all sins and filled it with faith, knowledge and prophetic gifts. As, however, the child suffered from fits of convulsions, at the end of two years Halima brought him back to his mother. With her he remained till his sixth year. She then went with him to Yathreb (Medina), to visit her relatives, but died on the way back in the town of Abwa.

Mohammed now entered the house of his grandfather, Abdul-Muttalib, and when two years later the latter also died, his uncle Abu Talib took him into his family and watched over him with paternal affection. The story that in his twelfth year he accompanied his foster-father on a caravan journey to Syria, and that on this occasion a Christian monk foretold the boy’s future greatness, appears, like many other details of his life, to be a later legend. As he grew older, after having spent some time in guarding the flocks, Mohammed took his share in the business and manner of life of his relatives. He accompanied several of his uncles on warlike and commercial expeditions, in which he learned to know his country and his nation, and beheld the desert with its terrors and its poetry, where he heard the legends and traditions of the wandering tribes and gathered information concerning the teachings of the beliefs of Jew and Christian. He did not himself understand the language of writing, but Mecca as the pilgrim city of the East was one of the world’s centres, a school of culture containing much instruction for a thoughtful youth. The Christian religion, indeed, appears to have been known to him only by a few legends and distorted doctrines; but on the other hand the Jewish sect of the Hanifs, who lived scattered over the oases of the desert, had preserved and handed down Judaism in its original purity and simplicity, together with the belief in divine revelations at the mouth of inspired prophets.

HIS MARRIAGE WITH KHADIJA

[595-612 A.D.]

In his twenty-fifth year Khadija, the wealthy widow of a merchant, who like himself was descended from Kussai, intrusted him with the conduct of some caravans going to Syria and southern Arabia. In the execution of these commissions Mohammed showed so much circumspection, skill, and honesty, that Khadija though already forty years old permitted him to make application for her hand. The wedding was solemnly performed and it founded Mohammed’s fortune. Khadija was an intelligent and virtuous woman, and a faithful companion to her husband in good and evil days. “She was his first convert, she comforted him when he was mocked, she encouraged him when he suffered under persecution, she strengthened him when he was wavering.” But for the love and faith of Khadija, Mohammed would never have become the prophet of his nation.

“Although poor in goods which are but transient possessions, inconstant shadows,” said Abu Talib at the marriage feast, “my nephew Mohammed exceeds all the men of the Koreish in nobility of soul, virtue, and understanding.”

The marriage was blessed with children, but the sons died at a tender age; and of the four daughters only the youngest, Fatima, continued the race. Mohammed recognised and valued Khadija’s superior qualities. In spite of his great fondness for the female sex he remained faithful to her so long as she lived, and after her death held her memory in high honour. Aisha, his beloved wife of later days, said she was never so jealous of any of his other wives as she was of the dead Khadija whom he always declared to be a model for all women.

For more than a decade after his marriage Mohammed continued his life as a merchant, but with little success and little content. He was often seen to be deep in thought; he withdrew more and more into solitude, spending many days and generally the whole of the month Ramadhan in a cave in Mount Hira, not far from Mecca. Sometimes he went into this retirement alone, sometimes with Khadija.

There in that gloomy neighbourhood, full of naked rocks, yawning precipices, and grim ravines where no shade affords protection from the blazing sunlight, where no grass, no vegetation, no sound of falling water refreshes the spirit, he gave himself up to religious contemplations and considered how he might save his nation from its degradation. In the city of Mecca, all alive as it was with people, as well as on his journeys, he had been brought much in contact with Jews and Christians; he had not only absorbed their teaching and traditions, but from the effects of their religion on life and character he had perceived the superiority of the belief in one God over the idolatrous heathenism of his own nation; and he had also learned that both religious fraternities still waited for the completion of their religion; the Jews looking for the advent of a messiah, the Christians for the return of Jesus or the appearance of the promised “comforter” (paraclete). Thus there gradually awoke in him the conviction that his people stood in need of a purer revealed religion, that the idols were but vain trifles, and that their worship excited the anger of God; that a new and divinely inspired prophet must come forward, who should overturn the kingdom of darkness and idolatry, and his fiery imagination filled him with the belief that the one God had sent him to convert mankind that they might become participators in the joys of heaven, and escape the fearful chastisements of hell. His nervous, hysterical nature, the violent convulsions and cataleptic fits which seized him from time to time, the vivid dreams and mental delusions produced by his feverish and excited fancy, might well engender in himself and others the belief that he had relations with angels and spirits, and was a sharer in divine visions and inspirations. Mohammed had already passed his fortieth year when he “began to feel the travail of new ideas.”

MOHAMMED AS A PROPHET (610 OR 612 A.D.)

[610-612 A.D.]

Once when he was dwelling in the gloomy cavern he had a vision, in which the angel Gabriel approached him and commanded him to publish abroad the revelations which the Lord and Creator had sent. Mohammed felt his spirit illuminated with a divine light; but doubting lest a demon should be playing him an evil trick, he came to Khadija, his face streaming with perspiration and utterly discomposed. She believed in the divine message, and in union with her learned cousin Waraka, who had already denied the pagan beliefs of the fathers, she laboured to dispel his doubt.

Soon the angel appeared to him a second time, and gave him an assurance that he was not possessed by demons but called of God to spread the revelations of heaven. Mohammed now believed and announced that Allah, the lord of heaven and earth, had chosen him as his ambassador to inform men of his holy will; he now believed and taught that the Lord spake by him, and that his utterances were inspirations and revelations from the only and most high God, and being written down separately and eventually put together in the sacred book Koran,[c] they were so regarded by the faithful and accepted with reverence. Thus began Mohammed’s prophetic career in the year 610 or 612 of our era. Like the seers of old, like the prophets in Israel, he took the enthusiasm which dwelt in him as a “charge from the Lord,” and the words which issued from his mouth as the outpourings of the divine spirit.

Convinced of the truth of his prophetic mission, Mohammed now entered on his office of teacher. But with all his devotion to the holy cause he went to work with great caution. He first turned to his kinsmen that he might be recognised by them as the messenger of God. His wife Khadija, his daughters, his cousin Ali, the ten-year-old son of Abu Talib, his friend Abu Bekr, a well-to-do merchant of upright character and clear discernment, and his former slave Zaid to whom he had given his liberty were his first converts. In like manner he avoided anything which might have irritated his compatriots.

“He sought to bring his teaching into harmony with their prejudices and to lead them gradually to a better knowledge. He did not venture to attack the sanctity of the Kaaba, joined in the ceremonies of the pilgrim festival, and sanctioned the adoration of the Black Stone.”

Thus three years went by, during which the number of Mohammed’s adherents did not exceed forty, for the most part young men, foreigners or slaves. It was not till the fourth year that in accordance with another vision he attempted to appear publicly in the character of a prophet. He first addressed himself to the men of his own race, the Koreish; and in the name of the one God who had sent him as his apostle, threatened them with the fire of hell if they did not renounce their unbelief.

“One day ye shall die and rise again; then must ye give account of your deeds and shall be rewarded for your virtue in paradise and punished for your vices in hell.”

But far from winning a hearing he reaped mockery and scorn. Already in the first assembly his uncle Abu Lahab had lifted a stone against him; and although the rest of his kinsmen protected him from ill-treatment, the hatred and opposition of the Koreish increased with each new oration. The more clearly they perceived that Mohammed’s claims as a prophet might endanger their priestly position and their lucrative privileges as guardians of the holy temple, the more fiercely did their anger burn, and the more vehement became their threats and abuse. His chief opponents were the Koreish of the line of the Abd Shams, under the leadership of Abu Sufyan and Abu Hakam, called by Mohammed, Abu Jahl (the father of folly), two bitter enemies of the new prophet. It was only to the protection of his nearest relatives that Mohammed owed his rescue from the violence of his enemies and persecutors. On the other hand the position of his adherents of humble rank, who had no such powerful protectors to stand by them, especially of the slaves and freedmen, grew daily more insecure; so that in order that they might escape torture and scourging the prophet allowed some of his followers to deny him outwardly “if only the heart remained steadfast in the faith,” and on his advice a number of believing men and women, amongst them his daughter Rokayyah and her husband Othman, took ship for Abyssinia, where the king, a Nestorian Christian, assured them a refuge. In vain did the Koreish through Amru and another ambassador, offer the prince rich gifts for the delivery of the refugees; the Abyssinian kept his hands pure of any injury to those who had sought his protection. He may have perceived that the persecuted stood nearer to the true faith than the idol worshippers of the Kaaba.

MOHAMMED AN OUTLAW

[612-620 A.D.]

The invective and ill-treatment which Mohammed had to suffer increased the number of his followers, whilst indignation at the abuse and insults to which he was daily exposed without any fault of his own led certain brave men of chivalrous disposition to take his part. Amongst them were Mohammed’s uncle Hamza, “the lion of God,” and Jahl’s nephew Omar. Having been sent by his relatives to kill the prophet for a great reward, on the way to the latter’s dwelling Omar was suddenly and miraculously converted by hearing his sister Fatima read a passage of the Koran, and from being a persecutor he became an earnest believer. Omar, then twenty-six years old, was a man of gigantic stature, of fabulous strength, and great courage. His wild aspect terrified the boldest, and his staff struck more fear into the beholder than would have been inspired by another man’s sword.

