The prophet was now at the climax of his power. All Arabia was his; both materially and spiritually subdued beneath his authority. The city of his birth, which had spurned him as one of her humble citizens, was now compelled to receive him as her lord. No triumph could be more complete; and it is a rare, if not a unique, example of a new religion being persecuted, imperilled, well-nigh crushed, rescued, strengthened, contending for supremacy, and supreme, within the life-time of its founder. But that life-time was now approaching its end. Mahomet in 632 celebrated the last festival he was destined to witness with the utmost pomp. He went with all his wives to Mecca, and thousands of believers assembled around him there. He preached to them from his camel. He sacrificed one hundred camels. On the 8th of June, 632, he expired in the hut of Ayischa of a remittent fever from which he had been suffering a short time.
The character of the prophet Mahomet is an open question. Between the glowing admiration bestowed upon him by Carlyle, and the sneering depreciation of Sprenger, there lie numerous intermediate possibilities of opinion. His sincerity, his veracity, his humanity, his originality, are all topics of discussion admitting of varied treatment. The old and simple method of treating Mahomet as an impostor scarcely merits notice. Among serious students of his life it may be pronounced extinct. But between positive imposture and a degree of truthfulness equal to that which all would concede to Confucius, or to Jesus, there are many degrees, and a man may be more or less sincere in many particulars which do not involve the fundamental honesty of his conduct. It is in such particulars that the character of Mahomet is most open to suspicion. Few, I believe, would be able to read the earlier Meccan Suras, instinct as they are with a spirit of glowing devotion to a new idea, without entire conviction of the sincerity of their author. Nor can we reasonably doubt that he himself fully believed in the inspiration he professed to receive. The Koran is written precisely in that loose, rambling, and irregular style, which would indicate that its author was above the laws of human composition. If (as is said by some) there is beauty in the original Arabic, that beauty entirely evaporates in translation. The man whose work it is gave utterance to the thoughts of the moment as they were borne in upon him, in his opinion by an external power. But while he no doubt conceived himself as the instrument of the divine being, it is also exceedingly probable that in his later life he abused the weapon which he had thus got into his possession. That is to say, instead of waiting patiently for the revelation, and allowing Allah to take his own time, he in all likelihood put forth as revealed whatever happened to suit the political purpose of the day, and that at whatever moment was convenient to himself. In other words, he may have become less of a passive, and more of an active agent in the composition of the Koran. Take, for example, the two following Suras, belonging to his earliest period, as specimens of the inspired poetic style:—"Say: O ye unbelievers! I worship not that which ye worship, and ye do not worship that which I worship; I shall never worship that which ye worship, neither will ye worship that which I worship. To you be your religion; to me my religion." "Say: He is God alone: God the eternal! He begetteth not, and is not begotten; and there is none like unto him" (K., pp. 12, 13.—Suras cix., cxii).
Contrast these fervent exclamations with such a passage as this, from one of the latest Suras:—
"This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measure of my favors upon you: and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion; but whoso without willful leanings to wrong shall be forced by hunger to transgress, to him, verily, will God be indulgent, merciful. They will ask thee what is made lawful for them. Say: Those things which are good are legalized to you, and the prey of beasts of chase which ye have trained like dogs, teaching them as God hath taught you. Eat, therefore, of what they shall catch for you, and make mention of the name of God over it, and fear God: Verily, swift is God to reckon: This day, things healthful are legalized to you, and the meats of those who have received the Scriptures are allowed to you, as your meats are to them. And you are permitted to marry virtuous women of those who have received the Scriptures before you, when you shall have provided them their portions, living chastely with them without fornication, and without taking concubines" (K., p. 632.—Sura v. 5-7).
The doctrine of direct inspiration, applied to matters like these, is almost a mockery. Yet Mahomet may have continued to think that God assisted him in the task of laying down laws for the believers, and we cannot accuse him of positive insincerity, even though his revelations were no longer the spontaneous outpourings of an overflowing heart.
A more difficult question is raised when we inquire how much of his teaching was borrowed from others, and whether there was any one who acted as his prompter in the novel doctrines he announced. Now there is evidence enough, some of it supplied by the Koran itself, that Mahomet was preceded by a sect called Hanyfites, who rejected the idolatry of their countrymen and held monotheistic doctrines. He spoke of himself as belonging to this sect, of which the patriarch Abraham was considered the representative and founder. Abraham is referred to in the Koran with the epithet "Hanyf," and as one of those who do not join gods with God (E.g., Sura iii. 89; vi. 162; xvi. 121). A dozen or so of the contemporaries of the prophet renounced idolatry before him, and were Hanyfites. Three of these became Christians, and a fourth, by name Zayd, professed to be neither Jew nor Christian, but to follow the religion of Abraham. Zayd was acknowledged as his forerunner by Mahomet himself. But besides these sources of conversion which lay open to the prophet, it is plain from the Koran itself that he had had much intercourse with a person (or persons) of the Jewish faith. Mahomet was not a scholar, and his continual allusions to events in Jewish history plainly indicate a personal source. Moreover, the narratives are given in that somewhat perverted form which we should expect to find if they were derived from loose conversation rather than from study. His belief in the unity of God is not therefore a peculiarity which cannot be explained by reference to the circumstances in which his youth was passed. What was original with him was not the doctrine so much as the intensity with which it took possession of his mind, and the fervor which allowed him no rest until he had done his best to impart to others the profound conviction he entertained of this great truth.
