“This is the second phase in the progress of the Prophet’s mind. His belief in the scriptures does not imply that he ever belonged to the Christian or Jewish Church. He never could reconcile his notions of God with the doctrine of the Trinity, and with the Divinity of Christ, and he was disgusted with the monkish institutions and sectarian disputes of the Christians. His creed was: ‘He is God alone, the Eternal God; He has not begotten, and is not begotten; and none is His equal.’ (See [Sūrah cxii].) Nothing, however, can be more erroneous than to suppose that Mohammad was, at any period of his early career, a deist. Faith, when once extinct, cannot be revived; and it was his enthusiastic faith in inspiration that made him a prophet. Disappointed with the Jewish and Christian religions, he began to form a system of faith of his own; and this is the third phase of the transition period. For some time, it seems, he had no intention to preach it publicly, but circumstances, as well as the warm conviction of the truth of his creed, at length prevailed upon him to spread it beyond the circle of his family and friends.
“The mental excitement of the Prophet was much increased during the fatrah, and like the ardent scholar in one of Schiller’s poems, who dared to lift the veil of truth, he was nearly annihilated by the light which broke in upon him. He usually wandered about in the hills near Makkah, and was so long absent, that on one occasion, his wife being afraid that he was lost, sent men in search of him. He suffered from hallucinations of his senses, and, to finish his sufferings, he several times contemplated suicide by throwing himself down from a precipice. His friends were alarmed at his state of mind. Some considered it as the eccentricities of a poetical genius; others thought that he was a kahin, or soothsayer; but the majority took a less charitable view (see [Sūrahs lxix. 40], [xx. 5]), and declared that he was insane; and, as madness and melancholy are ascribed to supernatural influence in the East, they said that he was in the power of Satan and his agents, the jinn. They called in exorcists; and he himself doubted the soundness of his mind. ‘I hear a sound,’ he said to his wife, ‘and see a light. I am afraid there are jinn in me.’ And on other occasions he said, ‘I am afraid I am a kahin.’ ‘God will never allow that such should befall thee,’ said Khadyjah; ‘for thou keepest thy engagements, and assistest thy relations.’ According to some accounts, she added, ‘Thou wilt be the prophet of thy nation.’ And, in order to remove every doubt, she took him to her cousin Waraqah; and he said to her, ‘I see thou (i.e. thy explanation) art correct; the cause of the excitement of thy husband is the coming to him of the great nomos, law, which is like the nomos of Moses. If I should be alive when he receives his mission, I would assist him; for I believe in him.’ After this Khadyjah went to the monk, ʾAddas, and he confirmed what Waraqah had said. Waraqah died soon after, before Mohammad entered on his mission.
“The words of Mohammad, ‘I am afraid I am a kahin,’ require some explanation. The Arabs, previous to the promulgation of Islam, believed in kahins, soothsayers; and even in our days they have greater faith in saints and inspired persons than other equally uncivilized nations. Such a belief is so necessary a limitation of the personal freedom of the Bedouins, which knows no other bounds, that I consider it as the offspring of liberty. Even the most refractory spirit sees no humiliation in confessing his wrong-doings to a helpless seer, and in submitting to his decisions; and by doing so, if he has embroiled himself, he can return to peace with himself and with society. We find, therefore, in the ancient history of Arabia, that litigations were frequently referred to celebrated kahins. These, it would appear, were eccentric persons, of great cunning, and not without genius. The specimens which we have of their oracles are obscure, and usually in rhymed prose and incoherent sentences; and they are frequently preceded by a heavy oath to the truth of what they say, like some of the Surahs of the Quran. It was believed that they knew what was concealed from the eyes of the common mortals; but they were looked upon with awe; for the Arabs conceived that they were possessed by, or allied with, Satan and the jinn. The evil spirits used to approach the gates of heaven by stealth, to pry into the secrets which were being transacted between God and the angels, and to convey them to the kahins. Existing prejudices left no alternative to Mohammad but to proclaim himself a prophet who was inspired by God and His angels, or to be considered a kahin possessed by Satan and his agents the jinn.