But the more devotees “Islam” i.e., “submission” (to the will of God) acquired, the more eagerly did its enemies seek to stifle the work in the blood of its author. New persecutions increased the number of the emigrants; only Mohammed and his most faithful worshippers were protected by Abu Talib from the rage of the sons of Shams and Naufal. He hid them in a strong castle without the city, in the depths of an impassable ravine, and when their powerful enemies laid a ban on all the followers of the prophet and the whole race of Hashim and solemnly declared in a roll which was hung up in the interior of the Kaaba that until he was given up they would treat his protectors as enemies, the faithful uncle betook himself to the rocky fortress with many of his kinsmen. For three years they lived in the barren desert, cut off from all communication with the city, whither they could venture only in the sacred months, and often they were in want of the most necessary means of existence. Finally the ban, which had excited the greatest discontent in Mecca, and of which even the sons of Shams were beginning to grow weary, was removed. The parchment roll disappeared from the Kaaba, according to the legend, by a miracle. Mohammed now returned to Mecca (circa 620); but soon the death of his paternal friend and protector, Abu Talib, who was followed to the grave a few days later by his faithful wife Khadija, exposed him to fresh dangers. Abu Talib died in the religion of his fathers; he had always honoured his nephew as an upright and god-fearing man, but he had never believed in his prophetic mission. Mohammed sincerely mourned them both.

[620-622 A.D.]

“Never was there a better wife than Khadija,” he said once to the youthful and beautiful Aisha; “she believed in me when men despised me; she relieved my wants when I was poor and despised by the world.” Nevertheless he soon consoled himself for her loss by his marriage to Sauda and his betrothal to Aisha, the seven-year old daughter of Abu Bekr.

While the prophet was leading a melancholy existence under scorn and ignominy, sometimes in Mecca, sometimes in the society of a few friends in Taif, a place lying in a fruitful region on the borders of the hill country, hiding himself with difficulty from the snares and persecutions of his enemies, his soul felt itself comforted and exalted by new visions. He saw in the spirit how he was borne on a winged horse to the temple at Jerusalem and thence to the seventh heaven to the presence of God, where the patriarchs, the earlier prophets, and the hosts of angels yielded him precedence, and the Lord himself proclaimed him as the crown and aim of creation. He needed this self-confidence, this firm belief in his high message, to keep him from wavering and succumbing to the storms and dangers which gathered over his head.

But whilst the inhabitants of Mecca hardened their hearts against the doctrine of the one God, revealing himself through the new prophet, Mohammed won eager devotees from a host of pilgrims from Yathreb, afterwards called Medina, i.e., the city, to whom he unfolded the principles of Islam on the “mount of homage,” Akaba. They belonged to the distinguished tribe of the Khazraj who, in conjunction with the tribe of Aus had, in the fifth century, wrested the lordship of Medina from the Jews; and on their return to their native city they worked in secret for the new faith for which, in consequence of their relations with the numerous Jewish tribes in the neighbourhood, they were better prepared than the Meccans. In spite of the jealousy of the tribes of Aus towards the Khazraj, by the energy of the learned Masab, whom Mohammed sent to Medina as his forerunner and as reader of the Koran, Islam soon obtained a firm foothold in the city; so that two years later his adherents could venture to invite the prophet to visit them. With this object seventy-three believers journeyed to Mecca and in an assembly held at night on that same hill of homage they made a covenant with Mohammed. They vowed, and gave their hands on the promise, to pray only to the one God and to none other gods, to honour the prophet, to obey him in joy and sorrow, and always confess the truth without fear of man. Under the guidance of twelve leaders, whom Mohammed selected from amongst them, the men of Medina (who thenceforth bore the name of Ansar, i.e., those who give aid) returned to their own city in the company of many believers.

THE HEGIRA (622 A.D.)

[622 A.D.]

But Mohammed, with his most faithful adherents Abu Bekr and Ali, remained in Mecca three months longer. Only when he was informed by a secret worshipper that the Koreish had determined to murder him, did he depart on his flight with Abu Bekr, both mounted on swift camels. Whilst the enemy was surrounding his house, the craft and fidelity of Ali, who occupied the prophet’s bed and assumed his garments, enabled him and his friend to flee secretly in the darkness of the night and conceal themselves in a cave. Next morning, when the Koreish discovered the deception, they set a price of a hundred camels on the head of the fugitive and sent in pursuit of him. But Mohammed’s destiny was not yet fulfilled. After having spent three days and nights in the cave of Mount Thaur, he succeeded in escaping with his companion by by-paths to Medina. With this flight, which was afterwards assigned to the 16th of July of the year 622 according to our reckoning, begins the Hegira, the era of the Mohammedans or Moslems (Mussulmans), i.e., the “submissive.” [Ali remained three days after his master had left. Considerable property had been entrusted to Mohammed for safe keeping; and it was Ali’s duty to restore this to its owners.]

The people of Medina received Mohammed with joyous enthusiasm; his entrance into the town resembled that of a triumphant prince rather than a poor fugitive. Soon the rest of his friends and followers gathered round him, amongst them Ali whom the Koreish had allowed to go unharmed, Omar, with his beautiful daughter Hafsa, whom some time afterward the prophet included in the number of his wives, and Othman with his wife Rokayyah. When the last-named died in the following year, Mohammed gave his second daughter Um Kolthum in marriage to his faithful comrade. The case containing the inspired sayings of the Koran was entrusted to the care of Hafsa.

[622-624 A.D.]

The prophet’s presence had the most beneficial results for Medina. The two tribes of the Khazraj and the Aus, who in former years had often engaged in bloody conflicts, were united in the new faith as the faithful “helpers” of God’s messenger, and in conjunction with the emigrants from Mecca (Mohajira) formed the kernel of the Moslems. At first Mohammed attempted to win over the numerous Jews of Medina to his cause, and for this reason paid attention in many respects to the Mosaic law; he continued the observance of the Sabbath, and made Jerusalem the Kibla, i.e., the holy place, towards which the faithful had to turn their faces when they prayed. But when the Jews refused to recognise him as the expected Messiah as they had formerly refused to recognise Jesus, but rather made the new prophet an object of their scorn, he once more turned to the old Arab faith. He removed the Kibla to Mecca, appointed Friday as the day of devotion and religious observance, and eventually wielded the scourge of religious persecution over Jews and heathens without distinction.

Many of the emigrant Meccans were overtaken by illness and homesickness in this foreign land, and in order to make up to them for the loss of their relatives and belongings, Mohammed founded a system of brotherhood among fifty-four believers from Mecca and a like number from Medina, so that two men united in this “brotherhood of faith” should stand closer to each other, even in the matter of inheritance, than blood relations,—an institution which lasted, however, only until the foreigners had settled into the new life.

A second period in the history of the development of Islam begins in Medina. But however brilliantly and successfully Mohammed’s prophetic labours might continue from this time forward, his character during the period of his fortune was less spotless, his conviction less sincere, his motives less pure than in the dark and suffering time of persecution and oppression. His revelations, which he received from the angel Gabriel as occasion arose, were circulated as inspired sayings amongst the people, partly through oral tradition, partly in fly-leaves until they were put together in one whole as the holy writing (Koran). They were not drawn up without occasional adjustment to the circumstances of the moment and to his own appetites, a transformation which reveals itself even in the form and the language. For whilst in the parts drawn up in Mecca poetic enthusiasm prevails to an undue extent, in Medina the oratorical element is more in the foreground; for Mohammed, all too closely bound to material things, was no longer able to disengage himself from them. In the lack of personal conviction which now supervened, if he wished to rise above the commonplace he had to supply the inner impulse by affected vividness, and the truth firmly believed by empty sophistry; and from his manner of writing it is easy to see that his thoughts no longer spring from a warm heart, but are the products of a cold intellect. No longer following the suggestions of his mind can he allow his discourse to pursue its natural course; all must now be thought out beforehand, for it is no longer guided by the spirit of God but by his own ego. The first mosque, a simple, artless building made of the wood of date trees, which was erected soon after his arrival in Medina, became a sacred centre of his teaching. From its roof, five times each day, the steadfast devotee Bilal summoned the faithful to prayer.

Arab Chief in the Time of Mohammed

Hitherto Islam had been a religion of peace and love, and Mohammed had inculcated no precept as he had that of gentleness in word and deed. But now that he found himself at the head of a submissive host of followers and in a position to oppose his enemies by force of arms, he declared the struggle against the infidel, the spread of his doctrines by fire and sword, to be the sacred duty binding on all Moslems, a precept which gave Islam an aggressive direction and had in its results a world-shaking significance. Not to bring peace, but a sword, had he, the last and greatest of the prophets, appeared on earth; the struggle against the enemies of Islam was a sacred struggle; he who fell in the contest would pass, free from all sin and punishment, safely into paradise, that abode of the blessed which he had painted to his converts with all the ardour of his imagination as a place of earthly pleasures and all the joys of sense; and still further to inflame their courage he planted in their souls the contempt of death by teaching them that the duration of life as well as the destiny and end of mankind had been fixed beforehand by a divine decree, by an unchangeable fate; if the hour of death had come, none could escape his destiny, if the end of life had not yet approached, he might unhesitatingly venture the utmost.

