Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

by T. W. Allies

But, in the meantime, the Meccans were not idle. Both interest and honour required them to avenge the defeat at Bedr. Abu Sofian, in the year 625, the third of the Hegira, appeared at the head of 3000 men, and occupied a camp to the east of Medina. Mohammed wished to confine himself to the defence of the city, but his more fanatic followers denounced this conduct as cowardice, and he was compelled to march out with about a thousand men, of whom nearly a third were commanded by Abd Allah: This man, a secret enemy of Mohammed, returned back into the city. The Moslim, however, in spite of their small number, fought with effect at Mount Ohod, north of Medina, until the bowmen, who were ranged against the enemy's horsemen, deserted their post, and the impetuous Chalid fell upon their retreat. A panic seized the believers, so that they sought safety in flight. Mohammed himself was wounded, and sank to the ground, so that a report of his death was spread, which added to the discomfiture of his host. But a faithful henchman recognised him by the eyes alone, in spite of mail-coat, helmet, and visor, and brought him to safety, while the Meccans, believing his death, cared not to [pg 180] pursue the other fugitives, and were retiring. Only after the battle was ended, Abu Sofian learnt that he was still alive. Mohammed, the day after the battle, in which he lost 70 men, pursued the enemy for some distance, only to show that he was not discouraged. The defeat at Ohod lessened Mohammed's reputation as much as the victory at Bedr had raised it. The only considerable gain which Mohammed, in the fourth year of the Hegira, could offer to his believers to make up for the losses suffered, was the expulsion of the Jews of the clan Nadir, who had lands and many strong castles near Medina. They surrendered these, and as there had been no battle, Mohammed confiscated their property, and bestowed it on his party of fugitives from Mecca. At the end of this year he appeared near Bedr with a larger force, to show that he was not afraid to defy Abu Sofian, who had threatened a fresh attack after the battle at Ohod. But the Meccans were not ready, and, moreover, would not fight on a bad year. Towards the end of the fifth year, in 627, they appeared again under Abu Sofian, about ten thousand strong, with their allies, out of various Bedouin clans before Medina. The Medinese could hardly set 3000 men against them, and were, in general, down-hearted, fearing an attack besides from the Jewish clan, Kureiza. This time Mohammed maintained his plan not to meet the enemy in the open field, but only to defend the town. By the advice of a Persian he drew a broad trench about it. Slight as this defence was, it sufficed, in the Arab ignorance of the art of siege, to keep the enemy from [pg 181] an attack in force. Bad weather ensued, and Mohammed succeeded in sowing distrust of each other among the confederates, so that they retired after doing nothing. But, though the siege of Medina had cost Mohammed little material loss, his reputation as warrior and as prophet had suffered greatly, as at Ohod. Instead of following the Arabian custom, to offer battle, he had cowered behind walls and trenches. Again he turned first against the Jews, who had entered into negotiations with the Meccans. After a few weeks, he compelled them to surrender. These were of the clan Kureiza, formerly confederates with the second large Arabian clan domiciled in Medina. They hoped, through the mediation of this clan, to get as good conditions as the clan Keinuka had obtained through Abd Allah. But the head of this clan had been wounded during the siege of the city, and when Mohammed appealed to his judgment, he condemned to death the men whose number ran from 600 to 900, and their wives and children to slavery. Mohammed had this hard sentence executed immediately in the marketplace of Medina. This expedition was followed by others against hostile Bedouin clans. Thus the bad impression left by the siege was gradually effaced. So at the end of the sixth year of the Hegira, 628, Mohammed was able to resolve, at the head of his friends, as well believers as heathen Arabs in alliance with him, on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He issued a solemn invitation to join this pilgrimage. It met with small acceptance. He had issued it in the name of God, and so [pg 182] was obliged to carry it out, though it was attended by an inconsiderable number, as to which the accounts vary between 700 and 1400 men. He had to trust to the Arab reluctance to shed blood in the sacred months, though he had himself violated one sacred month by murder and robbery. Finding the Meccans resolute to forbid him entrance into their city, he had to halt on the border of the holy territory. After long treating, agreement was made that he should retire for that year, but should be allowed in the following year to pass three days in Mecca on pilgrimage. The Meccans, for the sake of their commerce, were as anxious for peace as Mohammed, and so a truce for ten years was struck, which yet had this favourable condition for them, that, while their fugitives were to be given up, those of Mohammed might be secure in Mecca.