“Khadyjah and her friends advised him to adopt the former course; and, after some hesitation, he followed their advice, as it would appear, with his own conviction. His purer notions of the Deity, his moral conduct, his predilection for religious speculations, and his piety, were proofs sufficiently strong to convince an affectionate wife that the supernatural influence, under which he was, came from heaven. But, as the pagan Arabs had very imperfect notions of divine inspiration, it was necessary for him to prove to them, by the history of the prophets, that some seers were inspired by God; and to this end, he devoted more than two-thirds of the Quran to Biblical legends, most of which he has so well adapted to his own case, that if we substitute the name of Mohammad for Moses and Abraham, we have his own views, fate, and tendency. And, in order to remove every doubt as to the cause of his excitement, Mohammad subsequently maintained, that since he had assumed his office, heaven was surrounded by a strong guard of angels; and if the jinn venture to ascend to its precincts, a flaming dart, that is to say, a shooting star, is thrown at them, and they are precipitated to the lower regions; and, therefore, the kahins ceased with the commencement of his mission.
“The declaration of Waraqah, and of the monk ʾAddas, that the great nomos would descend upon him, and the faith of his wife, neither conveyed full conviction nor gave they sufficient courage to Mohammad to declare himself publicly the messenger of God; on the contrary, they increased the morbid state of his mind. A fatalist, as he was, it was a hallucination and a fit which decided him to follow their advice. One day, whilst he was wandering about in the hills near Makkah, with the intention to destroy himself, he heard a voice; and, on raising his head, he beheld Gabriel, between heaven and earth; and the angel assured him that he was the prophet of God. This hallucination is one of the few clearly stated miracles to which he appeals in the Quran. Not even an allusion is made, in that book, to his fits, during which his followers believe that he received the revelations. This bears out the account of Wáqidy, which I have followed, and proves that it was rather the exalted state of his mind, than his fits, which caused his friends to believe in his mission. Frightened by this apparition, he returned home; and, feeling unwell, he called for covering. He had a fit, and they poured cold water upon him; and when he was recovering from it, he received the revelation, ‘O thou covered, arise and preach, and magnify thy Lord, and cleanse thy garment, and fly every abomination’; and henceforth, we are told, he received revelations without intermission; that is to say, the fatrah was at an end, and he assumed his office.
“This crisis of Mohammad’s struggles bears a strange resemblance to the opening scene of Goethe’s Faust. He paints, in that admirable drama, the struggles of mind which attend the transition, in men of genius, from the ideal to the real—from youth to manhood. Both in Mohammad and in Faust the anguish of the mind, distracted by doubts, is dispelled by the song of angels, which rises from their own bosoms, and is the voice of the consciousness of their sincerity and warmth in seeking for truth; and in both, after this crisis, the enthusiasm ebbs gradually down to calm design, and they now blasphemously sacrifice their faith in God to self-aggrandisement. In this respect the resemblance of the second part of Faust to Mohammad’s career at Madinah is complete. As the period of transition in the life of the Prophet has hitherto been completely unknown in Europe, Goethe’s general picture of this period, in the life of enthusiasts, is like a prediction in reference to the individual case of Mohammad.