Relying on the warlike impulse which such doctrines must have engendered in the fiery soul of the Arab, Mohammed, at the head of his fellow tribesmen, allies, and believing followers, now undertook warlike expeditions against the Koreish who had driven him from his native city. He knew that he could not more effectively punish the haughty merchant princes of Mecca than by lying in wait for their caravans and robbing them of the valuable wares which they were accustomed to take to Syria. At the same time he could absolutely rely on the assistance of his new fellow-citizens in these struggles, for the merchants of Mecca looked down with contempt on the agricultural people of Medina. He himself generally marched into the field more to fire the courage of the combatants by his prayers and promises of heavenly support than for the purpose of himself bearing the white standard, which he generally entrusted to the valiant Omar, or the heroic Ali, the “father of the dust.”

Ali, to whom Mohammed gave his favourite daughter Fatima in marriage at Medina, is the purest and noblest figure among the followers of Mohammed, the “Siegfried of Islam,” as a modern writer has designated him. All his life he adhered to the prophet and the faith of his youth with complete submission and eager admiration. If his fiery, pure, and magnanimous character made him the boast and ornament of the Moslems, he was also by his heroism and bravery the bold vindicator of Islam, the trumpet of the strife in struggle and danger.

If at first warfare was suspended during the sacred months, according to the practice of former generations, Mohammed soon tore down this barrier. For instance, Abdallah ben Jash fell on the Koreish in the valley of Nakhla during the sacred month of Rajab, robbed their wagons, and slew some of the escort and took others prisoners; and when the prophet, who had himself recommended this act to the leader in a dubiously worded document, perceived that it had excited general indignation, he issued a proclamation by which war against the infidel was declared to be lawful at any period—a proof “that he was no longer acting according to the will of God but according to his own will”; and that the utterances of the Koran were so many “pictures reflecting” his own position. In the second year of the Hegira the fight of Bedr took place; and here was manifested for the first time how the hope of a blessed hereafter had filled the believing Moslems with an enthusiasm which defied death and despised pain.

THE BATTLE OF BEDR (624 A.D.)

[624 A.D.]

In order to rescue a large caravan from danger and distress, the Koreish marched into the field a thousand strong, with seven hundred camels and one hundred horses. The train of merchandise escaped the ambush by the clever management of Abu Sufyan, but nevertheless Abu Jahl persisted in the conflict. At Bedr, a camping ground and market, noted even at the present day for its plentiful supply of water, the Meccans encountered the hostile bands, who were not half so strong, and made ready for battle. Three Meccans, kinsmen of those who had fallen at Nakhla, came forward and challenged three of the opposite party to single combat. Hamza, Ali, and Obaida opposed themselves to them and slew them, whereupon the fight became general. Mohammed, who was watching the encounter from a leafy hut on a rising ground and praying to God with great ardour and excitement that he would not allow his faithful few to be destroyed, suddenly declared that victory had been promised him in a vision, and flinging a handful of dust after the Koreish, he called out, “Shame on their faces!”

Soon confusion seized the enemy and the battle ended with a complete defeat of the Koreish. Seventy heads of distinguished houses were slain during the battle or on the flight. Amongst the fallen were Otba and Shaiba, and, above all Abu Jahl (called the enemy of God), Mohammed’s bitterest opponent; amongst the prisoners were his uncle Abbas and Abul-Aas, the husband of his eldest daughter Zainab. Both were ransomed and returned to Mecca. Abbas probably henceforth served his nephew as a spy and Abul-Aas had to send his wife back to her father. Two other prisoners, Al-Nadr and Okba, who had belonged to Mohammed’s most eager adversaries in Mecca, were executed. But the prophet, always inclined to mildness, deplored the rash act when he heard the touching lament of the former’s daughter, a lament which is still preserved to us. For the rest, the battle of Bedr was of the greatest importance for the victory of Islam, and in consequence all the combatants whose names were entered in the lists henceforth formed the highest nobility of the Moslems. The spoil and the ransoms were equally divided, but soon after a saying of the Koran commanded that in future the fifth part of all spoil should go to the prophet, for himself, his kinsmen, for the poor, orphans, and wanderers.

BATTLE OF OHOD (MARCH, 625 A.D.)

[625 A.D.]

The battle of Bedr was the first step of Islam to dominion. Whilst the inhabitants of Medina and the Bedouin tribes of the neighbourhood drew from the prophet’s success a belief in his divine mission and gathered round him with enthusiasm, in Mecca there was great despair. Abu Lahab, Mohammed’s uncle and enemy, died seven days later of a disease resembling smallpox, full of affliction and anger at the success of his nephew; and Okba’s daughter Hind, the passionate wife of Abu Sufyan, cried day and night in ungoverned fury for revenge for her fallen kinsmen. Her lord actually went against Medina with two hundred Koreish; but their belief in their own cause was shaken, and when Mohammed marched against them they fled home in such haste that they left their stock of meal behind.

In the months after this “meal-campaign,” certain Jews in Medina, having made a mock of Mohammed in their verses, were put to death, and their co-religionists who had refused to go over to Islam, in particular the Beni Kainoka, the most skilful of the wealthy goldsmiths in the country, were driven into banishment in Syria. Abu Sufyan now marched a second time to the fight, on this occasion with a force of three thousand Koreish, at whose head stood three brave men, Akrama a son of Abu Jahl, Khalid, and Amru, afterwards the most distinguished heroes of the faithful. In the rearguard was the terrible Hind, with fifteen other women and certain poets who roused the spirit of vengeance in the army by laments over those slain at Bedr.

Mohammed wished to await the enemy in the city, but the young men, in their eagerness for war, demanded a pitched battle. The prophet yielded to their demand with inward misgivings. On the mount Ohod, whose solitary granite mass, bare of tree or bush, rises about a league to the north of Medina, he ranged his warriors, who did not exceed seven hundred, as he had disdained the help of the Jews and thus so deeply offended their patron, the Khazrayite Abdallah ben Obayyah, who apart from this was a secret envier and opponent of Mohammed, that he too had withdrawn with his army. Mohammed himself fought in the front rank; wearing a red fillet round his head and waving “the sword of God and his envoy,” he encouraged his men with axioms of the new faith. Here, too, victory seemed first to incline to the Moslems; strenuously as Hind and her women, “the daughters of the stars, with cloudy hair and pearl-ornamented necks,” might encourage the combatants, promising loving embraces to the victors, and threatening the flying with shame and death, the ranks of the Meccans nevertheless gave way. Seven members of the family of Abd ad-Dar, who each in turn performed the hereditary office of standard-bearer, rolled in the dust. Then the bowmen, fearing to be too late for the spoil, left the secure position which Mohammed had assigned them behind the mountain, and thus gave Khalid an opportunity to fall with his cavalry on the Moslem rear. The battle now suddenly took a new turn; the superior numbers of the Koreish carried the day, Mohammed was wounded and fell, face downwards, into a trench. His standard-bearer Mussab, fell, and as he resembled Mohammed in appearance the rumour, “Mohammed is dead,” was quickly disseminated and proved as encouraging to the infidels as it was destructive to the Moslem. The defeated were already hurrying away towards Medina, when the poet Kaab, the son of Malik, recognised the prophet amongst the wounded, in his helmet and coat of mail.

Arab Warrior, Time of Mohammed

Encouraged by the joyful tidings that Mohammed was still alive, ten or twelve of his trusty followers, including Abu Bekr and Omar, collected round him and carved themselves a way with the sword towards a rocky height, where they defended themselves bravely until the enemy, who, supposing the prophet to be dead, had paid no special heed to this little band, had begun their homeward march after insulting and mutilating the dead. Hind and her companions took the severed noses and ears of the enemy, strung them together like pearls, and wore them as necklaces and bracelets. The former even carried her rage so far that she tried to tear the heart out of the corpse of Hamza whom the Abyssinian slave Washi had slain in the midst of the fight, and to rend it in pieces.[31] The fall of the faithful Hamza touched Mohammed nearly; he frequently bewailed him, and the women of Medina raised a general lament over the fallen hero, whose name was henceforth mentioned in every death-song.

[625-627 A.D.]

After the retreat of the Koreish, Mohammed returned with his men to Medina. Hard as the blow had been it could not shake his belief and confidence in a successful issue. Whilst he consoled the relatives of the slain with the thought of the happy life hereafter, he prohibited the customary mourning usages, the striking of the visage, the shaving of the hair, the rending of the garments, only permitting weeping because “tears give relief to the afflicted heart”; at the same time he took judicious measures for defence, in case the Koreish, hearing that the prophet was still alive, should come back. But they did not venture to expose their weakened army to fresh dangers; they contented themselves with the victory they had won, and hoped that in time they might get the better of religious innovations if they preserved the sacred city with the Kaaba from all pollution, slew all Moslems who fell into their hands, and all the readers of the Koran who should proclaim Islam to the inhabitants of the hill country, and if they permitted no Mohammedan to enter the Kaaba. For years the followers of the prophet might not take part in the pilgrimage to Mecca, which in the sacred months the rest of the Arabs made for the sake of prayer and festival joys. But the time drew slowly near when in Mecca also the consideration of the old heathen gods was to sink in the dust, and even the Koreish would bow the knee before the name of him against whom they now nourished so deadly a hatred and whom they now persecuted in so bloody a fashion.

