*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73644 ***





                       Transcriber's Note

Italic font is indicated by _underscores_.

Bold type is indicated by =equal signs=.




                    [Illustration: MOHAMMED]




                         [Illustration:

                           =Mohammed=


                         BY R. F. DIBBLE


                        THE VIKING PRESS

                     NEW YORK  ·:·  MCMXXVI
]




           COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY THE VIKING PRESS, INC.


                       PRINTED IN U. S. A.




                         [Illustration]




                    CONTENTS


    I. ARABIA: FELIX, PETRÆA, ET DESERTA       9

   II. EARLY YEARS                            25

  III. ALLAH AND MOHAMMED                     44

   IV. “A PROPHET IS NOT WITHOUT HONOR”       65

    V. THE HEGIRA                             88

   VI. HOLY WARS                             112

  VII. DEFEAT OF ALL INFIDELS                149

 VIII. AVOCATIONS                            176

   IX. THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN                 205

    X. MOHAMMED AND ALLAH                    229




                         [Illustration]

“... it may perhaps be expected that I should balance his faults
and virtues, that I should decide whether the title of enthusiast
or impostor more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I
been intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would
still be difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of
twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud
of religious incense; and, could I truly delineate the portrait
of an hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to
the solitary of Mount Hira, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the
conqueror of Arabia.”
                                                       --GIBBON


                         [Illustration]




                        [Illustration: I]

                ARABIA: FELIX, PETRÆA ET DESERTA


                                I

Midway between Asia and Africa lies the giant peninsula of
Arabia--the vast, immutable, resplendently mysterious country that
bridges the Orient and the Occident. Shaped somewhat like a triangle
and somewhat like an oblong, she appears to the vulgar eye more like
a boot with its toe lopped off. Three bodies of water--the Red Sea,
the Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf--roll their guardian waves
against her rocky, mountainous coasts, while her northern domain
is staunchly defended by the impassable Syrian Desert.

Perhaps no other country, not even Switzerland, has been so well
protected by nature against the assaults--military, economic or
religious--of the outside world. Before the seventh century, the fury
of the Roman legions and the enthusiasm of martial Christians had
been expended in prodigious but wholly futile efforts to subjugate
her: the one because its soldiers died of heat and thirst in her
almost uninhabitable interior, and the other because its votaries
too often restricted their religious zeal to a general consumption
of alcohol and to an individual union with more than one wife or
concubine. But in any case, inasmuch as the Arabs were fierce and
warlike by nature, and were acquainted with such refinements of
wine and concupiscence as even the most aspiring Christians had not
achieved, the attacks of Pagan Rome and Christian Palestine would
probably have come to naught. Even to this day, indeed, Arabia has
been left almost entirely alone by the outside world. Timeless,
changeless and unromantic save to the capricious imagination of
poets and travelers, her interminable, ocean-like billows of arid
sand have saved her from all conquests. As she was in the dim and
remote beginnings of history, so she largely remains; and the modern
wanderer who penetrates her obscure interior cannot be certain
whether he will be greeted with affluent hospitality or a frowning
hostility that may prove inimical to life itself.

A land of contrasts! Three-fourths surrounded by water, her extensive
interior is a scorched and stony desert; her verdant southern coasts
are soon lost in a lifeless and almost level plateau; her abundantly
fertile province of Yemen, known to romance as Araby the Blest,
fades northward into the ominous wastes of Nejd, or Arabia Deserta,
and northwestward into the precipitous wilds of Hejaz, or Arabia
Petræa. Short rivers hurl their jagged torrents down her sloping
sides, while prolific oases, always placid and unruffled, dot her
deserts. The fragrant breezes that come from the Indian Ocean are
quickly assimilated into the stagnant, oppressive atmosphere of her
centre; her palmy springs may teem with sweet and pure waters, or
with saline, sulphurous scum. The broiling rays of the midday sun
give way nightly to bitter and frosty dews; her long-slumbering sands
are at times whirled violently aloft by sharp, sudden, blinding
storms that often overwhelm caravans and tents, to subside as
suddenly, leaving her surface forever different--and yet forever
the same. A land untouched by time, where time’s oppression is yet
most powerfully felt; a land that never alters, though perpetually
subject to alteration; a land where the new is eternally old, and
the old is eternally new.

Nor does the paradox confine itself to her terrain; her inhabitants
and their social institutions, particularly during the seventh
century, exhibited corresponding discrepancies. Although all
Arabs were ruled by nearly identical codes of honor, morals and
manners, spoke a generic tongue, and were passionately patriotic,
they were yet divided into tribes that bowed before countless
fetishes, conversed in individual dialects, and were ever ready to
fight to the death for the supremacy of their particular clan. At
times of national danger, it is true, they fervently abandoned all
local prejudices in a tumultuous display of chauvinism; but such
contingencies were rare and, since the vague, immemorial inception
of her history, Arabian tribes, on the slightest pretext or on no
pretext at all, had frequently plunged with limitless enthusiasm
into the gratifying job of slitting fraternal throats. All these
various tribes, moreover, were grouped into two fairly distinct
divisions: the city-dwellers and the Bedouins.

From her earliest days, Arabia had depended on caravan trade for her
subsistence. In the times of Abraham, Moses and Solomon, her traders
had carried the fragrant spices and other products of Palestine
and Arabia--cassia, cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, gums, leather
and coffee--into Egypt; and, conversely, the “Kings of Arabia” had
also freighted into Judea and their own beloved land the priceless
rarities of the Orient: ivory, ebony and precious gems. For the
dangers of ocean commerce made a land route absolutely essential
for the exchange of merchandise between the East and the West,
and Arabia alone supplied the necessary bridge for this extensive
barter. Caravans from every nation, therefore, had for centuries
passed each other on her sere surface; her oases had thus become
cynosures where rest and refreshment could be had; and so by degrees
these centres of repose became the sites where marts, temples and
sanctuaries sprang indiscriminately up. These nuclei of elementary
civilizations led, little by little, to the development of an urban
population where those Arabs who chanced to be disposed toward peace
and business could lead a moderately serene life. But the instinct
of nomadism was incalculably strong in most of Arabia’s sons, and
myriads of men, yielding to the powerful atavistic impulse, gladly
relinquished the relatively soft environment of urbanism in order
to undergo, with fatalistic indifference, the hazards of a roaming,
marauding, desert life.

These Bedouins, “dwellers in the open land” or “people of the tent,”
were at once independent and servile, patriotic and anarchistic,
friendly and hostile, thievish and chivalric. A contemptuous
impatience of restraints and bonds of any kind made each one of them
look upon himself as a king; at the same time each one willingly
bowed the knee to the precepts of the most powerful ruler, or
sheik, who, through the prestige of inherent or acquired power,
automatically guided the shifting destinies of each clan. Their
strongest institution was the blood-feud--quickly abandoned, to
be sure, when a common enemy appeared on the horizon--and tribal
warfare or personal strife was an every-day affair; nevertheless,
the centralizing power arising from perpetual traditions of a mutual
fraternalism of interests held these roving hordes in an elastic
coalescence. The stranger who sought the hospitality of their
tents might be greeted by a flashing scimitar or a handclasp and a
hearty dinner--he could never tell which fate would be his, except
by experiment. If he were successful, he was naturally pleased;
whereas, if he failed, his opinion and his life were soon of no
moment to anyone save the Bedouins who took his booty. Equally
sensitive to insults or compliments, they guarded above all else
the honor of their beards and their women: to shake the one was to
invite immediate death, and to cast the smallest aspersion on the
other was to embrace a corresponding doom. And still, despite the
obeisance paid to women, the birth of a daughter was looked upon as a
horrible misfortune. The burial alive of female infants was a common
custom, and the natural death of one brought hearty congratulations
to the fortunate parents; while such girls as managed to remain
alive until their seventh or eighth year were summarily disposed
of at that tender age to the first suitor who appeared. Women, in
brief, were mere chattel: the eldest son commonly inherited his
father’s wives as a logical and desirable portion of the parental
estate.

Their livelihood was won principally by the robbing of caravans. The
plundering of them, in fact, was justly held by the Bedouins to be
merely a righteous method of exacting the customs that were levied
everywhere; for the land, they maintained, was exclusively theirs
by right of domain, and trespassers thereon must pay an appropriate
penalty. Mounted upon their swift and spirited horses, sprung from
the purest pedigree through many generations of careful selection
and trained to respond instantly to the slightest touch of the rein,
the Bedouins rarely failed to overtake their fleeing prey. Since the
loot of caravans supplied them with all the necessities of life,
they naturally worshiped their horses and camels--in particular
the ones they had stolen--with a superstitious reverence. Their
dromedaries, indeed, offered an escape from every contingency: they
furnished transportation, food (both tender flesh and milk), long
hair for tent-building, and, in case of a pinch, the water in their
capacious reservoirs could be used for drink and their dung for
fuel. The supreme height of generosity for a Bedouin was attained
on those very rare occasions when he slaughtered his own cherished
camel to feed and warm the stranger of a night.

In some respects the most striking and potent social institution
among the Arabs, urbanites and nomads alike, was the annual fair.
Every year, during certain months that were supposed to be inviolably
sacred--so sacred, in fact, that even personal and tribal broils
were taboo--a series of pageants was held throughout the whole
country; but the most populous and successful of them all was
celebrated at Ukaz, near Mecca. To that place came Arabia’s best and
fairest: opulent merchants, actors garbed in masks or veils, poets
of the desert, sheiks notorious for their proficiency in war and
love, dancing girls, and maidens whose alluring sensuousness was
subtly dissembled in languorous modesty, met on a common footing.
Specimens of trade and primitive art abounded in many booths; the
violent contortions of the corybantes, as they whirled dizzily
from tent to tent, excited the reckless Bedouins to such a pitch
that drunken orgies occasionally followed, during which the sacred
season was momentarily forgotten and resolutions of peace and
chastity conveniently overlooked. The pious devotions of pilgrims,
the piteous moans of beggars for alms, and the quiet exchange of
talk between traders, sightseers and friends, was often disturbed
by hilarious shrieks of applause for the bacchantes, by the clang
of the cymbal, and the clash of the scimitar. If shrines for prayer
were open all day, gambling houses did a flourishing business at
night; and if poetic and histrionic contests delighted the onlookers,
unfortunate results frequently followed. For the poets, chanting
a rudely rhythmical verse, incontinently boasted their individual
excellence in the manufacture of stanzas; and not seldom did they
caustically satirize the members of some other clan, meanwhile
boundlessly extolling the bravery of their own warriors and the
surpassing beauty and chastity of their women. All this bloated
braggadocio paved the way to feuds between different tribes, and
thus the fairs, which were supposed to allay hatreds and inculcate
friendships, often led to results that were precisely opposite.
Thus, for weeks and even months, the glittering, gorgeously colored
spectacle went on--a dazzling drama that, in its violent contrasts
of mystical adoration and wanton lechery, of humility and gross
egotism, of entrancing beauty and fetid squalor, furnishes perhaps
the best clue to the complex and divergent character of Arabia’s
children.

Her religion was an all-pervading form of indigenous and manifold
idolatry, tinctured with faint traces of Judaism and Christianity.
The worship of the stars, that furnished a nightly quota of detached
beauty and--what was more important--utility as a never-failing
compass, is easily understandable; but just why she should have
reverenced the blazing tropical sun and the tons upon tons of
stones that were sprinkled over her parched surface, tempts to a
metaphysical speculation which--as certain learned dissertations
prove--is more fascinating than illuminating. Perhaps the most
original and poetic element in this idol-worship was a vague belief
in the Jinn: those vast, inchoate, awe-inspiring creatures,
now friendly and now inimical, that--so every devout Arab
believed--brooded like gigantic birds in the illimitable heavens
that canopied Arabia. Judaism had made some effort to proselytize
the Arabs, but had wisely given up the attempt after it realized
what fascinating opportunities existed for the profits of trade.
Christian Abyssinia, too, had manifested a laudable desire to
turn her Pagan neighbor to the right way; but proud and impetuous
Arabs were not particularly susceptible to the pleas of negroes,
even though they chanced to be Christian negroes; and besides, the
dialectical hair-splittings which so enthralled the followers of
Arius and Athanasius could hardly be expected to offer much interest
to minds that unfortunately had never been given an opportunity
to become enraptured by the intricate charms of theology. But, in
common with the devotees of Moses and Christ, the Arabs exalted
ancestor-worship, and they even claimed, with a faith as touching
as it was irrelevant, that Abraham himself was one of their most
distinguished forefathers.

Here, then, was a land of marvelous opportunity for the right man.
Ruled by rigid taboos and certain patriarchs of exceptional prowess,
yet actually without a ruler; devoutly religious as religion goes,
yet without a unifying religion; containing an enormous amount
of military valor, yet wasting her strength in inter-tribal
battles--Arabia, in the seventh century, stood in dire dearth of
some commanding personality. The consecutive dominions of Egypt,
Assyria, Persia and Greece--nations that had once been supreme in
regal splendor--had disintegrated in rapid succession; and Rome,
the mightiest of them all, was now nearing her eclipse. Neither
Syria nor Persia was of much account any longer, Africa was weak,
the Christians had forgotten Christ in their absorption in the
more thrilling pursuit of schismatic squabbling, and the Jews
too often bartered their sacred phylacteries for the products of
Pagan ingenuity. Meanwhile, during the kaleidoscopic evolution and
disruption of world-conquering empires, Arabia had dragged out
only a ghostly existence; she was a nation that had either been
carelessly forgotten or contemptuously disregarded; she had won
no place in the sun. The general decadence of nations and faiths
at this time offered an unparallelled chance to the mythical Arab
who, by evolving a religious and political system based upon the
common elements that formed the solid foundation of every Arabian
tribe, should fuse the emotional and economic strength of the
land into an indivisible unity, and--who knew?--perhaps carry on
the torch recently dropped by the expiring Roman Empire. Now, as
careful students of history are well aware, great men, whether
warriors, statesmen or prophets, have a way of bobbing up at the
precise moment when they are most needed. So it happened that, in
the city of Mecca, probably in August in the year 570, Mohammed,
the Prophet of Allah, was born.


                               II

For centuries before the birth of the Prophet, Mecca had been the
most populous and influential city in Arabia. She owed this eminence
to two very different things: to her geographical situation, and
to some pretty legends that sought to explain her divine origin.

In the first place, she occupied a convenient and highly strategic
position on a great caravan route. She reposed in a natural
amphitheatre, partially encompassed by precipitous hills of quartz
and granite; touching her southern border lay the pleasant plains of
Yemen, while her northern edge was overhung by the lowering rocks
of Hejaz. The never-failing well, Zemzem, that gushed from her
centre furnished an apparently inexhaustible supply of water for
the passing trains of merchandise; it became a refreshing stopping
place, and thus by degrees grew to be a focus for commerce. Crowds
of traders, coming principally from Yemen, eventually located there
and established the beginnings of a mercantile business: they
collected the frontier customs, the hire for hauling produce,
the dues arising from protection, and, in addition, they started
various types of traffic among themselves.

Orthodox Arabs, however, prefer to explain her superiority by giving
more credit to her miraculous inception than to dry economic matters.
According to them, when Hagar was expelled into the wilderness she
chanced in her wanderings to come into the vale of Mecca. Both
she and little Ishmael were almost overcome with thirst, when the
child accidentally kicked the ground in a paroxysm of passion, and
lo! a stream of pure water bubbled forth from the spot struck by
his dainty toes. When Abraham heard of this miracle he visited the
place, and, aided by his dutiful son Ishmael, now grown to manhood,
built a sacred temple and instituted definite rites of pilgrimage.
Inasmuch as the Arabs had mingled with the Hebrew race for many
generations on matters of business, it was perhaps natural enough
that they should have relied on the Jews for a superior facility
in poetical imagination as well as a superior business credit.

Whichever explanation is more plausible, there is no doubt that,
even before the beginning of the Christian era, Mecca was a
well-established mercantile city that included a sacred temple, the
Kaba, which was already a national centre of adoration. At some
early date there was instituted a carefully systematized, twofold
form of worship based upon well-tried Hebrew models: the Lesser
and Greater Pilgrimages. Devotees who were able to satisfy their
consciences by performing the ritual of the Lesser Pilgrimage only,
went about it thus: they came to Mecca, generally during the sacred
month of Rejeb, feverishly kissed the blessed Black Stone--the
most divinely hallowed rock in a country that reverenced every one
of her millions of stones--imbedded in the eastern corner of the
Kaba, sedately walked seven times around the saintly edifice, and
then marched in a more hasty manner seven times to and fro between
two spots near by, over a route which Hagar was supposed to have
trod. But the Greater Pilgrimage demanded a more strenuous faith.
Those who elected to perform its stricter stipulations could do
so only during the month of Dhul-Hijja, which was even more holy
than Rejeb; and, besides accomplishing the requirements already
specified, they were obliged to travel on foot to Arafat, a small
hill some twelve miles east of Mecca, and to struggle manfully up
its steep sides. Before entering the hallowed territory of Mecca,
the votaries of both pilgrimages donned a special raiment, and,
when all the religious activities were completed, they shaved their
heads and pared their nails.

Favored thus by nature and superstition, Mecca had grown apace. For
centuries different clans vied with each other in an effort to gain
control of her destiny--a control that was eminently desirable, for
by the fifth century Mecca was _Mecca_, in the most modern sense
of the word. The dialect spoken by her citizens had come to be
regarded as the standard of purity by which all other tribes were
judged; and pilgrims from every extraneous Arabian clan, except
the untamable Bedouins, came yearly to pay their vows and drink
from the sacred fount of Zemzem--whose waters were a bit brackish,
to be sure, but still satisfactorily sacred. During that century
a sect called the Koreish finally won a foothold that gave every
evidence of being permanent. Despite occasional bickerings among
themselves as to matters of patronage and patriarchal succession,
they always agreed when an outside enemy appeared; and successive
victories over those who vainly sought to supplant them led to
their exaltation throughout all Arabia.

Elated with the pride of successful conquest, the Koreish were
not slow to reap the fruits of power. Although the sanctity of
the holy city induced a general atmosphere of peace, forays and
brawls occasionally took place, and the Koreish merchants therefore
conceived the scheme of wearing badges that kept them moderately
safe from assault. But measures of defence soon gave way to
offence: “Let us release ourselves from some of the observances
imposed upon the multitude,” they said. So they solaced themselves
by undergoing the rites of the Lesser Pilgrimage only; they
refused to be restricted to the use of the plain butter and cheese
that formed the staple pilgrim diet; they adopted the luxury of
leathern tents instead of those made from camel-hair. Finally,
they formulated stringent rules to be observed by all pilgrims
except themselves--rules that smack more of economic pressure than
unalloyed faith. All outsiders were forbidden to bring food within
the walls of Mecca, and were forced to circumnavigate the Kaba
entirely naked or dressed in clothes that could be obtained only
from the Meccan merchants. In view of these facts, there can be
but little doubt that a prophet who would invent and promulgate a
more pure and magnanimous faith was very desirable.




                       [Illustration: II]

                           EARLY YEARS


                                I

Among the numberless misty matters that befog the career of Mohammed
is the moot question of his parentage. The voice of Allah, speaking
through the lips of his Prophet in the Koran, proclaims that his
best beloved son was an orphan, poor and astray; but, while a proper
modesty may well make one hesitate to question the smallest decree of
such a transcendent authority, one can still scarcely refrain from
noting that most boys who attain a position of unrivaled eminence
in later life are prone to give a suspicious amount of emphasis to
the hardships of their youth. Practically everything that concerns
the life of the Prophet is flecked with more or less obscurity--an
obscurity that has been intensified by both his friends and his
foes. Almost all the Christian commentators have dwelt lovingly upon
the worst elements in the life and teachings of Mohammed, and the
numerous cliques of Arabs who whined or rebelled against his imperial
sway swelled the chorus of malignant defamation; his followers, on
the contrary, have been guilty of the most fanatical panegyrics.
Buffeted and disfigured between these two intensely antagonistic
forces of opinion, the massive figure of Mohammed must forever
remain largely ambiguous and enigmatical. His Boswells were too
Boswellian, and his Froudes were too Froudish. And yet, by steering
a zigzag course between the Scylla of rhapsodical praise and the
Charybdis of envious detraction, it may be possible to arrive at
a relatively detached and peaceful haven where the immeasurable
Arab looms a little less vaguely through the remoteness of thirteen
centuries.

There seems to be little doubt that he was descended from those
lofty Koreish whose opposition, which at first nearly succeeded in
holding his name in perpetual oblivion, eventually caused him to
emerge into the light of deathless fame. For a century and a half,
his forefathers had been rulers among the Koreish. In the middle
of the fifth century, Kosai, his ancestor at the fifth remove, had
won the distinction of being the first man to advance the Koreish
to a position of supremacy over Mecca. At his death his three sons
fought for the honor of succeeding him; but Abd Menaf won out, and
was followed in turn by Hashim--rich, amorous, charitable, glorious
Hashim!--and his son Abd Al-Muttalib, the estimable grandfather of
the Prophet.

When Abd Al-Muttalib came into power early in the sixth century, he
fell at first upon evil days. Certain of the Koreish were unfriendly,
the caravan business had been in a bad way for some time, and the
holy water of Zemzem, no longer used as of yore, had choked up and
was almost forgotten. Abd Al-Muttalib, who well knew the traditions
of its ancient glory, and who found it difficult to get enough
water from lesser Meccan wells for visiting pilgrims, instituted
a laborious search for the venerable stonework which was known to
have surrounded it. Finally his virtuous efforts were rewarded,
and, aided by his son Al-Harith, he began to scoop out the debris
with which it was clogged. As he neared the bottom, he came upon
the two golden gazelles, and the swords and suits of armor, that
had been buried there by a Jurhumite king three centuries before as
a suitable hiding place against the despoliations of his enemies.
The Koreish, hearing of Abd Al-Muttalib’s lucky find, immediately
demanded a share of the booty. It was finally agreed that the dispute
should be settled by the casting of lots: one for Abd Al-Muttalib,
one for the Koreish, and--inasmuch as all parties concerned in the
row were religiously minded--one for the Kaba. Abd Al-Muttalib got
the swords and armor, the Kaba got the gazelles, and the Koreish
got nothing. That very day, indeed, dated their gradual defection
from the faith of their fathers; but Abd Al-Muttalib, in an
excess of grateful devotion, beat the gazelles into plates of gold
with which he decorated the interior door of the Kaba, and, in a
similar excess of caution, added a golden lock and key to the door.
His faith was properly rewarded, for from that day the waters of
Zemzem again flowed without interruption; and so Abd Al-Muttalib
grew in social, financial and religious strength, and became the
father of many pious and powerful sons. And yet--such a wayward and
capricious dame is Clio!--there are those who aver that Mohammed’s
grandfather was not the leading Meccan of his time, and that most
of the stories connected with his name are fabulous inventions of
the Prophet’s hero-worshiping satellites.

