Mahomet, Founder of Islam

by Gladys M. Draycott

With the host travelled also a hundred camels, destined as a sacrifice upon the triumphant day when the ceremonies should be accomplished. By easy stages the Pilgrims journeyed through the desert. There was no hurry, for there was no fear of attack. The whole company was unarmed, save for the defensive sword allowed to each man. Over the desert they moved like locusts, overwhelming the country, and the tune of their march spread far around. In ten days the pilgrim army, in the gladness of self-confidence and power, arrived at Sarif, a short day's march from their goal. There Mahomet rested before he embarked upon the final journey.

Mecca lay before him, awaiting his coming, her animosities silenced, her populace acquiescent, her temples freed from the curse of idolatry. His mind was uplifted into a fervour of praise. He seemed in truth about to enter upon his triumph, to celebrate in very flesh the ceremonies he had reverenced, to celebrate them in his own peculiar manner, freed of what was to him their bane and degradation. Something of the foreknowledge of the approaching cessation of activity flashed across him as he mounted Al-Caswa and prepared to make the entry of the city.

He came upon the upper suburbs by the same route as he had entered Mecca two years before, and proceeded to the Kaaba. There he performed the circuits of the sacred place and the preliminary rites of the Greater Pilgrimage. Then he returned to the valley outside the city where his tent was pitched, and tarried there the night. And now Ali, the mighty in arms, reached the city from an admonitory expedition and demanded the privilege of performing the Pilgrimage. Mahomet replied that like most other Believers he might perform the rites of the Lesser Pilgrimage, but that the Greater was barred to him because he had no victims. But Ali refused to forego his privilege, and at last Mahomet, urged by his love for him and his fear of creating any disturbance at such a time, felt it wiser to yield. He gave Ali the half of his own victims, and their friendship and Ali's devotion to his master were idealised and made sweeter for the gift.

Now the rites of the Greater Pilgrimage properly began. Mahomet preached to the people from the Kaaba on the morning of the next day, and when his words had roused the intense religious spirit of those listening masses he set out for Mina, accompanied by Bilal, followed by every Believer, and prepared to spend the night in the sacred valley. When morning dawned he made his way to Arafat, where he climbed the hill in the midst of the low-lying desolate ground. Standing at the summit of the hill, surrounded by the hosts of his followers, revealed to their eyes in all the splendour and dignity of his familiarity and personally wrested authority, he recited some of the verses of the Kuran dealing with the fit and proper celebration of the Pilgrimage. He expounded then the manner in which that rite was to be performed for all time. So long as there remains one Muslim upon earth his Pilgrimage will be carried out along the traditions laid down for him at this beneficent moment.

Now, having ordered all matters, Mahomet raised his hands to Heaven and called Allah to witness that he had completed his task:

"This day have I perfected your religion for you."

The supreme moment came and fled, and the Prophet descended once more into the plain and journeyed again to the valley of Mecca, where, according to immemorial tradition, he cast stones, or rather small pebbles, at the rock of the Devil's Corner, symbolic of the defeat of the powers of darkness by puny and assailed mankind. Thereafter he slew his victims in thankful and devout spirit, and the Greater Pilgrimage was completed. In token he shaved his head, pared his nails, and removed the pilgrim's robe; then, coming before the people, he exhorted them further, enjoining upon them the strict observance of daily prayers, the fast of Ramadan, the rites of Pilgrimage, and all the essential ceremonial of the Muslim faith. He abolished also with one short verse of the Kuran the intercalary year, which had been in use among the Faithful during the whole of his Medinan rule. The Believers were now subject to the fluctuation of their months, so that their years follow a perpetually changing cycle, bearing no relation to the solar seasons.

When the exhortation was ended Mahomet departed to Mecca, and there he encircled the Kaaba and entered its portals for prayer. But of this last act he repented later, inasmuch as it would not be possible hereafter for every Muslim to do so, and he had desired to perform in all particulars the exact ceremonies incumbent upon the Faithful for all the future years. He now made an ending of all his observances, and with every rite fulfilled, at the head of his vast concourse, summoned by his tireless will and held together by his overmastering zeal, the Prophet returned to his governmental city, ready to take up anew the reins of his temporal ruling, with the sense of fine things fittingly achieved, a great purpose accomplished, which rendered him as much at peace as his fiery temperament and the flame of his activity could compass.

Fulfilment had come with the performance of the Greater Pilgrimage, but still his state demanded his personal government. Death alone could still his ardent pulses and bring about his relinquishment of command over the kingdom that was his—death that was even now winging his silent way nearer, and whose shadow had almost touched the fount of the Prophet's earthly life.

In such manner the Greater Pilgrimage was fulfilled, and the burden of its accomplishing is the Muslim reverence for ceremony. The ritual in all its forgotten superstition and immemorial tradition appealed most potently to the emotions of every Believer, all the more so because it had not been imposed upon him as a new and untried ceremony by a religious reformer, but came to him with all its hallowed sanctity fresh upon it, to be bound up inseparably with his religious life by its purification under the Prophet's guidance.