EXPEDITION AGAINST THE JEWS (626 A.D.)

Mohammed, from the very character of his religion, could not let the sword rust in its sheath so long as Islam had not attained supremacy. Consequently he continued to lead his followers on warlike expeditions against both Jew and heathen. The fact that he himself took part in all the fights was a great spur to the spirit and courage of his troops; more than once his life was in danger, but a higher power protected God’s envoy; the sword fell from a hostile leader who waved it above his head.

Since the battle of Ohod most of the attacks had been directed against the Jews, who showed themselves more and more hostile to the new religion. They found a protector in Abdallah ben Obayyah, the chief of the Khazraj, who, jealous of Mohammed’s growing power amongst his followers, toiled against the prophet. The Beni Nadir were driven from their strong castles, after their date palms had been cut down, in defiance of the usages of Arabian warfare; and they owed their lives solely to the powerful intercession of Abdallah, but were nevertheless compelled to quit the Arabian country like the Beni Kainoka before them. But the “hypocrites” continued to work against Mohammed’s power after a victorious campaign against the powerful tribe of the Beni Mustalik; Abdallah excited a quarrel between the “helpers” and the immigrant believers, which was only adjusted by the skill and prompt decision of the prophet. A saying of the Koran gave warning against hypocrites, but this time also Abdallah escaped punishment. Even the evil reports concerning Aisha’s virtue and marital fidelity, which he and others put into circulation about that time because she was left behind on a night march and entered the camp on the second day in the company of a man, were overlooked. Mohammed, in accordance with a revelation, declared the rumours to be slanders, punished the calumniators who, like the poet Hassan, maintained her guilt, and cherished Aisha with fresh tenderness; but Abdallah remained unpunished. Mohammed dreaded the revenge of the Khazraj.

SIEGE OF MEDINA, EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS (627-628 A.D.)

[627-628 A.D.]

Soon after the Koreish and other Arab tribes made alliance with the Jewish Beni Koraiza against the Moslems, and marched on Medina with a force of ten thousand men. Mohammed did not venture to meet the superior strength of the enemy in the open field for fear lest he should be overtaken by a fate such as he had suffered at Ohod. He had recourse to a method of defence hitherto unknown in Arabia. He drew a trench round the city. By means of this defence he kept off the enemy by small skirmishes for a time, until by crafty negotiations he succeeded in sowing mistrust and division among the allies. The consequence was that the Arabs, who besides this had been disheartened by the wintry weather and cold showers of rain, retreated after an ineffectual blockade of five weeks; thus abandoning their Jewish allies to Mohammed’s vengeance. Besieged in their strong castles the Beni Koraiza had to surrender at discretion. Thereupon in spite of the intercession of their ancient allies the Aus, according to the harsh decision of the chief Zaid ben Muadh, who had been selected as arbitrator, all the men of the tribe, seven hundred in number, were executed on the market-place of Medina, the women and children were led into slavery, and their flocks, lands, and goods were divided among the victors.

“God drove the keepers of the Scriptures (the Jews) from their strong places and put fear in their hearts. One half of them has he slain, the other taken prisoners; he has given you their lands, their dwellings, their goods, for an inheritance. God is almighty.”

In these words a saying of the Koran announced this horrible event, the darkest deed of Mohammed’s life. Zaid died soon after the cruel sentence. Irritated by the continual perfidy and the hostile temper of the Jews, Mohammed had allowed himself to be drawn into a course in which the messenger of God gave way to the passionate Arab, in which not the temper of a prophet but the revenge of the passionate Arab and the cruelty of an oriental despot were manifested, in which “earthly mire choked the sacred flame of prophecy.” And in order finally to destroy the power of the Jews in Medina and the neighbourhood, Mohammed in the following year (628) marched with fourteen hundred believers against their chief fortress of Khaibar.

“We pray to thee, oh Almighty! against the goods of these places and all that they contain,” cried the prophet with a loud voice, when they entered the territory of their strong citadels, “and we implore thee to preserve us from the evil of these places and their inhabitants.”

Mohammed’s prayer was heard. By the bravery of the Moslems, especially of Ali, to whom before the battle the prophet had given his own sword—“Ali, the man who loves God and his envoy, the man who knows no fear and never yet turned his back on the enemy”—the castles were broken into, their treasures and goods carried off, the inhabitants, when they escaped the sword, made tributary so that they had to hold their rich estates and date plantations as hereditary tenants and pay the half of the produce to the new owners. The Mohammedans were roused to these warlike enterprises no less by the greed of spoil than by religious fanaticism. The Jewish chief Kinana was stretched on the rack to make him betray hidden treasures, and when he remained dumb he was beheaded. Mohammed himself not only appropriated the fifth share of the spoil, but also landed property, and he increased the number of his wives by two beautiful Jewish prisoners, Safiya and Zainab. The first was converted to Islam and became a tender wife to the prophet, who celebrated the bridal with her in his tent; on the other hand the second, whose nearest relatives had met their death in the battle, meditated a dark act of vengeance. She placed a poisoned meal before Mohammed. It is true that he ate little of it (in consequence of a miraculous warning, as the legend recounts), but still it was enough to undermine his health for the remainder of his life. Even in his dying hour he is reported to have said that he felt the poison of Khaibar[32] in his veins.

MOHAMMED’S PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA (629 A.D.)

[629 A.D.]

Even before this war Mohammed had made a pilgrimage to Mecca with a considerable following, to try whether under shelter of the sacred month he could approach the Kaaba, acting under the just conviction that it would be of great advantage to the spread of his doctrines if he could associate himself with the ancient sanctuary of his people. This time indeed he failed to attain his object; the gates of Mecca remained closed to the Mohammedans; nevertheless by the Peace of Hodaibiya he won a ten years’ truce from the Koreish and the concession that he and his believers should perform their prayers in the Kaaba for three days annually. The zealous Omar was indignant at this agreement. “Art thou not the messenger of the Lord? Are the Meccans not infidels and we believers? Wherefore should we permit our faith to endure such an insult?”

But Mohammed preferred the lesser advantage to the uncertain issue of an armed conflict, convinced that greater successes would soon follow from small beginnings. He was not mistaken. In consequence of this treaty and shortly after the fall of Khaibar, he undertook (March, 629) a pilgrimage to Mecca, together with a party of his faithful followers, and great was the joy of the exiles when for the first time they again trod their native soil. Mohammed, mounted on his camel, accomplished the usual seven circuits of the Kaaba and the pacing to and fro between the hills Safa and Merwa and the rest followed him.

On this occasion Mohammed was united to Maimuna, a widow of fifty-one years. As his former marriages since the death of Khadija were decided by his sensuality and fondness for women and had at times been so scandalous that, as in the case of Zainab, the divorced wife of his adopted son Zaid, the indignation of the faithful at a hitherto unheard of and forbidden alliance had to be quieted by a new command in the Koran concerning relationship; so on the contrary this last marriage was like his first, an act of wisdom, policy, and practical consideration. By this marriage Maimuna’s kinsmen, Khalid and Amru, two distinguished warriors, were won over to the cause of Islam—a victory of greater importance than many a victorious battle.

An Arab Warrior

The converts soon had an opportunity of increasing on a wider battle-field the warlike renown which they had acquired in petty quarrels. Mohammed had already turned his eyes to the frontiers of Arabia. Encouraged by the growing numbers and enthusiasm of his devotees, he believed that the time was not far off when Islam would acquire the dominion of the world. The Jews had been compelled to pay dearly for refusing to recognise him as their messiah; but, since they lived scattered and held in contempt amongst other nations he could well dispense with their homage if he succeeded in bringing the two most powerful religious associations of the time, namely the Christians and the fire-worshippers of Iran, to acknowledge his prophetic mission. With this object he addressed documents to various foreign rulers, calling on them to worship the one true God who had revealed himself through Mohammed. Amongst the Christians especially he might have expected a great welcome, since he not only owned Jesus to be a prophet but also recognised the latter’s mother as a spotless virgin. In one of the finest passages of the Koran it is related how Mary, after the angel of God had informed her that she should bear a “pure son,” had brought a child into the world under a palm tree; how this child had spoken even in the cradle and revealed himself as the “servant of God,” destined to exercise every virtue of life and bring peace to men. According to the Moslems, the ordinances of Mohammed’s religion found a favourable reception amongst Christian princes. The king of Abyssinia, who had always shown himself favourable to the adherents of the new prophet, and the Christian general at Yemen are said to have gone over to Islam; the prefect of Egypt requested time for consideration, but sent costly gifts, among them two fair Coptic slaves for the voluptuous prophet. The messengers of Mohammed invited the princes and nations of the earth to join in the recognition of Islam, and one of them was even received by the emperor Heraclius in a gracious and friendly manner. On the other hand Chosroes II, then at the height of his power, tore the documents unread and at the same time the ruler of Bosrah slew an Arabian envoy who had endeavoured to win new converts for Islam. Against the former, Mohammed launched a prophecy of evil, against the latter sent an army under his former slave Zaid, whom on account of his faithfulness and submission he had taken in the place of a son.