This repulse of the prophet and his companions from the holy city and its temple was deeply felt, yet there were advantages obtained by this seemingly dishonouring truce. Mohammed appeared at least to be recognised by the proud city as an equal power. Now he might send out his missionaries into every part of Arabia, make proselytes and conclude alliances, and the right to enter Mecca the next year with those who believed in him was something gained which perceptibly advanced his claim among the Arabians. To increase his strength, enrich his followers, and so enlarge their numbers and efface by a new victory the bad impression which the failure of the pilgrimage had caused, he attacked the Jews of Cheiber, who had lands and several castles four [pg 183] or five days' journey north-east of Medina. These were successively stormed and sacked, and all that the rest could do was to surrender to the conqueror on condition that they should serve him for the future as tenants who should give him half the produce of the land. So by the conquest of other Jews he was able to increase the number of his troops.

In the year 628-629 which passed between the failure of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the subsequent pilgrimage carried out according to the treaty, several attacks on the Bedouins took place. The number of his believers and allies increased, and the thought was more and more developed in Mohammed that Islam must by degrees be accepted as the only true religion not only by all Arabians but by all the nations of the earth. Even before he had obtained possession of Mecca he sent messengers to the neighbouring princes of Persia, Byzantium, and Abyssinia, as well as to the Christian governor of Egypt, and to several Arabian chiefs subject to Byzantine or Persian sovereignty, inviting them to be converted to his faith. These embassies had no result, and were rejected with more or less harshness. Only the Greek governor of Egypt gave them a friendly reception, and without being converted to Islam sent the prophet costly presents, among them two slave women, of whom one, Mariam, so greatly charmed Mohammed that for her company he neglected his wives.

For the man who had been faithful to his old wife Chadidja until her death, when he was past fifty years [pg 184] of age, had from the time that he came forward, not merely as the restorer of a primitive religion which had suffered corruptions, but as the herald of a new religion, say from the date of the Hegira itself, espoused about a dozen wives,[89] some for love and some for policy, to make alliance with families of repute. Among these was Aischa, daughter of Abu Bekr, whom he took when scarcely out of her childhood, a daughter of Omar, and a sister of Abd Allah, who had been disgraced by the violation of a sacred month. The Koran limits the number of lawful wives to four, but Mohammed himself was to be an exception. At the time polygamy in Arabia had no restriction, and as public opinion was not shocked, his wives had to submit. But when Mariam, the Abyssinian slave, assumed the position of a dangerous rival, they complained to their families, and showed their contempt to the faithless husband. He promised to quit the favoured slave, but he dwelt with her for a month apart from his wives and then produced verses of the Koran, dispensing him from his promise respecting Mariam, and threatening his wives that if they continued in their disobedience he would take instead of them more submissive wives and virgins.

But a more important incident in the domestic life of Mohammed was to occur, which showed how entirely he was led away by sensual passion.[90] He had fallen in love with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, formerly his slave, then his adopted son, and one of the most attached among [pg 185] his followers. Zeid perceived this and was willing to cede her to the man who was not only his prophet but his benefactor. The prophet took her, and added her to the number of his wives. But the Arabians, though they practised unlimited polygamy, did not allow to marry the wife of an adopted son, whom they considered in the light of a real son. Mohammed felt the scandal, and produced a passage from the Koran. In it he declared in the name of God the custom hitherto entertained of treating adopted children as really children to be foolish, and for the future even sinful. Then he spread the belief that Zeid's divorce from his wife had taken place against his own advice; he makes God remind him in a following verse how notwithstanding his own love for her he had counselled Zeid to keep her; and how even after the divorce, he had shrunk, through fear of men, from espousing her until God had expressly commanded it,[91] and this for two reasons, first, to shew that he who acts after the will of God should not heed the tattle of men; and secondly to give by his own example the more force to the newly-enacted law in regard of adopted sons; a law, he added, which earlier prophets, whom he takes care not to name, had promulgated.