Fortunately, all parties seem agreed that Abdallah, the youngest
and most favored son of Abd Al-Muttalib, was the unambiguous sire
of Mohammed. The ways of Allah are not less perplexing than the
ways of God, and it appears probable that, had it not been for
the direct intervention of the whimsical Arabian Deity, Abdallah
would have perished before he had begotten his extraordinary son.
During the early years of Abd Al-Muttalib, when he had but one son
to aid him in his struggles against his political opponents, he
had vowed that, should he ever be favored with ten sons, he would
sacrifice one of them to the Deity. This vow--rash enough for any
young man, and rashest of all, perhaps, for an Arab--was in the
course of time providentially fulfilled; and when lots were cast
by the obedient Abd Al-Muttalib, the fatal die fell upon Abdallah,
his pet boy. The hitherto invincible faith of Abd Al-Muttalib was
tremendously shaken; his weeping daughters--for Allah had been more
than generous--also besought him to cast lots between Abdallah and
ten camels: the conventional substitute for human bloodshed. For
nine successive times the arrow pointed toward Abdallah--could it be
that Allah was inexorable? At each throw ten additional camels had
been added to the previous number until, on the tenth throw, they
amounted to an even hundred. Then at last Allah, who was presumably
far more interested in the birth of Mohammed than in a wilderness of
camels, relented and released his faithful servant from his oath.
Thus a hundred camels perished beneath the sacrificial knife, Abd
Al-Muttalib’s piety was recompensed, Abdallah was saved, and the
miraculous birth of the Prophet was assured.

It came about thus. Toward the end of 569, Abd Al-Muttalib had
betrothed Abdallah to a Meccan maiden named Amina; and at the same
time, even though he was over seventy and Allah had abundantly
granted his youthful plea for potency, he himself had married a
radiantly youthful cousin of Amina’s. Some months later Mecca was
invaded by an army under Abraha, a Christian warrior from Abyssinia,
who brought an elephant in his train--a prodigy that so astounded
the simple Arabs that the year of the invasion was ever after called
“the Elephant.” He had come, he said, merely to destroy the impious
Kaba, and he had no desire to shed any man’s blood; but inasmuch
as the Meccans knew that Christian Abraha’s fervor had already
manifested itself in the plunder of hundreds of camels, they were
rightly sceptical of any promise whatever on his part. Overtures of
peace were unsuccessful, for on no account would the wealthy Koreish
agree to permit the demolition of their most remunerative mercantile
house, and preparations were accordingly made to offer some feeble
resistance to the invader. Then Abd Al-Muttalib bethought himself
of a possible means to thwart the impending peril. Leaning on the
door of the Kaba, he prayed aloud thus: “Defend, O Lord, thine own
house, and suffer not the Cross to triumph over the Kaba!” He then
made haste to join the other refugees, who had betaken themselves to
the neighboring crags to watch whatever might betide. Sharp-eared
Allah, aloof in his own particular Heaven, heard the prayer and
promptly answered it by inflicting a pestilential disease upon the
raiding Christian hosts. Overwhelmed by the disaster, they began a
confused retreat: hundreds of them died by the wayside, and Abraha
himself, covered with a mass of poisonous and putrid ulcers, soon
expired in terrible agony. Thus was the Kaba gloriously saved and
the Cross ignominiously overthrown--an event so prophetical of
coming centuries that its portentous symbolism demanded an incarnate
manifestation. The routed Christian warriors had barely left the
shores of Arabia when Amina gave birth to a son.


                               II

His advent, we are told, was decorously surrounded by all manner
of signs and omens. The travail of Amina was entirely painless;
earthquakes loosed the bowels of mountains and caused great bodies
of water, whose names were unfortunately not specified, to wither
away or overflow; the sacred fire of Zoroaster which, under the
jealous care of the Magi, had spouted ceaseless flames for nearly a
thousand years, was summarily extinguished; indeed, all the idols in
the world--except, presumably, the Kaba,--unceremoniously tumbled
from their exalted places. Immediately after the babe was born an
ethereal light dazzled the surrounding territory, and, on the very
moment when his eyes were first opened, he lifted them to Heaven and
exclaimed: “God is great! There is no God but Allah and I am His
Prophet!” All these poetic fancies have been appropriately denounced
by Christian scribes, who have claimed that nature would never have
dignified the birth of a Pagan like Mohammed with such marvelous
prodigies as indubitably attended the advent and crucifixion of
Christ.

In the meantime a tragedy of much moment had occurred. High-spirited
Abdallah--the lovely youth whose charms were so compelling that
two hundred languishing virgins are said to have perished from
jealous disappointment on his wedding night--was already no more.
After remaining with his bride for the customary period of three
days, he had departed on a business engagement to Gaza; but, on
the return trip, he had sickened and died at Medina. The period
of mourning for him was barely over when his posthumous son was
born. Grief-stricken Abd Al-Muttalib, who was still bewailing his
dead son in the repose of the Kaba, was so comforted when Amina’s
messenger brought him the glad tidings that he at once headed a
procession of relatives to visit his latest grandchild. With the
tender babe in his arms, he immediately returned to the Kaba, and,
standing beside its holy altar, he gave thanks to Allah for his
mercies and benefits. One week later Abd Al-Muttalib gave a feast
in honor of the child; and during the course of the festivities the
aged ruler presaged an unspeakably glorious destiny for his grandson
as the dawning leader of his race, and concluded his remarks by
christening him Mohammed, “the Praised.”

Since the suckling of their own children was not considered to be
a proper vocation for high-born Arab women, Amina, as a descendant
of the lordly Koreish, rightly refused to nurse her child. For the
first few days of his precarious existence he was nourished by
Thuweiba, a slave of his own uncle, Abu Lahab; yet, in spite of the
brevity of this experience, it is confidently claimed that Mohammed
never forgot it, and that so long as he lived he regularly sent her
clothes and other gifts. A new nurse then had to be found. According
to some fairly authentic traditions, he spent his first five years
among the Bedouins under the care of a foster-mother named Halima.
At the age of two he was weaned and taken back to his mother; but
she was so pleased with her lusty-looking baby that she said: “Take
him with thee back again to the desert; for I fear the unhealthy
air of Mecca.” After two more years the robust but high-strung boy,
who, like most embryo prophets, had an acutely sensitive nervous
system, showed signs of what was probably an epileptic attack.
His foster-parents were so disturbed that they at once took him
home; and only by the greatest efforts was Amina able to assuage
their fears--were not most children normally subject to worms or
the croup?--and persuade them to take him back to the desert. So
great was their love for the youngster that they did so; but a year
later they were again frightened by recurrent symptoms, and the
five-year-old boy was then definitely restored to his mother, with
whom he remained for nearly another year. Amina then took him to
Medina, where his father’s maternal relatives dwelt; for she felt
all a mother’s delight in showing off the pretty and playful tricks
of her little son. But another momentous tragedy now impended. About
a month later she died; and thus Mohammed, at the age of six, was
left an orphan.

Had the lad’s parents, or even one of them, lived until his maturity!
In either case, incalculable results might have followed: there
might have been no Prophet, no Koran, no Islam--one is tempted to
say that there might have been no Allah. But they died; and for the
next two years the bereaved boy was cared for by Abd Al-Muttalib,
who loved him with all the partiality of age. Sometimes, as the
old patriarch sat at ease on a rug shaded from the sun, Mohammed
would peremptorily usurp his seat. Then the old man’s sons would
try to push the little rascal off, but Abd Al-Muttalib would say,
“Let my little son alone!” and, baked by the burning sun, would pet
Mohammed and feast his ears on the childish shouts and gurgles of
the victor.

Two years later Abd Al-Muttalib went to join Abdallah and Amina,
and Mohammed, weeping bitterly at the loss of his kind-hearted
protector, was consigned to the care of his uncle Abu Talib, the
second of Abd Al-Muttalib’s five surviving sons. Az-Zubeir, the
eldest, inherited the official duties of his deceased father;
but he soon passed that honor on to the fourth son, Al-Abbas, a
money-lender, owner of Zemzem, rich, but unfortunately weak in
character. Abu Lahab, the third son, was destined to be a life-long
foe of the Prophet; but the youngest, Hamza the hunter, was from the
beginning one of his staunchest supporters. Abu Talib, a dealer in
cloths and perfumes, was a poor man, yet he faithfully cared for his
nephew, whom he almost never let out of his sight. When Mohammed was
twelve, he accompanied Abu Talib on a mercantile journey to Syria;
and various writers have mused at length on the probable effects
of this strange, wild expedition on his highly susceptible mind.
It may be, as some believe, that the seeds of his heavenly mission
were sown in his mind during this experience. Whatever else he
was, however, Mohammed was not a youthful prodigy, and perhaps, as
most lads of his age would have done, he merely had a good time.


                               III

While Mohammed’s life glided from youth into manhood without many
remarkable changes, certain events occurred that indelibly fixed
the channels of his future. The death of Abd Al-Muttalib had left
the ancient house of Hashim without a strong leader, and so it
happened that another branch of the Koreish came into power--a
circumstance that marked the beginning of the deadly struggle between
the Prophet and many of his kin that attended his whole career.
For some years, it is true, this hostility was latent. During a
decade--from Mohammed’s tenth to his twentieth year--all the Koreish
were banded together against the hostile tribe of the Beni Hawazin
in the Sacrilegious War: a struggle that grew out of a violation
of the taboo on fighting during the sacred months. When Mohammed
was nearly twenty, he accompanied his uncles during one of the many
frays that marked this civil strife; but his activities seem to have
been confined to picking up the arrows of the enemy and turning
them over for the use of his uncles. Many years later he remarked:
“I remember being present with my uncles in the Sacrilegious War;
I discharged arrows at the enemy, and I do not regret it.” But the
Prophet of divinity was always very human, and it seems almost
certain that the enormous prestige of his station induced him
occasionally to indulge in a verbal license pardonable in prophets
if not in lesser men. With a wisdom that has characterized certain
other heroes of divinity, Mohammed wisely confined his originality
and his daring strictly to his mental activities, and fought only
when self-preservation necessitated it.

The war finally ended in an unsatisfactory truce: neither side
had won, and no dominant personality had yet emerged from the
Koreish. Factionalism soon grew to be so rife that the descendants
of Hashim, and families of germane origin, formed a confederacy to
punish wrongdoing and secure justice among the different branches
of the Koreish. Mohammed himself was an interested spectator of the
initial ceremonies of this brotherhood. “I would not exchange for
the choicest camel in all Arabia,” he exclaimed on a later day,
“the remembrance of being present at the oath which we took in the
house of Abdallah when the Beni Hashim, Zuhra ibn Kilab, and Teim
ibn Murra swore that they would stand by the oppressed.” Thus, by
slow degrees, the breach widened between Mohammed and the majority
of the Koreish.

His early manhood was spent in caring for flocks, in attending
caravan expeditions, and in certain avocations which, all things
considered, indicated that he was more estimable than the common run
of youthful Arabs. As a shepherd of sheep and goats on the hills
around Mecca, he both conferred benefit upon his penurious uncle,
Abu Talib, and engaged in an occupation that, as he was careful to
point out on a future occasion, was particularly appropriate for
his rank. After commenting on the similarity between himself and
Moses, David, Jesus, and other seers, he concluded thus: “Verily
there hath been no prophet raised up, who performed not the work
of a shepherd.” He often accompanied caravans, traveling possibly
as far as Egypt and the Dead Sea. In addition to the money thus
earned, he picked up a mass of miscellaneous information that he
used both to his advantage and disadvantage in the Koran; for its
pages reek with foreign phrases, now beautiful and now outrageously
grotesque, which even his most intimate friends failed to comprehend.
All writers, including strangely enough those of the Christian
faith, coincide in stating that his early manhood was marked by an
excess of modesty and a minimum of vice rare, not merely in young
Arabs, but in the young men of any nation. It has been maintained,
with a cogency no less admirable than indemonstrable, that his
virtue was miraculously kept immaculate. Mohammed himself, with
forgivable modesty, appears to have believed this. “I was engaged
one night feeding the flocks in company with a lad of Koreish,”
he once narrated, “and I said to him, ‘If thou wilt look after my
flock, I will go into Mecca and divert myself there, even as youths
are wont by night to divert themselves.’” But the sequel, though
divinely ordained, was rather tame. As he neared the outskirts of
the city, a marriage feast attracted so much of his time that he
fell safely asleep. Another evening, as he approached the city bent
upon a similar enterprise, strains of celestially somnolent music
made him fall into a second scatheless slumber. “After this I sought
no more after vice,” he affirmed; but he thought it wise to add
the cryptic phrase, “even until I had attained unto the prophetic
office.”

By the time Mohammed was twenty-five, Abu Talib, whose waxing family
was constantly restricting his already limited means, decided that
it was high time for his dependent nephew to shift for himself. “I
am, as thou knowest, a man of small substance,” he remarked one
day to Mohammed, “and truly the times deal hardly with me. Now
here is a caravan of thine own tribe about to start for Syria,
and Khadija, daughter of Khuweilid, needeth men of our tribe to
send forth with her merchandise. If thou wert to offer thyself, she
would readily accept thy services.” The double-edged nature of the
conclusion presumably escaped both men; but the complaisant Mohammed
acceded and was soon off on the journey, accompanied by Meisara,
the servant of Khadija. Mohammed had thus far had little business
experience, but he always showed a many-sided talent for barter and
compromise, and he therefore returned with a credit that did him
high honor. As the caravan approached Mecca, Meisara induced him
to carry the good news to Khadija in person. That lady, a wealthy
widow of about forty and the mother of three children, was highly
elated at Mohammed’s story; and, as she listened to the proof of
his business ability and fondly scanned his large, nobly formed
head, his curling, coal-black hair, his dark, piercing eyes, and
his comely form, it naturally occurred to her that this vigorous
and handsome young fellow would make an excellent successor to her
deceased husband. She had turned down the proposals of many vehement
Koreishite suitors; but here was one for whom, if necessary, she
herself was prepared to do the wooing--for Arab ladies rarely
entertained any foolish feminine scruples about such matters.

It was necessary; but she moved with discretion. She sent an envoy,
probably Meisara, to find out why Mohammed was so timid about
matrimony; for most Arabs married at about eighteen and lived in
poverty ever after. “What is it, O Mohammed, that hindereth thee
from marriage?” queried the messenger. “I have nothing in my hands
wherewithal I might marry,” he replied; for he still retained
painful memories of a proposal refused by one of his cousins, on
the sensible grounds that he had not the proper means to support
her. “But if haply that difficulty were removed,” he was asked,
“and thou wert invited to espouse a beautiful and wealthy lady of
noble birth, who would place thee in affluence, wouldst thou not
desire to have her?” “But who might it be?” he quickly inquired.
“It is Khadija.” “But how can I attain unto her?” “Let that be my
care,” he was told, and he immediately responded, “I am ready.”

Khadija was overjoyed at this news; but, according to custom,
she still had to win the consent of her father despite her age
and her manifold attainments. So she prepared a feast and made
him drunk; she then commanded that a cow should be killed, and,
drenching her intoxicated parent in perfumes, she clothed him in
the requisite matrimonial robes. Under such circumstances the old
man unconsciously performed the ceremony, but when he recovered
he looked with amazement on all the numerous signs of a wedding,
and stupidly inquired what it all meant. Upon learning the facts,
and upon being misinformed to the effect that “the nuptial dress
was put upon thee by Mohammed, thy son-in-law,” he staggered up in
high wrath and swore that his daughter, whose hand had been sought
by the most eminent Koreishites, should never be the bride of such
a shiftless ne’er-do-well as Mohammed. Even after the story had
been corrected he still refused to relent, and a tribal war might
have followed had he not shortly calmed down and decided to make
the best of a bad job. During the next fifteen years Mohammed led
a tranquil life. His future was provided for; he had plenty of
leisure to occupy himself as he chose, for Khadija insisted upon
running her own business affairs; and, notwithstanding her seasoned
maturity, there seems to be little reasonable doubt that he became
the father of four daughters and an indeterminate number of sons.

Not wishing to remain entirely idle, however, he acquired a partner
and established a general barter and trade business in Mecca--a fact
that doubtless explains the frequent depiction of Allah as a divine
bookkeeper in the Koran: “God is good at accounts,” and so on. Years
later, in the heyday of his fame at Medina, he still bought goods
wholesale and retailed them at an excellent profit, and he also
employed his stentorian voice as an auctioneer. All his children
turned out to be sickly. His son, or sons, died in infancy, and
his oldest daughter lived less than forty years; hence historians
who possess a flair for matters pertaining to medicine have made
the deduction that perhaps, after all, his youthful zest was not
guarded by Heaven, but was expended in most deplorable channels.
During these years Mohammed and his wife continued to be conventional
idolators who performed nightly rites in honor of various gods and
goddesses--among whom Allah and his female consoler Al-Lat ranked
fairly high--and who gave Pagan names to their children. And so, by
the year 610, Mohammed at forty was nothing more than a respectable
but unknown tradesman who had experienced no extraordinary crisis,
whose few extant sayings were flat and insipid, and whose life
seemed destined to remain as insignificant and unsung as that of
any other Arab.




                       [Illustration: III]

                       ALLAH AND MOHAMMED


                                I

The steps by which Mohammed emerged from obscurity into the
full glow of his messianic mission can never be traced with any
certainty. Explanations and interpretations in plenty--economic,
rationalistic, psychological, mediumistic, and so on--have too
often been advanced with placid and perfect assurance; but
unfortunately they have not overcome the main difficulty: Mohammed
himself. The enigma of his character--a fusion of the furthest
limits of charlatanism, demagoguery, bombastic egotism, and general
intellectual incompetency, with the opposite extremes of willing
martyrdom, unaffected simplicity and sincerity, and lightning flashes
of divine poetry--still remains essentially unchallenged and intact.
He used tricks common to fakirs--was he therefore a complete and
unabashed fakir? He began as a humble religious leader, and he ended
as an adroit politician and powerful general--was he therefore
dishonest from the start? He hid himself during battles--was he
therefore always a coward? He often broke faith with friend and foe
alike--was he therefore utterly unscrupulous? And yet.... He quite
certainly believed in the divinity of his mission--was he therefore
wholly sincere? He wrote some passages almost incomparable in their
emotional beauty--was he therefore inspired? He kept Allah in the
foreground while he himself remained in the background--why, then,
did the influence of Allah wane as the prestige of Mohammed waxed?
In short, was he a vicious paranoiac who developed into a maniacal
monster, or an unrivaled genius who was all that his worshipers
claimed--or both?

Such interrogations face the tracker of Mohammed’s career at every
turn of the journey, and, in avoiding the pitfalls on one side, he
is very likely to stumble into the abysses on the other. For the
facts of his life are at once too abundant and too few; and he who
ponders them is ever apt to discover that, just at the moment when
he confidently believes he is on the right path, he knows both
too much and too little. The rainbow’s end is forever at hand and
yet forever distant; and similarly the intangible, chameleon-like
personality of Mohammed constantly eludes and mocks one at the
precise time when one is most confident of touching and cornering the
flitting phantom. Under the circumstances, a rapid recapitulation
of such concrete events as have been handed down with a minimum of
bias is perhaps least likely to lead one too far astray.


                               II

When Mohammed was about thirty-five, the holy Kaba, beaten and broken
by a violent flood, was in sad need of repair. A Grecian ship, that
had been providentially wrecked on the coast of the Red Sea near
by, furnished the materials necessary for its reconstruction. So
great was the reverence emanating from the sacred walls, however,
that the Koreish feared the imposition of heavenly wrath on those
who made bold to tear the building down; but one fellow, braver than
the rest, raised an apologetic prayer to Allah and simultaneously
struck a heavy blow with a pickaxe. All those present, including
the assaulter, then fled and lingered timorously until morning,
when the incredible fact was noted that Allah had not spoken one
way or the other, and so the structure was rapidly demolished.
All went well with the building operations until the time came to
replace the Black Stone in the eastern corner--an honor so great
that each branch of the Koreish contended for it, until bloodshed
was imminent. Finally the eldest patriarch in the city arose and
advanced this ingenious solution: “O Koreish, hearken unto me! My
advice is that the man who chanceth first to enter the court of
the Kaba by yonder gate, he shall be chosen either to decide the
difference amongst you, or himself to place the stone.” Universal
applause followed and everyone waited to learn who should be the
lucky man. Just at this moment the unostentatious yet dignified
form of Mohammed was seen to approach, and all the people shouted
in unison: “Here comes the faithful arbiter; we are content to
abide by his decision.” Mohammed, ever cool and composed in public,
calmly accepted the appointment and immediately devised a supremely
clever diplomatic scheme that would certainly be satisfactory to
all. He removed his cloak and laid it on the ground; then, putting
the awful stone on it, he said: “Now let one from each of your four
divisions come forward, and raise a corner of this mantle.” This
was done and, when the rock was level with the cavity, he himself
thrust it in position. Thus the unpretentious tradesman rose in the
twinkling of an eye to high eminence in the esteem of his townsmen.
Since Mohammed’s mind always took to omens and auguries as a duck
takes to water, it is possible that this occurrence marked the
vague inception of his mission.

At all events, about five years later his neighbors became much
mystified by his behavior. He would retire, for days at a stretch,
to a cave in the foothills of Mount Hira, a conical hill several
miles north of Mecca, whither Khadija too sometimes went with him.
Meanwhile his business languished, and various conjectures were
advanced to account for his odd conduct--was the fellow crazy, or
afflicted with some loathsome disease, or was he perchance engaged
in some such nefarious occupation as counterfeiting? As the months
passed, he still continued to act in the same incomprehensible
manner, and it was noticed that, little by little, certain members
of his immediate family attended him to his refuge, or gathered
with him in some one of their own houses. This sort of thing went
on for several years, until it was noised abroad that the quondam
merchant and camel-driver was confidently claiming the honor of
having made the epochal discovery which he phrased thus: “_La ilaha
illa Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah_”--which, freely interpreted,
means: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet.”

This brief, twofold credo demands considerable attention. The
first postulate was not entirely new, for Allah had hitherto been
a well-behaved deity Who was highly regarded by many Arabs; yet,
after all, He had been but one of many idols. By what process of
thought had Mohammed come to exalt Allah not merely above all Arabian
gods, but above the gods of all time? and furthermore, why was he
so certain of his own intimate association with Allah?

Various explanations were offered by his simple-minded followers.
According to one account, as Mohammed was wandering near the cave,
“an angel from the sky cried to him, ‘O Mohammed, I am Gabriel!’
He was terrified, for as often as he raised his head, there was
the apparition of the angel. He hurried home to tell his wife. ‘O
Khadija,’ he said, ‘I have never abhorred anything as I do these
idols and soothsayers; and now verily I fear lest I should become
a soothsayer myself.’ ‘Never,’ replied his faithful wife, ‘the
Lord will never suffer it thus to be.’” So she made haste to get
the opinion of her own relative, the aged visionary Waraka, who,
after listening attentively to her tale, cried aloud: “By the Lord
he speaketh truth! Doubtless it is the beginning of prophecy, and
there shall come upon him the _Great Namus_, like as it came upon
Moses.” According to another story that is even more edifying,
Khadija discreetly tested the genuineness of the angelic guest by
making Mohammed sit first on her right knee, and then on her left;
and the spirit did not object to either procedure. But when she took
Mohammed in her lap and started to remove some of her garments,
the virtuous apparition departed in great haste, and the crafty
Khadija then exultantly cried: “Rejoice ... for by the Lord! it is
an angel, and no devil.”