At Muta in Syria the Arabian hosts under the sacred standard had their first encounter with the Græco-Roman legions. Zaid fell like a warrior in the foremost ranks; in his place the brave and handsome Jafar, Ali’s brother, seized Mohammed’s banner. Soon after he lost his right hand; then he waved the standard in his left, and when this too was severed from his body he held the sacred ensign in his bleeding arms till he received the deathstroke. Abdallah ben Rawaha, the poet, now took the standard from the dying hero, crying, “Forward! Either victory or paradise is ours!” And when he too sank under the enemy’s lances Khalid, the new convert of Mecca, grasped the banner and guided the battle to a finish. It was not a decisive victory; but Khalid had given such brilliant proofs of valour that in the nocturnal council of war held in the camp he was chosen commander-in-chief and henceforth bore the famous surname of “Sword of God.” Mournfully, though laden with glory and spoil, the warrior host returned to Medina with the cherished corpses. Mohammed extolled the lot of the fallen martyrs, but with Zaid’s young daughter he mourned in secret for the beloved dead. “These are friendship’s tears at the loss of a friend,” he said in excuse when someone coming in expressed his astonishment that he should weep for him who had secured paradise by his death.

SUBJECTION OF MECCA (630 A.D.)

[630 A.D.]

All therefore that Mohammed could hope was that his teaching might obtain general recognition throughout Arabia, if he could once get the sacred city of Mecca into his power. When he first led his armed host of pilgrims into its neighbourhood he had assured his companions that God had lent him the victory. Yet they had been compelled to withdraw, after concluding an inglorious peace without marching round the Kaaba. Nor was the chagrin of the believers relieved in the next year by their having to approach the sanctuary during three days as suppliants; the disgrace could only be wiped out by a brilliant victory. The Koreish themselves played into Mohammed’s hands. They violated the treaty of peace by taking part in a hostile attack on a tribe which had made a defensive alliance with Mohammed. Then when they heard that an expedition for reprisals was being prepared at Medina they were alarmed and sent Abu Sufyan, the proud chief of the race, to the angry prophet, to excuse what had passed and implore his forgiveness.

But Mohammed dismissed the suppliant without an answer and secretly pushed on the preparations for war with great zeal. Suddenly ten thousand watchfires on the neighbouring mountain betrayed the arrival of a powerful enemy to the astonished Meccans. Abu Sufyan hastened out to reconnoitre; Abbas brought him as a prisoner into the camp, where Mohammed protected him from Omar’s anger as soon as he had declared himself ready to honour the son of Abdallah as the messenger of God and to pass to the ranks of Islam. He noted with admiration the excellent discipline and bearing of the Mohammedan army, the multiplicity of weapons and banners, the “helpers” and “refugees” enveloped in iron, the enthusiastic veneration of the holy commander. “None can withstand this man!” Sufyan said to Mohammed’s uncle, Abbas, who was conducting him through the ranks, “by God, the kingdom of thy nephew is grown great!” And he hastened back to his people to persuade them to peaceful submission. In this he was successful. The most part shut themselves up in their houses, as Mohammed had commanded, so that the Moslem army was able to take possession of the city almost without resistance. Only Khalid had to carve a way for himself into the lower city through a host of unbelievers whom Akrama, the son of Abu Jahl, had collected under his banner.

When Mohammed saw the chiefs of the Koreish in the dust at his feet, his pride was satisfied and the nobler feelings of mildness and magnanimity reigned in his breast. The people declared themselves ready to abjure their gods, to honour Mohammed as God’s messenger and obey his behests, whereupon the victor, now throned in his native city as prince and prophet after eight years of banishment, proclaimed a general amnesty. Even of the twelve men and six women whom, after his entry into the city, Mohammed had condemned because in former years they had excited his anger by apostasy, treachery, or mocking ballads, the majority were pardoned. Amongst them was Akrama, the son of Abu Jahl, who had fought so bravely at Ohod and had offered resistance to Khalid’s entrance; his uncle the satirical poet Harith; Safwan, son of Omayyah and Hind, the passionate wife of Abu Sufyan; the poet Kaab; Abdallah, Mohammed’s scribe, who was accused of having defaced the sacred fly-leaves of the Koran and in order to escape punishment had fled as an apostate to Mecca; and many others. They all went over to Islam, and Akrama soon exhibited the same heroism in battle for the new faith which he had formerly displayed against Mohammed. For Abdallah, his kinsman Othman made intercession; Mohammed hesitated for some time over the pardon, in the hope that one of his adherents would kill the traitor; then unwillingly let him go.

When order had been restored in the city Mohammed presented himself at the temple. He went round the Kaaba seven times on his camel, each time touching the sacred stone with his staff, and then broke in pieces the idols, 360 in number, which were placed round the sanctuary. After this he had the doors of the temple thrown open, cleansed the house of the Lord from all images, and commanded Bilal to proclaim to the multitude the call to prayer from the summit.

From the time of the prophet’s entry into Mecca the victory of Islam in Arabia was only a question of time. But no religious organisation is destroyed without some of its adherents contending for it with their hearts’ blood. The old Arabian gods too had their steadfast worshippers, who did not shrink from a martyr’s death for the religion of their youth. When Mohammed’s hosts under fanatical leaders penetrated to the surrounding tribes, the idols were thrown down and the ancient sanctuaries destroyed, and then the infuriated pagans put themselves on the defensive and many a sacrifice bled to the religious frenzy. On one such expedition into the district of Teyma, the zealous Khalid proceeded with such harshness and cruelty that Mohammed shuddered at it, and lifting his hands to heaven cried out, “I have no share in these deeds.” He then endeavoured to appease the sufferers through the medium of Ali’s mildness and magnanimity, offered expiation for those slain, and announced that Mecca and all the country should be as inviolable in the future as in the past.

THE VICTORY OF HONAIN AND AUTAS

An Arab Warrior

The religious frenzy of the Moslems roused the heathen tribes of the mountain districts southeast of Mecca to take arms for the defence of their belief, their life, and their property against the new religious society. The Takifites, who had once driven away the ambassador of the Lord with stones, and the Hawazin tribes headed the alliance of the heathen faith. To animate their courage they took wives, children, and all their possessions into the field with them. At this news Mohammed started with his hosts to subdue his last obstinate enemy. But as they marched through the valley of Honain without taking the necessary precautions, they suddenly beheld the height occupied with bowmen. In a short time the ranks of the Moslems gave way; flight and disorder spread through them; the prophet’s cry, “I am Mohammed, the prophet of God, the proclaimer of the truth; stand fast ye faithful!” was unheeded; the Koreish who had followed the army were already giving vent to their malicious joy in mocking words. At this moment Abbas, Mohammed’s uncle, with his loud voice brought the flying and wavering to their senses. At the cry of need the bravest and most spirited again collected round the holy prince and won a complete victory.

In the valleys of Honain and Autas the power of the infidels was forever broken. Seventy were slain, amongst them the old hero Duraid, and the rest took to flight. Women, children, and spoil fell into the hands of the victors. But Mohammed’s endeavour to conquer the strong city of Taif was thwarted by the bravery of the inhabitants and the strength of the walls; it was in vain that, contrary to his own command, he caused the fruit trees to be felled and the vineyards to be dug up; in vain had the soldiers marched to the storming of the town; after a siege of twenty days’ duration he had to withdraw, having effected nothing. An enormous booty rewarded and consoled the Moslems, but at Mohammed’s instance the prisoners were restored to the newly converted tribes. Of his own fifth he presented the greater part to those among the Koreish who had shown themselves steadfast and faithful, and by this means he won over many influential men to his cause. Abu Sufyan and his two sons each received a hundred camels and forty ounces of silver. The Ansars, who murmured at the favour thus shown to their adversaries, were appeased by an affectionate appeal:

“Be not angry if I seek to win the hearts of a few waverers with perishable goods. Your faith and submission have another reward. The messenger of God intrusts you with his own life and fortune; in your midst he returns to Medina; and as ye were the companions of my exile and believed in me in my abasement, so shall ye be the companions of my royalty and shall share in paradise with me.” They cried out weeping, “We are content with our lot!”

The rest of the idolatrous tribes now no longer withstood a religion which Mohammed’s envoys offered them, the Koran in one hand and a sword in the other. Even the Takifites soon after bought peace and security by the sacrifice of their ancient gods, and opened the gates of their city of their own free will.

The Takifites sent ambassadors to inform the prophet that they would go over to Islam if he would exempt them from prayer and would leave them their idol Lat but for three years more.

