Mahomet, Founder of Islam

by Gladys M. Draycott

Then Abbas, standing by Mahomet, besought him:

"Woe unto thee, Abu Sofian; become one of the Faithful and believe there is no god but God and that Mahomet is his Prophet before we sever thy head from the body!"

Under such strong compulsion, says tradition, Abu Sofian was converted and sent back to Mecca with promises of clemency. It is almost impossible not to believe that collusion between Abbas and Abu Sofian existed before this interview. Abbas had given the lead, for his prescience had divined the uselessness of resistance, and he foresaw greater glory as the upholder of Islam, the triumphing cause, than as the vain opposer of what he firmly believed to be an all-conquering power. Abu Sofian took somewhat longer to convince, and never really gave up his dream of resistance until he met Abbas on the fateful night and was shown the vastness of the Medinan army, their good organisation and their boundless enthusiasm. Thereat his hopes of victory became dust, and he bowed to the inevitable in the same manner as Abbas had done before him, though from different motives, one being actuated by the desire for favour and fame, the other only anxious to save his city from the horrors of a prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful siege.

Thereafter the army marched upon Mecca, and Mahomet completed his plans for a peaceful entry. Zobeir, one of his most trusted commanders, was to enter from the north, Khalid and the Bedouins from the southern or lower suburb, where possible resistance might be met, as it was the most populous and turbulent quarter. Abu Obeida, followed by Mahomet, took the nearest road, skirting Jebel Hind. It was an anxious time as the force divided and made its appointed way so as to come upon the city from three sides. Mahomet watched his armies from the rear in a kind of paralysis of thought, which overtakes men of action who have provided for every contingency and now can do nothing but wait. Khalid alone encountered opposition, but his skill and the force behind him soon drove the Meccans back within their narrow streets, and there separated them into small companies, robbing them of all concerted action, and rendering them an easy prey to his oncoming soldiery. Mahomet drew breath once more, and seeing all was well and that the other entries had been peacefully effected, directed his tent to be pitched to the north of the city.

It was, in fact, a bloodless revolution. Mahomet, the outcast, the despised, was now lord of the whole splendid city that stretched before his eyes. He had seen what few men are vouchsafed, the material fulfilment of his year-long dreams, and knew it was by his own tireless energy and overmastering faith that they had been wrought upon the soil of his native land.

His first act was to worship at the Kaaba, but before completing the whole ancestral rites he destroyed the idols that polluted the sanctuary. Then he commanded Bilal to summon the Faithful to prayer from the summit of the Kaaba, and when the concourse of Believers crowded to the precincts of that sacred place he knew that this occupation of Mecca would be written among the triumphant deeds of the world.

His victory was not stained by any relentless vengeance. Strength is always the harbinger of mercy. Only four people were put to death, according to tradition, two women-singers who had continued their insulting poems even after his occupation of the city, and two renegades from Islam. About ten or twelve were proscribed, but of these several were afterwards pardoned. Even Hind, the savage slayer of Hamza, submitted, and received her pardon at Mahomet's hands. An order was promulgated forbidding bloodshed, and the orderly settlement of Believers among the Meccan population embarked upon. Only one commander violated the peace. Khalid, sent to convert the Jadzima just outside the city, found them recalcitrant and took ruthless vengeance. He slew them most barbarously, and returned to Mecca expecting rewards. But Mahomet knew well the value of mercy, and he was not by nature vindictive towards the weak and inoffensive. He could punish without remorse those who opposed him and were his equals in strength, but towards inferior tribes he had the compassion of the strong. He could not censure Khalid as he was too valuable a general, but he was really grieved at the barbarity practised against the Jadzima. He effectually prevented any further cruelties, and on that very account rendered his authority secure and his rulership free from attempts to throw off its yoke within the vicinity of his newly-won power.

The populace was far too weak to resist the Muslim incursion. Its leaders, Abu Sofian and Abbas with their followings, had surrendered to the hostile faith; for the inhabitants there was nothing now between submission and death. The Believers were merciful, and they had nought to fear from their violence. They embraced the new faith in self-defence, and received the rulership of the Prophet very much as they had received the government of all the other chieftains before him.

One command, however, was to be rigidly obeyed, the command inseparable from the dominion of Islam. Idolatry was to be exterminated, the accursed idols torn down and annihilated. Parties of Muslim were sent out to the neighbouring districts to break these desecrators of Islam. The famous Al-Ozza and Manat, whose power Mahomet for a brief space had formerly acknowledged, were swept into forgetfulness at Nakhla, every image was destroyed that pictured the abominations, and the temples were cleansed of pollution.

Out of his spirit-fervour Mahomet's triumph had been achieved. In the dim beginnings of his faith, when nothing but its conception of the indivisible godhead had been accomplished, he had brought to its altars only the quenchless fire of his inspiration. He had not dreamed at first of political supremacy, only the rapture of belief and the imperious desire to convert had made his foundation of a city and then an overlordship inevitable. But circumstances having forced a temporal dominance upon him, he became concerned for the ultimate triumph of his earthly power. Thereupon his dreams took upon themselves the colouring of external ambitions. Conversion might only be achieved by conquest, therefore his first thoughts turned to its attainment. And as soon as he looked upon Arabia with the eyes of a potential despot he saw Mecca the centre of his ceremonial, his parent city, hostile and unsubdued. Certainly from the time of the Kureisch failure to capture Medina he had set his deliberate aims towards its humiliation. With diplomacy, with caution, by cruelty, cajolements, threatenings, and slaughter he had made his position sufficiently stable to attack her. Now she lay at his feet, acknowledging him her master—Mecca, the headstone of Arabia, the inviolate city whose traditions spoke of her kinship with the heroes and prophets of an earlier world.