These enlightening tales, however, deserve to be supplemented by
certain other considerations. Outside of Arabia, Paganism was in
general disrepute. The dissolute and declining Romans were cracking
lewd jokes in the very faces of their gods; the myriad followers
of Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster were either too remote or too
helpless to matter one way or another; Talmudic Judaism and Oriental
Christianity despised idolatry and worshiped the same Jehovah, even
though they disputed with each other, and indeed among themselves,
concerning the various attributes, amorous pursuits, and lineal
descendants of the Godhead. Now, to one who chose to regard himself
as a prophet, monotheism had distinct advantages over polytheism. For
one thing, it was rather confusing to attempt to obey the behests
of conflicting deities; and for another, the different prophets of
Jehovah in Judaism and Christendom had, so far as Mohammed knew, been
uniformly successful--for he was familiar with the glorious history
of Abraham, Moses and David, and he always held to the perverse
belief that Jesus was not crucified. However deep in the dumps
prophets may have been on occasion, they have invariably believed
one thing: victory for their particular cause will inevitably come.
Neither an unbroken series of worldly failures nor the chastisements
of his God have ever shaken the faith of a first-class prophet in
himself--or, as he would doubtless prefer to say, in his Divinity.
Arabia--broken, unorganized, inglorious, idolistic Arabia--obviously
lacked one Supreme Being whose prerogative was greater than all
other Supreme Beings; and that Being, in turn, needed a messenger
to exploit His supremacy. The messengers who had served Jehovah had
certainly prospered well; but Jehovah Himself appeared to be on the
decline--His Unity was steadily disintegrating into a paradoxical
Trinity. Why, therefore, not give Allah, perhaps the leading icon
in Arabia, an opportunity? Such considerations quite probably never
entered the head of Mohammed with any definiteness; yet his behavior
for the rest of his days seems to indicate that these, or similar
conceptions, were subconsciously egging him on.

Of certain facts, moreover, he was definitely aware. He may have
had little or no formal education, but his memory was retentive
and capacious, and his caravan journeys, together with the scores
of conversations he had held at the yearly fairs, as well as at
Mecca, with many cultivated strangers, had packed his mind with
a mass of highly valuable if heterogeneous matter. In these ways
he had learnt both the strength and the weakness of the Jews and
Christians: their fanatical enthusiasms and despairs; their spasmodic
attempts to proselytize as well as the widespread defections from
their faiths; the loftiness of their moral and political codes--a
loftiness that remained fruitless from their lack of cohesion and
effectual leadership. Since his conception of religion was largely
personal--for he looked upon Moses, Jesus and the rest merely as
capable men who had founded and promulgated religions--and since
Arabia had no preëminent ruler, why should _he_ not seize the reins
of power and carry on the great tradition of prophethood? What a
magnificent opportunity beckoned, and how fortunate that he had
been the first to recognize the call! By keeping only what was
best in the Arabic faith--the Kaba and the Black Stone--and by a
judicious selection of the most feasible ideas that lay imbedded
in Jewish and Christian precepts, he might establish a code that
would supersede all others, and might then dictate to all Arabs
alike. What prophets had done, he would also do--and do better.
Furthermore, he knew something else: he had a wealthy wife and four
intimates who were already prepared to fight for him to the death.

Khadija rated first. From the beginning she had stood faithfully
by his side, and whenever he was low-spirited and his heavenly
visitations were temporarily suspended, she would tenderly comfort
him--for the sad memories of her first marriage had made her
determined that her second husband should succeed in whatever
business he undertook. Her cousin, the learned mystic Waraka,
readily abandoned his firm conviction that Christ was the only
true prophet in favor of his cousin-in-law’s exclusive claim to
the same honor; and it is probable that he, more than any other
person, enlightened Mohammed’s many-sided ignorance of religious
history. Mohammed had early adopted his youthful cousin Ali, son of
Abu Talib, and the attachment between them had come to be mutually
strong. He had also assumed control of Zeid, a Christian slave,
who became so devoted to his master that, when he was offered his
freedom, he replied: “I will not leave thee; thou art in the place
to me of father and of mother.” This pleased Mohammed so much that
he immediately escorted Zeid to the Black Stone and said: “Bear
testimony, all ye that are present. Zeid is my son; I will be his
heir, and he shall be mine.” In his thirty-ninth year Mohammed
had become acquainted with Abu Bekr--commonly called either “the
Sighing” or “the True”--a rich cloth merchant who was middle-aged and
short, and who had deep-set eyes. Shrewd and penetrating in business
concerns, mentally stable, and untroubled by too many disturbing
ideas and emotions, he was just the sort of person Mohammed most
needed: a devoted adherent who would serve as business agent for
the new faith.

But in the beginning these were all. Some of his immediate relatives
did not take him very seriously: Abu Lahab grimaced in his face,
and even the charitable Abu Talib smiled rather derisively at his
curious actions. We are told that Abu Talib, chancing to apprehend
his son Ali and Mohammed contorting themselves according to the
precepts of Islam, thereupon remarked that he would not care to
twist himself so that his middle portion would be higher than
his head--a flippancy that Ali cherished and chuckled over years
after his father’s death. Meanwhile the great bulk of the Koreish
were too contemptuously indifferent to pay any heed to Mohammed’s
strange yarnings, though occasionally, as he passed cliques of them
on the streets, they would lazily point him out as a harmless and
but mildly amusing dunce.


                               III

Without applauding or deprecating this Koreishite behavior, we may
at any rate impartially consider its origin. The hitherto mentally
and emotionally normal trader, husband and father had found himself
suddenly swept off his feet and carried irresistibly away on a
mighty tide: the perverse, inexplicable desire to write poetry--a
fantasy that could not fail to make him the laughing-stock of all
right-minded Meccans. How curious, how odd, that he, a well-to-do
merchant who had looked forward to nothing more exciting than a
peaceful and prosperous future, should be summarily wrenched from
his moorings and cast adrift upon such a strange, tempest-tossed
sea! Surely, surely, there was some marvelous meaning in the
business--if he could but find it. And so, stabbed by agonizing
doubts or transported with rapturous ecstasies, he plunged blindly
on, seeking relief from his vague imaginings in intermittent bursts
of formless, rhapsodical verse. His perturbed spirit now soared
to the heights of Heaven and now plunged into the chasms of Hell;
moments of ethereal bliss would be followed by periods of the
profoundest melancholy. In short, he was passing through the throes
of an experience closely akin to religious conversion--an experience
that can end in but one of three ways: in a relapse into sin, in
suicide, or in a more or less enduring catharsis of the spirit.
Though Mohammed was too strong a man to return to the fleshpots of
Arabia--if, indeed, he had ever tasted them--it is almost certain,
as the earliest fragments of the Koran hint, that he meditated
self-destruction for a time; but Allah, the All-Compelling, the
Mighty One, had other plans.

It is related that the angel Gabriel, who thus far had labored only
in the field of Christian employment, was chosen by Allah as bearer
of the divine revelation to Mohammed. One day, while the trader-poet
was wrestling with his doubts among the foothills of Mount Hira,
he saw a wondrous apparition floating downward on celestial wing.
Coming within a distance of two bowshots--for the Arabs are very
accurate about such things--the divine envoy exposed a tablet covered
with heavenly hieroglyphs before Mohammed’s astonished eyes and
exclaimed, “Read!” “I cannot read,” replied Mohammed; but again
the unearthly voice uttered the word, “Read!” And then, impelled
by an irresistible power, Mohammed fixed his entranced eyes upon
the document and began to chant thus:

  “Recite in the name of the Lord who created--
  Created Man from nought but congealed blood;--
  Recite! For thy Lord is beneficent....”

and so on, until the end. “Thou art God’s Prophet, and I am Gabriel,”
announced the awe-inspiring guest before he departed to receive the
blessing of Allah for having so successfully executed the heavenly
command. Gabriel, in truth, was a very valuable ambassador, for,
through the to and fro journeyings of this indefatigable messenger,
Allah was able to remain at ease in Heaven, thus keeping up that
appearance of intangible, majestic remoteness so necessary for
dignified gods.

And thus Mohammed came into his own. From that moment he looked upon
himself as Allah’s vicegerent, through whom Allah’s incontestable
decrees were to be given to man--although Gabriel, or the Holy
Ghost (for Mohammed’s slipshod knowledge of Christian theogony led
him into the regrettable error of perpetually confusing those two
eminent divinities), continued in his capacity as interpreter of
the intermittently revealed series of tablets. And so careful was
Allah to eliminate the possibility of merely human invention that
He prefaced every Sura, or individual revelation, with the express
or implied injunction “SAY” or “SPEAK”--the irrefutable proof of
divine authorship. Mohammed’s every doubt had now vanished, his soul
was completely at ease; and from his lips there burst the wildly
exultant chant: “_La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah!_”

Such, we may believe if we so desire, was the origin of the Koran, of
Mohammed the Prophet, and of Islam itself--those three interacting
and inseparable forces (a sort of Pagan Trinity, in fact) which,
emerging when Rome was dying and Christianity was barely out of its
cradle, convulsed the civilized and uncivilized world for centuries
to come. Inasmuch, however, as Mohammed himself, not to mention
his commentators, has added certain clarifying details that were
touched with an earthiness foreign to the pretty picture, it may
not be wholly presumptuous or irreverent to glance briefly at the
other side of the canvas.

The conception of a flexible revelation--of one that could be
indefinitely extended, amended, expurgated, or even abrogated in
part--was excellent in many ways. Christianity and Mormonism, to cite
only two counter cases, have both suffered somewhat, perhaps, from
the inexorable nature of their scriptures. Woe unto him who alters
a jot or tittle of their contents! At the same time, the precise
meaning of the Christian creed, in particular, is very indefinite; it
permits a latitude of interpretation, even in fundamental matters,
that has brought about those lamentable schisms into major, minor
and microscopic sects with which everyone is familiar. But, however
much civil strife Islam may have endured from political factionalism
or antagonism over inconsequential tenets in the Koran, it has
remained indissolubly firm in its adherence to its supereminent
divinities: Allah and Mohammed. And the credit for this, it is
to be suspected, is due principally to the one whom all orthodox
Moslems believe--or profess they believe--to be the lesser.

Poetry and oratory--the only forms of literature known to the
Arabs--were both oracular and rudely rhythmical; and Mohammed, who
from his childhood had been familiar with the yearly contests of
poets and orators at the fairs, naturally adopted a cognate medium
of expression. His thoughts, whether conceived in a white heat of
frenzy or with deliberate coolness and sly calculation for the main
chance, were probably not written down in any definite way during
his life. It is not certain, in fact, that he could either read or
write. He delighted in the appellation “the illiterate Prophet,”
possibly on account of his humility, and possibly because he knew
that inspired ignorance had been the indisputable prerogative of
all successful prophets in the past. Indeed, the very fact that
he was unlearned was rightly supposed to increase the miraculous
nature of his revelations. As he tossed the divine emanations
from his lips, they were sometimes recorded by hired or willing
scribes upon palm leaves, leather, stones, the shoulder-blades or
ribs of camels and goats, or were even tattooed upon the breasts
of men. But often they were not immediately written down at all;
the Prophet would go around spouting them forth to his followers
who, trained from infancy to memorize verses and songs of every
sort with infallible precision, would piously commit them to
memory. As a result of this divinely haphazard procedure, the time
of composition of the different Suras has never been definitely
fixed. Two facts, however, are well established: the revelations,
at first very short, steadily increased in length; and, doubtless
for that reason, the interminable later Suras do not even contain
ashes--for ashes prove that flame was once present--whereas the
earlier songs are occasionally touched with fire.

Occasionally ... but only so. The indefeasible privilege of all
Holy Writ to be dull--a privilege only too generously exercised--is
abused in the Koran with an enthusiasm matched only by the third
part of the Pentateuch. The spasmodic structure of the Koran--its
absence of cohesion between chapters and even between sentences, its
dithyrambic convulsions, its hodge-podge of inchoate and irrelevant
ideas, its pervasive lack of charm--may be due, it has been hazarded,
to Mohammed’s neurotic idiosyncrasy; yet epileptic men of genius in
many branches of mental activity have been by no means uncommon,
and it seems simpler to assume that he was not born to be a poet.
In any case, it is certain that his predilection for non-didactic
poetry showed itself only at rare intervals: perhaps because, as
the Koran puts it, “We have not taught him poetry, nor is it meet
for him,” perhaps because he had had no genuine love-affair in his
youth, and perhaps because he believed that his commission was too
serious to allow any protracted indulgence in such a frivolous
thing as verse. Like the Hebrew prophets, he was at his best when
raining heavenly maledictions on his enemies; like them, too, he
was at his worst when he used repetition as a substitute for ideas.
But they at least had good stories, taken from a long and rich
racial history, to redecorate as they saw fit, whereas Arabia had
almost no history worth the telling; and so Mohammed was compelled
to fall back on Hebrew literature to help him out. He did fall
back--again and again, and yet again. Even if he could not read,
it was easy to get the necessary material from friendly Jews in
Mecca; but an unfortunate, though apparently disregarded, difficulty
attended this procedure: different Jews would tell the same story
in different ways. So it came about that, when the Prophet was
hard pressed for material, he would use one version; again, when
his clock of inspiration had run down or been left unwound, he
would use another garbled rendition of the same narrative. While
the story of Joseph was his favorite, his collection of trophies
pillaged from Biblical folklore included the activities of Noah,
Abraham, Moses, David and less important notables; at the same
time, he was quite innocent of the common Christian complaint that
he had plagiarized the Bible, inasmuch as he had never read it.
Carlyle was certainly not a tepid admirer of Mohammed, but, when he
read the Koran, even his Berserker rage for great men suffered a
serious shock--a shock that might justly be criticized for the very
thing it criticizes. “I must say,” he confessed, “it is as toilsome
reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome, confused jumble, crude,
incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most
crude, incondite;--insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but
a sense of duty would carry any European through the Koran.” And
indeed, so far as that volume is concerned, the European sense of
duty has been very small.

But with Mohammed’s acolytes the case has been wholly different.
For from the beginning they believed in the Koran with an
appallingly artless simplicity, at once noble and absurd. Through
its instrumentality, Allah the Wise, the Only Wise, revealed his
immutable decrees: to the good, the rewards of a Paradise that
utterly beggared the Christian Heaven, and to the bad the punishments
of a Hell that contained an infinity of such refined tortures of
heat, and even of cold, as neither the most imaginatively gifted Jew
nor Christian had yet conceived--for Dante was undreamed of. Mohammed
of course properly approved of Allah’s decisions and judgments, as
an employee should rightly behave toward his employer; and he was
especially fond of his superior’s delight in describing Hell--“I
swear,” he gravely announced one day, “that it is one of the most
serious things.”

The earlier part of the Koran, or “Recitation,” is mostly concerned
with these elemental and primitive things; only at a later day did
Allah--or Mohammed?--deal separately with the many matters touching
the growth of a definite code of religious, social and governmental
precepts. When scoffers poked ridicule at the rather sloppy grammar
and metre of the Koran, Mohammed did two things: in the first place,
after brandishing the doom of an eternity of roaring flames over
their heads, he challenged them to produce better verses than his--or
Allah’s?--own; and, in the second place, he incautiously prepared
a loophole of escape by revealing, in Sura 69, the fact that the
Koran was “not the word of a poet,” but “a revelation from the
Lord of the Worlds.” This lofty gesture temporarily squelched his
defamers, who promptly dug off with their tails between their legs;
but its effect did not last long when they reflected how damaging
an admission he had made. It may of course be readily granted that
precepts concerned with daily washing, food, taxes, and so on,
were not especially well adapted to rhythmical prose; but, after
all, that was Allah’s and Mohammed’s lookout. Perhaps, indeed, the
confession of non-poetical power was scarcely necessary; for the
inexplicable man who, in the pristine freshness of poetic glow,
could indite this terse stanza, instinct with brooding doom:

  “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
  Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of men,
  The King of men,
  The God of men,
  From the evil of the whisperings of the slinking devil,
  Who whispers into the hearts of men,
  From among the Jinn and the men,”

and who conceived the charming fantasy that the lengthened shadows
of morning and evening are elongated in obeisance to Allah, was
also capable many years later of concocting an effusion designed
expressly to make his wives behave themselves.




                       [Illustration: IV]

                “A PROPHET IS NOT WITHOUT HONOR”


                                I

Islam, the doctrine of “resignation to God,” was now started on its
way; but mystery hovers over every stage of the journey. The various
explanations that have been devised to account for its marvelously
rapid development have commonly just enough plausibility to make
them romantically misleading; for the charm of a half-truth lies in
its Lethean amalgamation of realism and fancy: it displays neither
the dulness of unadorned fact nor the superficiality of exotic
fabrication. In recent times Mohammed and his era have inevitably
been subjected to treatment according to principles derived from
the “scientific method.” Now, while it is unquestionably true that
a large amount of invaluable information has been accumulated thus,
it is also true that the excessive use of this method has given rise
to some definite dangers--dangers that are all the more alluring
and deceptive because they bear the stamp of contemporary approval.
For one thing, its adherents often lack the ability to apply the
principle to their own mental processes: they sometimes manifest a
bias as essentially unscientific as the fervent prayer of the most
benighted Moslem. For another thing, its devotees frequently dispute
among themselves over the validity of its countless ramifications
with an enthusiasm unexcelled by political fanatics; and, for still
another thing, the method itself is as much a product of conditions
peculiar to the so-called Modern World as Islamism was a logical
excrescence of the deplorable Dark Ages.

Although Mohammed’s parents died so early as to deprive the
Freudians of the opportunity to dissect him in a manner compatible
with the most cherished articles of their faith, other not wholly
dissimilar schools of thought have not failed to wield their
scalpels--oftentimes with very considerable effect. For example,
those who look upon him as a largely self-conscious medium who was
extraordinarily skillful and successful in employing the cabalistic
devices used by mediums as a class, have much to warrant their
belief. The evidence extant in support of this view, in fact,
merits respect if not complete acceptance. For the whole business
of Allah, and Gabriel, and the magical tablets--whose precious
contents none but Mohammed might gaze upon, and he only at infrequent
intervals--is, to say the least, very intriguing. The problem that
fronts all mediums is this: how to produce their messages without
arousing the suspicion that they themselves are the authors;
and innumerable devices are used to attain this end. It has been
suggested that the Prophet himself may have solved the problem by a
subtly clever device--his known susceptibility to epileptic fits.
Before giving vent to one of Allah’s inditements, he would snore,
cover himself with a blanket, and remain thus until, drenched with
sweat, he emerged and gave his message. One traditional account runs
thus: “He fell to the ground like an inebriate, or one overcome by
sleep; and in the coldest day his forehead would be bedewed with
large drops of perspiration. Even his she-camel, if he chanced
to become inspired while mounted on her, would be affected by a
wild excitement, sitting down and rising up, now planting her legs
rigidly, then throwing them about as if they would be parted from
her.” In the earlier Koran, he is characterized as the “man in the
blanket,” or the “man who is wrapped up.” For he fully appreciated
the necessity of keeping his followers in a state of protracted
mystification, and to that end he made use of many theatrical
tricks. He would drum up a crowd with his ludicrous snortings and
puffings until the resounding cry, “Inspiration hath descended on
the Prophet!” assured him that he had a sufficiently large audience
to warrant the ebullition of a new Sura. While in a room that was
obviously empty, he declared that all the seats were occupied by
angels; he cultivated a suave and benign expression; he flattered
and astounded his adherents by telling them intimately personal
facts about themselves which he had presumably acquired through
private information; he took the most painstaking care of his
person--painted his eyes and perfumed his entire body every day,
wore his hair long and probably dyed it when it became gray, and
there is reason to believe that he always wore a veil. Eventually,
he so perfected his technique that he could throw a cataleptic fit
and produce a message without any previous preparation. In the midst
of a meal he would contort himself, disgorge a new injunction, and
then calmly finish his dinner.

Nor does the case for the prosecution end here. The manner in which
his early disciples were won and organized suggests that like
principles were employed. In the beginning, Islam was a profoundly
secret society, whose leader frowned upon publicity but encouraged
furtive proselytizing on a great scale--a policy of action that
turned out to be perfectly suited to the situation. For this privacy
doubtless saved the cause from early obliteration, while at the
same time it offered the romantic attraction of a Jekyll-and-Hyde
existence to those who accepted Islam--a circumstance decidedly
favorable to the growth of any surreptitious conclave; and, in
addition, it gave Mohammed time to pick and choose his lieutenants
with care, as well as to school himself in the lessons needed for
ruling heterogeneous masses of men. While all this was going on, he
himself remained aloof in august, inaccessible grandeur, for none
could see him who was not already rabid with desire to prostrate
himself at the Prophet’s feet. Thus, in those clandestine gatherings
held in the house of the convert Al-Arkam--a house afterward
appropriately immortalized by the title “The House of Islam”--and
in the febrile activity of Mohammed’s plastic pupils, headed by
the efficient Abu Bekr, is to be found the germ whence all Islam
sprang.

This reasoning sounds very plausible until one reflects: after
all, could it have been as simple as this? And then an inscrutable
image looms in the mind--the grotesque, grand, preposterous and
prodigious figure of Mohammed.


                               II

The secret séances in the House of Al-Arkam continued; a variety of
converts began to pour in; and by the fourth year of his mission
Mohammed dared to come boldly out into the open and proclaim that
he was the anointed representative of Allah. His proselytes at
first were mostly humble folk: slaves, women unable to achieve
matrimony, unsuccessful business men, and others who, discontented
with their lot, were either looking for excitement or willing to take
any chance however desperate. Yet it is a curious fact that every
devotee, except Abu Bekr, showed some aversion before whole-heartedly
accepting the new faith: “I never invited any one to the faith who
displayed not hesitation and perplexity, excepting only Abu Bekr,”
the Prophet himself admitted. The explanation may lie in the fact
that each proselyte was expected to remain true through thick and
thin; indeed, his life was forfeit if he apostatized--a stipulation
that, even today, makes the conversion of a Moslem a very difficult
task. Another possible explanation is this: the converts soon
discovered that Islam was not merely a gospel of salvation through
faith--an outstanding tenet of all great religions, because it makes
a peculiar appeal to the intellectually slothful--but a gospel that
demanded a vast amount of hard work. Mohammed, in fact, had much
more in common with James than with Paul. For if he was a fanatic
in emotional matters, his grosser intellectual endowments were
characterized by an admirable coolness and a logical precision that
often confounded his friends and his enemies alike--though it is
recorded that an early convert, who was commissioned to take down
one of the Prophet’s divine ravings, decided to renounce Islam
when he observed that he was permitted to pen whatever he chose.

Each newcomer recognized his brothers by the greeting “Peace unto
you,” a password of which Mohammed was especially fond; and if it
was dangerous for a time to speak the words openly, recognition was
made sure by the adoption of a peculiar style of turban. The new
sect was called Moslems, or “traitors”--an appellation that provoked
much merriment among Mohammed’s less serious-minded opponents. He
showed a typical lack of humor in accepting the sobriquet, they
remarked, but he was to be praised for making it an honorable term;
for, while it usually meant one who surrendered his friends to their
foes, it now signified one who yielded himself to God. The Koran,
however, settled the matter by affirming that the title had been
invented by no less an authority than Abraham himself.