“Three years of idolatry is too long; and what is the worship of God without prayers?” said Mohammed. The ambassadors then abated their demands and finally an agreement was arrived at by which the Takifites were to pay no taxes and were to keep their idol Lat for another year. Thereupon he began to dictate the record with the words:

“In the name of God the merciful and long-suffering! By this document an agreement is concluded between Mohammed, the messenger of God and the Takifites, that the latter shall neither pay taxes nor take part in the holy war.” But shame and the reproach of conscience arrested his tongue. “Nor throw themselves on their faces in praying,” added the ambassador; and as Mohammed persisted in his silence the Takifites repeated, as he turned to the scribe:

“Write this; it is agreed upon.”

The scribe looked at Mohammed, waiting for his orders. At this moment the fiery Omar, who had hitherto been a dumb witness of this scene, rose, and drawing his sword, cried out:

“Thou hast defiled the heart of the prophet, and may God fill yours with fire.”

“We speak not to thee, but to Mohammed,” answered the ambassador with composure.

“Good,” said the prophet at this; “I will not hear of such a treaty. Ye have your choice between an unconditional acceptance of Islam and war.”

“At least grant us,” said the thunderstruck Takifites, “the worship of Lat for six months longer!”

“No!”

“Then for but one month!”

“Not for an hour!”

On which the ambassadors went back to their city in the company of Mohammedan soldiers, who broke Lat to pieces amid the lamentations of the women.

THE LAST YEARS OF MOHAMMED’S LIFE (630-632 A.D.)

[630-632 A.D.]

Mohammed returned to Medina like a victorious king; from all sides came ambassadors and believing followers, to offer their homage and worship, whilst far to the south his envoys on the seacoast won fresh devotees for Islam.

“We are the helpers of God and the soldiers of his messenger,” said the poet Thabit in a rhetorical contest; “we make war on all men until they believe; only he who believes in God and his messenger saves his goods and his blood; we are at feud with all infidels and our victory is always easy.”

The Arab writers linger affectionately over the different scenes of homage which the chiefs of the desert tribes, as well as the inhabitants of the cities, paid to the prophet, the prince of the faithful, in these first years of youthful enthusiasm. Yet adversities and misfortune troubled the end of his life. A hostile party under the leadership of Abdallah still subsisted in Medina. This was especially prominent when the prophet was arranging a fresh expedition against the Greeks in Syria in an oppressive heat, just when the Arabs were busied with the date harvest. Consequently many evaded the order and Abdallah turned back with his men soon after the start. A severe verse of the Koran rebuked the delay.

“Ye say, ‘go not out during the heat’; but God says by Mohammed, ‘the fire of hell is more scorching.’ Your laughter is but of short duration and ye shall one day weep long for your behaviour. Ye shall go forth no more with me and fight no more by my side.”

At Tabuk, between Medina and Damascus, the army came to a halt, that they might recover in that fertile neighbourhood from the toilsome, painful march. Here Mohammed received the submission of the chiefs of some of the Syrian border towns and the homage of a Christian prince. They purchased peace at the price of an annual tribute. Nevertheless Mohammed did not deem it advisable to advance further into the enemy’s country with his small following; he set out on the return march, and through many hardships and perils arrived at Medina after an absence of twenty days. For a time the disobedient were excluded from the circle of the believers; but when with penitence and contrition they sued for forgiveness they were received back into favour. Soon after this, death freed the prophet from his most dangerous adversary, Abdallah ben Obayyah. This event, as well as the homage of more and more Arab tribes, restored his spirits, which had been deeply affected by the death of his two daughters, Zainab and Umm Kolthum. The ninth Sura of the Koran, the symbol of the religion of the sword which he imparted to a host of pilgrims in a reading at the site of the holy temple at Mecca, may be taken as the outpouring of this exalted state of mind. In this he renounced peace with all unbelievers, heathen, Jews, and Christians, forbade them ever to set foot in the sanctuary, and declared perpetual war against them to be a sacred duty. In it he also reiterated the threats and curses against the hypocrites and loiterers who delayed to march to the holy war. Ali’s delivery of this declaration before all the people had the desired effect. The ambassadors, who in the name of the princes and tribes declared the latter’s accession to Islam, were as numerous “as the dates which fall from the palm tree in the time of ripeness.” From the frontier of Syria to the southern end of the peninsula and to the mountains bordering on the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, tribes of all tongues and religions hastened to find the key of paradise in the faith in the “One God who has no fellow.” When in the tenth year of the Hegira, Mohammed, with his nine wives, proceeded on his last pilgrimage to Mecca, which was to serve the Moslems for all future times as a pattern and example, 40,000 (or according to some accounts as many as 114,000) of the faithful accompanied him.

On this pilgrimage the suffering condition of the prophet first became manifest. With great effort he passed seven times round the Kaaba, and as he did so he prayed: “O Lord, prosper us in this life and the next, and preserve us from the pains of hell.” The unnatural agitations and paroxysms of his soul, the great physical exertions, the insidious poison of Khaibar, and finally his grief at the loss of his young son Ibrahim, whom, to his extreme joy, the Egyptian slave Maria had borne to him in the previous year and on whom he had set all his hopes—all these things undermined his health and hastened his end. The laments into which he broke out at sight of the child’s corpse already contained a foreboding of his own approaching end.

“I am grieved at thy loss,” he said, “mine eye weeps and my heart is sad, yet will I utter no lament which may anger the Lord; were I not convinced that I should follow thee, my grief would be inconsolable, but we are God’s and shall return to him.”

[632 A.D.]

Three months after his return Mohammed was overtaken in the house of his spouse, Aisha, by an illness which lasted from eight to fourteen days. Often a fierce fever would rob him of consciousness, but often again he had hours of lucidity which he spent in converse with Aisha, his favourite daughter Fatima, the only one of his children who survived her father, and with the friends and relatives who visited him. Besides this, although already extremely ill, he would still go into the neighbouring mosque and speak words of admonition and farewell to the assembled people. As his weakness increased he allowed the prayers to be spoken by Abu Bekr, but was still always present. On the last day he seemed better, so that all save Aisha left him. But soon his illness returned with renewed severity. Before he lost consciousness he gave his slaves their freedom, caused the six or seven dinars[33] which he had in his house to be given to the poor, and then prayed, “God support me in the death struggle.” Aisha had sent for her father and his other followers, but before they arrived he expired in the arms of his favourite wife. His last words were: “To the glorious comrades in paradise.”

He died in the eleventh year of the Hegira in the three-and-sixtieth year of his life, “the prophet, poet, priest, and king of Arabia.” On the news of his departure a great wailing was raised in Aisha’s dwelling, and the people thronged round the door in wild excitement, which was still further increased by Omar’s assurances that the messenger of God was not dead, but would shortly return to his people. Finally the judicious words of Abu Bekr succeeded in calming the crowd:

“O ye people,” he said, “let him amongst you who served Mohammed know that Mohammed is dead; but let him who served God continue in his service, for Mohammed’s God lives and never dies.” Then he read them a verse of the Koran: “Mohammed is only a messenger, many messengers are already gone before him; whether he died a natural death or was slain, shall ye turn on your heels? He who does this (forsakes his faith), can do no harm to God, but the grateful shall be rewarded.” Despair now passed into quiet grief; Omar himself was so moved that he fell to the earth and acknowledged that Mohammed was really dead.

Three days later Mohammed was lowered into the earth at the spot where he had died. His tomb at Medina was subsequently included within the bounds of the sanctuary by the enlargement of the mosque, which stood next to the house, and like the Kaaba of Mecca it has remained up to the present time to be a place of pilgrimage much resorted to by pious Moslems. Osama, the youthful son of that Zaid who had fallen at Muta, was absent on a new campaign against Syria at the moment when he received tidings of the prophet’s death. He at once led his soldiers back to Medina, and full of sadness set up his banner before the house.[f]

The personal traits of Mohammed are preserved to us in wonderfully minute details and illustrated by numberless anecdotes, many of which are of course apocryphal. We may quote a brief and vivid picture from the Sirat or Biography of Mohammed, written by Ibn Saad,[g] the secretary of the Arab historian Wakidi. The translation is from unpublished manuscript notes by Sir William Muir,[e] the modern biographer of Mohammed.[a]

“He was fair of complexion with a measure of redness; eyes intensely black; his hair not crisp but depending; beard bushy and thick; cheeks not fat; his neck shone like a vessel of silver; he had a line of hair from his breast to his navel like a branch, but besides this he had no hair on his belly or chest. His hands and feet were not hollow, but filled up. When he walked it was as though he walked from a higher to a lower place; and when he walked it was as though he pulled (or wrenched) his feet from the stones; when he turned he turned round entirely. The perspiration on his face was like pearls, and the smell thereof was pleasanter than musk of pure quality. He was neither long nor short; he was neither weakly nor vile; the like of him I never saw before or after.

“Mohammed had a large head, large eyes, large eyelashes; his colour bright and shining; large joints of his limbs; a long narrow line of hair from his chest to his belly. He was not very tall, but above the middle height. When he approached with his people he appeared to cover them (shutting them out of view). His hair was neither crisp nor frizzled; curly nor quite smooth and plain. It was like that of a curly-haired man combed out. His face was neither very fat nor very lean; it was round; he had large joints and a broad chest. His body was free from hair. Who ever saw him for the first time would be awe stricken at his appearance, but on close intimacy this would give way to love. His pupil was intensely black; his back large.”[g]

GIBBON’S ESTIMATE OF MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM

[622-632 A.D.]