But this marriage[92] also led to further revelations in the Koran, which entirely severed the wives of Mohammed from the male world: and also separated the other believing women by a thick veil from the eyes of [pg 186] strangers. Mohammed's jealousy stretched even beyond the grave, and he forbade second marriage to his wives even after his death. The object was to restrict them from all life in public to their own homes, and even there, to intercourse with their own sex, or only their nearest male relations. In spite of their polygamy, the wife had hitherto among the Arabians been the companion of their life: Mohammed reduced her to be a house-slave. She became in Islam a holy thing, indeed: but a holy thing kept under veil and bolt, and guarded not by her own virtue, but by eunuchs, from desecration.[93]

Mohammed's invitation to the governor of Egypt, followed by the gift of the slave woman to Mohammed, led to disastrous consequences in Islam to woman's position. The prophet called in God to sanction man's lordship over woman: the first time in history that such a corruption claimed a divine sanction.

In the eighth year of the Hegira, January, 630, Mohammed obtained possession of Mecca. To avenge a rupture of the existing truce, he broke with 10,000 men into the neighbourhood of the city, which admitted him both as its temporal lord and as the prophet of God, without a fight. He received the homage of its inhabitants on one of the city's hills, and their oath to follow him in all wars against unbelievers. At the same time, he declared Mecca to be again a holy city, in which God had allowed [pg 187] him alone to shed blood, which, for the future, was never to be.[94]

After gaining this possession of Mecca, Mohammed issued in the ninth Sura of the Koran what amounted to a new law of nations, and a new practice of war. From that time forward none but Mohammedans were to enter the holy city of Mecca and its circle: but likewise, outside of this, idolaters were to be exterminated, Jews and Christians were only to be suffered, when they paid tribute, and humbled themselves.[95] “O true believers, verily the idolaters are unclean: let them not therefore, come near unto the holy temple after this year. And if ye fear want by the cutting off trade and communication with them, God will enrich you with His abundance, if He pleaseth, for God is knowing and wise. Fight against them who believe not in God, nor in the Last Day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and profess not the true religion of those to whom the Scriptures have been delivered, until they pay tribute by right of subjection, and they be reduced low. The Jews say Ezra is the son of God, and the Christians say Christ is the Son of God. This is their saying in their mouths: they imitate the saying of those who were unbelievers in former times. May God resist them. How are they infatuated! Besides God, they take their priests and their monks for their lords, and Christ, the Son of Mary; only they are commanded to worship one God [pg 188] only. There is no God but He. Far be that from Him which they associate with Him. They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths: but God willeth no other than to perfect His light, although the infidels be averse thereto. It is He who hath sent His Apostle with the direction and true religion, that He may cause it to appear superior to every other religion, although the idolaters be averse thereto.”

This Sura was the last in time of those issued. “It[96] bears the stamp of much reflection and careful execution.” In March, 631, Mohammed had sent the greater pilgrimage to Mecca, under guidance of Abu Bekr. This Sura was published on the chief day of the pilgrimage, and “its promulgation committed to Ali,[97] who rode for that purpose on the prophet's slit-eared camel from Medina to Mecca, and, standing up before the whole assembly at Al Akaba, told them that he was the messenger of the Apostle of God unto them”. Thus it establishes the definitive position of Mohammed in regard to all other religions, and the exclusiveness of his own claim.