While converts of every type were welcomed, preference was naturally
shown for those who had either physical or social strength. For
a time most of them came from the descendants or adherents of
the house of Hashim, and so Mohammed, doubtless with the idea of
strengthening the faith by breaking the strong family and tribal
ties, set up brotherhoods between those who came from different
sects. The largeness of his nature is shown by his readiness to
make amends for any wrong he had committed. A blind man once
interrupted him, while he was earnestly conversing with a prospective
convert, with the request that the Koran should be read aloud; and
the Prophet, incensed at the ill-timed interruption, snapped out a
harsh refusal. But his heart soon smote him, and he made atonement
for his error by pointing out in the Koran how unforgivable it
was for him to welcome the rich and powerful while neglecting the
poor and despised. The most valuable of the slave converts was the
negro Bilal, “small in body, but weighty in faith,” whom Mohammed
himself extolled as “the first fruits of Abyssinia.” Almost all of
the first score of converts remained staunch, though one of them,
Obeidallah, eventually weakened under the strokes of persecution,
became a Christian, and died in that faith; but Mohammed avenged
himself by marrying his widow.

By far the most important of the Meccan neophytes, except Khadija
and Abu Bekr, were the Prophet’s uncle Hamza--a mighty man in
hunting, wine and war, whose valorous conduct won him the title
“The Lion of God”--and Omar, a veritable Hercules. He had been a
clever trader who once outwitted the assessor of customs by making
his own camel swallow the gold it carried--and he then recovered
the money by killing the camel. His most cherished avocations had
been wine, wife-beating, coarse interference in delicate feminine
matters, and bitter hatred of Islam. Informed one day--so the most
plausible tradition of his conversion runs--that his own sister
and brother-in-law had yielded to its seductions, he hastened to
their house and greeted them with the brotherly salutation, “I
hear that ye are renegades!” When they tried to argue with him,
he violently kicked the man and wounded his sister in the face.
These activities so completely restored his good humor that he
asked to see the roll they had been reading. Having perused a part
of one Sura, he exclaimed, “How excellent is this discourse, and
gracious!” adding that he would like to meet Mohammed. So he went
immediately to Al-Arkam’s house, where the inmates, including even
the redoubtable Hamza, drew back in alarm; but the Prophet boldly
seized his skirt and sword-belt and asked, “How long, O Omar, wilt
thou not refrain from persecuting, even until the Lord send some
calamity upon thee?” The penitent Omar replied, “Verily, I testify
that thou art the Prophet of God!” whereupon Mohammed raised the
joyous shout: “Allahu Akbar! Great is the Lord!” So widespread was
the Koreishite fear of Omar that from this moment the Moslems prayed
openly in the city; and the happy Prophet continued to exult over
his prize acquisition in this fashion: “If Satan were to meet Omar,
he would get out of Omar’s way,” while one of his pet sayings was,
“I, Abu Bekr, and Omar.”

It seems probable that Mohammed at first offered his disciples no
promise of earthly rewards, but seduced them by painting gorgeously
graphic pictures of their eventual felicity in Paradise, as well
as the utter discomfiture of their foes in Hell. The Koran of this
period abounds with eloquent descriptions of both places. Paradise
is represented as a haven bulging with sensuous delights of the
most naïve and ephemeral sort. In fact, so much emphasis was put
upon food and drink that a jolly Jew objected on the ground that
such continual feasting must of necessity be followed by purgation;
the Prophet, however, swore that it would not even be necessary to
blow the nose in Paradise, since all bodily impurities would be
carried off by a perspiration “as odiferous as musk.” Furthermore,
he soon added particular attractions that were far more captivating
than mere gluttony, even though they still lacked the subtlety of
philosophic appeal.

  “Verily for the Pious is a blissful abode;
  Gardens and Vineyards,
  And Damsels with swelling bosoms, of an equal age,
  And a full cup.”

He continued to dilate on this theme, rhyming the heavenly
benefactions in pairs; but when he tried to include the angelic young
ladies in the divine catalogue, their number utterly ruined his
rigid metrical scheme, and he was therefore compelled to expatiate
on their charms in prose: “lovely large-eyed girls resembling
pearls hidden in their shells, a reward for that which the faithful
have wrought.... We have made them virgins, fascinating, of an
equal age.” While thus innocently occupied, the faithful were to
be further entertained by peering over the celestial battlements
and observing the tortures of the unbelievers, who would be vainly
trying to quench their thirst by drinking boiling water. “This
shall be your entertainment on the Day of reckoning!” promises the
Koran.

  “Wherefore one day the Faithful shall laugh the Unbelievers to scorn,
  Lying upon couches, they shall behold them in Hell.”

Spiritual inducements of this sort, not to mention the mundane
rewards soon to be offered to the pious and the swift earthly doom
promised for backsliders, did not fail in their effect. And still,
despite the accessions to Islam, the Prophet as late as 615 was
subject to public insult. The rigorous ban on bloodshed within
tribes saved him from serious personal danger, but he nevertheless
endured some very scurrilous abuse; his enemies would throw offensive
objects at his person, or on his hearth while he was cooking his
simple meals. One day they tossed in the entrails of a goat, and
Mohammed, putting the refuse on a stick, carried it to the door and
shouted: “Ye children of Abd Menaf! What sort of good neighborhood
is this?” While at his devotions near the window, he was at times
forced to crouch beneath a projecting stone to escape the missiles
of his foes. But the prestige of his old protector, Abu Talib, was
still very strong and, despite his regrettable adherence to the
ancient faith, he staunchly protected his incomprehensible nephew
from the Koreish. Once, it is true, Abu Talib’s patience was shaken,
and he asked Mohammed not to cast upon him “a burden heavier than I
can bear.” The Prophet, perturbed by his uncle’s apparent desertion
and by the prospect of his own consequent loss of protection, burst
out crying and started to leave the room. Then the aged ruler was
so moved that he cried: “Son of my brother, come back! And now
depart in peace! and say whatsoever thou wilt. For, by the Lord of
the Kaba, I will not, in any wise, give thee up for ever.”


                               III

Notwithstanding the ubiquitous respect for Abu Talib and the equally
widespread fear of Omar and Hamza, the Koreishite hatred of Mohammed
became steadily more menacing. The lowborn fakir-Prophet might be
a person of despicable origin who mouthed a prodigious amount of
insane drivel, but he had certainly succeeded in kicking up a highly
exasperating rumpus. The devil of it was that the pernicious fellow
so skillfully blended his own revelations with Arabic and Jewish
traditions, whose validity nobody impugned, that the Koreish could
not denounce the one without laying themselves open to the charge
of reviling the other. He appeared to be wholly impervious, not
to say sublimely indifferent, to the appeal of common sense; for
when the Koreish charged that his Suras were either fabricated by
himself or dictated by abler assistants, he would employ the most
underhanded means to disprove the accusation. When they suggested
that, inasmuch as he identified himself with the prophets of old,
he ought to trot out a few miracles, he unwisely obliged them by
declaring that the sky would fall upon their impenitent heads. He
realized his mistake, however, when they promptly demanded that
he should fix a date for the catastrophe; and he then cleverly
extricated himself from his predicament by maintaining that his
presence in the holy city had averted the disaster. But Mohammed had
learnt his lesson, and thereafter he never tampered with miracles--a
fact that, perhaps more than any other, indicates his superiority
over preceding prophets.

The Koreish, however, had not yet finished with him, and, as they
redoubled their assaults, he met them in various ways. When one
of them affirmed that the Prophet was a crazy man--“One taught by
others, a Madman!”--under the influence of the dreadful Jinn, he
retaliated by accusing his accuser of being a bastard who could
not write, who was head over heels in debt, and who furthermore
deserved a thump on the nose. When they worsted him in debate, he
first lost his temper and then announced that he had been divinely
commanded not to argue with unbelievers--for often, as Mohammed
preached to his followers or fulminated against his antagonists,
his cheeks would blaze and his voice would become shrill, and on
one occasion he is said to have thrown dust on the heads of his
opponents. When another Koreishite accepted the Prophet’s rash
challenge to a poetic duel to test the excellence of the Koran,
Mohammed could do nothing but squirm in discomfiture; but he amply
avenged himself, after the battle of Bedr, by ordering the summary
execution of the despicable poet. When they pointed out the many
errors of fact that appeared in the Koran, and sneered at his
assertion that the revelation was “in pure Arabic,” Mohammed at
first replied that Allah must know best--“He hath revealed it who
knoweth that which is hidden in heaven and in earth: He is forgiving
and merciful”--but, when he was informed that his answer, though
doubtless inspired, was hardly to the point, he attempted to dazzle
everybody by producing a new Sura that nobody, not even himself,
could comprehend. For Mohammed invariably trusted in Suras rather
than syllogisms, and wisely quoted no authority save Allah.

If, however, he was safe from direct assault, the more humble of his
auxiliaries--the slaves, strangers and lower classes--who lacked
the protection of family ties, were not so fortunate. They were
apprehended, beaten and jailed, or exposed to the terrific heat
of the sun. Under torments of this sort, some of them naturally
recanted--a contingency that necessitated swift measures on the part
of Allah. Mohammed, sincerely moved by their sufferings, announced
that, even though they dissembled to escape torture, Allah was
nevertheless All-Merciful and Forgiving if their hearts were right;
and a Sura forthwith appeared that poured divine wrath on every
backslider, “excepting him who is forcibly compelled thereto, his
heart remaining steadfast in the faith.” One day the Prophet
met an adherent who was weeping from the anguish of his wounds, and
asked what the trouble was. “Evil, O Prophet! They would not let me
go until I had abused thee, and spoken well of their gods.” “But
how dost thou find thine own heart?” “Secure and steadfast in the
faith.” “Then if they repeat their cruelty, repeat thou also thy
words,” advised Mohammed. Yet, in spite of this heavenly leniency,
incessant persecution continued to diminish his little band, and
he therefore counselled those who were defenseless to take refuge
in Abyssinia. Some of them did so, but still the odious oppression
continued.

The Prophet, in this desperate strait, seems to have resolved upon
a desperate remedy. It is at all events true that, scarcely three
months after the departure of the little company of refugees, he
tried to effect a compromise with his implacable foes. Approaching
a group of the Koreish in Mecca one day, he reeled off a Sura which
contained the flattering information that some of their gods, and
particularly their goddesses, were not so bad after all. Having
enumerated several of them, he intoned this passage:

  “These are exalted Females,
  Whose intercession verily is to be sought after.”

At the end of this strange encounter, Mohammed and his hearers
promptly prostrated themselves and worshiped their individually
pampered deities in a spirit of beautiful brotherhood.

This event probably marks the decadence of the mystic and the
inception of the statesmanlike elements in Mohammed’s character;
but it was destined to bear bitter fruit. Had his co-workers
possessed his aptitude for mental prestidigitation, all might
have gone well; but, like others of his profession, Mohammed had
stirred up a bigger hornets’ nest than he realized. It appears
that many Moslems, including even those who had been bribed into
accepting Islam, actually believed that the Prophet had meant what
he said about Allah, and himself, and Islam in general. Whatever
it was that had inspired his retrograde action, Mohammed turned
right-about-face in double-quick time; for another Sura followed
posthaste, which declared that the Prophet, being very human, was
sometimes deceived by the poisonous whisperings of the devil.
It was furthermore stated that Allah, the Omnipotent, naturally
possessed the power to erase or substitute sections of the Koran as
he desired: “And when We change one verse in place of another (and
God best knoweth that which He revealeth) they say, ‘Verily thou
plainly art a fabricator.’ Nay! but the most of them understand
not. Say, the Holy Spirit hath brought it down from thy Lord in
truth, to stablish them that believe.” Nevertheless, the clever
device came to naught, for the Prophet’s overplay of his hand led to
two unfortunate results: the Koreish, more assured than ever that
he was a slippery liar, redoubled their assaults on his devotees;
and Mohammed himself was regarded with suspicious doubt by some of
his most whole-hearted adherents.

Events followed thick and fast. The Prophet, disturbed and alarmed,
advised another emigration to Abyssinia--a recommendation that
swelled the rising fury of his enemies. For the Abyssinians, in years
past, had invaded Arabia under Abraha, and what was more likely than
that Mohammed was sending envoys to negotiate a _rapprochement_
with their chiefs--a contingency that might foretell a second
invasion to assist the Prophet and overthrow the Koreish? Impelled
by such vague fears, they instituted a device far more effective
than direct attack. Mohammed’s biographers are not agreed upon the
precise time when these events took place; but it seems probable
that, shortly after the second emigration to Abyssinia (615-616),
the Koreish issued a decree of excommunication against the family
of Hashim--which meant practically all of Islam. Its descendants
were banned from intermarriage or other business engagements with
the Meccans; in brief, the Pagan bull specified that “dealings of
every kind should cease.” The effect was swift and inevitable--the
relatively weak Hashimites were compelled to withdraw their forces
from Mecca and retire to a secluded defile east of the city. And here
for an indeterminate period running from several months to several
years, the outlaws--probably about one hundred in number--lived as
best they could by buying scanty provisions at fabulous prices from
passing caravans. Mohammed’s highly praiseworthy behavior under
these desperate conditions restored, and indeed strengthened, the
faith of the suffering Hashimites; it is even possible that, without
this savage persecution, Islam might soon have died out and been
forgotten in its infancy. For some of the better-class Moslems had
heretofore been showing dangerous tendencies: they refused longer
to kiss the Black Stone; they showed flagrant disrespect toward
their unconverted relatives; they used obscene language; they even
prayed to Allah while they were drunk; and--encouraged, alas! by
the Prophet himself--they coveted the wives and possessions of the
unbelievers. But this frightful ordeal cleansed their hearts of such
wickednesses. The “blood of the martyrs” was, in all probability,
the seed of Islam’s glorious harvest.

And Mohammed himself was stirred to make even greater efforts than
ever. With the cries of starving children ringing in his ears, he
would go forth, during the holy months when amnesty prevailed, to
exhort the tribes that came to the fairs held at Ukaz and other
places. “Ye people!” he would shout, “Say, there is no God but the
Lord. Ye will be benefited thereby. Ye will gain the rule of Arabia
and of foreign lands, and when ye die ye will reign as kings in
Paradise.” While he was thus engaged, his uncle, Abu Lahab (who had
probably avoided the ban by forswearing his kinship to the tribe of
Hashim), would tag after him, crying out, “Believe him not, he is a
lying renegade!” On another occasion Abu Lahab yelled: “Blast the
fellow! Is that all that he hath called us for together?” Mohammed
was moved to such fury by this remark that he devoted one of the
many imprecations of the Koran to his foul-mouthed, profligate
uncle and his equally impenitent spouse.

  “Blasted be the hands of Abu Lahab; let himself perish;
  His wealth and his gains shall avail him not;
  Burned shall he be with the fiery flame,
  His wife shall be laden with firewood--
  On her neck a rope of palm fibre.”

But Abu Lahab, who by fits and starts relied on the goddess Al-Uzza
for protection, did not cease his mud-slinging; and he was ably
assisted by Pagans from foreign tribes who would taunt Mohammed thus:
“Thine own kindred and people should know thee best; wherefore is
it that they have cast thee off?” Then the Prophet would turn his
face despairingly toward heaven and say, “O Lord, if Thou willedst,
it would not be thus!” But Allah--Who, logically, should be as much
of a nomad as his creatures--seems to have been enjoying a vacation
just then.

In 619 the hostile edict was withdrawn; but the reasons for its
abrogation are obscure. Some believe that the Koreish lifted it
when (it must be repeated that the dates of these events are vague)
Mohammed agreed to a compromise with the Pagan deities of Mecca;
others think that the better nature of the Koreish at last caused
them to pity the famishing exiles. Whatever the facts may be, it was
discovered that the parchment on which the edict was written had
been mostly devoured by some ants that, however, had taken devout
care to leave the inscribed name of God intact. The Koreish were
so confounded by this direct manifestation of Allah’s displeasure
that, when five of their leaders declared they were opposed to the
continued banishment of the Hashimites, opposition collapsed and
the weary outcasts returned to their homes.

Mohammed, overjoyed at this unexpected good fortune and completely
oblivious to the major part played by the insects, rightly gave
thanks to Allah. But new, and even more sinister, events impended.
Within a few months death deprived him of the loyal protection of
Abu Talib and the tender ministrations of Khadija. He comforted
his wife’s dying hours with the assurance that she, together with
three other well-known women--the Virgin Mary, Potiphar’s wife, and
“Kulthum, Moses’ sister”--would occupy his chamber in Paradise; but
all he could conscientiously promise his expiring uncle was that he
would inhabit the coolest, or at any rate the least hot, regions
in Hell. The contingent deaths of these two made the Prophet’s
position very precarious: Khadija had constantly nerved him to face
the severest trials, and Abu Talib had just as constantly kept the
number of those trials down. Abu Talib, in fact, was barely in his
grave when the populace of Mecca cast dust on Mohammed’s head; and
he therefore betook himself to At-Taif, a city some seventy miles
east of Mecca, to test its possibilities as a refuge. Arriving
there early in 620, he was much disconcerted to learn that none
of its inhabitants had even so much as heard of his ten-year-old
mission; and when he attempted to enlighten them, the sheiks and
their groundlings merely sneered in open contempt. He then besought
them not to divulge his religious views--an exhibition of invaliant
diplomacy that caused the people to hoot and hurl stones at him,
until he fled from the city with blood flowing down his legs. Utterly
cast down in spirit, he spent the next two months in seclusion at
Mecca. During the pilgrimage month of Dhul-Hijja, while he was
addressing the crowds of visitors in his usual way, a coincidence
of measureless significance occurred. Mohammed chanced to notice a
little group of men whom he recognized as inhabitants of Medina.




                        [Illustration: V]

                           THE HEGIRA


                                I

Ancient Yathrib, commonly called Medina, was familiar to the Arabs
as “the pleasing” city, for it lay in a fertile plain teeming with
“green fields, running water, every blessing the Eastern mind can
desire.” For ages it had been inhabited by expatriated Jews; but
early in the fourth century two Arab tribes, the Aus and the Khazraj,
settled there. But the Hebrew residents were much superior to the
newcomers in general culture, in agriculture and wealth, and, it was
darkly rumored, in the black art of magic; for the Pagan usurpers
held to the primitive belief that the perfect man was one who could
write Arabic, swim and shoot--and not many of them could write
Arabic. Jealousy of the more competent Jews, therefore, impelled
the Yathribites to make war against them, and the sons of Abraham
were decidedly disinclined to battle and bloodshed. Accordingly,
having fought the Jews with very fair success, the two victorious
clans had speedily decided to fight each other, with the result
that Medina, for some generations, had been continually rent by
tribal and civil wars. At present all parties were so tired of this
everlasting strife that they had chosen one of the chief men among
the Khazraj, Abdallah ibn Obei, to direct their fortunes; for the
battle of Boath (616) had completely exhausted all the factions
involved. Nevertheless, everybody was still dissatisfied, since it
was feared that the truce was only temporary.

Now, for many centuries, despite one or two notable disappointments,
the Jews had expectantly awaited the coming of a genuine prophet--a
longing that had been communicated, probably through racial
miscegenation, even to the Aus and the Khazraj--and lo! the news of
Mohammed’s ministry was already common knowledge at Medina. When
the little troop of Medinese chanced to meet Mohammed at the sacred
fair, therefore, they spoke thus with each other: “Know surely that
this is the prophet with whom the Jews are ever threatening us;
wherefore let us make haste and be the first to join him.” For it
was clear that languishing Medina, long disrupted by internecine
struggles, needed above all else a leader capable of harmonizing all
discordant elements and balancing the scales of justice impartially
for all--except, it might be, the Jews--a leader, too, who would
introduce no dangerous foreign ideas, but whose vital beliefs were
grafted on a common Arabian stock. Perhaps there was some truth
in the saying of Mohammed’s child-wife, Ayesha, that the battle of
Boath had been engineered by Allah for the benefit of the Moslems.

So, when the Prophet thus addressed the visitors, “Sit ye down for
a little, and I will speak with you,” they gladly obeyed. After he
had explained the creed of Islam, with due emphasis upon his own
part in it, he proceeded to narrate the dangers of his position at
Mecca and next inquired what his prospects might be at Medina. They
complimented him for his exalted rank, but expressed doubt as to his
reception in their own embattled city. “If thou comest to us thus,
we may be unable to rally round thee. Let us, we pray thee, return
unto our people, if haply the Lord will create peace amongst us;
and we will come back again to thee at this set time next year.” So
the men returned to Medina and quickly scattered the news of their
marvelous encounter: would it not, they argued, be good business
to claim the services of this very self-confident Messiah before
he was appropriated by the waiting Jews, whose money-lending power
held the mass of Yathribites in abject poverty?

This counsel appeared excellent to both the Aus and the Khazraj.
After a year of troubled waiting on the part of Mohammed, his heart
was gladdened at the sight of twelve men who arrived on the appointed
day to welcome him as the anticipated saviour of Medina. This oath
was then sworn to by all: “We will not worship any but the one God;
we will not steal, neither will we commit adultery, nor kill our
children; we will not slander in anywise; nor will we disobey the
Prophet in anything that is right.” Mohammed was so swept away by
the general tone of obedience in this statement that he apparently
failed to notice the joker in the concluding clause; and thus the
First Pledge, or Pledge of Women--so called because its lack of
martial ardor made it the only vow required of female Moslems--was
made. The twelve apostles at once returned and the propagation of
the new religion was soon in full swing. At the request of the
Medinese, the Prophet sent one Musab--once a connoisseur of gaudy
clothes and delicate perfumes, but now a ragged, rampant Moslem--to
instruct them in the more intricate matters of Islam. So tremendous
was the zeal for proselytizing that the most strenuous efforts were
made to secure converts: the newly saved souls covenanted that they
would not speak to anyone who did not acknowledge the Prophet, and
all idols, as well as idol-worshipers, were treated with the utmost
severity. The salvation of one old fellow, who habitually bowed
before a horrid image in his house, was particularly affecting.
Young devotees cast the idol into a noisome well every night; but
every morning he just as regularly hauled up, cleansed it, and again
went through his genuflections. One day, however, they hitched the
vile thing to a dead dog before tossing it in the well, “whereupon
he abandoned his image and believed.” Before long new converts came
in from every side with very little persuasion; for the Medinese
were very human and, inasmuch as Islam was now all the rage, they
wanted to be in the newest style.

While Medina was buzzing with these devout activities, Mohammed was
otherwise occupied. Hemmed in by ever present dangers, and hearing
only vague reports of the conflagration that was sweeping Medina, he
was constantly on tiptoe with hopeful yet fearful expectation. If
his body was still held at Mecca, his unbridled imagination was free
to range toward the beloved north, where both Medina and Jerusalem
lay; and one morning he astounded his townsmen by declaring that,
during the preceding night, he had performed his devotions in the
Temple of Solomon at Jerusalem. The obliging Gabriel, he said, had
borne him on a winged steed over Medina to the Temple; the Arabian
Pegasus, however, did not pause long there, but continued his
celestial journey until he had carried his passengers completely
out of this world, to those ethereal realms of bliss where the
Seven Heavens lie. Up and still up they flew, while the Prophet
carefully noted the order of precedence of those prophets whose
model he had proclaimed himself to be: Jesus and John were in the
second or third--he was not _quite_ sure which--Moses was in the
sixth, while Abraham alone had the supreme distinction of residing
in the seventh. There, at the apex of indescribable glory, Mohammed
had entered the awful presence of his Maker, Who, after some rather
pointless chit-chat, charged him to see that all Moslems should
hereafter prostrate themselves in prayer toward the Temple of
Solomon five times every day. When Mohammed concluded, the Koreish
laughed him to scorn, and even a few of the faithful were somewhat
flabbergasted; but Abu Bekr saved the situation by declaring that
he did not doubt the truth of this tale, inasmuch as he had already
swallowed far more improbable yarns related by the Prophet. Yet the
veracity of his amply substantiated narrative rests upon two solid
facts: from that day to this, all devout Moslems have continued to
bow themselves five times daily in prayer; and sceptics may still
see, upon the rock where stands the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem,
the identical print of the Prophet’s foot where he leaped upon the
heavenly charger.