At the conclusion of the life of Mohammed, it may perhaps be expected that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hira, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition; so soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty, he lived with innocence, and would have died without a name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and reason; and a slight conversation with the Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object, would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt as the inspirations of heaven; the labour of thought would expire in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible monitor, would be described with the form and attributes of an angel of God.

From enthusiasm to imposture the step is perilous and slippery; the demon of Socrates affords a memorable instance how a wise man may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a mixed middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud. Charity may believe that the original motives of Mohammed were those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his claims, despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bosom of Mohammed, and he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of Medina transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the example of the saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful world with pestilence and earthquakes might inspire for their conversion or chastisement the valour of his servants. In the exercise of political government he was compelled to abate the stern rigour of fanaticism, to comply, in some measure, with the prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient to the propagation of the faith; and Mohammed commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and idolaters who had escaped from the field of battle.

By the repetition of such acts, the character of Mohammed must have been gradually stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits would be poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and social virtues, which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years, ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician will suspect that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the enthusiasm of his youth and the credulity of his proselytes. A philosopher would observe that their credulity and his success would tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine mission, that his interest and religion were inseparably connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the persuasion that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Mohammed may be allowed as the evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied of the importance and justice of the end. The decree of Mohammed that, in the sale of captives, the mothers should never be separated from their children, may suspend or moderate the censure of the historian.

The good sense of Mohammed despised the pomp of royalty; the apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family; he kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable plenty; but in his domestic life many weeks would elapse without a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread; he delighted in the taste of milk and honey, but his ordinary food consisted of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his nature required and his religion did not forbid; and Mohammed affirmed that the fervour of his devotion was increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. Their incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the Koran; their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged; adultery was condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex, was punished with a hundred stripes.

Such were the calm and rational precepts of the legislator; but in his private conduct Mohammed indulged the appetites of a man and abused the claims of a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which he had imposed on his nation; the female sex, without reserve, was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative excited the envy rather than the scandal, the veneration rather than the envy of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated, who occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favour of his conjugal society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting only Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bekr. She was doubtless a virgin, since Mohammed consummated his nuptials (such is the premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Aisha, gave her a superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted by the prophet; and after his death the daughter of Abu Bekr was long revered as the mother of the faithful. Her behaviour had been ambiguous and indiscreet; in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left behind, and in the morning Aisha returned to the camp with a man.

The temper of Mohammed was inclined to jealousy; but a divine revelation assured him of her innocence; he chastised her accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in the act of adultery. In his adventures with Zainab, the wife of Zaid, and with Maria, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zaid, his freedman and adopted son, he beheld in a loose undress the beauty of Zainab, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives, Hafsa, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed in the embraces of his Egyptian captive; she promised secrecy and forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of Maria. Both parties forgot their engagements, and Gabriel again descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his oath and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and concubines, without listening to the clamours of his wives. In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he laboured, alone with Maria, to fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives, reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and the next—a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second marriage.

A Saracenic Candlestick

Perhaps the incontinence of Mohammed may be palliated by the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; he united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam, and the apostle might rival the thirteenth labour of the Grecian Hercules. A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Khadija. During the twenty-four years of their marriage her youthful husband abstained from the right of polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Aisha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty, “has not God given you a better in her place?” “No, by God,” said Mohammed, with an effusion of honest gratitude, “there never can be a better! she believed in me when men despised me; she relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.”

In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mohammed were fatally disappointed. The virgin Aisha, and his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Khadija died in their infancy. Maria, his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems, by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by the death of the infant. Khadija had likewise given him four daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his disciples; the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima, who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny.

From his earliest youth, Mohammed was addicted to religious contemplation; each year, during the month of Ramadhan, he withdrew from the world and from the arms of Khadija; in the cave of Hira, three miles from Mecca, he consulted the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the heavens but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which, under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and nation, is compounded of an eternal truth and a necessary fiction—that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God.

The Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of paganism; their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East; the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a goddess. The creed of Mohammed is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must set, that whatever is born must die, that whatever is corruptible must decay and perish. In the author of the universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an infinite and eternal being, without form or place, without issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts, existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving from himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the prophet, are firmly held by his disciples, and defined with metaphysical precision by the interpreters of the Koran. The first principle of reason and revelation was confirmed by the voice of Mohammed; his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the danger of idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images. The doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination is strictly embraced by the Mohammedans; and they struggle with the common difficulties, how to reconcile the prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility of man; how to explain the permission of evil under the reign of infinite power and infinite goodness.

The liberality of Mohammed allowed to his predecessors the same credit which he claimed for himself; and the chain of inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the promulgation of the Koran. During that period, some rays of prophetic light had been imparted to 124,000 of the elect, discriminated by their respective measure of virtue and grace; 313 apostles were sent with a special commission to recall their country from idolatry and vice; 104 volumes had been dictated by the holy spirit; and six legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to mankind the six successive revelations of various rites, but of one immutable religion. The authority and station of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed rise in just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates or rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the infidels. The writings of the patriarchs were extant only in the apocryphal copies of the Greeks and Syrians; the conduct of Adam had not entitled him to the gratitude or respect of his children; the seven precepts of Noah were observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the proselytes of the synagogue, and the memory of Abraham was obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of Chaldea; of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone lived and reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings was comprised in the books of the Old and the New Testament. The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished in the Koran; and the captive Jews enjoy the secret revenge of imposing their belief on the nations whose recent creeds they deride. For the author of Christianity, the Mohammedans are taught by the prophet to entertain a high and mysterious reverence. “Verily, Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, is the Apostle of God, and His word, which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit proceeding from him are honourable in this world, and in the world to come; and He is one of those who approach near to the presence of God.” The piety of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet, more illustrious than themselves; the evangelic promise of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished in the person, of Mohammed, the greatest and the last of the apostles of God.

The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mohammed was content with a character, more humble yet more sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, according to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal; subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A paper copy, in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched on the most important errands; and this trusty messenger successively revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet. Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the discretion of Mohammed; each revelation is suited to the emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim that any text of Scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God, and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm leaves and the shoulder bones of mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were cast into a domestic chest in the custody of one of his wives.

Two years after the death of Mohammed the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abu Bekr. The work was revised by the caliph Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege of a uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book, audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page, and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds, and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel; he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same language. If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man, to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer or the Philippics of Demosthenes?

In all religions, the life of the founder supplies the silence of his written revelation; the sayings of Mohammed were so many lessons of truth, his actions so many examples of virtue; and the public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and companions. At the end of two hundred years the sunna, or oral law, was fixed and consecrated by the labours of Al-Buchari, who discriminated 7,275 traditions, from a mass of 300,000 reports of a more doubtful or spurious character. Each day the pious author prayed in the temple of Mecca, and performed his ablutions with the water of Zemzem; the pages were successively deposited on the pulpit and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been approved by the four orthodox sects of the Sunnites.

The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses, and of Jesus, had been confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mohammed was repeatedly urged by the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina to produce a similar evidence of his divine legation; to call down from heaven the angel or the volume of his revelation, to create a garden in the desert, or to kindle a conflagration in the unbelieving city. As often as he is pressed by the demands of the Koreish, he involves himself in the obscure boast of vision and prophecy, appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs and wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith and aggravate the guilt of infidelity. But the modest or angry tone of his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation; and these passages of scandal establish, beyond suspicion, the integrity of the Koran.

The votaries of Mohammed are more assured than himself of his miraculous gifts, and their confidence and credulity increase as they are further removed from the time and place of his spiritual exploits. They believe or affirm that trees went forth to meet him; that he was saluted by stones; that water gushed from his fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the sick, and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a camel complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate nature were equally subject to the apostle of God. His dream of a nocturnal journey is seriously described as a real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious animal, the borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem; with his companion Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh heaven, Mohammed alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the veil of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and felt a cold that pierced him to the heart when his shoulder was touched by the hand of God. After this familiar, though important conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem, remounted the borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand years. According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a national assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word split asunder the orb of the moon; the obedient planet stooped from her station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the Kaaba, saluted Mohammed in the Arabian tongue, and suddenly contracting her dimensions entered at the collar, and issued forth through the sleeve of his shirt. The vulgar are amused with these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman doctors imitate the modesty of their master, and indulge a latitude of faith or interpretation. They might speciously allege that, in preaching the religion, it was needless to violate the harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may be excused from miracles; and that the sword of Mohammed was not less potent than the rod of Moses.

An Arab Chief

The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of superstition; a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven with the essence of the Mosaic law, and the spirit of the Gospel had evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of Mecca was tempted, by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to sanctify the rites of the Arabians and the custom of visiting the holy stone of the Kaaba. But the precepts of Mohammed himself inculcate a more simple and rational piety; prayer, fasting, and alms are the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is encouraged to hope that prayer will carry him half-way to God, fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and alms will gain him admittance.

