Carlyle, in his Heroes and Hero Worship, says of the wild Bedouin:—"He welcomes the stranger to his tent as one having right to all that is there; were it his worst enemy he will slay his foal to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three days, will set him fairly on his way; and then, by another law as sacred, kill him if he can."
Theme for discussion:
Win did Judaism not succeed as a proselytizing religion?
CHAPTER XLI.
MOHAMMED.
Mohammed, to name him by the title that he afterwards acquired, was born in Mecca, five years after the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and belonged to a branch of the powerful Koreish tribe. He began life as a shepherd. At twenty-five he married Kedija, who had employed him as camel-driver. Traveling extensively for her, he found his fellow-countrymen in a condition of religious neglect. The old star-worship and fetichism were losing their force, just as in more classic lands the divinities of Olympus had lost their meaning, some half dozen centuries earlier. Mohammed, given much to solitary contemplation, yearned for something better. He became filled with fine aspirations to uplift his fellowmen. For a period he led an ascetic life, spending much time in prayer. In the solitudes of the wilderness he experienced at times a strange exaltation. Others, like himself, groping for religious truth, were brought in contact with Jewish and Christian colonies in Syria and Babylonia. But the idea of one sole God, Allah (Arabic), he learned from Jewish teachers. A highly nervous nature, he "dreamed dreams and saw visions," and gave vent to his emotions in violent outbursts.
It was in about his fortieth year that he felt the divine call to preach God to his benighted Arabian brethren after the manner of the Hebrew Prophets, whose words had moved him deeply. He began to feel that perhaps he was the ordained Messiah whom the Jews awaited. He had learnt the Hebrew Scriptures in the more highly colored Midrashic form. From what he thus learned and from what he gathered from some hermits and from a group of ascetic Arabians, together with his own religious experience, he gradually evolved a religion for his people that came to bear his name.
He did not reach these convictions without much anguish of soul his spirit torn by doubt—the true experience of every deep religious nature. First Kedijah, then his family, then a small circle of adherents gathered about him, convinced of his divine mission. His vigorous personality attracted many more. At first his purpose was not to teach a new religion, but to reinforce the great truths recognized by the noblest natures in all times, his own enthusiasm contributing the only new element. The humbler classes were first attracted, the higher holding aloof. Is that not always so? Guided by his first teachers, the Jews, he saw the worthlessness of idolatry and preached a strict monotheism. He also adopted many Jewish rules, among them some of the dietary laws.