                               II

The year 621 glided peacefully away. Mohammed, occupied with thoughts
of a glorious future at Medina, had lost interest in spreading the
faith in Mecca; and the Koreish, deceived by his apparent inactivity,
had largely ceased to trouble him. Musab eventually returned with
a glowing account of the progress made at Medina; but the Prophet,
whose caution was certainly no less pronounced than his courage,
carefully guarded his enthusiasm until more definite proofs were at
hand. They soon came. In March, 622, the date fixed for the second
conclave, seventy-three Medinese came in obedience to the promise
made in the preceding year.

This occasion was so profoundly important that Mohammed took an
infinitude of pains to conceal it--even his trusted intimates did
not know about it beforehand. The Prophet, accompanied only by his
wealthy and trustworthy uncle Al-Abbas, met the delegates at dead
of night in a secluded glen. Al-Abbas diplomatically broke the ice
by stating that, while his wonderful nephew was happy, safe and
contented in Mecca, he nevertheless preferred to establish himself
at Medina--in case ample security for his safety were assured. To
this harangue Al-Bara, leader of the visitors, replied: “We have
listened to thy words. Our resolution is unshaken. Our lives are at
the Prophet’s service. It is now for _him_ to speak.” Then Mohammed,
beginning loftily as he always did by chanting long passages of the
Koran, finally descended to the earth and informed them that he would
be gracious enough to confer the boon of his presence upon Medina
if its inhabitants would make an irrevocable vow to defend him,
even as they would protect their nearest and dearest. A confused
jargon of voices arose, eagerly assuring him that his person would
be guarded at any cost. Al-Abbas, frightened almost out of his
skin, breathed: “Hush! There may be spies abroad,” and in low tones
requested them to plight their faith. The chief replied, “Stretch
out thy hand, O Mohammed!” He did so; and Al-Bara, followed by all
the rest, struck his hand upon the Prophet’s in token of fealty.
This was called the Second Pledge, since it included an oath to
fight for the Prophet, and the touching of his holy hand--an honor
never given to the generality of women. The assembly then silently
broke up.

Such a large body of men could not gather so close to Mecca, however,
without rumors leaking out. Next morning the mistrustful chiefs of
the Koreish called upon the visitors and informed them that their
presence warranted the suspicion that they were interfering in the
politics of Mecca--an act that virtually amounted to a declaration
of war. The Medinese did the only possible thing: they replied that
the Koreish were wholly mistaken, and the slow-witted Meccans were
ingenuous enough to believe them. But the clever Yathribites had
barely departed in high glee when the Koreish learnt the facts, and
set out upon a vain pursuit. Thus foiled, the enraged Koreish at
once vented their spleen upon the believers, to whom the Prophet
accordingly gave this command: “Depart unto Medina; for the Lord
hath verily given unto you brethren in that city, and a home in
which ye may find refuge.” Early in April the migration commenced,
in parties of twos and threes, while the baffled Koreish looked on
in stupefied amazement; for the number of clans that were involved
in the movement prevented any concerted hostilities, since no one
had the right to interfere in private family matters. By force or
guile, however, they succeeded in corrupting some of Mohammed’s
coadjutors who were weakest in faith or family ties; but the great
body of Islam--now numbering probably close to two hundred souls--got
safely away. A royal welcome awaited them, for the Medinese converts,
flushed with their novel fanaticism, bestowed every imaginable
honor upon the refugees--one zealot even went so far as to offer
his guest one-half of his property, and also added a special bounty
in the shape of one of his wives.

But Mohammed, together with his family and the household of Abu Bekr,
still lingered. He informed Abu that “his time was not yet come;
the Lord had not as yet given him the command to emigrate.” Whether
or no the Prophet’s decision to tarry was determined on account
of a genuine desire not to leave the burning ship before all the
passengers were safe, or because he cannily awaited further proofs
from the Medinese before trusting his skin to them, must forever
remain a matter for indulgent speculation. But in the middle of June
he received the fearful intelligence that the Koreish intended to
visit him. Their purpose is uncertain. It has been surmised that
they had decided to assassinate him--for if, like Cæsar, he were
to be pierced with swords driven home by representatives of every
tribe, his weak clan would have to be satisfied with blood-money
instead of blood-vengeance--to imprison him, to ostracize him, or
to do no man knows what. That Mohammed himself was not privy to
their intentions is indicated by this passage from the Koran: “And
call to mind when the Unbelievers plotted against thee, that they
might detain thee, or slay thee, or expel thee. Yea, they plotted,
but God plotted likewise. And God is the best of plotters.”
Tradition states that Gabriel informed the Prophet of the malignant
design; he at once told Ali to lie upon his bed, then went forth,
and simultaneously greeted the evil-comers with a handful of dust
and this excerpt from the Koran, “And We have covered them so that
they shall not see.” For, indeed, the best of plotters had wrapped
Mohammed in a cloak of invisibility; he therefore escaped undetected
while the murderous men lay in wait, thinking that the silent figure
on the bed was the Prophet until the morning light apprised them
of their sad error. It seems more likely, however, that Mohammed
merely threw his deceptive red mantle over the recumbent Ali, and
then slipped out of the back window to join the trembling Abu Bekr,
who wept joyous tears now that his superior had at last decided to
leave Mecca.

For the next three days, the two men lay in concealment in a
neighboring cave, while the distracted Koreish feverishly sought
everywhere for them. The house of Abu Bekr was searched, but when
his daughter Asma was asked, “Where is thy father?” she innocently
replied, “Truly, I know not where he is”--whereupon Abu Jahl, a
ferocious and impudent fellow, “slapped her on the face with such
force that one of her earrings dropped.” Meanwhile the two outcasts
lurked in the secrecy of the cave, across whose entrance, we are
informed, a divinely commissioned spider wove a protecting web; yet
legends are often more industrious than spiders. Abu Bekr would
shake with fear and breathe the low whisper, “What if one were to
look through the chink, and see us underneath his very feet?” to
which the Prophet would boldly reply: “Think not thus, Abu Bekr!
We are two, but God is in the midst a third.” Yet Mohammed loved
Abu “more than all the world; he held no one equal unto him,” sang
the poet Hassan; and the generally taciturn and morose Prophet,
listening to the song, was pleased and laughed so heartily that he
held his sides and his back teeth became visible. “Thou hast spoken
truly, O Hassan!” he remarked after he had recovered his breath,
“it is just as thou hast said.”

After three days had passed without their detection, it seemed safe
to speed toward Medina. The careful Abu Bekr had fetched a purse,
bulging with thousands of gold pieces, as well as two of his best
camels; and, probably on the night of June 20, they mounted the
beasts--Mohammed taking care to choose the swifter one, Al-Kaswa--and
started on the perilous journey. The two-hundred-odd miles that
they must traverse extended over a parched, barren, inexpressibly
desolate and mournful waste, where only such rugged trees as the
tamarind and acacia could exist, where phantom mirages mocked
the eye, and all nature was but a ribbed and menacing skeleton.
They traveled chiefly at night, resting during the sweltering heat
of the day and buying provisions from such scattered Bedouins as
they chanced to encounter. Abu Bekr, who was well known to most of
these desert dwellers, was frequently asked who his friend was,
and he regularly made the answer, “A guide to lead me,” while the
diplomatic Prophet kept a strict silence.

At length, after eight days of doubt and deprivation, they came in
sight of Medina; but the wary Mohammed had no intention of trusting
himself to the city before he knew exactly how things lay. “Lead
us,” he said to the guide, “straight to the Beni Amr at Koba, and
draw not yet nigh unto Medina.” This overscrupulous vigilance
turned out to be unnecessary, for rumors of his approach had set
the city agog with delight; and every morning a band of converts
and refugees had posted themselves on a hill to watch his arrival.
On this morning one of them, catching sight of the travelers as
they trudged toward Koba, raised the rapturous shout: “Ho! he has
come! he whom we have been looking for has come!” The marvelous
news flew from tongue to tongue, and everybody rushed forth to Koba
to greet the majestic guest. Even the children cried out: “Here is
the Prophet! He is come! He is come!” while a great crowd surged
around him and made profound obeisance. Then Mohammed knew at last
that he was safe among friends. He had escaped from Mecca, where
the Koreishite swords might have altered the course of events for
all time; but the otherwise dull and sluggish Middle Ages were
fated to be infinitely enriched by the romantic contest between the
Crescent and the Cross. “Ye people!” he courteously proclaimed,
“show your joy by giving your neighbors the salutation of peace;
send portions to the poor; bind close the ties of kinsmanship; and
offer up your prayers whilst others sleep. Thus ye shall enter
Paradise in peace.”


                               III

To make the assurance of a safe entrance to Medina doubly sure,
however, Mohammed lingered four days at Koba. Even then he took no
dangerous chances, for he requested the Medinese descendants of his
revered great-grandmother, the spouse of Hashim, to attend him into
the city; and in the meantime he had slept only when some of his
most trusted underlings kept watch. These super-precautions proved
to be needless, for tribe after tribe came flocking forth to see
which could outdo the other in paying reverence to him. On every
hand rose the earnest request: “Alight here, O Prophet! We have
abundance with us, means of defense and weapons and room. Abide with
us!”--and many suppliants emphasized their requests by seizing the
halter of Al-Kaswa. On this occasion Mohammed’s superb political
ability was again evidenced. He would show no favoritism, but, by
means of a camel and an omen--both inexpressibly dear to every
Arab’s heart--he would choose his abode by supernatural means. To
all these fervent ejaculations he replied: “The decision rests with
the camel; make way for her; let her go free.” So Al-Kaswa, unguided
by rein, moved forward until she entered the eastern section of
the city, where, seeing a few date-trees in an open courtyard, she
quite naturally ambled toward their grateful shade and awkwardly sat
down. And in this way was the site for the Mosque chosen--the famous
Mosque where, for the remainder of his days, the Prophet dwelt,
married, prayed, preached, emitted new revelations, planned his
schemes of conquest, greeted his friends, and uttered maledictions
against his foes; where, also, he sickened, died and was buried.
Yet certain abominable sceptics have intimated that Mohammed knew
beforehand that this particular spot was already hallowed as a place
of prayer, and that the rein of Al-Kaswa’s halter was not so very
slack after all.

The Prophet at once negotiated to buy the sacred site. Its owners
wished to make him a present of it, but he would not stoop to accept
it as a gift; accordingly, it was purchased with ten gold pieces from
Abu Bekr’s wallet. For seven months Mohammed lived in the lower story
of an adjacent house, owned by Abu Eiyub, while the construction
of the Mosque, with its adjoining apartments for himself, went on.
His bodily wants were provided for by the citizens, who contended
with each other for the honor of sending him the choicest viands
they could procure. As might be expected, Abu Eiyub was exceedingly
solicitous for the comfort and safety of his distinguished roomer.
Once, when a water-pot was accidentally broken in the upper story,
Abu and his wife quickly sopped up the water with their clothes,
and then rushed down to Mohammed’s apartment in great fear lest a
drop or two might have defiled his garments. Meanwhile the building
of the Mosque was pushed at full speed. The Prophet himself joined
heartily in the work, thus stimulating all his helpers to increase
their efforts, and united with them in their labor-lightening song:

  “O Lord! there is no joy but the joy of futurity.
   O Lord! have mercy upon the Citizens and the Refugees!”

All this led to a spirit of fellowship between these two classes,
and, in order that the union might be made more firm, Mohammed,
after first setting the example, paired off individuals in each.
“Become brethren every two and two of you,” he gently commanded,
and it was done.

One danger, unforeseen even by the perspicacious Prophet, soon
threatened the refugees. The climate of Mecca, while excessively
hot, was dry and salubrious; but, though Medina’s altitude was
unusually great, her drainage paradoxically enough was very poor,
and the noxious exhalations from her stagnant water, abetted by
intense heat at day and intense cold at night, soon prostrated large
numbers of the refugees with fever. This misfortune so dampened the
enthusiasm of many that, in their frenzied delirium, they would
moan out their desire to go home. When Mohammed heard of this, he
looked upward and raised this prayer: “O Lord! make Medina dear unto
us, even as Mecca, or even dearer. Bless its produce, and banish
far from it the pestilence!” But, for some inscrutable reason,
Allah, the Hearer and the Answerer of Prayer, remained deaf for a
time; and at one period Mohammed was one of the very few persons
who were able to stand during prayers. When, however, he informed
the recumbent invalids that “the prayer of one who sits is worth
only half the prayer of him that stands,” they all made desperate
efforts to rise.

Nevertheless, the first few months at Medina were on the whole happy
and auspicious. The elements of disaffection that lurked among the
Jews and the unbelievers bided their day; the refugees and the
citizen converts, or allies, gladly rushed to fulfill the smallest
desire of the Prophet, whose fascinating personality completely
charmed his friends and even intrigued his enemies--for a time.
Who could resist the appeal of a man who gracefully bestowed names
of good omen upon converts previously burdened with inauspicious
Pagan titles, and who dignified those of his subordinates who
were enslaved in the ignoble calling of “hucksters” by altering
the forbidding word to “Merchants”? In an excess of praiseworthy
devotion, they quaffed the sacred water in which the Prophet had
bathed, and piously treasured his hairs and nail-parings as charms
and forget-me-nots. And Mohammed, ever extraordinarily swift to
take hints, soon formed the habit of wrapping up these personal
relics and bestowing them upon new converts as a peculiar evidence
of his esteem.

While his worshipers thus fawned and his foes maintained an
ominously quiet peace, the Prophet calmly assumed the attributes
of a sovereign and sacerdotal office. As self-appointed ruler
of the city, he exercised the right of deposing and selecting
whatever chiefs he desired; as priestly dictator of all Islam, he
established those multitudinous rules and ordinances that still
defy the assaults of time. Motivated probably by a statesmanlike,
if rather cautious, wish to win or at least placate the Jews, he
inaugurated a complicated system of devotion based principally upon
the famous precepts that had been given to Moses. The detractors of
Islam have so exaggerated its largely fictitious sensuality that
its rigorous rites have too often been forgotten: its lustrations,
its fastings, its prodigality of genuflections. The business of
lustration, for example, was very complicated. Before prayer the
Moslem must wash his face from the top of the forehead to the chin
and sideways as far as both ears, bathe his arms and hands as far
as the elbows, and cleanse his feet as far as the ankles; and all
this must be done in the strictest silence, broken only by such
prayers as the votary might think appropriate. While scrubbing his
teeth, he might say if he chose: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, as I clean my
teeth, to purify me from my faults, and accept my homage, O Lord!
May the purity of my teeth be for me a pledge of the whiteness of
my face at the Day of Judgment.” If, through a momentary lapse into
sin, the hapless believer had defiled his body, he thus washed away
his iniquity: three successive times he poured water upon his right
and left shoulders, and a like number of times on the top of his
head; and should one hair on the entire body be left untouched,
the act of purification was wholly vain.

The Prophet also instituted various fasts which, with certain
alterations, have also endured. These fasts were, if possible,
even more laboriously meticulous than lustration. While abstaining
from food and drink, the Moslems must take the most scrupulous
precaution to see that absolutely nothing entered the body. If they
smelled perfumes, bathed, or carelessly swallowed their spittle,
the fast was broken; the most ardent disciples would not even open
their mouths to converse, for fear of inhaling too much air; and,
if a thoughtless faster allowed a particle of food, no matter how
small, to become wedged between his teeth, he was deemed to be a
backslider from the faith.

December was for a time annually sanctified by fasting, and several
rather diverting details followed. In the first place, most of
the Moslems took the responsibility with such complete and abject
seriousness that they unintentionally disturbed the Prophet’s
slumbers. Very late one evening they came to the Mosque for the
service of prayer; and, observing that Mohammed was not on hand,
they approached his house and coughed loudly before the door. The
Prophet, now thoroughly aroused, came forth and addressed them
thus: “I have observed for some days your coming for the nightly
prayer at the Mosque, until I feared that it would grow by custom
into a binding ordinance.... Wherefore, pray ye at eventide in your
houses.” He then returned to resume his interrupted repose; but a
further trouble awaited him. His humble supporters, it appeared,
were obsessed with the monkish idea that they should abstain from
every conceivable pleasure during the whole month; but Mohammed
was too wise to permit such immoderate asceticism. Allah, it was
soon revealed, “willeth not for you that which is difficult.... It
is lawful unto you, during the nights of the Fast, to consort with
your wives. Now, therefore, sleep with them, and earnestly desire
that which God hath ordained for you; and eat and drink until ye can
distinguish a white thread from a black thread, by the daybreak.
Then keep the fast again until night.... Thus God declareth His
signs unto mankind, that they may follow Piety.” The consequent
popularity of the fast, indeed, brought new adherents to Islam in
great abundance, until an unforeseen contingency arose. Abstinence
from food and drink during the short days of December caused little
difficulty; but the Prophet, trusting in that quaint omniscience
which universally attends the assumption of prophetic robes,
introduced an intercalary system based upon the lunar months. The
sacred month, therefore, gradually shifted from winter to summer,
when the sixteen-hour days made what had previously been a pleasure
a great burden; nevertheless, Mohammed persevered in his oddity,
for to have done otherwise would have impugned his infallibility.
So his faithful zealots groaned and were troubled, and longingly
anticipated the new moon, when the fast was joyously broken by the
bestowal of alms upon the poor and the resumption of normal bodily
activities.

Five times a day the believers, no matter how pleasantly occupied,
must turn to prayer: at dawn, at midday, in the afternoon, at
sunset, and at the coming of complete darkness. On six days these
devotions could be performed anywhere, though preferably in
congregation at the Mosque; but every Friday the Moslems, unless
detained by extraordinary causes, were commanded to worship in a
body at the Mosque. The ever efficient Gabriel informed Mohammed of
Allah’s desire that the time for each prayer should be announced
by a crier, who must shout: “Great is the Lord! Great is the Lord!
I bear witness that there is no God but the Lord: I bear witness
that Mohammed is the Prophet of God. Come unto prayer: come unto
salvation. God is great! God is great! There is no God but the
Lord!” So Mohammed instructed his negro servant, Bilal, to be the
public crier; and early every morning Bilal would clamber upon a
high house and rouse the slumbering Moslems with these words, adding
this salutary invention of his own: “Prayer is better than sleep!
Prayer is better than sleep!” Then, climbing down from his lofty
perch, he would approach Mohammed’s door and shout: “To prayer, O
Apostle of God! to salvation!”

At the special Friday service, the Prophet ascended the pulpit,
gave a stereotyped salutation of peace, and then seated himself
while Bilal shouted the stentorian summons to prayer. Descending
from the pulpit, Mohammed then led the prayers; reascending, he
delivered one or two exhortations. The assembly, fixing their rapt
glances on his earnest gesticulations, would swallow every word
and at the end join in a loud “Amen!” or something like it. When
all was over, his mantle of striped material from Yemen, and his
girdle of splendid Oman cloth, were carefully folded up and laid
away until the next service. The pulpit itself was soon endowed with
an awful sanctity. Disputes were settled at its base; and should
anyone take a false oath in its presence, “even if the subject were
as insignificant as a toothpick”--and toothpicks were not wholly
unknown in Islam--he thereby doomed himself to eternal damnation.
Before it had been built, Mohammed had supported himself during
his sermons by leaning on a post--an object of which he grew so
fond that, after it was no longer needed, he commanded it should
be interred beneath the pulpit. The post itself reciprocated his
touching sentiment; for, when it was abandoned, it moaned loudly and
would not stop until the Prophet placed his hand upon it, whereupon
its grief was assuaged.




                       [Illustration: VI]

                            HOLY WARS


                                I

Though Mohammed was now actually the spiritual and nominally the
temporal ruler of Medina, his position nevertheless was very
precarious. The Jews, while completely deficient in martial valor,
were openly contemptuous of his prophetical jurisdiction, and the
Khazrajite leader, Abdallah ibn Obei, showed overt defiance against
his assumption of civil power. Presumably because he feared and
respected Abdallah’s influence, the Prophet took pains to treat
him with every courtesy; but the compliment was not returned. One
day, when Mohammed chanced to observe his rival seated at ease in
the cool shade of his house, he alighted from his steed, graciously
saluted the sitter, recited some of the most affecting passages in
the Koran, and finally invited him to adopt the faith. Abdallah
listened composedly until the long harangue was ended; then he
spoke. “Nothing could be better than this discourse of thine, if it
were true. Now, therefore, do thou sit at home in thine own house,
and whosoever cometh to thee preach thus unto him, and he that
cometh not unto thee refrain from troubling him with that which
he dislikes.” He also casually mentioned the fact that he objected
to the smell of the beast that Mohammed bestrode; so the Prophet
went on his way, sorely stricken in spirit.

In other ways, too, he was equally unfortunate. His fabulous rise
from the lowly state of an insignificant trader to the pinnacle of
fame appears to have induced him to overestimate his powers; at any
rate, soon after his arrival at Medina, he betrayed his ignorance
of the simplest facts of Arabian agriculture by forbidding the
artificial fecundation of palm trees, with the result that they
became almost barren. But when his egregious error was pointed
out, he manifested a wisdom rare in prophets by candidly admitting
that he was in the wrong. “I am only mortal,” he confessed. “If
I give you an order in the domain of your religion then receive
it; but if I give you an order from my own opinion then am I but
mortal.” In the near famine that had resulted from his bungling
interference, there was poetic justice in the fact that he, as well
as the rest, could eat only one date per day; yet he gladly shared
in the stringent privations that all were forced to endure. While
his own face was pinched with hunger, he divided with the most
needy Moslems the gifts of food which various people had sent him;
on one occasion he was glad to accept a Jew’s offer to partake of
a meal of rancid fat and barley bread; and for months, during the
dead of winter, he went without any fire on his hearth.