(1) According to the tradition of the nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his personal conference with the Deity, was commanded to impose on his disciples the daily obligation of fifty prayers. By the advice of Moses, he applied for an alleviation of this intolerable burden; the number was gradually reduced to five; without any dispensation of business or pleasure, or time or place, the devotion of the faithful is repeated at daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening, and at the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of religious fervour our travellers are edified by the profound humility and attention of the Turks and Persians. Cleanliness is the key of prayer; the frequent lustration of the hands, the face, and the body, which was practised of old by the Arabs, is solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a permission is formally granted to supply with sand the scarcity of water. The words and attitudes of supplication, as it is performed either sitting, or standing, or prostrate on the ground, are prescribed by custom or authority, but the prayer is poured forth in short and fervent ejaculations; the measure of zeal is not exhausted by a tedious liturgy; and each Mussulman, for his own person, is invested with the character of a priest. Among the theists, who reject the use of images, it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings of the fancy by directing the eye and the thought towards a kibla, or visible point of the horizon. The prophet was at first inclined to gratify the Jews by the choice of Jerusalem, but he soon returned to a more natural partiality; and five times every day the eyes of the nations at Astrakhan, at Fez, at Delhi are devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for the service of God is equally pure; the Mohammedans indifferently pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction from the Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set apart for the useful institution of public worship; the people are assembled in the mosque; and the imam, some respectable elder, ascends the pulpit, to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon. But the Mohammedan religion is destitute of priesthood or sacrifice; and the independent spirit of fanaticism looks down with contempt on the ministers and the slaves of superstition.

(2) The voluntary penance of the ascetics, the torment and glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured in his companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and women, and sleep; and firmly declared that he would suffer no monks in his religion. Yet he instituted, in each year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously recommended the observance, as a discipline which purifies the soul and subdues the body, as a salutary exercise of obedience to the will of God and his apostle. During the month of Ramadhan, from the rising to the setting of the sun, the Mussulman abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and baths, and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadhan coincides by turns with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the patient martyr, without assuaging his thirst with a drop of water, must expect the close of a tedious and sultry day. The interdiction of wine, peculiar to some orders of priests or hermits, is converted by Mohammed alone into a positive and general law; and a considerable portion of the globe has abjured, at his command, the use of that salutary though dangerous liquor. These painful restraints are, doubtless, infringed by the libertine and eluded by the hypocrite; but the legislator by whom they are enacted cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the indulgence of their sensual appetites.

(3) The charity of the Mohammedans descends to the animal creation; and the Koran repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit but as a strict and indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and unfortunate. Mohammed, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has defined the precise measure of charity; the standard may vary with the degree and nature of property, as it consists either in money, in corn or cattle, in fruits or merchandise; but the Mussulman does not accomplish the law unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and if his conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth, under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are forbidden to injure those whom we are bound to assist. A prophet may reveal the secrets of heaven and of futurity; but in his moral precepts he can only repeat the lessons of our own hearts.

The two articles of belief and the four practical duties of Islam are guarded by rewards and punishments; and the faith of the Mussulman is devoutly fixed on the event of the judgment and the last day. The prophet has not presumed to determine the moment of that awful catastrophe, though he darkly announces the signs, both in heaven and earth, which will precede the universal dissolution, when life shall be destroyed and the order of creation shall be confounded in the primitive chaos. At the blast of the trumpet, new worlds will start into being; angels, genii, and men will arise from the dead, and the human soul will again be united to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection was first entertained by the Egyptians; and their mummies were embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the ancient mansion of the soul during a period of three thousand years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing; and it is with a more philosophic spirit that Mohammed relies on the omnipotence of the Creator, whose word can reanimate the breathless clay, and collect the innumerable atoms that no longer retain their form or substance. The intermediate state of the soul it is hard to decide; and those who most firmly believe in her immaterial nature, are at a loss to understand how she can think or act without the agency of the organs of sense.

The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the final judgment of mankind; and in his copy of the magian picture the prophet has too faithfully represented the forms of proceeding, and even the slow and successive operations of an earthly tribunal. By his intolerant adversaries he is upbraided for extending, even to themselves, the hope of salvation; for asserting the blackest heresy—that every man who believes in God and accomplishes good works may expect in the last day a favourable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill adapted to the character of a fanatic; nor is it probable that a messenger from heaven should depreciate the value and necessity of his own revelation. In the idiom of the Koran, the belief of God is inseparable from that of Mohammed; the good works are those which he has enjoined; and the two qualifications imply the profession of Islam, to which all nations and all sects are equally invited. Their spiritual blindness, though excused by ignorance and crowned with virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments; and the tears which Mohammed shed over the tomb of his mother, for whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast of humanity and enthusiasm.

The doom of the infidels is common; the measure of their guilt and punishment is determined by the degree of evidence which they have rejected, by the magnitude of the errors which they have entertained; the eternal mansions of the Christians, the Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and the idolaters are sunk below each other in the abyss; and the lowest hell is reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed the mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has been condemned for their opinions, the true believers only will be judged by their actions. The good and evil of each Mussulman will be accurately weighed in a real or allegorical balance, and a singular mode of compensation will be allowed for the payment of injuries; the aggressor will refund an equivalent of his own good actions for the benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and if he should be destitute of any moral property, the weight of his sins will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of the sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all, without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous bridge of the abyss; but the innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mohammed, will gloriously enter the gates of paradise, while the guilty will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells. The term of expiation will vary from nine hundred to seven thousand years; but the prophet has judiciously promised that all his disciples, whatever may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith and his intercession, from eternal damnation.

It is not surprising that superstition should act most powerfully on the fears of her votaries, since the human fancy can paint with more energy the misery than the bliss of a future life. With the two simple elements of darkness and fire we create a sensation of pain, which may be aggravated to an infinite degree by the idea of endless duration. But the same idea operates with an opposite effect on the continuity of pleasure; and too much of our present enjoyment is obtained from the relief, or the comparison of evil. It is natural enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell with rapture on the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of paradise; but instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a liberal taste for harmony and science, conversation and friendship, he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes of silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines, artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole train of sensual and costly luxury which becomes insipid to the owner, even in the short period of this mortal life. Seventy-two houris, or black-eyed girls, of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility will be created for the use of the meanest believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a thousand years, and his faculties will be increased a hundredfold, to render him worthy of his felicity.

Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will be open to both sexes; but Mohammed has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage. This image of a carnal paradise has provoked the indignation, perhaps the envy, of the monks; they declaim against the impure religion of Mohammed; and his modest apologists are driven to the poor excuse of figures and allegories. But the sounder and more consistent party adheres, without shame, to the literal interpretation of the Koran; useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless it were restored to the possession and exercise of its worthiest faculties; and the union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment is requisite to complete the happiness of the double animal, the perfect man. Yet the joys of the Mohammedan paradise will not be confined to the indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the prophet has expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall be admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision.

The talents of Mohammed are entitled to our applause; but his success has perhaps too strongly attracted our admiration. Are we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies of the church the same seduction has been tried and repeated from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger scope of empire and conquest.

Mohammed was alike instructed to preach and to fight, and the union of these opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success; the operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their darling passions in this world and the other; the restraints which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the prophet and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity and perfections of God.

It is not the propagation but the permanency of his religion that deserves our wonder; the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina is preserved after the revolutions of twelve centuries by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of the deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that magnificent temple; at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience less surprise, but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse the catechism of the church and to study the orthodox commentators on their own writings and the words of their master. But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendour and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mohammed. The Mohammedans have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I believe in one God, and Mohammed the apostle of God,” is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honours of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue; and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. The votaries of Ali have indeed consecrated the memory of their hero, his wife, and his children, and some of the Persian doctors pretend that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the imams; but their superstition is universally condemned by the Sunnites, and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning against the worship of saints and martyrs.

The metaphysical questions on the attributes of God and the liberty of man have been agitated in the schools of the Mohammedans, as well as in those of the Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the passions of the people or disturbed the tranquillity of the state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters. It was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all religious innovations; the order, the discipline, the temporal and spiritual ambition of the clergy are unknown to the Moslems, and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges the Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of theology but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by his own prejudices and those of his country; and the institutions of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the kadi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the principles of equity and the manners and policy of the times.

His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is the last consideration in the character of Mohammed. The most bitter or most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their own. He piously supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of their prior revelations, the virtues and miracles of their founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation. Mohammed was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and political system for the use of his countrymen; but he breathed among the faithful a spirit of charity and friendship, recommended the practice of the social virtues, and checked, by his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge and the oppression of widow and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in faith and obedience, and the valour which had been idly spent in domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedouins of the desert, awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and solitary independence.[d]

FOOTNOTES

[31] [Muir[e] and other accounts say that Hamza’s liver was cut out and brought to Hind; this because he had slain her father at Bedr.]

[32] [The fortress.]

[33] [Dinar—a gold coin. Its original weight was 65.4 grains troy.]

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