II
A serious reverse suffered by the army of Islam postponed the inevitable surrender of Mecca for a year. One of Mohammed’s emissaries, sent with a message urging a certain Syrian leader to join Islam, had been murdered by another Syrian chieftain; and the Prophet, presumably ignorant that an attack on Syria was equivalent to a declaration of war against the Roman Empire itself, immediately sent a force of three thousand Moslems to avenge the crime. As the soldiers departed, he invoked this blessing on their errand: “The Lord shield you from every evil, and bring you back in peace, laden with spoil!” He then privately gave Zeid the permission to make treaties in his own name, instead of in the name of Mohammed himself, in order that the covenants might the more readily be broken.
But once again Allah proved to be either absent-minded or very inconsiderate. As the Moslem soldiers neared the Dead Sea, they were amazed to learn that an enormous army, skilled in Roman methods of battle, was waiting to crush them. Conflicting counsels were offered; many wished to instruct the Prophet of this ill news and await his subsequent advice; but Abdallah ibn Rawaha roused the wilting courage of his fellows with these ringing words: “What have we marched thus far but for this? Is it in our numbers, or in the help of the Lord, that we put our trust? Victory or the martyr’s crown, one or other, is secure. Then forward!” His maniacal frenzy was imparted to his companions, who, meeting the powerful Roman phalanx at Muta close to the Red Sea, madly threw themselves upon the foe. Mohammed’s life-long friend Zeid, who had most unwillingly relinquished Zeinab in favor of the Prophet, bravely bore the white Moslem banner until he willingly relinquished his life for Islam. Jafar, another Moslem hero, then seized the inspiring piece of cloth and, shouting out: “Paradise! O Paradise! how fair a resting-place! Cold is the water there, and sweet the shade,” was shortly able to test the truth of his pæan. Abdallah ibn Rawaha then fell in turn, bearing the flag to the ground with him; at this moment Khalid demonstrated the genuineness of his recent conversion by rallying the terrorized Moslems and immediately speeding toward Medina with the fragments of the army.
The Medinese, deeply dismayed at the rout, found some relief by hurling dust and jeering taunts at the truants; but Mohammed put a stop to their meanness in this fashion: “Nay, these are not runaways; they are men who will yet again return to battle, if the Lord will.” Struck to the heart by the loss of so many tried companions, he first went to Jafar’s house, where, clasping the dead man’s children in his arms, he sobbed bitterly; departing thence to the home of Zeid, he broke down completely when Zeid’s little daughter threw herself tearfully into his arms. “Why thus, O Prophet?” asked one person, who inconveniently recalled Mohammed’s many injunctions that Moslems should not display their sorrow at the times of death. “This is not forbidden grief,” was the response, “it is but the fond yearning in the heart of friend for friend.” Yet next morning, as he worshiped in the Mosque, he smiled and remarked: “That which ye saw in me yesterday was because of sorrow for the slaughter of my Companions, until I saw them in Paradise, seated as brethren, opposite one another, upon couches. And in some I perceived marks, as it were wounds of the sword. And I saw Jafar as an angel with two wings, covered with blood—his limbs stained therewith.”
Though smiles wreathed his face, a mordant desire for vengeance gnawed at his heart. What a tragedy that the Syrian tribes, who of late had been deeply impressed by the conquest of Kheibar, should have learnt that Islam, after all, was not invulnerable! Amr, the recent Meccan turncoat, was accordingly placed in command of a Moslem expedition to Syria, where his strong right arm succeeded in restoring the Prophet’s weakened prestige; yet the setback at Muta still rankled in the minds of the Medinese, and Mohammed was probably keen enough to realize that the situation could be remedied only by the achievement of some extraordinary, astounding, unparalleled coup. No longer would he insist that defeats were moral victories; no longer would he indite Suras that placed the burden of defeat squarely upon Allah’s broad shoulders; no longer would he seek advice from Abu Bekr or his other intimate counselors in martial concerns. Mecca, Mecca! There lay the answer to all the questions that vexed his dreams. All that was needed to justify the taking the holy city was some specious pretext. So, at any rate, certain historians argue and they may well be right; yet Mohammed was driven by such intricate and inexplorable motives that one does well to hesitate before placing his finger on this or that spot in his journey and saying, “Such and such an idea impelled him to act thus at this particular point.” It is conceivable, for example, that, by a mental process not wholly unfamiliar to moderns, he may have been influenced in his subsequent action by the belief—natural enough, surely, for an Arab!—that Mecca was Allah’s own country.