It was obvious that such a state of affairs could not be permitted
to continue. No matter how strong the already sorely tried faith
of his partisans was, it would not forever withstand the shocks of
rampant famine and naked, shivering misery; then too, and even more
vital, was the consideration that new converts could never be won
over to such a ragged and unkempt faith--Islam would not grow. And
other even more subtle ideas were fermenting in Mohammed’s ever
restive mind. He, the one and only Prophet of the Most High Allah,
was a starving outcast because of the pernicious activities of the
overbearing, wealthy and rather cowardly Koreish, whose teeming
caravans pursued their unmolested way northward from Mecca, between
Medina and the Red Sea, to Syria. But the destitute refugees were
pledged to advance the banners of Islam not merely in defensive,
but, if Allah so willed, in offensive war; and should any of them
see fit to remind him that, in earlier days, he had instructed them
not to retaliate against their enemies, he could--and did--allay
their squeamishness with a revelation. Furthermore, his henchmen
had already been subjected, by chance or design, to a strenuous
discipline that had inured them to endure such hardships as a career
of pillage and guerrilla warfare would entail. Rigid religious fasts
had accustomed them to withstand hunger and thirst; at the daily
public _salat_, or prayer, they had been drilled to stand in rows,
to perform what amounted to tough gymnastic exercises, and to expect
celestial condemnation unless they scrupulously obeyed the minutest
requirements of these incessant manœuvers. The successful plundering
of opulent Koreishite caravans--which, under the circumstances, might
reasonably be expected--would accomplish four excellent results: it
would put a summary end to the ubiquitous suffering at Medina; it
would provide a more than adequate outlet for the explosive zeal
of his backers; it would conclusively demonstrate the prowess of
Islam, thereby winning new members to the fold; and it would enable
Mohammed to exult over the salutary discomfiture of his despicable
foes.

How clearly defined these or other considerations may have been in
the mind of the outstanding Oriental of the seventh century, it
would be presumptuous for a twentieth century Occidental to say;
the fact remains, however, that such were the results attained.
Brahminism, Buddhism and Confucianism waxed slowly great through
renunciation, inertia and mystical contemplation; but Jehovah and
Allah were made of sterner stuff. It seems probable that, despite
the peaceful creed and practice of its founder, Christianity would
never have become a serious rival of other world-faiths had it not
been for the implacable swords of Constantine and Charlemagne;
but Islam was fortunate from the beginning in that its inventor
entertained no silly scruples about blood-letting. The Crusades, the
French Revolution, and Cromwellian Puritanism were attended by an
amount of sadism that may well make one pause before too severely
condemning the blood-mania and sex-obsession that mark every stage
of Islam’s triumphant progress.

Thus it happened that, from December, 622, until October, 623, the
Prophet sent six separate expeditions against the Meccan caravans.
The first three were entirely unsuccessful, notwithstanding the fact
that Mohammed presented the leader of each one with a white banner
mounted on a staff; but the fourth, led by the Prophet himself, was
marked by a momentous incident. Though he failed to capture his
prey, he made some sort of offensive and defensive alliance with the
idolatrous tribe of Banu Damrah; and, apparently lest he might be
rightly criticized for making friends with unbelievers, he justified
his action in the only acceptable way--by a revelation. “It may be
that Allah will bring about friendship between you and those whom
you hold to be your enemies.... Allah does not forbid you respecting
those who have not made war against you on account of (your)
religion, and have not driven you forth from your homes.... Allah
only forbids you respecting those who made war against you on account
of (your) religion, and drove you forth from your homes....” It may
be surmised that the Prophet, himself an ex-camel-driver familiar
with Bedouin ways, was moved to speak thus by two considerations:
desert tribes that subsisted principally by plunder would be quick
to appreciate the desirability of linking themselves with a faith
that sanctified theft here and promised Paradise hereafter; besides,
a successful assault on Koreish merchandise could hardly be made
without the acquiescence or assistance of the tribes through whose
territory that merchandise passed.

The fifth expedition was fruitless, but the sixth brought about
alliances with several seashore clans; and a seventh one led not
only to the first actual bloodshed, but to an even more striking
innovation. Two days before the end of the sacred month of Rejeb,
Mohammed sent eight men forth and gave their leader sealed orders
which were not to be opened until after a two days’ march. By a
mere coincidence or by a sly design of the Prophet, the document
was thus read, according to instructions, on the last day of Rejeb.
After commanding the leader not to force “any of thy followers
against his inclination,” it ordered him to lie in wait for a Meccan
caravan. Faced by the dilemma of fighting when strife was taboo,
or of delaying until it would be too late to overtake the Koreish
travelers, the Moslems summarily solved the problem by shooting an
arrow through one of the Meccans and returning to Medina with the
booty. Then, to their utter dismay, Mohammed rose up, “his face red
with anger,” and declared, “I never commanded thee to fight in the
Sacred month.” Yet it is curiously interesting to note that this
heavenly message soon appeared: “They will ask thee concerning the
Sacred months, whether they may war therein. Say: Warring therein
is grievous; but to obstruct the way of God and to deny Him, to
hinder men from the Holy temple, and to expel His people thence,
that is more grievous with God.”

Thus, through blind caprice or far-seeing, statesmanlike duplicity,
the way was opened for bloodshed on a grand and wholly unrestricted
scale. Nine centuries before Machiavelli, and eleven before Napoleon,
the Prophet of Islam formulated this dictum: “War after all is but
a game of deception.” Deception of several kinds, that is to say:
one’s foes should be openly cursed and belittled while privately
they were respected and even feared; one’s followers should be
assured that martial ardor was the best of all possible virtues and
that death on the field of honor was a matchless boon. “The sword,”
Mohammed declared, “is the key of Heaven and Hell; a drop of blood
shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail
than two months of fasting or prayer; whosoever falls in battle,
his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be
resplendent as vermilion, and odiferous as musk; and the loss of
his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.”
The Koran of this period teems with frightful maledictions against
the Koreish, and transcendent pictures of the Paradise that awaited
the Moslem elect. Those warriors who could repeat the greatest
number of its verses were, we are told, rewarded with the pick of
the spoil after a victorious contest, and those who fell martyrs to
Islam were buried with the most honorable rites. It was only too
easy, one suspects, for devout Moslem warriors to memorize such
passages as these: “War is ordained for you, even if it be irksome
unto you. Perchance ye may dislike that which is good for you,
and love that which is evil for you. But God knoweth, and ye know
not.... God loveth not the Transgressors. Kill them wheresoever ye
find them; and expel them from whence they have expelled you....
Those of you that contribute before the victory, and fight, shall
not be placed on the same level, but shall have a rank superior
over those who contribute after it and fight. Who is he that lendeth
unto the Lord a goodly loan? He shall double the same, and he shall
have honorable recompense.... Those that have gone into exile for
the cause of God, and then have been slain, or have died, We shall
certainly nourish them with an excellent provision, for God is the
best Provider.... He shall lead them into the Paradise whereof
He hath told them.... For ever therein--a fair abode and resting
place!”


                               II

So it came to pass that the Prophet, who had managed to survive at
Mecca only because of the Koreishite respect for ties of blood,
was himself responsible for starting a blood-feud against the
Koreish. He appears, however, to have been far less disturbed by
this consideration than by the fact that he had not yet succeeded in
winning any considerable amount of loot from them; but his desire
was soon to be amply gratified.

In the autumn of 623, Abu Sufyan, a leading Meccan merchant, had
conducted the most important caravan of the year to Syria, and in
January, 624, he was on his way home with fifty thousand pieces
of gold. Mohammed had meanwhile determined that this rich cargo
should be his; but, being yet somewhat inexperienced in the niceties
of brigandage and slaughter, he carelessly allowed rumors of his
intention to reach the ears of Abu, who at once sent a runner to
Mecca with an urgent request for a rescuing force. The Prophet,
in the meanwhile, rallied his supporters for the assault after
this fashion: “See! here cometh a caravan of Koreish in which they
have embarked much wealth. Come! let us go forth; peradventure
the Lord will enrich us with the same.” Scores of refugees and
citizens gladly leaped forth to obey, but he would allow none save
the righteous to join him. Chancing to spy two heathens among the
volunteers, he sternly addressed them thus, “None shall go forth
with me but he who is of our Faith.” To their plea that they were
redoubtable fighters who would ask nothing but their share of the
plunder, he replied: “Ye shall not go thus. _Believe and fight!_”
Immediately they asserted their profound conviction that he was
indeed the Prophet of Allah, whereupon their ears were gladdened
with the remark, “Now go forth and fight!” And these two became such
famous despoilers that another heathen, after noting how greatly
their conversion had benefited them, sadly exclaimed: “Would that
I had gone forth with the Prophet! Then I had surely secured large
booty!”

After dispatching two scouts to watch the movements of the caravan,
Mohammed and his army of three hundred and five men at once set out
toward Bedr (a spot near the coast to the southwest of Medina),
hoping to apprehend the caravan at that place. While on the way,
he deliberately avoided passing through certain localities whose
names were unpleasing to him; for this singular man, who commonly
appeared morose, taciturn and phlegmatic, had a nervous temperament
that was extraordinarily susceptible to an astonishing variety of
idiosyncratic fancies and whims. He would not sit down at night in
a dark room; he believed that odd numbers had greater virtue than
even ones; he changed color and walked nervously around during heavy
storms; and he had a charmingly ingenuous faith in portents. Abu
Sufyan, too, believed in signs--when they meant something definite.
When he came to a well at Bedr, his eagle eyes spied two ominous
date-stones that the careless scouts had dropped near its brink.
“Camels from Yathrib!” cried Abu; “these be the scouts of Mohammed!”
and he immediately guided his caravan at full speed to the right.

His runner meanwhile had reached Mecca where, approaching the Kaba,
he forced his camel to kneel; then, cutting off its nose and ears
and tearing his shirt-tails to signify that a dreadful calamity
impended, the Arabian Paul Revere screamed: “Koreish! Koreish!
your caravan is pursued by Mohammed. Help! oh help!” The Meccans,
already enraged at the murder of their tribesman at the hands of
Moslems during Rejeb, were more than eager for vengeance, and an
army of about nine hundred and fifty men at once started for Bedr.
But, when they neared that place, a messenger reached them with the
news that the caravan had fled on and was already out of danger.
A heated discussion arose as to what should be done: since their
merchandise was safe, should they return; or, should they take up the
presumptuous challenge of the renegade Prophet? While both points
of view were being violently argued, another scout came rushing up
with the appalling information that the Moslem “numbers are small,
but death is astride upon the camels of Yathrib.” Following this
alarming prophecy, a retreat had almost been ordered when Abu Jahl,
the nasty girl-slapper, taunted his compatriots by calling them
cowards, and bade one Amir, a brother of the murdered Meccan, to
think of his brother-blood; Amir immediately tore off his garments,
covered himself with dust and began to shriek his brother’s name
aloud. Thus their fury was revived, and, though a few craven-hearted
ones returned to Mecca, the rest marched posthaste toward the
oncoming foe.

During this time the news of the enemy’s advance had reached the
army of Mohammed; but, instead of causing debate, it had roused the
Moslem enthusiasm to a greater pitch. The citizens, too, even though
they had not pledged themselves to assist in offensive warfare,
were equally affected. “Prophet of the Lord!” shouted their leader,
“march whither thou listest; encamp wheresoever thou mayest choose;
make war or conclude peace with whom thou wilt. For I swear by Him
who hath sent thee the Truth, that if thou wert to march till our
camels fell down dead, we should go forward with thee to the world’s
end.” Then Mohammed, deeply affected by this proof of devotion,
responded: “Go forward with the blessing of God! For, verily, He
hath promised one of the two--the army or the caravan--that He will
deliver it into our hands. By the Lord! methinks I even now see
the battlefield strewn with dead.” Here were no timid bickerings,
no half-hearted counsels, no unmanly scruples about spilling
fraternal blood: what _was_ there to fear when Paradise, revenge
for ostracism, and fifty thousand shining pieces of gold beckoned
them on? And the Prophet, who never did things by halves, fanned
the rising fires of fanaticism by giving turbulent utterance to a
series of commingled imprecatory and suppliant prayers. “O Lord!
let not Abu Jahl escape, the Pharaoh of his people! Lord! let not
Zaama escape; rather let the eyes of his father run sore for him
with weeping, and become blind!... O Lord! I beseech thee, forget
not Thy promise of assistance and of victory. O Lord! if this little
band be vanquished, Idolatry will prevail, and the pure worship of
Thee cease from off the earth!”

When night fell, both armies had nearly reached Bedr. Mohammed
and Abu Bekr sought repose in a hut of palm branches guarded by
a soldier with his sword drawn; and the Prophet’s slumbers were
comforted by dreams in which the enemy appeared as a pitifully weak
force. Morning had barely dawned when foe swiftly advanced to meet
foe. A providential rain had softened the ground over which the
Koreish must needs pass, and, at the same time, it had paradoxically
hardened the soil beneath the Moslem feet; the fortunate fact that
small sandy ridges concealed the majority of the Meccans induced the
Medinese to advance with extra courage; and the Koreish suffered the
further disadvantage of facing the troublesome rays of the rising
sun. In addition, the Prophet’s superior foresight, abetted by the
suggestion of a counselor, had prompted him to take possession of a
never-failing spring, as well as to destroy all the other available
water-sources; for he always backed up his incessant prayers by
using every device of military tactics that he happened to know,
or acquire.

According to the Arabian custom, the fray opened with a series of
individual combats. Three Meccan warriors stepped vaingloriously
forth, daring the three best men among the Moslems to face them;
and valorous Hamza, impetuous Ali, and Obeida the septuagenarian
rushed forward to accept the challenge. The swords of Hamza and Ali
soon dripped with the lifeblood of two Koreishites; when Obeida
fell severely wounded, they sprang to his aid and simultaneously
delivered two lusty strokes that killed the third. Then, raising
the cry, “Ye conquerors, strike!” the serried Moslem ranks hurled
themselves against the enemy; but the Prophet himself, while the
deadly yet indecisive struggle was being waged, played an ambiguous
part. Friendly traditions state that he bounded about with a sword
in his hand. Those of another sort relate that, upon observing the
first shedding of blood, he retired to his hut and swooned; that,
upon being revived, he poured forth the most energetic prayers;
and that, even before the battle commenced, he had taken pains to
have a swift camel tied to his tent as a last resource against the
possible calamity of defeat. Still other narratives assert that he
occupied himself principally in reminding his accomplices that
Paradise awaited those who perished for Islam--a promise whose
validity he himself seems to have been indisposed to test. For
Mohammed, no less than many other religiously-minded emperors and
tsars, appears to have conducted himself in battle according to
the wise principle that a head without a halo is infinitely more
desirable than a halo without a head.

While the disorderly Meccan forces were being steadily pressed back
by the close-joined Moslem ranks, a furious storm of wind arose.
Until this time, Mohammed seems to have been rather sceptical
concerning the issue of his prayers; but, now that the foe was
beginning to waver, he doubted no longer. “That,” he exclaimed while
the tempest raged, “is Gabriel with a thousand angels charging down
upon the foe.” Then, stooping and grabbing up a handful of small
stones, he rose and hurled them at the Koreish, accompanying his
action with the shout, “Confusion seize their faces!” This double
assault, timed at the psychological moment, could not fail to have
effect. The broken and shaken Meccan ranks--thoroughly discomfited
by a lack of discipline, by a merely lukewarm interest in fighting
their quondam neighbors and friends, and, as their own satirists
abundantly pointed out later, by actual cowardice--cracked apart
and fled in complete dismay, to be harassed and killed or captured
by the pursuing Moslems. Mohammed lost but fourteen men in the
encounter, whereas more than a hundred Koreish were slain or taken
prisoners.

Curious scenes followed. A Moslem named Moadh had succeeded in
cutting off Abu Jahl’s leg. Just then Moadh, attacked by Abu’s son,
had found himself with one of his own arms almost severed; and,
realizing that this member was now a useless impediment, Moadh bent
over, placed his foot on the injured arm, wrenched it off, and
continued to fight. At this moment one Abdallah came running up
to assist Moadh, and, overjoyed at his good fortune in stumbling
over such a notorious enemy, cut off Abu Jahl’s head and carried
it to Mohammed. The Prophet, who was just beginning to celebrate
his victory, raised the exultant shout: “The head of the enemy of
God! God! there is none other God!” “There is none other!” agreed
Abdallah, dropping his gory prize before Mohammed’s feet; and
Abdallah almost fainted from bliss when the Prophet continued, “It
is more acceptable to me than the choicest camel in all Arabia.”
It happened, also, that Ali had overheard Mohammed praying for the
death of Naufal ibn Khuweilid, who had been taken prisoner; so Ali
ran up, coolly slaughtered him, and promptly hastened with the good
news to the Prophet, who joyously commented that this was doubtless
a direct answer to his supplication. The spoil was soon gathered,
and a pit was dug into which the Koreishite bodies were tossed;
and Mohammed, who stood by watching the proceedings, greeted each
corpse by name, adding this question, “Have ye now found true that
which your Lord did promise you? What my Lord promised me, that
verily I have found to be true.” “O Prophet!” inquired an amazed
observer, “dost thou speak unto the dead?” “Yea, verily,” was the
reply, “for now they well know that the promise of their Lord hath
fully come to pass.”

Next morning, when the prisoners were led before him, he turned
a malignant gaze upon Al-Nadr, who had been captured by Mikdad.
“There is death in that glance,” the frightened Al-Nadr whispered
to a bystander, and he was right; his trembling plea for mercy was
rewarded with the response, “Islam hath rent all bonds asunder,”
from a prominent Moslem, and with the command, “Strike off his
head!” from Mohammed, who also felt moved to add, “And, O Lord,
do Thou of Thy bounty grant unto Mikdad a better prey than this!”
Another prisoner, Okba--a man well versed in Grecian, Persian and
Arabian lore, who is said to have aroused the Prophet’s ire by the
observation that, if a fund of good stories entitled a man to call
himself a prophet, he was fully as good a candidate as Mohammed
himself--was likewise ordered to face his doom. Mohammed, however,
first satisfied Okba’s curiosity as to why he had been singled out
for destruction with the words, “Because of thine enmity to God
and his Prophet.” “And my little girl,” continued Okba, “who will
take care of her?” “Hell-fire!” was the swift reply, as Okba was
chopped to the ground. The Prophet, surveying the remains, rejoiced
after this fashion: “I give thanks unto the Lord that hath slain
thee, and comforted mine eyes thereby.” Yet it should be stated
that the defenders of Islam asseverate that Mohammed’s remarks to
the Koreishite corpses were intended to express pity rather than
hatred, and that the ejaculation “Hell-fire!” was a reference to
the fact that Okba’s children were nicknamed “children of fire”--in
other words, he implied that Okba’s descendants would be cared for
by his relatives.

Whatever the facts may be, it is certain that Mohammed treated the
rest of the captives with a kindness rarely matched in the martial
history of Arabia. While the implacable Omar made a violent plea
for their summary death, and while the easy-going Abu Bekr urged
clemency, Gabriel winged his way from Allah’s presence with the
gratifying information that Mohammed might do as he wished; but
he added the portentous remark that, if the Koreish were spared,
a like number of Moslems would perish in battle within the year.
Mohammed eventually pleased everyone, except Omar, by announcing
that the prisoners would not be slain, but that they could be freed
only by ransom, and that those Moslems who might fall as Gabriel had
foretold would “inherit Paradise and the crown of martyrdom.” His
decision was probably reached on account of several considerations:
the ransom for some seventy prisoners might benefit Islam even more
than their blood; there was the further chance that some of them
might become disciples; and, finally, he may conceivably have been
more mercifully minded than his traducers admit.

Joy and thanksgiving were unbounded when the news of the overwhelming
victory reached Medina; even the toddling children chased around
the streets crying out, “Abu Jahl, the sinner, is slain!” The
prisoners were so kindly treated that some of them actually became
converts, while the stubborn remainder were ransomed for reasonable
sums--except those whose wealth Mohammed’s abnormally retentive
memory still kept in mind. Thus, when the case of the opulent
Naufal, Mohammed’s own cousin, came up, the Prophet amazed him with
a demand for the thousand spears that he possessed; Naufal was so
completely upset by this evidence of what appeared to be supernatural
assistance that he is said to have accepted Islam on the spot. Among
the prisoners, also, was the Prophet’s rich uncle Al-Abbas, who
declined to pay on the ground that he was already a Moslem and that
he had been obliged to fight against his conscience. “God knows best
about that,” replied his nephew; “externally you were against us,
so ransom yourself.” When Al-Abbas demurred, saying that he was now
penniless, he was met with the pitiless query, “Then where is the
money which, when you left Mecca, you secretly deposited with your
wife?” Al-Abbas paid his ransom. Meanwhile a spirited discussion
arose as to the way in which the booty--which included about one
hundred and fifty camels and horses, together with vast quantities
of vestments and armor--should be divided; the matter, indeed, was
so important that it could be settled only by a heavenly decree,
which stipulated that one-fifth should be placed at the disposal
of “God and the Prophet” and the remainder equally dispersed among
the army.

But these were mere mercenary considerations. The outstanding,
overshadowing fact was that a small body of Moslems had utterly
routed a force three times their own number. Mohammed might well
claim that he had at last performed a veritable miracle, and his
subordinates might well have become a little vainglorious too;
but the Koran soon placed the credit for the “Day of Deliverance”
where it properly belonged. “As for victory, it is from none other
than from God; for God is glorious and wise.... And ye slew them
not, but God slew them. Neither was it thou, O Prophet, that didst
cast the gravel; but God did cast it.” And yet the human side of
the encounter was not neglected. The glorious Three Hundred who
had fought and conquered such superior odds thenceforth became the
peerage of Medina. Until the end of his life, Mohammed was willing
to forgive almost any sort of offence committed by any one of them,
for, as he wisely declared, he could not be sure that Allah Himself
had not given them free leave to do as they chose.

At Mecca, however, very different scenes were witnessed. The bitter
pangs of shame and despair that everyone felt upon learning of the
stunning defeat soon gave way to a fiery thirst for vengeance. For
a month this frenzy reigned; then human nature intervened and a
universal lament for the dead ascended, for almost every home in
Mecca had been bereaved. A harrowing yet beautiful story illustrates
how the grim self-restraint of the Koreish was finally broken. One
night an aged father, who had lost two sons, heard the sound of
weeping and thus commanded his servant: “Go see! It may be that
Koreish have begun to wail for their dead; perchance I too may
wail, for grief consumeth me within.” Informed that it was only
a woman who was mourning for her strayed camel, he poured forth
an impassioned threnody. “Doth she weep for her camel, and for it
banish sleep from her eyes? Nay, if we will weep, let us weep over
Bedr--weep for Okeil, and for Al-Harith the lion of lions!” Perhaps
the Koreish now realized the irreparable and fatal error they had
made in deciding to take Mohammed seriously. Had they persisted
in their original intention--mocked at him as an idle dreamer and
a crack-brained idiot--he might have lived and died harmlessly in
Mecca. But persecution had proved to be his best friend: forced to
defend himself and to become the head of a little protecting army,
he had revealed an unsuspected military acumen that had reduced his
hostile kinsmen to this desperate condition. One Spartan couple
in Mecca, however, refused to join in the common woe. “Weep not
for your slain, mourn not their loss, neither let the bard bewail
their fate,” was the stern advice of Abu Sufyan. “If ye lament with
elegies, it will ease your wrath and diminish your enmity toward
Mohammed and his fellows. And, should that reach their ears, and
they laugh at us, will not their scorn be worse than all? Haply
the turn may come, and ye may yet obtain your revenge. As for me,
I will touch no oil, neither approach my wife, until I shall have
gone forth again to fight with Mohammed.” And when Abu’s wife, Hind,
was chided for refusing to wail for her father, brother and uncle,
she fiercely responded: “Nay, I will not weep until ye again wage
war with Mohammed and his fellows. If tears could wipe the grief
from off my heart, I too would weep as ye; but it is not thus with
Hind.” Not to be outdone by her husband, she too declared that
she would neither use oil nor approach her marital couch until an
avenging Meccan army was on the march.


