The timber of species of Cedrela and Melia, other members of the order Meliaceae, are used as Mahogany, and the product of the West African Khaya senegalensis is known as African mahogany. There is some confusion between the product of these various trees. Herbert Stone (The Timbers of Commerce, 1904) says: “The various species of mahogany and cedar are so confusing that it is difficult to make precise statements as to their structure or origin. I know of no convincing proof that any of the American kinds met with on the English market are the wood of Swietenia Mahogani, nor that those shipped from Africa are the wood of Khaya senegalensis. These two genera are very nearly allied to Cedrela and Melia, and it is difficult to separate any of the four from the rest by the characters of the wood. After giving the most careful attention to every detail, I lean to the view that most if not all of the mahoganies commonly met with are Cedrelas.”
Kiggelaria Dregeana (natural order Bixineae), a native of South Africa, is known as Natal mahogany.
MAHOMET (strictly Muḥammad, commonly also Mohammed), founder of the religious system called in Europe after him Mahommedanism, and by himself Islam or Ḥanifism. He died, according to the ordinary synchronism, on the 7th of June 632 (12 Rabia, A.H. 11), and his birthday was exactly sixty-three or sixty-five years earlier, the latter number being evidently an interpretation in lunar years of a number thought to refer to solar years. The lunar system was introduced into Arabia by Mahomet himself quite at the close of his career; that which existed before was certainly solar, as it involved a process of intercalation—which, however, seems to have been arbitrarily manipulated by priests, whence certain synchronisms cannot be got for the events in the Prophet’s career. The number 63 for the years of his life may rest on tradition, though it is unlikely that such matters were accurately noted; it can also be accounted for by a priori combination. A Meccan, it is said, became a full citizen at the age of 40; this then would be the age at which the mission might be started. The Medina period (of which count was kept) lasted ten to eleven years; for the Meccan period ten years would seem a likely length. Finally it was known that for some years—about three—the mission had been conducted secretly. The only event in contemporary history to which the Koran alludes in its earlier parts is the Persian conquest of Palestine in 616. Clearly Mahomet had begun to prophesy at that date.
Before the rise of Islam, Mahomet’s native place, Mecca, appears to figure nowhere in historical records, unless there be a reference to it in the “valley of Baca” (Psalm lxxxiv. 6). Its sacred, and therefore archaic, name His Country. is Bakkah; hence the identification of the name with that of the sanctuary Makoraba, known to the Greek geographers, is not philologically tenable; although so eminent a linguist as Dozy evolved a theory of the origin of the city from this name, which appears to be South Arabian for “sanctuary,” and has no connexion with Hebrew (as Dozy supposed). In the 3rd century of Islam the mythology of Mecca was collected and published in book form, but we learn little more from it than names of tribes and places; it is clear that there was no record of the mode in which the community inhabiting the place had got there, and that little was remembered with accuracy of the events which preceded the rise of its prophet. The city had a sanctuary, called the Cube (ka‘ba), of which the nucleus was the “Black Stone,” probably to be identified with Allah, the god of the community; both still exist, or rather their legitimate substitutes, as the Ka‘ba has been repeatedly reconstructed, and the original Black Stone was stolen by the Carmathians in the 4th century of Islam; they afterwards returned one, but it may or may not have been the same as that which they removed. At some time in the 6th century—said to have been the birth-year of the Prophet, but really much earlier—an Abyssinian invader raided Mecca with the view of abolishing this sanctuary; but for some reason had to desist. This expedition, known as the “Raid of the Elephant,” one of these animals being employed in it, seems to be of great importance for explaining the rise of Islam; for a sanctuary which can repel an invader acquires tremendous reputation. Some verses in the Koran which are perhaps not genuine, record the miracle whereby Allah repelled the “People of the Elephant.” The sanctuary was apparently in the possession of the tribe Koreish (Quraish), the origin of whose name is unknown, said to have come originally from Cutha in Mesopotamia. They were known (we are told) as the people of Allah, and, by wearing a badge, were sacrosanct throughout Arabia. If this be true, it was probably a privilege earned by the miraculous defence of the Ka‘ba, and is sufficient to account for the rise of Meccan commerce of which we hear much in the biography of the Prophet, and to which some verses of the earliest part of the Koran allude; for merchants who were safe from attacks by bandits would have an enormous advantage. The records seem, however, to be inconsistent with this assertion; and the growth of the Meccan commerce is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that after the Abyssinian invasion pilgrimage to the Ka‘ba became the practice of numerous Arab tribes, and for four months in the year (selected by Meccan priests) raiding was forbidden, in order to enable the pilgrimage to be safely made. In addition to this it would seem that all Mecca counted as sanctuary—i.e. no blood might under any circumstances be shed there. The community lived by purveying to pilgrims and the carrying trade; and both these operations led to the immigration of strangers.