In any event, a reason for attacking Mecca was soon found. The Khozaa, a tribe in the neighborhood of the sacred city, had chosen under the provisions of the treaty between Islam and Mecca to join the Moslem cause; another adjacent clan, the Beni Bekr, that contrariwise had gone over to the Koreish, had proceeded, with the assistance of some disguised Koreishites, to attack the Khozaa who of course hurried to Mohammed for redress. Here, at last, was the long deferred opportunity. The spokesmen of Khozaa had barely finished the tale of their wrongs when the happy Prophet, who was only half clothed, bounded to his feet and made this fervent promise: “If I help you not in like wise as if the wrong were mine own, then let me never more be helped by the Lord! See ye not yonder cloud? As the rain now poureth from it, even so shall help descend upon you speedily from above.” When the Koreish heard of this affair, their perturbation was so great that they dispatched Abu Sufyan to see if it were possible to obtain a renewal and extension of the treaty; but Abu, the diplomat, turned out to be no more successful than Abu, the general. Upon arriving at Medina, he went straight to his daughter, Um Habiba, wife of the Prophet; but, as he started to seat himself on her carpet, she drew it away from him. “My daughter!” he remonstrated, “whether is it that thou thinkest the carpet is too good for me, or that I am too good for the carpet?” “Nay, but it is the carpet of the Prophet, and I choose not that thou, an impure idolator, shouldst sit upon the Prophet’s carpet,” she coldly answered. “Truly, my daughter, thou art changed for the worse since thou leftest me,” Abu sighed; then, stepping out of doors in front of the Mosque, he loudly cried: “Hearken unto me, ye people! Peace and protection I guarantee for all.” Mohammed, who was standing near by, thereupon interrupted to remark, “It is thou that sayest this, not we, O Abu Sufyan!” At this point Abu decided that it was time for him to return home.
Mohammed rapidly and secretly laid his plans. He requested many allied tribes to join with him, meanwhile withholding his ulterior intentions from them; and not until the very moment of the departure did he enlighten the Medinese—at which time he also warned them, by this prayer, to keep the secret from the Koreish: “O Lord! Let not any spy carry tidings to Koreish; blind their eyes and take their sight away until I come suddenly upon them and seize them unawares!” On January 1, 630, the largest Moslem army ever collected thus far—with the additions of the desert allies, it numbered close to ten thousand—set out for Mecca. Al-Abbas, the shifty time-server, who had assisted his nephew-Prophet in his escape from Mecca ten years earlier only to be compelled to pay a large ransom for himself after Bedr, now decided once and for all that it would be highly advisable to espouse the Moslem cause; so he slipped out of Mecca on the sly and, approaching the Prophet, was much gratified upon being welcomed with outstretched arms.
Mecca, however, was destined to be saved from violent assault, though the precise reason for this happy conclusion is not known. Concerning the event that follows, it is not clear whether Abu Sufyan acted for himself alone, or at the bidding of his Koreishite companions. One night, as ten thousand Moslem campfires illuminated the heavens from the hills that encircled Mecca, Abu Sufyan came gliding toward the tent of Mohammed, where he was commanded to remain away until morning. Returning at that time, he was thus accosted by the Prophet: “Out upon thee, Abu Sufyan! hast thou not yet discovered that there is no God but the Lord alone?” “Noble and generous Sire! Had there been any God beside, verily he had been of some avail to me,” whined Abu. “And dost thou not acknowledge that I am the Prophet of the Lord?” catechized Mohammed. “Noble Sire! As to this thing, there is yet in my heart some hesitancy,” replied the trembling but truthful fellow, who probably found it difficult to look upon his own son-in-law as the direct agent of God. At this moment Al-Abbas boldly intruded with these well-chosen words: “Woe is thee! it is no time for hesitancy, this. Believe and testify forthwith the creed of Islam, or else thy neck shall be in danger!” Then Abu diplomatically capitulated, and vehemently proclaimed that he did indeed believe there was no God but the Lord alone and that Mohammed was His Prophet; and Mohammed, who had scored what was probably the greatest individual triumph of his career, joyfully exclaimed: “Haste thee to Mecca! haste thee to the city; no one that taketh refuge in the house of Abu Sufyan shall be harmed this day. And hearken! speak unto the people, that whosoever closeth the door of his house, the inmates thereof shall be in safety.” Then, closely escorted by Al-Abbas, Abu went forth, pausing a moment, as his amazed eyes swept the innumerable warriors around him, to remark, “Truly this kingdom of thy nephew’s is a mighty kingdom.” “Nay, Abu Sufyan!” chided Al-Abbas, “he is more than a king—he is a mighty Prophet!” “Yes, thou sayest truly; now let me go,” replied Abu as he edged away. Arriving home, he promptly repeated the Prophet’s message; and never before, in all her long and distinguished history, had Mecca witnessed such a scurrying of feet and banging—or draping—of doors as followed.
