Mahomet, Founder of Islam

by Gladys M. Draycott

Now, departing to Medina confident in his success, it was with no good will that he entered its walls. Many of his erstwhile followers, especially the tribes of Bedouins, had refused him their help upon this adventure, and, immediate danger being past, he returned to rend them in the fury of his eloquence. His success had given him the right to chastise; even the Ansar were not exempt from his wrath. Three who remained behind were proscribed, and compelled to fulfil fifty days of penance.

"Had there been a near advantage and a short journey, they would certainly have followed thee; but the way seemed long to them. Yet they will swear by God, 'Had we been able we had surely gone forth with you; they are self-destroyers! And God knoweth that they are surely liars!'"

Before he had entered the city his anger was further provoked by the Beni Ganim, who had erected a mosque, ostensibly out of piety, really to spite the Beni Amru ibn Auf and to make them jealous for their own mosque at Kuba, whose stones he had laid with his own hands. He fell upon the Ganim, "some who have built a mosque for mischief," and demolished the building. Then he drew attention to their perfidy in the Kuran, and took care that there should be no more mosques built in the spirit of rivalry and envy.

Very little time after his return to Medina, Abdallah, leader of the Disaffected, his opponent and critic for so many years, died suddenly. His death meant a great change in the position of his party. There was no strong man to succeed Abdallah, and they found themselves without leader or policy. They had for long been nominally allies of Mahomet, but had not scrupled under Abdallah's leadership to question his authority by opposition and sometimes in open acts of war. Abdallah's death crushed for ever any attempts at revolt in Medina, and fused the Disaffected into the common stock of Believers.

Abdallah occupies rather a peculiar position in Mahomet's entourage; he was often the Prophet's opponent, sometimes his open defier, and yet Mahomet's dealings with him were uniformly gentle and forbearing. He may have had some personal regard for him. Abdallah was a stern and upright man, whose uncompromising nature would speedily win Mahomet's respect. Possibly the Prophet felt he might be too powerful an enemy, and determined to ignore his insurrections. He paid him that respect which his generosity of mind allowed him to offer towards any he knew and liked. The Mahomet whose ruthlessness towards his opponents fell like an awe upon all Arabia, could know and do homage to an enemy who had shown himself worthy of his steel. All things seemed to be working towards Mahomet's final prevailing. Now at last after many years the city of Medina was unfeignedly his, the Jews were extirpated, the Disaffected united under his banner.

Meanwhile, the city of Taif still held out in spite of Malik's incessant warfare against it. But its defences were steadily growing weaker, and at last the inhabitants knew they could no longer continue the hopeless struggle. The chief citizens sent an embassy to Mahomet, promising to destroy their idol within three years if the Prophet would release them from their harassment. But Mahomet refused unconditionally. The uprooting of idolatry was ever the price of his mercy. The message was sent back that instant demolition of the accursed thing must be made or the siege would continue. Then the people of Taif, hoping once more for clemency, asked to be released from the obligation of daily prayer. This request Mahomet also refused, but in deference to their ancestral worship, and no doubt in some pity for their plight, he allowed their idol to be destroyed by other hands than their own. Abu Sofian and Molleima were despatched with a covering force to destroy the great image Lat, which had stood for time immemorial in the centre of Taif and was the shrine for all the prayers and devotions of that fair and ancient city.

Taif was the last stronghold of the idolaters. When that had fallen beneath the sway of the Prophet and his remote, austerely majestic God-head, indivisible and personless, the doom of the old gods was at hand. They were dethroned from their high places at the bidding of a man; but they had not bowed their heads before his proclaimed message, but before the strength of his armies, the onward sweep of his ceaseless and victorious warfare. To Mahomet, indeed, Allah had never shown himself more gracious than at the fall of idolatrous Taif. He resolved thereupon that the crowning act of homage should be fulfilled. He would make a solemn journey to the holy city, and accomplish the Greater Pilgrimage with purified rites freed from the curse of the worship of many gods.

But when he came to the setting forth, and the sacred month of Dzul Higg was upon him, he found that many idolatrous practices still remained as part of the great ceremonial. He could not contaminate himself by undertaking the pilgrimage while these remained, but he could send Abu Bekr to ensure that none should remain after this year's cleansing. He was now strong enough to insist that the rooting out of idolatry was his chief policy, and to make the breaking up of the ancestral gods incumbent upon the whole country. Abu Bekr was commissioned to set forth upon his task with 300 men, and to spare neither himself nor them until the mission was accomplished and every idolatrous practice blotted out.

And now follows one of the most characteristic acts Mahomet ever performed, wherein obligation is made to bow to expediency and the bonds of treaties snap and break before the wind of the Prophet's will. Abu Bekr had started but one day's journey upon the Meccan road when Ali was sent after him with a document bearing the Prophet's seal. This he was to read to the Faithful, and receive their pledge that they would act upon its contents. Mahomet also published abroad a like proclamation in the city itself. The document drawn up and despatched with such haste was nothing less than a Release for the Prophet and his followers from all obligations to the Infidels after a term of four months.

"A Release by God and the Apostle in respect of the Heathen with whom ye have entered into treaty. Go to and fro in the earth securely in the four months to come. And know ye cannot hinder God, and that verily God will bring disgrace upon the Unbelievers. And an announcement from God and his Apostle unto the People on the day of Pilgrimage that God is discharged from (liability to) the Heathen and his Prophet likewise…. Fulfil unto these their engagements until the expiration of their terms; for God loveth the pious. And when the forbidden months are over then fight gainst the heathen, wheresoever ye find them, … but if they repent and establish Prayer and give the Tithes, leave them in peace…. O ye that believe, verily the Unbelievers are unclean. Wherefore let them not approach the Holy Temple after this year."