Mahomet, Founder of Islam

by Gladys M. Draycott

The Kureisch had indeed considerably abated their anger against Mahomet. He was now safely out of their midst, and possibly they thought themselves well rid of a man whose only object, from their point of view, was to stir up strife, and they felt that any resentment against either himself or his kin would be unnecessary and not worth their pains. With remarkable tolerance for so revengeful an age, they left the families of Mahomet and Abu Bekr quite free from molestation, nor did they offer any opposition to Ali when they found he had successfully foiled them, and he made his way out of the city three days after his leader had quitted it.

Mahomet and Abu Bekr journeyed on, two pilgrims making their way, solitary but unappalled, to a strange city, whose temper and disposition they but faintly understood. But evidences as to its friendliness were not wanting, and these were renewed when Abu Bekr's cousin, a previous emigrant to Medina, met them half-way and declared that the city waited in joy and expectation for the coming of its Prophet. After some days they crossed the valley of Akik in extreme heat, and came at last to Coba, an outlying suburb at Medina, where, weary and apprehensive, Mahomet rested for a while, prudently desiring that his welcome at Medina might be assured before he ventured into its confines.

His entry into Coba savoured of a triumphal procession; the people thronged around his camel shouting, "The Prophet; he is come!" mingling their cries with homage and wondering awe, that the divine servant of whom they had heard so much should appear to them in so human a guise, a man among them, verily one of themselves. Mahomet's camel stopped at the house of Omm Kolthum, and there he elected to abide during his stay in Coba, for he possessed throughout his life a reverence for the instinct in animals that characterises the Eastern races of all time. There, dismounting, he addressed the people, bidding them be of good cheer, and giving them thanks for their joyous welcome:

"Ye people, show your joy by giving your neighbours the salvation of peace; send portions to the poor; bind close the ties of kinship, and offer up your prayers whilst others sleep. Thus shall ye enter Paradise in peace."

For four days Mahomet dwelt in Coba, where he had encountered unfailing support and friendship, and there was joined by Ali. His memories of Coba were always grateful, for at the outset of his doubtful and even dangerous enterprise he had received a good augury. Before he set out to Medina he laid the foundations of the Mosque at Coba, where the Faithful would be enabled to pray according to their fashion, undisturbed and beneath the favour of Allah, and decreed that Friday was to be set apart as a special day of prayer, when addresses were to be given at the Mosque and the doctrines of Islam expounded.

Even as early as this Mahomet felt the mantle of sovereignty descending upon him, for we hear now of the first of those ordinances or decrees by which in later times he rules the lives and actions of his subjects to the last detail. Clearly he perceived himself a leader among men, who had it within his power to build up a community following his own dictates, which might by consolidation even rival those already existent in Arabia. He was taking command of a weak and factious city, and he realised that in his hands lay its prosperity or downfall; he was, in fact, the arbiter of its fate and of the fate of his colleagues who had dared all with him.

But he could not stay long in Coba, while the final assay upon the Medinans remained to be undertaken, and so we find him on the fourth day of his sojourn making preparations for the entry into the city. It was undertaken with some confidence of success from the messages already sent to Coba, and proved as triumphal an entry as his former one. The populace awaited him in expectation and reverence, and hailed him as their Prophet, the mighty leader who had come to their deliverance. They surrounded his camel Al-Caswa, and the camels of his followers, and when Al-Caswa stopped outside the house of Abu Ayub, Mahomet once more received the beast's augury and sojourned there until the building of the Mosque. As Al-Caswa entered the paved courtyard, Mahomet dismounted to receive the allegiance of Abu Ayub and his household; then, turning to the people, he greeted them with words of good cheer and encouragement, and they responded with acclamations.

For seven months the Prophet lodged in the house of Abu Ayub, and he bought the yard where Al-Caswa halted as a token of his first entry into Medina, and a remembrance in later years of his abiding place during the difficult time of his inception. The decisive step had been taken. The die was now cast. It was as if the little fleet of human souls had finally cast its moorings and ventured into the unpathed waters of temporal dominion under the command of one whose skill in pilotage was as yet unknown. Many changes became necessary in the conduct of the enterprise, of which not the least was the change of attitude between the leader and his followers. Mahomet, heretofore religious visionary and teacher, became the temporal head of a community, and in time the leader of a political State. The changed aspect of his mission can never be over-emphasised, for it altered the tenor of his thoughts and the progress of his words. All the poetry and fire informing the early pages of the Kuran departs with his reception at Medina, except for occasional flashes that illumine the chronicle of detailed ordinances that the Book has now become.

This apparent death of poetic energy had crept gradually over the Kuran, helped on by the controversial character of the last two Meccan periods, when he attempted the conciliation of the Jewish element within Arabia with that long-sightedness which already discerned Medina as his possible refuge. In reality the whole energy of his nature was transmuted from his words to his actions and therein he found his fitting sphere, for he was essentially the doer, one whose works are the expression of his secret, whose personality, in fact, is only gauged by his deeds. As a result of his political leadership, the despotism of his nature, inherent in his conception of God, inevitably revealed itself; he had postulated a Being who held mankind in the hollow of his hand, whose decrees were absolute among his subjects; now that he was to found an earthly kingdom under the guidance of Allah, the majesty of divine despotism overshadowed its Prophet, and enabled him to impose upon a willing people the same obedience to authority which fostered the military idea.

We must perforce believe in Mahomet's good faith. There is a tendency in modern times to think of him as a man who knowingly played upon the credulity of his followers to establish a sovereignty whereof he should be head. But no student of psychology can support this conception of the Prophet of Islam. There is a subtle rapprochement between leader and people in all great movements that divines instinctively any imposture. Mahomet used and moulded men by reason of his faith in his own creed. The establishment of the worship of Allah brought in its train the aggrandisement of his Prophet, but it was not achieved by profanation of the source whence his greatness came.