                               III

Elated at his astounding success, the Prophet occupied the following
year in consolidating his gains and extending his influence.
Meanwhile he continued to pay an exorbitant amount of homage to
Allah, the Giver of all good; but, in starting a universal espionage
system in Medina and in assuming an ever more menacing attitude
toward unbelievers and Jews, he appears to have acted solely on his
own responsibility. Nor were the Koreish idle during this year.
As time slowly mitigated their poignant suffering, their business
instincts revived and new trade routes were mapped out; the profits
that accrued therefrom were stored up against the eagerly awaited
day when a fearful retribution should be inflicted upon their
murderous kinsmen. Abu Sufyan, who was chafing under the irksome
restrictions of his vow, actually succeeded in destroying some
enemy property and in slaying two Moslems; but when he joyfully
hastened back to Mecca, under the impression that he had earned the
dissolution of his oath, he discovered much to his chagrin that Hind
did not agree with him. The Moslems, irritated because the Koreish
had gained even such a slight success, retaliated by capturing a
caravan that yielded one hundred thousand pieces of silver; yet,
when the news of this added indignity reached the Meccans, it only
steeled their already inflexible determination--the moment for a
swift and terrible vengeance had come.

Plans for a crushing campaign against the Moslems were drawn up;
and all the Koreishites strained every nerve to expedite the
martial plans and keep them secret--all of them, that is, except
Al-Abbas, who, for some inexplicable reason, still retained a
sneaking affection for the hard-hearted nephew who had forced him
to pay such a stiff ransom. So it happened that, while Mohammed was
communing with Allah in the Mosque during January, 625, a sealed
letter, conveying the dreadful news that three thousand Koreish,
including seven hundred warriors in armor and two hundred cavalry,
were ready to march upon Medina, was handed to him. Despite the
strongest efforts of the Prophet to keep this information secret,
it leaked out and caused tremendous excitement and confusion. On
this occasion, Mohammed’s perpetually-recurring dreams portended
a defeat--he imagined that his sword was broken. A public meeting
was called to discuss the ominous situation; and, according to some
authorities, the Prophet related his dream, which he interpreted
thus: “The fracture in my sword portendeth an injury to myself,”
adding that it would be wisest to remain within the fortified walls
of Medina. The elder Moslems agreed with their leader, but the
young Hotspurs arose in violent opposition: they asserted that they
would not “sit quietly here, a laughing-stock to all Arabia,” but
would “go forth and smite our foes, even as we did at Bedr.” The
headstrong impetuosity of youth prevailed, and Mohammed at length
acceded. After preaching a strong discourse, in which he assured
them, “If ye be steadfast, the Lord will grant you victory,” he
retired to his house, whence he shortly emerged dressed in helmet
and mail, with a sword hanging from his girdle. This sight deeply
distressed the Moslems, for it appeared that their commander was
at last going to risk his life on the battlefield; they therefore
begged that he would follow his first counsel and remain within
Medina’s walls. But he sternly replied: “I invited you to this and
ye would not. It becometh not a prophet, when once he hath girded
himself to the battle, to lay his armor down again until the Lord
hath decided betwixt him and his enemies. Wait, therefore, on the
Lord. Only be steadfast, and He will send you victory.”

The talismanic effect of these words was immediate, and the Moslem
army at once took to the field. It is not clear whether Abdallah
ibn Obei, at the head of three hundred unbelievers, actually joined
this army and then deserted when it was on the march; for some think
that he never joined it at all. Mohammed is represented as having
forbidden the unbelievers to assist him, saying that he did not
desire “the aid of Unbelievers to fight against the unbelieving”;
though other accounts maintain that Abdallah and his followers
sallied forth with the faithful, but deserted at first sight of the
enemy. Again, it is possible that Abdallah never manifested any
desire to fight at all--that the tales both of his reprimand and
desertion were invented by the Moslems in order to emphasize the
smallness of their force. It was small enough, at all events, for
barely seven hundred Moslems went forth to face a foe more than
four times their own number. The Koreish had meanwhile circled the
city, until they drew up for battle near the hill of Uhud, three
miles to the north; and there the army of Allah met them.

There can be little doubt that, had the plan devised by Mohammed
been followed, a victory, or at least a draw, would have been his.
Realizing that success against such overwhelming odds could be
gained only by far superior tactics and stratagems, he issued three
imperative commands. He instructed fifty sharpshooters to remain, at
all costs, on a little hill nearby, and prevent any effort of the
Koreishite cavalry to attack from the rear--“stir not from this spot;
if ye see us pursuing and plundering the enemy, join not with us;
if we be pursued and even worsted, do not venture to our aid”--he
enjoined upon his prayer-trained troops the imperious necessity of
keeping their serried lines intact; and he forbade them to advance
until he gave the order, for he rightly believed that, so long as
his force cohered, it would be impregnable. But the Prophet was
destined to learn that, once a body of men has tasted the sweets
of pillage and rapine, it is very likely not only to forget its
religious professions but to disobey its own commander. When these
admirable arrangements had been made, he cautiously donned a second
coat of armor and sedately awaited for the foe to make the first
move.

It was not long in coming. All at once the whole Koreishite force
began to advance, while a group of women, headed by the bloodthirsty
Hind and beating timbrels and drums, preceded the men and accompanied
their rude music with stirring songs that promised special favors
for the brave and threatened unbearable calamities for the timid.

  “Daughters of the brave are we,
  On carpets step we delicately;
  Boldly advance, and we embrace you!
  Turn your backs and we will shun you--
  Shun you with disdain.”

Then the Meccan champions, ardently desiring to win favor in the
eyes of their martial females, rushed forth and dared individual
Moslems to engage them in the customary single combat--an invitation
that was right gladly accepted. And now the history of Bedr was
temporarily repeated, for a succession of Koreishites fell before the
superior efficiency of Allah’s favorites. At first dismayed, and then
angered, by the swift fate of their leading standard-bearers, the
Meccan force hurled itself at the Moslem array; but its inflexible
front withstood the desperate assault, while the unerring archers,
stationed on the little hill, prevented the Koreishite cavalry
from disrupting the Moslem left wing. The Meccans wavered, cracked
apart, turned irresolutely, and fled in ignominious haste, while
the jubilant Medinese, headed by their two heroes, Ali and Hamza,
bounded hotly after the pusillanimous fugitives.

But, just at this moment, the validity of Gabriel’s warning after
Bedr became manifest. Certain of their success, the Moslem ranks
broke up and began to despoil the enemy camp; and this gratifying
spectacle, which was seen by the archers, was too compelling to be
resisted. Uttering anticipatory shouts of glee, they deserted their
post and came running to join in the general fun. And then the
situation speedily changed. No longer held at bay by a withering
discharge of arrows, the Meccan cavalry whirled suddenly around
and came smashing through the Moslem rear. Among others the great
Hamza fell, mortally wounded by a javelin from the hand of a hired
assassin. Hind, whose father had been slain by Hamza at Bedr, had
bribed her Ethiopian slave, Wahshi, with the promise of freedom
should he lay Hamza low; and his body had hardly ceased to quiver
before Hind pounced savagely upon it, ripped out his liver, which
she tore to pieces with her teeth, and collected his nails and
fragments of skin to make bracelets for her arms and legs. The
Medinese, taken completely by surprise and terror-stricken at the
death of their greatest warrior, incontinently abandoned their arms
and stolen property and began to run even faster than the Koreish
had done a few moments earlier.

When Mohammed observed this calamitous reversal, he tried to rally
his fleeing forces by expostulation. “Whither away?” he shouted;
“Come back! I am the Apostle of God! Return!” But the Moslems
were much more interested just then in saving their skins than in
any number of prophets or gods; so Mohammed, for the first time
in his career, was forced to fight for his life. We learn that he
discharged arrows until his bow broke, whereupon he madly hurled
stones about, and may possibly have killed one Meccan; yet, even
in his dire extremity, he did not forget to make vehement promises
of an incomparable reward in Paradise to any Moslem who would
keep the foe off his own person. But his under lip was wounded,
one of his front teeth was broken, and a furious stroke drove his
helmet-rings into his cheek. Then, either because he was really
stunned or exceptionally clever, he fell to the ground apparently
dead, while among the Koreish the glad cry “Mohammed is slain!”
resounded far and wide. Complete confusion seized the Moslems when
they heard this appalling shout, and in their consternation they
shrieked aloud, “Where now is the promise of his Lord?” Yet this
very circumstance probably saved them from an utter rout, for the
Koreish, certain of the Prophet’s decease, believed that their main
object was attained and accordingly failed to take advantage of
the victory that lay so easily within their grasp.

For Mohammed, in fact, was still very much alive. When this
unbelievably good news spread, his confederates could not refrain
from shouting it aloud; but, aware that he was yet in great danger,
the Prophet peremptorily checked them. He was borne to a cave
near by, where an attempt was made to care for his wounds; the
helmet-rings had penetrated so deeply into his face that one poor
fellow broke two teeth in a praiseworthy attempt to pull them out.
Mohammed’s courage had now come back to such an extent that he
essayed to apostrophize his enemies thus: “How shall a people prosper
that treat thus their Prophet who calleth them unto the Lord! Let
the wrath of God burn against the men that have besprinkled the
face of His Apostle with his own blood! Let not the year pass over
them alive!” At the same time, however, he deemed it advisable to
change armor with another Moslem, in case the Koreish might come
to search for him; then, rejoining his followers outside the cave,
he glared at the Meccans retreating in the distance.

Just at this moment Abu Sufyan, who, puffed with pride, had remained
to taunt his discomfited foes, called out, “Mohammed! Abu Bekr!
Omar!” and, hearing no response, shouted, “Then all are slain, and
ye are rid of them!” This was too much for Omar to endure with
equanimity; and so, disobeying the Prophet, he bellowed: “Thou liest!
They are all alive, thou enemy of God, and will requite thee yet.”
Hearing this, Abu Sufyan twitted Omar with these words: “Then this
day shall be a return for Bedr. Fortune alternates as the bucket.
Hearken! ye will find mutilated ones upon the field; this was not
my desire, but neither am I displeased thereat. Glory to Al-Ozza!
Glory to Hubal! Al-Ozza is ours, not yours!” It was now Mohammed’s
turn to be vexed, though he wisely entrusted his retort to Omar who,
properly primed by his chief, exclaimed: “The Lord is ours; He is
not yours!” Abu Sufyan, who thought that the argument was becoming
rather childish, merely answered, “We shall meet after a year at
Bedr.” “Be it so!” growled Omar; and then Abu, together with Hind
his spouse, made haste to return home so that they might mutually
dissolve their twelve-months’ oath.

Only twenty Koreish had been slain, whereas the stark bodies of
seventy-four Moslems were stiffening on the battlefield. Thither
Mohammed now betook himself, and, upon seeing Hamza’s defiled corpse,
he tugged angrily at his beard and swore that he would treat thirty
Koreishite bodies in a similar way; but later he repented of this
remark, and indeed issued stern orders forbidding his troops ever
to mutilate a fallen enemy. The crumpled Moslem army then set out
for Medina, for it was feared that the Koreish might decide to
attack the defenseless city; but a scout soon came hastening up,
shouting aloud the cheering news that the Koreish were hurrying
southward toward Mecca. “Gently,” Mohammed mildly chided him,
“let us not appear before the people to rejoice at the departure
of the enemy!” For the Prophet was already profoundly absorbed in
meditating schemes that would enable him satisfactorily to explain
his defeat. But just now the sense of loss excluded every other
emotion from the minds of the refugees and allies--the explanations
could wait. Mingled with the ubiquitous sorrow was a feeling of
helpless insecurity: the Koreish might yet change their minds and
retrace their steps; so a watch was stationed at the Prophet’s
door, behind which he went to sleep so soundly that he failed to
obey Bilal’s indefatigable call to evening prayers. The Meccans,
however, who at this time had another easy opportunity to alter
the map of the world, had decided that they had evened matters up
with their kinsmen--and besides, they were much more interested in
starting their remunerative caravans on the march again than in
making or unmaking history.

Faced for the first time by an apparently irretrievable disaster,
Mohammed well realized that not merely were his assumptions of
sacerdotal preëminence, Allah Himself, and indeed all Islam, in
imminent danger, but that his very existence would be at stake unless
he proved able to satisfy the querulous clamors of his people and
explain just how it was that he had failed. Never did his greatness
reveal itself more splendidly than in this emergency; his every
action was planned with the utmost care. His public demonstration
of grief for Hamza, and his decision to visit the field of Uhud
once a year to bless its Moslem martyrs--where, on each occasion,
he regularly repeated the safe formula, “Peace be on you for that
which ye endured, and a blessed futurity above!”--may have been
genuine enough; at all events, such actions would be calculated to
impress his underlings with his sincerity. But mutinous murmurs
were now rampant: if Allah’s arm had brought victory at Bedr, what
was He doing on the day of Uhud? and in any case what was to be
thought of the Prophet’s multitudinous promises? Yet these apparently
unanswerable complaints were no match for Mohammed’s wily brain.
The masterful orator kept silence until the time came when, as was
customary on Friday, he made known the latest dispatches from Allah
in the Mosque.

And there he held the complainers in the hollow of his hand. The
time and the place itself, with its rude but impressive grandeur,
its venerable associations, its atmosphere of religious awe, had
been chosen with surpassing care; and, before a word had been
uttered, the audience was unconsciously in a passive, hypnotic
state. Then the Prophet, loosing every ounce of his tremendous
nervous energy, poured forth a harangue in which subtle explanations,
reproof, denunciation, self-justification, and finally mild praise
and encouragement were blended with superb artistry. If Allah had
conferred victory at Bedr, through the instrumentality of “the
havoc-making angels,” He had permitted a defeat at Uhud in order
to separate the true believers from the hypocrites; then, too,
Allah _had_ been with them until they disobeyed the Prophet--“When
you ran off precipitately, and did not wait for any one, and the
Apostle was calling you from your rear.” The cowardice of those
who had stayed at home, as well as lust for loot, had also played
a large part in the defeat; but the Prophet himself was blameless,
for he had accepted the decision of a majority of Moslems as to
where and how the battle should be fought. Nor had the Koreish
gained by winning: “We grant them respite only that they may add
to their sins; and they shall have a disgraceful chastisement.”
Furthermore, was it possible that the Moslems had forgotten that
the dead were infinitely better off in Paradise?--where “No terror
afflicteth them, neither are they grieved.” And even if Mohammed,
being only mortal like other men and “other Apostles that have gone
before him,” had been killed, Islam must still continue: “What!
if he were to die or be killed, must ye needs turn back upon your
heels?” And finally: “Be not cast down, neither be ye grieved. Ye
shall yet be victorious if ye are true Believers.”

When it was over, every shamefaced person present was thoroughly
convinced that the Prophet, alone among the Moslems, was wholly
guiltless, that Allah was more adorable than ever, and that the
defeat at Uhud was an excellent example of a remarkably successful
strategic retreat.




                       [Illustration: VII]

                     DEFEAT OF ALL INFIDELS


                                I

Another year sped by, until the appointed time came for the Koreish
and the Moslems to clash again at Bedr. A prolonged drought, however,
had impaired the Meccan finances to such an extent that Abu Sufyan
decided it would be advisable to postpone the engagement; so,
summoning strategy to his aid, he caused a rumor to be diffused
through Medina to the effect that the Koreish had equipped a vast
army for the impending conflict. The Moslems, whose spirits had not
yet recovered from the shock of Uhud, were so perturbed at this
report that they were unwilling to venture forth; but Mohammed, whose
espionage system had now penetrated even as far as the confines
of Mecca and who, therefore, was probably aware of Abu Sufyan’s
ruse, swore a great oath that he would march to Bedr even though
he marched alone. Shamed by their leader’s heroism, the Medinese
recovered their courage; and the Prophet, at the head of fifteen
hundred men, set out for Bedr in the spring of 626. The Koreish
also finally scraped up enough tepid enthusiasm to venture forth
with an army of over two thousand men; but they soon turned back,
so they later declared, because of the lack of provisions. Though
the Moslems were by no means sorry to hear of this, they publicly
boasted their contempt for the “water-gruel” force from Mecca; then,
since it was the time of the annual fairs, they remained eight days
at Bedr profiting greatly from the sale of the abundant wares they
had carried in their train.

If, as it now appeared to Mohammed, the Koreish were disposed to
keep the peace, the extended lull in hostilities would furnish an
admirable opportunity to flaunt the banners of Islam over an ever
widening extent of Arabia; for the defeat of Uhud, no less than the
success at Bedr, had profoundly convinced him that the ultimate
victory of Islam depended upon the sword. The Koran of this period
breathes defiance against the enemies of Islam on almost every page;
its profuse maledictions, once confined to the evildoers of Mecca,
now include all unbelievers everywhere. All other things, even the
hitherto unescapable performance of daily prayers, take second place
to the relentless promulgation of the faith by military means.
“When ye march abroad in the earth, it shall be no crime unto you
that ye shorten your prayers, if ye fear that the Unbelievers may
attack you.” Such an inducement was remarkably well calculated to
win over to the army those numerous believers who had discovered
that five highly complicated daily contortions were a little
irksome, and the Moslem force therefore grew by leaps and bounds.
As a result, during the summer of 626 Mohammed was able to conduct
a successful campaign as far north as the border of Syria--an event
of incalculable import. For the first time the tentacles of Islam
had stretched beyond the bounds of Arabia: the curtain had risen on
the first scene of a world-wide drama that still awaits its last
act.

It seems probable that these sweeping expeditions at length aroused
the Arabians to the danger that threatened them all. At all
events, in the early months of 627 it happened that a confederacy
of Koreishite, Bedouin and Jewish tribes put an army numbering
approximately ten thousand men in the field against Medina. The
Prophet well knew that the memories of Uhud, still rankling in the
minds of his compatriots, made it highly inexpedient to desert the
city and meet the oncoming foe in the open field. Yet Medina must
be defended at all costs--everyone, even the most feeble-kneed,
was agreed upon that--and feverish counsels were held to devise a
plan whereby the city might be made impregnable against assault. At
this crucial juncture, a Persian ex-slave suggested that the city
be entrenched in the same way as, in his travels, he had observed
that the Mesopotamian cities were protected. Acting immediately
upon his inspired advice, the Moslems filled in the gaps between
their outer line of stone houses with a stone wall; and, at the
southeastern quarter, which was entirely defenseless, a deep and wide
ditch was dug. After six days of prodigious and incessant labor,
the trench was completed. The Prophet threw himself heartily into
the work, and, dirty and weary as he was, joined his stentorian
voice in unison with the other toilers as they once again intoned
the words:

  “O Lord! there is no happiness but that of Futurity.
  O Lord! have mercy on the Citizens and the Refugees!”

The result was that, when Abu Sufyan came marching up at the head
of his conglomerate force, all that he could do was to permit his
troops to shoot some harmless showers of arrows, pitch his tents,
sit down, and wait for the Moslems to come forth. Entrenchments as
a military device were entirely unknown in Arabia; so the invaders
logically concluded that Mohammed was not a good sport--as on other
occasions, he had violated the Arabic code of chivalry by proving
that he had brains. “Truly this ditch is the artifice of strangers,”
they yelled, “a shift to which no Arab yet has ever stooped!” But
the Moslems did not take the hint, and so next day the besiegers
made a gallantly unsuccessful attempt to rush the barricade by
sheer weight of numbers. Nevertheless, the assault accomplished
one very irritating thing: for a whole day the devoutest of the
Moslems had been prevented from saying their prayers. Gratifying
amends for this forced neglect of Allah, however, were made when
night fell; at that time an individual service was held for each
omitted supplication, and Mohammed contributed a special comminatory
request: “They have kept us from our daily prayers; God fill their
bellies and their graves with fire!” Indeed, while the siege lasted,
the Prophet spent most of the hours in protracted prayer, though he
managed to find time enough to guard himself against the threatening
activities of the Jews and other disaffected Medinese. Nor did
his devices stop here. He even tried to buy off the Bedouins by
promising them a third of the fruit from Medina’s date-trees; but his
leading allies, the Aus and the Khazraj, opposed his trickiness and
admonished him to “give nothing unto them but the sword.” Mohammed
then played his trump card: if war was but a game of deception, why
should he not skillfully divide the enemy against themselves? He
instructed a trusty go-between to spread dissension among the foe
by persuading the Bedouins and Jews in turn that their interests
were mutually opposed. The scheme worked without a hitch, for the
attacking forces, already discouraged by the cold, the difficulty
of obtaining food, and the protracted delay, were ready to leave
on any excuse. As a result, when a chilling storm of wind and rain
incommoded them on the fifteenth day, they folded their tents and
silently stole away. “Break up the camp and march,” commanded Abu
Sufyan. “As for myself I am gone”--and he suited his action to his
words by clambering hastily upon his camel and trying to urge it
away while its fore leg was still hitched.

Scarcely had the last camel disappeared when the Prophet, after
thanking Allah for his timely assistance in sending the storm, was
visited by Gabriel. “What!” chided the tireless angel, “hast thou
laid aside thine armor, while as yet the angels have not laid theirs
aside! Arise! go up against the Beni Koreiza.” This Jewish tribe,
which inhabited a fortress several miles southeast of Medina, had
been the last to succumb to the blandishments of Abu Sufyan, but
had finally yielded and taken part in the assault on Medina; so
Mohammed made haste to obey the celestial behest, even though he
had previously borrowed from the Beni Koreiza the picks and shovels
with which the trench had been excavated. Heading three thousand
soldiers, he immediately marched to the Jewish stronghold where,
inasmuch as it was marvelously protected by nature rather than
its inhabitants, he found it necessary to keep guard for several
weeks. In the end the Jews agreed to surrender on condition that
the Aus, their supposed allies, should decide their fate. To this
Mohammed agreed, and the Aus, almost with one voice, demanded that
the Beni Koreiza should be treated gently; yet they signified
their willingness to abide by the decision of their chief, a huge,
corpulent fellow named Sa’d.

Now it chanced that Sa’d, suffering from an arrow-wound inflicted
during the late siege, was not in a pleasant frame of mind; and it
has been surmised that Mohammed may have craftily reckoned on this
very fact. “Proceed with thy judgment!” he commanded Sa’d. “Will
ye, then,” inquired Sa’d of his tribesmen, “bind yourselves by the
covenant of God that whatsoever I shall decide, ye will accept?”
After they had murmured their assent, he spoke. “My judgment is
that the men shall be put to death, the women and children sold
into slavery, and the spoil divided amongst the army.” A torrent of
objections was about to be poured forth, when the Prophet savagely
commanded silence. “Truly the judgment of Sa’d is the judgment of
God,” he declared, “pronounced on high from beyond the Seventh
Heaven.” Trenches were dug that night, and next morning some seven
or eight hundred men were marched out, forced to seat themselves
in rows along the top of the trenches, were forthwith beheaded,
and then tumbled into the long, gaping grave; the Prophet meanwhile
looked on until, tiring of the monotonous spectacle, he departed to
amuse himself with a Jewess whose husband had just perished. But poor
Sa’d did not live long to enjoy his revenge; barely had he reached
home when his wounds re-opened and he soon breathed his last. As
he lay dying, the Prophet held him in his arms and prayed thus: “O
Lord! Verily Sa’d hath labored in thy service. He hath believed in
thy Prophet, and hath fulfilled his covenant. Wherefore do thou,
O Lord, receive his spirit with the best reception wherewith thou
receivest a departing soul!” Mohammed also helped to carry the
coffin which, the bearers noted, was remarkably light for so heavy
a man; but the Prophet explained the matter to the satisfaction of
all. “The angels are carrying the bier, therefore it is light in
your hands. Verily the throne on high doth vibrate for Sa’d, and
the portals of heaven are opened, and he is attended by seventy
thousand angels that never trod the earth before.”