When the Moslem and allied hosts came victoriously parading through the deserted streets, only one conflict occurred. The impetuous Khalid, whose force was greeted by a flight of arrows from a small band of bitter-enders, was so delighted at his unexpected good fortune that he followed up the assault until twenty-eight of the foolhardy fugitives had been slain. The Prophet, standing on an eminence, was surveying with sparkling eyes the fair scene stretched out before him when he chanced to see this sporadic fray. “What! did I not strictly command that there should be no fighting?” he shouted in his anger; but when Khalid’s just grievance was made clear, he calmed down and commented, “That which the Lord decreeth is the best.” Then, descending into the city on Al-Kaswa’s back, he once more touched the Black Stone politely with his staff and urged the patient camel seven times around the Kaba. Pointing at the idols which surrounded its walls, he ordered that they should at once be overthrown—indeed, tradition affirms that, as he aimed his staff at each image, it immediately tumbled down on its face—and shouted out one passage that he happened to remember from the Koran: “Truth hath come, and falsehood gone; for falsehood verily vanisheth away.” He next entered the holy edifice, devoutly prostrated himself, and then stood watching with delighted eyes the labors of Omar, who, by means of a cloth wetted in Zemzem, rubbed out the pictures of such idols as had been painted on the walls. Then Mohammed gave back the key of the temple to its hereditary guardian, and, turning to Al-Abbas, thus addressed him: “And thou Al-Abbas, I confirm thee in the giving drink from out of the well Zemzem to the pilgrims; it is no mean office this that I give now unto thee”; and nevermore did the already opulent double-dealer entertain the least doubt as to the justice of his nephew’s cause. Bilal, commanded by the Prophet, immediately ascended the Kaba and sounded the call to prayer; the subservient multitude knelt and worshiped, though a few among them could not refrain from expressing, in very subdued tones, their disgust at being obliged to obey a negro slave. The Prophet next issued this proclamation: “Whoever believeth in God, and in the day of Judgment, let him not leave in his house any image whatever that he doth not break in pieces.” Now, since the Arabians in general cherished the belief that a capable god should be able to defend himself, the easy demolition of the deities in the Kaba had convinced the Meccans that their gods—even Al-Ozza and Hubal—were as useless as so many dolls. And so, while the destruction of the helpless icons was enthusiastically carried out in every Meccan home—while Abu Sufyan’s wife, Hind, smashed her favorite god as energetically as she had once ripped Hamza’s vitals out, and further insulted the deity by the charge that it had vilely cheated her all her life—Mohammed, fatigued and dusty, retired to a corner of his tent and, as his daughter, Fatima, shielded him with a screen, gave himself a thorough bath.
It is more than probable that the Koreish were immensely relieved and pleased with the quiet and almost bloodless subjugation of their city. In truth, although some of them became sycophants who cringed and fawned in order to win Mohammed’s good will, the majority doubtless took pride in the fact that their prodigal son, whose magnetic name was beginning to cause apprehension even beyond the borders of Arabia, had returned to demand his fatted calf. Their slumbers need never more be broken by nightmares of his precipitate assault upon them; further, the tiresome burden of ruling, or trying to rule, for the welfare of Mecca was now transferred to his gracious and omnipotent hand. As a religious but non-political capital, moreover, Mecca would be secure from whatever might betide in the shifting destinies of time. And they were right. Mohammed had won so easily, he had reached such an unapproachable eminence, that he could afford—it matters little whether from scrupulous policy or wholly unselfish generosity—to be magnanimous. If he directed the death of four ingrate Meccans, he proclaimed a general amnesty for all the rest; if he cast out idolatry, he substituted a religious ritualism which coalesced the leading dogmas of the various Meccan sects; and if he temporarily ruined Meccan commerce by his famously unscientific monkeying with the calculation of time—inasmuch as the pilgrimage months no longer always coincided with the period when caravan trade flourished—he bountifully blessed her with a permanent revenue that, after thirteen hundred years, still continues to pour into her coffers. For, as Islam has continued to prosper, all devout Moslems have at one time or another journeyed from every quarter of the globe to visit that “Navel of the Islamic faith” which seems to them to be the earthly replica of that indescribably glorious Paradise which awaits the faithful; and myriads of curious, and even irreverent, sightseers have perennially flocked thither to enjoy the endless diversion afforded by one of the greatest religious entertainments on the globe.