“Some authors consider the fits of the Prophet as the principal evidence of his mission, and it is therefore necessary to say a few words on them. They were preceded by a great depression of spirits; he was despondent, and his face was clouded; and they were ushered in by coldness of the extremities and shivering. He shook, as if he were suffering of ague, and called out for covering. His mind was in a most painfully excited state. He heard a tinkling in his ears, as if bells were ringing; or a humming, as if bees were swarming round his head; and his lips quivered; but this motion was under the control of volition. If the attack proceeded beyond this stage, his eyes became fixed and staring, and the motions of his head became convulsive and automatic. At length, perspiration broke out, which covered his face in large drops; and with this ended the attack. Sometimes, however, if he had a violent fit, he fell comatose to the ground, like a person who is intoxicated; and (at least at a latter period of his life) his face was flushed, and his respiration stertorous, and he remained in that state for some time. The bystanders sprinkled water in his face; but he himself fancied that he would derive a great benefit from being cupped on the head. This is all the information which I have been able to collect concerning the fits of Mohammad. It will be observed that we have no distinct account of a paroxysm between the one which he had in his infancy, and the one after which he assumed his office. It is likely that up to his forty-fourth year they were not habitual. The alarm of the nurse, under whose care he had been two years before he had the former of these two fits, shews that it was the first, and the age and circumstances under which he had it, render it likely that it was solitary, and caused by the heat of the sun and gastric irritation. The fit after which he assumed his office was undoubtedly brought on by long-continued and increasing mental excitement, and by his ascetic exercises. We know that he used frequently to fast, and that he sometimes devoted the greater part of the night to prayer. The bias of the Musalmans is to gloss over the aberration of mind, and the intention to commit suicide, of their prophet. Most of his biographers pass over the transition period in silence. We may, therefore, be justified in stretching the scanty information which we can glean from them to the utmost extent, and in supposing that he was for some time a complete maniac; and that the fit after which he assumed his office was a paroxysm of cataleptic insanity. This disease is sometimes accompanied by such interesting psychical phenomena, that even in modern times it has given rise to many superstitious opinions. After this paroxysm the fits became habitual, though the moral excitement cooled down, and they assumed more and more an epileptic character.” (The Life of Mohammad from Original Sources, by A. Sprenger, M.D., part i., Allahabad, 1851, p. 949.)
(3) Dr. Marcus Dodds, in his Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ, says:—
“But is Mohammed in no sense a prophet? Certainly he had two of the most important characteristics of the prophetic order. He saw truth about God which his fellow-men did not see, and he had an irresistible inward impulse to publish this truth. In respect of this latter qualification, Mohammed may stand comparison with the most courageous of the heroic prophets of Israel. For the truth’s sake he risked his life, he suffered daily persecution for years, and eventually banishment, the loss of property, of the goodwill of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence of his friends; he suffered, in short, as much as any man can suffer short of death, which he only escaped by flight, and yet he unflinchingly proclaimed his message. No bribe, threat, or inducement, could silence him. ‘Though they array against me the sun on the right hand and the moon on the left, I cannot renounce my purpose.’ And it was this persistency, this belief in his call, to proclaim the unity of God, which was the making of Islam.
“Other men have been monotheists in the midst of idolaters, but no other man has founded a strong and enduring monotheistic religion. The distinction in his case was his resolution that other men should believe. If we ask what it was that made Mohammed aggressive and proselytizing, where other men had been content to cherish a solitary faith, we must answer that it was nothing else than the depth and force of his own conviction of the truth. To himself the difference between one God and many, between the unseen Creator and these ugly lumps of stone or wood, was simply infinite. The one creed was death and darkness to him, the other life and light. It is useless seeking for motives in such a case—for ends to serve and selfish reasons for his speaking; the impossibility with Mohammed was to keep silence. His acceptance of the office of teacher of his people was anything but the ill-advised and sudden impulse of a light-minded vanity or ambition. His own convictions had been reached only after long years of lonely mental agony, and of a doubt and distraction bordering on madness. Who can doubt the earnestness of that search after truth and the living God, that drove the affluent merchant from his comfortable home and his fond wife, to make his abode for months at a time in the dismal cave on Mount Hira? If we respect the shrinking of Isaiah or Jeremiah from the heavy task of proclaiming unwelcome truth, we must also respect the keen sensitiveness of Mohammed, who was so burdened by this same responsibility, and so persuaded of his incompetency for the task, that at times he thought his new feelings and thoughts were a snare of the Devil, and at times he would fain have rid himself of all further struggle by casting himself from a friendly precipice. His rolling his head in his mantle, the sound of the ringing of bells in his ears, his sobbing like a young camel, the sudden grey hairs which he himself ascribed to the terrific Suras—what were all these but so many physical signs of nervous organization overstrained by anxiety and thought?