Nor does the case for the prosecution end here. The manner in which his early disciples were won and organized suggests that like principles were employed. In the beginning, Islam was a profoundly secret society, whose leader frowned upon publicity but encouraged furtive proselytizing on a great scale—a policy of action that turned out to be perfectly suited to the situation. For this privacy doubtless saved the cause from early obliteration, while at the same time it offered the romantic attraction of a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence to those who accepted Islam—a circumstance decidedly favorable to the growth of any surreptitious conclave; and, in addition, it gave Mohammed time to pick and choose his lieutenants with care, as well as to school himself in the lessons needed for ruling heterogeneous masses of men. While all this was going on, he himself remained aloof in august, inaccessible grandeur, for none could see him who was not already rabid with desire to prostrate himself at the Prophet’s feet. Thus, in those clandestine gatherings held in the house of the convert Al-Arkam—a house afterward appropriately immortalized by the title “The House of Islam”—and in the febrile activity of Mohammed’s plastic pupils, headed by the efficient Abu Bekr, is to be found the germ whence all Islam sprang.
This reasoning sounds very plausible until one reflects: after all, could it have been as simple as this? And then an inscrutable image looms in the mind—the grotesque, grand, preposterous and prodigious figure of Mohammed.
II
The secret séances in the House of Al-Arkam continued; a variety of converts began to pour in; and by the fourth year of his mission Mohammed dared to come boldly out into the open and proclaim that he was the anointed representative of Allah. His proselytes at first were mostly humble folk: slaves, women unable to achieve matrimony, unsuccessful business men, and others who, discontented with their lot, were either looking for excitement or willing to take any chance however desperate. Yet it is a curious fact that every devotee, except Abu Bekr, showed some aversion before whole-heartedly accepting the new faith: “I never invited any one to the faith who displayed not hesitation and perplexity, excepting only Abu Bekr,” the Prophet himself admitted. The explanation may lie in the fact that each proselyte was expected to remain true through thick and thin; indeed, his life was forfeit if he apostatized—a stipulation that, even today, makes the conversion of a Moslem a very difficult task. Another possible explanation is this: the converts soon discovered that Islam was not merely a gospel of salvation through faith—an outstanding tenet of all great religions, because it makes a peculiar appeal to the intellectually slothful—but a gospel that demanded a vast amount of hard work. Mohammed, in fact, had much more in common with James than with Paul. For if he was a fanatic in emotional matters, his grosser intellectual endowments were characterized by an admirable coolness and a logical precision that often confounded his friends and his enemies alike—though it is recorded that an early convert, who was commissioned to take down one of the Prophet’s divine ravings, decided to renounce Islam when he observed that he was permitted to pen whatever he chose.
Each newcomer recognized his brothers by the greeting “Peace unto you,” a password of which Mohammed was especially fond; and if it was dangerous for a time to speak the words openly, recognition was made sure by the adoption of a peculiar style of turban. The new sect was called Moslems, or “traitors”—an appellation that provoked much merriment among Mohammed’s less serious-minded opponents. He showed a typical lack of humor in accepting the sobriquet, they remarked, but he was to be praised for making it an honorable term; for, while it usually meant one who surrendered his friends to their foes, it now signified one who yielded himself to God. The Koran, however, settled the matter by affirming that the title had been invented by no less an authority than Abraham himself.
While converts of every type were welcomed, preference was naturally shown for those who had either physical or social strength. For a time most of them came from the descendants or adherents of the house of Hashim, and so Mohammed, doubtless with the idea of strengthening the faith by breaking the strong family and tribal ties, set up brotherhoods between those who came from different sects. The largeness of his nature is shown by his readiness to make amends for any wrong he had committed. A blind man once interrupted him, while he was earnestly conversing with a prospective convert, with the request that the Koran should be read aloud; and the Prophet, incensed at the ill-timed interruption, snapped out a harsh refusal. But his heart soon smote him, and he made atonement for his error by pointing out in the Koran how unforgivable it was for him to welcome the rich and powerful while neglecting the poor and despised. The most valuable of the slave converts was the negro Bilal, “small in body, but weighty in faith,” whom Mohammed himself extolled as “the first fruits of Abyssinia.” Almost all of the first score of converts remained staunch, though one of them, Obeidallah, eventually weakened under the strokes of persecution, became a Christian, and died in that faith; but Mohammed avenged himself by marrying his widow.
By far the most important of the Meccan neophytes, except Khadija and Abu Bekr, were the Prophet’s uncle Hamza—a mighty man in hunting, wine and war, whose valorous conduct won him the title “The Lion of God”—and Omar, a veritable Hercules. He had been a clever trader who once outwitted the assessor of customs by making his own camel swallow the gold it carried—and he then recovered the money by killing the camel. His most cherished avocations had been wine, wife-beating, coarse interference in delicate feminine matters, and bitter hatred of Islam. Informed one day—so the most plausible tradition of his conversion runs—that his own sister and brother-in-law had yielded to its seductions, he hastened to their house and greeted them with the brotherly salutation, “I hear that ye are renegades!” When they tried to argue with him, he violently kicked the man and wounded his sister in the face. These activities so completely restored his good humor that he asked to see the roll they had been reading. Having perused a part of one Sura, he exclaimed, “How excellent is this discourse, and gracious!” adding that he would like to meet Mohammed. So he went immediately to Al-Arkam’s house, where the inmates, including even the redoubtable Hamza, drew back in alarm; but the Prophet boldly seized his skirt and sword-belt and asked, “How long, O Omar, wilt thou not refrain from persecuting, even until the Lord send some calamity upon thee?” The penitent Omar replied, “Verily, I testify that thou art the Prophet of God!” whereupon Mohammed raised the joyous shout: “Allahu Akbar! Great is the Lord!” So widespread was the Koreishite fear of Omar that from this moment the Moslems prayed openly in the city; and the happy Prophet continued to exult over his prize acquisition in this fashion: “If Satan were to meet Omar, he would get out of Omar’s way,” while one of his pet sayings was, “I, Abu Bekr, and Omar.”
It seems probable that Mohammed at first offered his disciples no promise of earthly rewards, but seduced them by painting gorgeously graphic pictures of their eventual felicity in Paradise, as well as the utter discomfiture of their foes in Hell. The Koran of this period abounds with eloquent descriptions of both places. Paradise is represented as a haven bulging with sensuous delights of the most naïve and ephemeral sort. In fact, so much emphasis was put upon food and drink that a jolly Jew objected on the ground that such continual feasting must of necessity be followed by purgation; the Prophet, however, swore that it would not even be necessary to blow the nose in Paradise, since all bodily impurities would be carried off by a perspiration “as odiferous as musk.” Furthermore, he soon added particular attractions that were far more captivating than mere gluttony, even though they still lacked the subtlety of philosophic appeal.
“Verily for the Pious is a blissful abode;
Gardens and Vineyards,