At length, after eight days of doubt and deprivation, they came in sight of Medina; but the wary Mohammed had no intention of trusting himself to the city before he knew exactly how things lay. “Lead us,” he said to the guide, “straight to the Beni Amr at Koba, and draw not yet nigh unto Medina.” This overscrupulous vigilance turned out to be unnecessary, for rumors of his approach had set the city agog with delight; and every morning a band of converts and refugees had posted themselves on a hill to watch his arrival. On this morning one of them, catching sight of the travelers as they trudged toward Koba, raised the rapturous shout: “Ho! he has come! he whom we have been looking for has come!” The marvelous news flew from tongue to tongue, and everybody rushed forth to Koba to greet the majestic guest. Even the children cried out: “Here is the Prophet! He is come! He is come!” while a great crowd surged around him and made profound obeisance. Then Mohammed knew at last that he was safe among friends. He had escaped from Mecca, where the Koreishite swords might have altered the course of events for all time; but the otherwise dull and sluggish Middle Ages were fated to be infinitely enriched by the romantic contest between the Crescent and the Cross. “Ye people!” he courteously proclaimed, “show your joy by giving your neighbors the salutation of peace; send portions to the poor; bind close the ties of kinsmanship; and offer up your prayers whilst others sleep. Thus ye shall enter Paradise in peace.”
III
To make the assurance of a safe entrance to Medina doubly sure, however, Mohammed lingered four days at Koba. Even then he took no dangerous chances, for he requested the Medinese descendants of his revered great-grandmother, the spouse of Hashim, to attend him into the city; and in the meantime he had slept only when some of his most trusted underlings kept watch. These super-precautions proved to be needless, for tribe after tribe came flocking forth to see which could outdo the other in paying reverence to him. On every hand rose the earnest request: “Alight here, O Prophet! We have abundance with us, means of defense and weapons and room. Abide with us!”—and many suppliants emphasized their requests by seizing the halter of Al-Kaswa. On this occasion Mohammed’s superb political ability was again evidenced. He would show no favoritism, but, by means of a camel and an omen—both inexpressibly dear to every Arab’s heart—he would choose his abode by supernatural means. To all these fervent ejaculations he replied: “The decision rests with the camel; make way for her; let her go free.” So Al-Kaswa, unguided by rein, moved forward until she entered the eastern section of the city, where, seeing a few date-trees in an open courtyard, she quite naturally ambled toward their grateful shade and awkwardly sat down. And in this way was the site for the Mosque chosen—the famous Mosque where, for the remainder of his days, the Prophet dwelt, married, prayed, preached, emitted new revelations, planned his schemes of conquest, greeted his friends, and uttered maledictions against his foes; where, also, he sickened, died and was buried. Yet certain abominable sceptics have intimated that Mohammed knew beforehand that this particular spot was already hallowed as a place of prayer, and that the rein of Al-Kaswa’s halter was not so very slack after all.
The Prophet at once negotiated to buy the sacred site. Its owners wished to make him a present of it, but he would not stoop to accept it as a gift; accordingly, it was purchased with ten gold pieces from Abu Bekr’s wallet. For seven months Mohammed lived in the lower story of an adjacent house, owned by Abu Eiyub, while the construction of the Mosque, with its adjoining apartments for himself, went on. His bodily wants were provided for by the citizens, who contended with each other for the honor of sending him the choicest viands they could procure. As might be expected, Abu Eiyub was exceedingly solicitous for the comfort and safety of his distinguished roomer. Once, when a water-pot was accidentally broken in the upper story, Abu and his wife quickly sopped up the water with their clothes, and then rushed down to Mohammed’s apartment in great fear lest a drop or two might have defiled his garments. Meanwhile the building of the Mosque was pushed at full speed. The Prophet himself joined heartily in the work, thus stimulating all his helpers to increase their efforts, and united with them in their labor-lightening song:
“O Lord! there is no joy but the joy of futurity.
O Lord! have mercy upon the Citizens and the Refugees!”
All this led to a spirit of fellowship between these two classes, and, in order that the union might be made more firm, Mohammed, after first setting the example, paired off individuals in each. “Become brethren every two and two of you,” he gently commanded, and it was done.
One danger, unforeseen even by the perspicacious Prophet, soon threatened the refugees. The climate of Mecca, while excessively hot, was dry and salubrious; but, though Medina’s altitude was unusually great, her drainage paradoxically enough was very poor, and the noxious exhalations from her stagnant water, abetted by intense heat at day and intense cold at night, soon prostrated large numbers of the refugees with fever. This misfortune so dampened the enthusiasm of many that, in their frenzied delirium, they would moan out their desire to go home. When Mohammed heard of this, he looked upward and raised this prayer: “O Lord! make Medina dear unto us, even as Mecca, or even dearer. Bless its produce, and banish far from it the pestilence!” But, for some inscrutable reason, Allah, the Hearer and the Answerer of Prayer, remained deaf for a time; and at one period Mohammed was one of the very few persons who were able to stand during prayers. When, however, he informed the recumbent invalids that “the prayer of one who sits is worth only half the prayer of him that stands,” they all made desperate efforts to rise.
Nevertheless, the first few months at Medina were on the whole happy and auspicious. The elements of disaffection that lurked among the Jews and the unbelievers bided their day; the refugees and the citizen converts, or allies, gladly rushed to fulfill the smallest desire of the Prophet, whose fascinating personality completely charmed his friends and even intrigued his enemies—for a time. Who could resist the appeal of a man who gracefully bestowed names of good omen upon converts previously burdened with inauspicious Pagan titles, and who dignified those of his subordinates who were enslaved in the ignoble calling of “hucksters” by altering the forbidding word to “Merchants”? In an excess of praiseworthy devotion, they quaffed the sacred water in which the Prophet had bathed, and piously treasured his hairs and nail-parings as charms and forget-me-nots. And Mohammed, ever extraordinarily swift to take hints, soon formed the habit of wrapping up these personal relics and bestowing them upon new converts as a peculiar evidence of his esteem.
While his worshipers thus fawned and his foes maintained an ominously quiet peace, the Prophet calmly assumed the attributes of a sovereign and sacerdotal office. As self-appointed ruler of the city, he exercised the right of deposing and selecting whatever chiefs he desired; as priestly dictator of all Islam, he established those multitudinous rules and ordinances that still defy the assaults of time. Motivated probably by a statesmanlike, if rather cautious, wish to win or at least placate the Jews, he inaugurated a complicated system of devotion based principally upon the famous precepts that had been given to Moses. The detractors of Islam have so exaggerated its largely fictitious sensuality that its rigorous rites have too often been forgotten: its lustrations, its fastings, its prodigality of genuflections. The business of lustration, for example, was very complicated. Before prayer the Moslem must wash his face from the top of the forehead to the chin and sideways as far as both ears, bathe his arms and hands as far as the elbows, and cleanse his feet as far as the ankles; and all this must be done in the strictest silence, broken only by such prayers as the votary might think appropriate. While scrubbing his teeth, he might say if he chose: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, as I clean my teeth, to purify me from my faults, and accept my homage, O Lord! May the purity of my teeth be for me a pledge of the whiteness of my face at the Day of Judgment.” If, through a momentary lapse into sin, the hapless believer had defiled his body, he thus washed away his iniquity: three successive times he poured water upon his right and left shoulders, and a like number of times on the top of his head; and should one hair on the entire body be left untouched, the act of purification was wholly vain.