[139] "But the darker shades of character as well as the brighter must be depicted by a faithful historian. Magnanimity or moderation are nowhere discernible as features in the conduct of Mahomet towards such of his enemies as failed to tender a timely allegiance. Over the bodies of the Coreish who fell at Badr he exulted with savage satisfaction; and several prisoners, accused of no crime but that of scepticism and political opposition, were deliberately executed at his command. The prince of Kheibar, after being subjected to inhuman torture for the purpose of discovering the treasures of his tribe, was, with his cousin, put to death on the pretext of having treacherously concealed them; and his wife was led away captive to the tent of the conqueror. Sentence of exile was enforced by Mahomet with rigorous severity on two whole Jewish tribes at Medîna; and of a third like his neighbours, the women and children were sold into distant captivity, while the men amounting to several hundreds were butchered in cold blood before his eyes.
"In his youth Mahomet earned among his fellows the honourable title of 'the Faithful.' But in later years, however much sincerity and good faith may have guided his conduct in respect of his friends, craft and deception were certainly not wanting towards his foes. The perfidious attack at Nakhla, where the first blood in the internecine war with the Coreish was shed, although at first disavowed by Mahomet, for its scandalous breach of the sacred usages of Arabia, was eventually justified by a pretended revelation. Abu Basîr, the freebooter, was countenanced by the Prophet in a manner scarcely consistent with the letter, and certainly opposed to the spirit, of the truce of Hodeibia. The surprise which secured the easy conquest of Mecca was designed with craftiness, if not with duplicity. The pretext on which the Bani Nadhîr were besieged and expatriated (namely, that Gabriel had revealed their design against the prophet's life), was feeble and unworthy of an honest cause. When Medîna was beleaguered by the confederate army, Mahomet sought the services of Nueim, a traitor, and employed him to sow distrust among the enemy by false and treacherous reports; 'for,' said he, 'what else is war but a game at deception?' In his prophetical career, political and personal ends were frequently compassed by the flagrant pretence of Divine revelations, which a candid examination would have shewn him to be nothing more than the counterpart of his own wishes. The Jewish and Christian systems, at first adopted honestly as the basis of his own religion, had no sooner served the purpose of establishing a firm authority, than they were ignored, if not disowned. And what is perhaps worst of all, the dastardly assassination of political and religious opponents, countenanced and frequently directed as they were in all their cruel and perfidious details by Mahomet himself leaves a dark and indelible blot upon his character."—Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 307-9.
"The reader will observe that simultaneously with the anxious desire to extinguish idolatry, and to promote religion and virtue in the world, there was nurtured by the Prophet in his own heart a licentious self-indulgence; till in the end, assuming to be the favourite of Heaven, he justified himself by 'revelations' from God in the most flagrant breaches of morality. He will remark that while Mahomet cherished a kind and tender disposition, 'weeping with them that wept,' and binding to his person the hearts of his followers by the ready and self-denying offices of love and friendship, he could yet take pleasure in cruel and perfidious assassination, could gloat over the massacre of an entire tribe, and savagely consign the innocent babe to the fires of hell."—Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 322-3.
[140] "In domestic life the conduct of Mahomet with one grave exception was exemplary. As a husband his fondness and devotion was entire, bordering, however, at times upon jealousy. As a father he was loving and tender. In his youth he is said to have lived a virtuous life. At the age of twenty-five he married a widow forty years old; and for five and twenty years he was a faithful husband to her alone. Yet it is remarkable that during this period was composed most of those passages of the Coran in which the black-eyed Houris, reserved for believers in Paradise, are depicted in such glowing colours. Shortly after the death of Khadija the Prophet married again; but it was not till the mature age of fifty-four that he made the dangerous trial of polygamy, by taking Ayesha, yet a child, as the rival of Sauda. Once the natural limits of restraint were overpassed, Mahomet fell an easy prey to his strong passion for the sex. In his fifty-sixth year he married Haphsa; and the following year, in two succeeding months, Zeinab bint Khozeima and Omm Salma. But his desires were not to be satisfied by the range of a harem already greater than was permitted to any of his followers; rather as age advanced, they were stimulated to seek for new and varied indulgence. A few months after his nuptials with Zeinab and Omm Salma, the charms of a second Zeinab were by accident discovered too fully before the Prophet's admiring gaze. She was the wife of Zeid, his adopted son and bosom friend; but he was unable to smother the flame she kindled in his breast; and, by divine command, she was taken to his bed. In the same year he married a seventh wife, and also a concubine. And at last, when he was full three score years of age, no fewer than three new wives, besides Mary the Coptic slave, were within the space of seven months added to his already well-filled harem."—Muir's Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, pp. 309-10.
[141] "Vide Muhammad and Muhammadanism, by Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, M.A., an Assistant Master of Harrow School."
[142] Notes on Muhammadanism, by the Rev. T.P. Hughes, Missionary to the Afghans, Peshawar; Second Edition, page 4, London, 1877.
[143] Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp. 24 & 25.
[144] Vide pp. 48-61. This work is being printed at Education Society's Press, Byculla, Bombay. It appears that Dr. Dods, in the first instance, had in view Sura XXXIII, 51. This is by no means giving Mohammad conjugal allowances which he himself had proscribed as unlawful. As a preliminary measure to abolish polygamy and to accustom the people to monogamy, Mohammad, when reducing the unlimited polygamy practised in Arabia, had put a strong condition to treat their wives, when more than one, equitably in every sense of the word,—i.e., in the matter of social comfort, love and household establishment (Sura IV, 3). When the measure had given a monogamous tendency to the Arab society, it was declared that it was impossible practically to treat equitably in all respects the contemporary wives (Sura IV, 128), and those who had already contracted contemporaneous marriage before the measure referred to above was introduced were absolved from the condition laid down in Sura IV, 3, but were advised, regarding their then existing wives, not to yield wholly to disinclination. Similarly Mohammad was also relieved from that condition in Sura XXXIII, 51, without "giving him any conjugal allowance which he had himself pronounced unlawful." The second instance is of Zeinab's case I suppose. Zeinab was in no way, when divorced by Zeid, "a woman forbidden to him by his own laws."
[145] "The Apostle becomes a creature so exalted that even the easy drapery of Mohammadan morality becomes a garment too tight-fitting for him. 'A peculiar privilege is granted to him above the rest of the believers.' He may multiply his wives without stint; he may and he does marry within the prohibited degrees."—Islam under the Arabs, by R.D. Osborn, London 1876, p. 91.
[146] Studies in a Mosque, by S.L. Poole, pp. 77 and 80, London, 1880.