There seems to be no doubt that Mahomet was himself a member of the tribe Koreish, and indeed too many of his relatives figure in history to permit of his parentage being questioned. His cousin ‘Ali, fourth caliph, was the son of Abū Mahomet’s Family. Ṭālib, whose name attests the historical character of the kindred name ‘Abd al-Moṭṭalib, Mahomet’s grandfather: for the fact that this name is in part enigmatical is certainly no argument against its genuineness. In the 3rd century of Islam a document was shown in which a man of San’a in Yemen acknowledged that he had borrowed from ‘Abd al-Moṭṭalib 1000 silver dirhems of the Hudaida standard, and Allāh with the two “angels” (probably a euphemism for the goddesses Al-lāt and al-‘Uzzā) served as witness; it is difficult to see why such a document should have been forged. The name Hāshim (for ‘Abd al-Moṭṭalib’s father) may or may not be historical; here, as in the ascending line throughout, we have subjects without predicates. The name of ‘Abd al-Moṭṭalib’s son, who was Mahomet’s father, is given as ‘Abdallāh; the correctness of this has been questioned, because “Servant of Allah” would seem to be too appropriate, and the name was often given by the Prophet to converts as a substitute for some pagan appellation. This, however, is hypercritical, as the name of the father could not easily be altered, when relatives abounded, and it would seem that at one time the Prophet made no theological use of the name Allah, for which he intended to substitute Raḥmān. The name of his mother is given as Āminah, and with this one of his own titles, Amīn, agrees; although the Arabs do not appear to bring the two into connexion. Her father’s name is given as Wahb, and she is brought into relation with a Medinese tribe called the Banū ‘Adī b. al-Najjār, to whom she is said to have brought her son in his early infancy. The circumstances may have been suggested by his later connexion with that place; yet in what seems a historical narrative her grave is mentioned as known to be at Abwa, midway between the two cities, whence this early bond between the Prophet and his future home may have really existed.
His own name is given in the Koran in the forms Aḥmad and the familiar Muḥammad; in contemporary poetry we also find the form Maḥmūd. Similar variation between derivatives from the same root is found in proper names which occur in early poetry; the meaning of all would be “the praised,” if the root be given its Arabic signification—“the desired” if interpreted from the Hebrew.
The form Muḥammad (ordinarily transliterated Mohammed; Mahomet, Mehmet, &c., represent the Turkish pronunciation) is found in a pre-Islamic inscription, and appears to have been fairly common in Arabia. In Hag. ii. 7 a derivative of the Hebrew equivalent root occurs in the prophecy “and the desired of all nations shall come,” and this passage has suggested the idea that the name may have been taken by the Prophet as the equivalent of “Messiah,” while the Moslems themselves find its equivalent in the Paraclete of the Fourth Gospel, though this identification requires more ingenuity. His kunyah (i.e. the Arab title of respect, in which a man is called after his son) is Abu‘l-Qāsim; other names by which he is called are titles of honour, e.g. Muṣṭafā “chosen.” (See further the genealogical table, ad fin.)
In the Koran, Allah says that He found the Prophet an orphan, poor and astray; it is possible that all these expressions should be understood figuratively, like the “poor, naked, blind” of Christian hymns; the Arabs, however, Early Life. take them literally, and Mahomet is said to have been a posthumous child, whose mother died a few months or years after his birth, and who was brought up first by his grandfather, and then by his uncle Abū Ṭālib, one of the poorer members of the family; in the controversy between the Alid and Abbasid pretenders of the 2nd century of Islam the Abbasid Manṣūr claims that his ancestor fed the ancestor of ‘Ali, i.e. Abū Ṭālib, otherwise he would have had to beg. There was evidently an apparent inconsistency between Mahomet’s being a poor orphan and the favourite grandchild of the eminent and wealthy ‘Abd al-Moṭṭalib; and it was solved in this way. There was a tradition that in his early years he was sent into the desert to acquire the habits and the language of the Bedouins; and this seems to have been attested by the Prophet himself. In a tribal fight he is said to have acted as armour-bearer to one of his uncles, Zubair. There seems no doubt that he often accompanied Meccan caravans to the countries with which the Meccans had trade relations; such especially were Syria and south Arabia, and perhaps Egypt and Mesopotamia. It is conceivable that he may have visited Abyssinia by sea. For though accurate knowledge is nowhere to be found in the Koran, it exhibits a large amount of miscellaneous information, such as a trader might well pick up. His career as a caravan-conductor appears to have terminated with his marriage to Khadīja, daughter of Khuwailid, represented by the tradition as a wealthy widow, fifteen years his senior and forty years of age at the time of the union. As she became the mother of a numerous family, a special rule was discovered by Moslem physiologists extending the child-bearing period of Korashite women beyond that of others. Since it is claimed for Mahomet that he first gave Arab women the right to inherit property, the difficulty noticed is not the only one connected with this marriage; and Robertson Smith has called attention to some others, unconnected with his theory of “marriage and kinship in early Arabia.” After his marriage Mahomet appears to have been partner in a shop in Mecca; where he apparently sold agricultural produce. His style is strongly marked by phrases and metaphors drawn from trade, though as a statesman he never displayed any financial ability.
Writing in the monumental script of South Arabia had been known for centuries in the peninsula; and shortly before the rise of Islam a cursive script—the parent of the ordinary Arabic character—had been started in the Christian Education. state of Hira, with which the beginnings of modern Arabic literature are connected. A modification of this had been introduced into Mecca, and was probably used for contracts and similar documents. The word ummī, literally “popular” or “plebeian” (according to one etymology), applied to Mahomet in the Koran, is said to mean “one who can neither read nor write,” and the most generally accepted view is that he could do neither, a supposition which enters into the doctrine of the miraculous nature of the Koran. According to another interpretation the word means “Meccan,” i.e. native of “the Mother of the Villages” (Umm al-Qura); and the most probable theory is that he could do both, but unskilfully. Indeed on one historic occasion he erased certain words in a document; and where in the Koran he rebuts the charge of “taking notes,” he does not employ the obvious retort that he could not write, but gives a far less convincing answer. For poetry, which seems to have been cultivated in Arabia long before his time, he possessed no ear; but we have little reason for supposing that either writing or versification had yet entered into Arabian education. The former would be acquired by those who needed it, the latter was regarded as a natural gift. There is reason for thinking the language of the Koran incorrect and ungrammatical in parts, but as it afterwards became the ultimate standard of classical Arabic, this point is not easy to prove. On the whole then his early life seems to have been such as was normal in the case of a man belonging to one of the more important families in a community which had not long been started on a career of prosperity.