The Days of Mohammed

by Anna May Wilson

So the people, though sad as they looked back upon their smouldering homes and blazing palm trees, were filled with love for the gentle soldiers, and went up with a new motive in striking for their liberty, for there is naught that will bring forth the strongest powers of action like the impulse of love.

Ah, the blight and misery of war! Manasseh looked out from the citadel upon the scene which he had deemed so fair—the waving corn-fields, the groves of palms and olives and aloes, the nestling houses, the pastures covered with flocks—now but a blackened and smoking waste, with here and there the skeleton of a palm tree pointing upward like a bony finger; and here and there a reeking column of black smoke, or the dull glare of a burning homestead.

The people murmured not. "Better let it lie in ashes than permit it to fall into the hands of the impostor!" they cried, and they muttered curses upon the head of the destroyer of their happiness and prosperity.

All were at last in and the anxious waiting began. Keen eyes peered from the citadel night and day. Watchmen were posted at every point of the out-works and spies were sent broadcast through the country.

Then the fateful word came. Breathless scouts told of an army fast approaching, twelve hundred men and two hundred horse, commanded by the prophet himself, his vizier Ali, and his friend Abu Beker.

Al Kamus, the citadel, was immediately crowded with men, and soldiers were posted along the walls, neither strong in numbers nor in arms, for many were armed but with staves and stones. Desperation was in their hearts, and calm, resolute faces looked forth for the advancing host.

Just as the morning sun flashed defiantly from the towers of Al Kamus, the Moslem army came in sight. At first it seemed like a moving, shapeless mass over the blackened fields,—and as the rising sun fell upon it, the moving mass became dotted with glints and lines of silver, like the ripple of waves on a sunlit sea; but the watchers recognized the deadly import of those bright gleams, and by the flash of scimitars and lances were able to compute in a vague way the strength of their opponents.

On they came until the stony place called Mansela was reached, and there, beneath a great rock, the host halted. The anxious watchers from the city could not discern the exact meaning of this, but more than one guessed that the halt was made for the offering of ostentatious prayer by the prophet.

This indeed was the case. As Mohammed came in full view of the citadel he cried out: "There, O believers, is the eyrie to which ye must climb. But victory has been promised us. Angels shall again lend us their invisible aid. Therefore have courage, O believers! Remember that for each of those vile infidels slain, a double joy awaits you in paradise. Know ye that every drop of an unbelieving Jew shed is as the crystal drops of nectar of paradise to the happy follower of Mohammed, the prophet of God. And fear not that ye be slain in this combat, O faithful! Ye will not be slain except your appointed time has come, when ye must in any case die. Remember that to be slain in battle for the cause of Islam is to reap a glorious reward!"

Then, mounting the great rock, he called with a loud voice: "La illaha il Allah! Mohammed Resoul Allah!" (There is no God but God! Mohammed is the prophet of God!)