Mahomet in fact began his public career as a simple preacher. The resistance he met with at home, and the necessity of relying for self-preservation on the swords of the men of Medina, converted him from a prophet to a potentate. The change was not one which he could avoid without sacrificing all chances of success; but it does appear to have exercised an unfortunate influence upon his character. As the governor of Medina he became tyrannical and even cruel. Among the worst features of his life is his conduct to the Jews after his attempts at conciliation had been shown to be fruitless. For instance, a Jewish tribe, the Banu Kaynoka, with whom a treaty of friendship had been concluded, were expelled from Medina. Another tribe of the same religion, the Banu Nadhyr, were blockaded in their quarter, and driven to capitulate, on condition of being allowed to leave Medina with their movable property. On the very day upon which the siege by Abu Sofyân in 627 came to an end, Mahomet blockaded the Banu Koraytza, also Jews, and compelled them to surrender at discretion. All the men, six hundred in number, were put to death, and the women were sold as slaves; a punishment which, even on the supposition that the tribe was hostile to the prophet, was unpardonably severe. In the ensuing year he marched against Chaybar, a town inhabited by Jews, besieged and took it. All the Jews taken in arms were put to death, whereupon the rest surrendered on condition of being permitted to withdraw with their families and their portable goods, exclusive of weapons and the precious metals. Kinana, their leader, was executed, and it is a suspicious circumstance that Mahomet married his widow Cafyya. Nor were these the worst of the prophet's misdeeds. He even stooped to sanction, if not to order, private assassination. Shortly after his victory at Badr, a woman and an old man, both of whom had rendered themselves offensive by their anti-Mussulman verses, were murdered in the night; and in both instances the murderers received the protection and countenance of the prophet and his followers.
Unbridled authority had in fact corrupted him. All those who did not adhere to his cause committed in his eyes the crime of opposing the will of God. To a man empowered by a special commission like his, the ordinary restraints of morality could not apply. Hence also, if he required a larger number of wives than was permitted to any other Moslem, a special revelation was produced to justify the excess. This was one of the weakest points in the prophet's character. Instead of setting an example to the community, he was driven to justify his self-indulgence by means which were nothing short of a perversion of religion to his own ends. There would have been nothing reprehensible, considering his age and country, in his indulgence in polygamy, had he observed any kind of moderation as to its extent. Where he happened to take a fancy to a woman, and that woman did not object to him, the moral sense of his countrymen would not have revolted by his taking her to wife. But it was revolted by the unrestricted freedom with which he added wife to wife, and concubine to concubine; a freedom so great as to degenerate into mere debauchery. He married women whom he had never seen, and who were sometimes already married. Mere beauty seems to have justified in his own eyes the addition of a new member to his harem, and there could be no pretence of real affection in the case of the women whom, without previous acquaintance, he took to his matrimonial bed. Exclusive of Khadija, the total number of his wives was thirteen, of whom nine survived him. He had also three concubines.
That his procedure scandalized the faithful is shown by the necessity he felt of defending it by the pliant instrument of revelation. Not only did he obtain from God a special law entitling him to exceed the usual number of wives; other peculiarities in his conduct were justified, either by an ex post facto decision applicable to all, or by an appeal to his extraordinary rights in his character of prophet. He had, for example conceived a desire to possess Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son Zayd. Zayd obligingly divorced her, and received the greatest favor from the prophet for this friendly conduct. Zaynab made it a condition of her compliance that the union with Mahomet should be sanctioned by revelation, and this sanction was of course procured. Marriage with an adopted son's wife was somewhat shocking, and the following reference in the Koran indicates the manner in which the affair was regarded:
"And, remember, when thou saidst to him unto whom God had shown favor [i. e., to Zayd], and to whom thou also hadst shown favor, 'Keep thy wife to thyself, and fear God;' and thou didst hide in thy mind what God would bring to light, and didst fear man; but more right had it been to fear God. And when Zayd had settled concerning her to divorce her, we married her to thee, that it might not be a crime in the faithful to marry the wives of their adopted sons, when they have settled the affair concerning them. And the behest of God is to be performed. No blame attacheth to the prophet where God hath given him a permission" (K., p. 566.—Sura xxxiii. 38,39).