                               II

Busily occupied though he had been for several years with the gradual
subjugation of the Koreish, Mohammed had yet found time to compel
a motley group of less important enemies to bow meekly beneath
the yoke of Islam. The extinction of the Beni Koreiza had been but
one link in the long chain of his conquests. His Meccan kinsmen
had naturally been the first to be imperiously brushed aside; but
other temporary impediments had occasionally blocked his way.

Among them the few Christians who were scattered here and there
throughout Arabia were of least moment. Split asunder as they were
into various warring sects--the Monothelites, Jacobites, Melchites
and Nestorians--they worried the Prophet but little; he seems to
have regarded them with a tolerant and mildly amused eye. Having
had scanty intercourse with them, he was probably quite ignorant of
their disputatious creeds; therefore, while the Koran always speaks
respectfully of the Saviour, Who is invariably designated “Jesus,
Son of Mary,” it makes many deplorable errors when it discusses
the tenets and theogony of Christianity. It expressly denies that
Jesus is the Son of God and completely repudiates the established
doctrine of the Holy Trinity: “Wherefore believe in God, and in the
Apostles; and say not, _There are Three_. Refrain: it will be better
for you. Verily the Lord is one God. Glory be to Him! far be it from
Him, that there should be to Him a Son.” And Mohammed seems to have
made the even more egregious error of supposing that the Trinity
which he condemned was composed of the Father, Jesus and Mary; for
the Koran utterly fails to recognize the incontrovertible existence
of the Holy Ghost. Thus, while it has been reasonably urged that
the Prophet both comprehended and hated Roman Catholicism, it may
just as plausibly be argued that the conception of the Holy Spirit
as a separate and distinct entity was too subtle for his eminently
practical mind to grasp.

With Judaism, however, the case was very different. Though the Koran
might place Christ on par with Abraham, Moses, David and other
Hebrew prophets, it was to the customs and rites of the Jews that
Mohammed paid obeisance rather than to those that had clustered
around Christianity. Scarcely had he taken up his residence in Medina
when he deliberately humbled himself in an effort to placate and
win over the Jews; for, knowing their numbers and their power, he
strongly desired to enter into a lasting union with them. To that
end, he bound himself and his adherents to the Jews in a contract
whose obligations were relatively mutual: “The Jews will profess
their religion, the Moslems theirs.... No one shall go forth to
war excepting with the permission of Mohammed; but this shall not
hinder any from seeking lawful revenge.... If attacked, each shall
come to the assistance of the other.... War and Peace shall be
made in common.” There is also every reason to suppose that the
command promulgated by Allah, when the Prophet visited Him in the
Seventh Heaven, to the effect that all loyal Moslems must henceforth
direct their prayers five times daily toward Jerusalem, was given
because Mohammed expected that the Jews, seeing the Moslems thus
busily engaged, would be insidiously flattered and insensibly led
to look favorably upon Islam. Nor did his efforts stop here. The
period of fasting which he had decreed for the Moslems coincided
with that time during which the Hebrews also abstained from food;
when Jewish funeral processions passed, the Prophet and his brethren
honored them by standing until they had disappeared; and the rite
of circumcision--commonly practised by all Arabs out of deference
to Abraham, the supposed founder of their holy city, Mecca--was
also submitted to by the Moslems to the further pleasure of the
Jews, who, however, remained in mystified ignorance as to whether
Mohammed himself had undergone that ceremony. It is furthermore
likely that the Hebraic horror of Christianity made the Jews look
favorably upon this newcomer who, while he might not correspond
exactly with the prophet who had been so long and so unsuccessfully
anticipated by them, at least appeared to approximate their ideal.
What else could be thought of a man who formulated the amazing
doctrine that a Jew might synchronously be a devout follower of
Abraham and Allah, and might therefore attend both the services of
the Mosque and the Synagogue with equal impunity? Indeed, there
is much evidence to support the view that, had the Jews saluted
Mohammed as _the_ prophet who had at last arrived among them, Islam
would have been rapidly absorbed by Hebraism.

But Allah had other plans. A year’s commingled residence in Medina
taught the members of both sects many, many things. Inasmuch as the
Jews literally owned the city, the needy Moslems were compelled to
turn to them for positions, provisions and for money to borrow; and
they soon learnt that their creditors were as merciless as they
were devout. Abu Bekr, having approached a certain Pinchas with the
quaint request, “Who will lend God a good loan?” was rebuffed with
the quick retort, “If God wants a loan, He must be in distressed
circumstances”; whereupon Abu, who had absolutely no flair for
repartee, won some slight consolation by knocking Pinchas down. The
Prophet himself--who, even after he began to extirpate the Hebrews,
invariably turned to them when his financial credit was bad--had
experiences similar to Abu’s; and it is a matter of interest that
he now for the first time began to notice that the odors arising
from the Jewish habitations were decidedly offensive to his
ever-fastidious nose. Another thing that fanned the rising fires
of disaffection was the fact that, for more than a year after the
Hegira, no Moslem woman gave birth to a child; and the Jews openly
bragged that their secret sorceries and enchantments had produced
this barrenness. The Moslems, completely upset over this unheard-of
catastrophe, exhausted themselves in the attempt to discover an
adequate remedy; and the Prophet was so much concerned that he
probably composed two Suras especially designed to frustrate the
Jewish spells. Yet, in spite of the Hebraic incantations, a Moslem
child was born fourteen months after the flight to Medina, and
never again was there any doubt as to the fertility of the Moslem
women.

The Jews, too, had experienced a mental revolution. A prophet who,
as they had discovered, could not speak Hebrew, and who, when put
to the test, betrayed an abysmal ignorance concerning the wealth
of intricate information stored in the Pentateuch, did not wholly
correspond to their idealized conception of their Messiah. They
might blandly admit that his dissertations were satisfactory, but
when he pressed his prophetic claims upon them they courteously
retorted that _their_ particular prophet must be able to trace his
lineage straight back to David. They objected, also, when they
noted how great a proportion of his time Mohammed spent in his
harem, whereas the Jews, of all people, might well have regarded
that harmless idiosyncrasy as a clinching proof that his mission
was divine. Again, when the Prophet vainly tried to save the life
of one of his earliest converts by cauterizing his sore throat, the
Jews poked fun at him. “If this man were a prophet, could he not
have warded off sickness from his friend?” they mockingly asked.
And all that Mohammed could think of to say was this: “I have no
power from my Lord over even mine own life, or over that of any
of my followers. The Lord destroy the Jews that speak thus!” From
this time on, instead of sitting up night after night, as he had
once done, telling affecting tales about the Children of Israel,
he began to belabor their descendants in the pages of the Koran.
Where it had once iterated and reiterated the manifold virtues of
the ancient Hebrews, it now discussed their manifold vices--their
idolatries, backslidings, and betrayals--at even greater length;
and an almost Christian fervor breathes from those pages where the
Prophet asseverates that the wilful stupidity of the Jews caused
them to reject him even as they had previously spurned Jesus.

Some faint-hearted Hebrews, who perhaps suspected what was coming,
were diplomatic enough to swallow the new faith entire, thereby
winning from Mohammed the appellation of “Witnesses.” Abdallah,
son of Salam, was a shining example. Having slyly induced his
brethren to give him a character testimonial before they knew that
he was about to become a renegade, he presented it to the Prophet
who was so pleased that he assured Abdallah he was already in
Paradise--even Sa’d, chief of the Aus, had not received a comparable
congratulation. But Abdallahs among the Jews were rare. Most of
them continued to snicker at the hilarious ignorance and bombast
revealed in Mohammed’s homiletical discourses, to disregard Allah’s
grim warning that they should repent and turn to Islam “before We
deface your countenances, turning the face backwards,” and to wax
fat on the miseries of the Moslems. On the other hand, the Moslems
themselves no longer made any effort to conceal their desire to
hold their noses when they were compelled to approach the Jews on
business matters; and the Prophet himself shortly decided to put
a summary end to all attempts at reconciliation and brotherhood.

Perhaps the success that attended his decision to fight during the
sacred months suggested the idea that he was now strong enough to
break definitely with the Jews. One day, not long afterward, while
he stood at prayer in the Mosque with his face turned as usual
toward the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, he received a lightning
revelation to turn “toward the holy Temple of Mecca. Wheresoever ye
be, when ye pray, turn toward the same.” The divine injunction came
just after he had prostrated himself twice toward Jerusalem; quick
as a flash he reversed himself--an action instinctively followed
by all the automatons in the audience--and faced toward the south
until the service was ended. This symbolic event signalized his
determination henceforth to separate himself wholly from the Jews,
as well as to gratify the atavistic longings of his zealots who had
never quite succeeded in relinquishing their love for the Black
Stone and the Kaba; then too, Mohammed had grown very tired of
listening to a favorite Hebraic taunt: “This Prophet of yours knew
not where to find his Kibla [house of worship] till we pointed it out
to him.” The Jews, who fully understood the sinister significance
of Mohammed’s sudden right-about-face, were much perturbed; and
they had reason to be, for he lost no time in sundering every
tie that connected the worship of Allah with Hebraic ceremonies.
He commanded the Moslems to keep their fast before or after the
Jewish Day of Atonement; he once more followed the Arabic custom
of combing his hair instead of letting it drift loose, as the
Jews did; he altered the Moslem funeral rites so that they again
corresponded to the immemorial Pagan ritual; and he changed the
regulations pertaining to the lunar indisposition of females to a
system that Moses assuredly would not have approved. For it must
be demonstrated that Allah was more powerful than Jehovah; that
Mohammed, as the last of a long line of prophets, had an ultimate
claim upon the sacerdotal office; and that the superior wisdom which
the Jews boasted concerning celestial matters over which he had
hitherto asserted his sole jurisdiction would be of no use whatever
to them--after they were dead.


                               III

The triumph of Bedr encouraged Mohammed to expedite his plans of
revenge against his internal foes; directly or indirectly, he
stimulated his accomplices to assassinate them. Peculiarly sensitive
as he was to the slurring satires and puns which the Jews had aimed
against some of his most cherished speeches, and being wholly
incapable of retorting in kind, he was only too pleased when the
Moslems showed a demoniacal readiness to avenge his wounded honor
with sharper-pointed weapons than epigrams. Asma, a poetess strongly
on the side of the Jews, composed some verses that castigated the
disaffected Medinese for bowing before an interloper whom she
represented as hoping that the city would “be done brown” so
that he might enjoy a toothsome banquet; shortly afterward, one
of the Prophet’s men stole into her room at midnight and, after
taking the trouble to remove her nursing baby, thrust his sword
through her breast. Next morning Mohammed paused in his prayers
at the Mosque long enough to inquire of the murderer, “Hast thou
slain the daughter of Merwan?” “Yes,” was the reply, “but tell me
now, is there cause of apprehension?” “None,” the Prophet assured
him, “a couple of goats will hardly knock their heads together for
it.” Then, turning toward the congregation, he shouted: “If ye
desire to see a man that hath assisted the Lord and His Prophet,
look ye here!” A second satirist, old Abu Afak, a Jewish convert,
foolishly attempted to carry on the work begun by Asma. “Who will
rid me of this pestilent fellow?” inquired Mohammed; and within a
few hours Abu Afak, while carelessly sleeping in a courtyard, was
also transfixed with a sword. Both of these deeds were committed
within a week after Bedr.

About six months later one Ka’b, another Jewish versifier who, like
most satirists of his time, signalized his craft by anointing his
hair on one side, allowing his clothes to become disordered, and
wearing but one shoe, decided to amuse himself by making public a
series of poems that were intimately concerned with the amatory
charms of some of the most generous Moslem women. Of a beauty named
Um al-Fadl he wrote:

“Of saffron color is she; so full of charms that if thou wert to
    clasp her, there would be pressed forth Wine, Henna, and Katam;

 So slim that her figure, from ankle to shoulder, bends as she
    desires to stand upright, and cannot.

 When we met she caused me to forget my own wife Um Halim, although
    the cord that bindeth me to her is not to be broken.

 I never saw the sun appear by night, except on one dark evening
    when she came forth unto me in all her splendor.”

Ka’b was also believed to be engaged in double dealings with the
Koreish, and so the Prophet offered this public prayer: “O Lord,
deliver me from the son of Al-Ashraf, in whatever way it seemeth
good unto Thee, because of his open sedition and his verses.” And
lest there might be doubt as to how he wished his supplication to be
fulfilled, he asked his servants this pointed question: “Who will
ease me of the son of Al-Ashraf? for he troubleth me.” Maslama’s son
Mohammed, a well-known Moslem libertine, responded, “Here am I--I
will slay him.” “Go!” exclaimed the happy Prophet, “the blessing
of God be with you, and assistance from on High!” Aided by four
conspirators, this Mohammed succeeded in luring Ka’b away from his
bride on a moonlight night. Suddenly seizing his long hair, they
pulled him to the ground with the shout: “Slay him! Slay the enemy
of God!” and immediately stabbed him to death. “Welcome!” said
Mohammed on their return, “for your countenances beam of victory.”
“And thine also, O Prophet!” they replied, as the victim’s head
was tossed down before his feet.

On the following day Mohammed, having decided that the only good
Jews were dead or exiled ones, gave the Moslems free leave to kill
them upon sight. Muheisa, a converted Khazrajite, at once availed
himself of this long-desired privilege by slaughtering the first
Hebrew he chanced to meet; and when his brother Huweisa chided him
for his excessive zealotry, he growled: “By the Lord! if he that
commanded me to kill him had commanded to kill thee also, I would
have done it.” “What!” screamed Huweisa, “wouldst thou have slain
thine own brother at Mohammed’s bidding?” “Even so,” was the cool
answer. “Strange indeed!” said the aghast Huweisa, “hath the new
religion reached to this? Verily, it is a wonderful faith!” And he
immediately proclaimed his own conversion to Islam.

Many of the Jews would doubtless have liked to follow his example,
but their day of grace was past; no longer could they qualify as
“Witnesses” for Mohammed. For indeed his heart was set upon their
extermination, or--what was even better--the robbery of their goods;
and to that end, like a good general, he proceeded first against
those who dwelt in Medina. About a month after Bedr, he went to
the wealthy tribe of Beni Kainuka, who practised the goldsmiths’
trade in Medina, and peremptorily announced his errand thus: “By
the Lord! ye know full well that I am the Apostle of God. Believe,
therefore, before that happen to you which has befallen Koreish!”
But they hurled defiance at him, so he decided to wait until he
could find a convenient excuse to attack them. He soon found it.
As a Moslem girl was trading in a goldsmith’s shop one day, a
frivolous-minded Jew sought entertainment by creeping up behind
her and pinning the bottom of her skirt to her shoulder; howls of
merriment followed and the poor maiden almost died of shame. A Moslem
who soon avenged the insult by slaying the sprightly Jew was killed
in turn by other Jews; and thus the Prophet was conscientiously
able to proceed against the Beni Kainuka--for had they not broken
the solemn treaty hitherto contracted between the Moslems and the
Hebrews? A fortnight’s siege ended in their abject surrender; their
hands were then tied and they were led out to be executed. At this
moment Abdallah ibn Obei, who still retained some remnants of
power in Medina, approached the Prophet with a plea for mercy. But
the only reply was an averted face, so Abdallah seized Mohammed’s
arm and repeated his request. “Let me go!” the Prophet angrily
screamed; then, since Abdallah still clung to him, he again shouted,
“Wretch, let me go!” But Abdallah continued to hang on, begging that
pity be shown; and Mohammed, who still feared Abdallah’s might,
grudgingly commanded, “Let them go!” though he could not refrain
from adding, “The Lord curse them, and him too!” So their lives
were spared, but their rich possessions were confiscated and they
were at once sent into banishment; and Mohammed solaced himself
for his Pyrrhic victory by selecting the choicest of their weapons
for himself. When Abdallah bitterly reproved one of the Prophet’s
leading confederates, he was met by the curt response: “Hearts have
changed. Islam hath blotted all treaties out.”

Such, indeed, was the fact. Within a year the murderer of Ka’b was
dispatched to the Jewish tribe of Beni an-Nadir--which was suspected
of being in secret league with the Koreish--with this commission:
“Thus saith the Prophet of the Lord. Ye shall go forth from out of
my land within the space of ten days; whosoever after that remaineth
behind shall be put to death.” When they protested on the ground
that such treatment would be rather severe on a people who had
never injured Islam, Mohammed’s envoy merely remarked, “Hearts are
changed now,” and abruptly left them. After prolonged and anxious
consultation, they decided to hold fast to their fortress--a
proceeding so unusual for their race that, when the Prophet heard
of it, he shouted in delight: “Allah Akbar! The Jews are going to
fight! Great is the Lord!” His enthusiasm was somewhat dampened,
however, when he discovered that a lengthy siege failed to dislodge
them; accordingly, he determined to hasten matters by destroying
the pick of their palm-trees with fire and axe. They protested that
this act was both barbarous and contrary to Mosaic law; and, while
Mohammed was no longer much interested in Moses, he well knew that
his deed was opposed to the unwritten laws of Arabian warfare. The
Koran, therefore, was soon adorned with this exculpatory passage:
“That which thou didst cut down of the Date-trees, or left of them
standing upon their roots, it was by the command of God, that He
might abase the evil-doers.” The Beni an-Nadir, in fact, were so
completely abased by the relentless siege that they were glad to
surrender their lands and go into exile on the generous condition
that their lives should be spared.

These episodes relating to the Beni Kainuka and the Beni an-Nadir
are only two of many like illustrations, that might be discussed
at wearisome length, which demonstrated two significant facts:
Mohammed had succeeded in ridding Medina of its indwelling foes,
and he had decided to destroy the Jewish settlements throughout
all Arabia. The massacre of the Beni Koreiza followed as a matter
of course; and in 628 the last Hebraic stronghold of much account
was also dismantled. In the summer of that year Mohammed, heading
sixteen hundred men, pounced upon the opulent city of Kheibar, which
lay about one hundred miles to the north of Medina--a distance
that shows how wide the sweep of the Prophet’s victorious arm had
reached. The motive which inspired him to assault this people
appears to have sprung from the consideration that they had failed
to avenge the murder of one of their own tribesmen by a Moslem;
for the Prophet may well have believed that such an aggressively
peace-loving clan merited the severest punishment. In any case, they
were not true believers; and, at this stage of Islam, that fact in
itself constituted a more than ample pretext for the opening of
hostilities. Kheibar’s forts fell in rapid succession before the
impetuous rush of the now veteran Moslem army. As Mohammed gaily
charged from one conquered stronghold to another, he continually
raised the rapturous shout: “Allah Akbar! Great is the Lord! Truly
when I light upon the coasts of any People, woe unto them in that
day!” After the conquest was complete, Kinana, chieftain of Kheibar,
was tortured in the hope that he would reveal his hidden treasure.
Fires were burnt upon his breast until he was so nearly dead that
he could not have confessed even had he so desired; and Mohammed,
who realized that he had carried the thing too far, ordered his
head to be chopped off.

Kinana’s notoriously beautiful wife, the seventeen-year-old Safiya,
and her companion were then fetched up to the Prophet; the companion,
seeing the headless trunk, beat her face and howled aloud. “Take
that she-devil hence!” snapped Mohammed; but he tenderly folded
his mantle around Safiya’s head to screen her from the sight, for
he had determined to marry her. His approaching nuptials, however,
were nearly ruined by Zeinab, a Jewess who had lost all her male
relatives and her husband on that fateful day. She poisoned a kid,
tastily garnished it, and then placed it before him, smiling and
coaxing him to eat. Having distributed the least desirable parts
among his fellows, he bit off a choice mouthful from the shoulder;
but barely had his teeth closed on it when he cried, “Hold! surely
this shoulder hath been poisoned,” and indecorously spat it out.
One man who had partaken of the meat died, and Mohammed himself
is reputed to have been afflicted with such violent pains that he
was repeatedly cupped between the shoulders; yet within a short
time he was observed to disappear with the fickle-hearted and coyly
reluctant Safiya behind the bridal tent.

Thus the former Meccan merchant and exile passed from conquest to
conquest. He was now not only a prophet--plenty of contemporary men
professed a similarly exclusive claim to that commonplace title--but
the recognized dictator over Medina and an extensive range of
contingent territory; furthermore, the terror inspired by the mere
mention of his name had penetrated to the most distant stretches of
Arabia, and was beginning to arouse sinister forebodings in adjacent
nations. Had his relatively unbroken succession of victories made him
an inexorably ruthless tyrant whose actions were wholly prompted by
an insatiable ambition, or had they but reaffirmed his ceaselessly
reiterated claim that he was only plastic clay in Allah’s hand? Did
he delight to glut himself in wanton bloodshed, or, in the inmost
regions of his spirit, did he believe that the punishments meted
out upon his enemies had actually been self-inflicted inasmuch as
they had refused to accept the one true God? “And He hath caused to
descend from their strongholds the Jews.... And He struck terror
into their hearts. A part ye slaughtered, and a part ye took into
captivity. And He hath made you to inherit their land, and their
habitations, and their wealth, and a land which ye had not trodden
upon; and God is over all things powerful.... I am the strongest,
therefore Allah is with me.” Did those exultant words emanate
from a profligate, coldly calculating and atrociously barbarous
hypocrite, or from a humble and grateful penitent whose sole wish
was to be a channel through which Allah’s divine purposes might be
made manifest? The answer forever bides.




                      [Illustration: VIII]

                           AVOCATIONS


                                I

Incessant wars and rumors of wars by no means occupied all of
Mohammed’s attention. He might be prophet, statesman, general and
practically king, but he was also something more: he was a family
man on a large scale. Aloof and reserved on public occasions, he was
excessively affectionate toward his friends, and indeed some of his
wives. Since he no longer had any small children, he was particularly
fond of little tots; while standing at prayer he sometimes held a
child in his arms, and at Medina he often allowed a little girl
to lead him around by the hand. From the plumbless depths of his
character a vast and intricate collection of odd mannerisms, which
occasionally corresponded with the surpassing dignity of his office,
came to the surface; and all the manifold resources of psychology,
philosophy and related branches of erudition have been exhausted
in the attempt to analyze or synthesize his personality from these
_disjecta membra_. But the dry bones still remain scattered and
unfleshed; all the prodigal resources of modern scholarship have
excavated fewer vital facts about the Prophet than one of his
most favored wives or friends might have related in less than a
day. When, therefore, they speak with voices whose authenticity is
generally granted, they should be allowed to hold the stage.

Ayesha, certainly, was one of them. Questioned once about her
illustrious consort, she tartly replied: “He was a man just such
as yourselves; he laughed often and smiled much.” “But how would
he occupy himself at home?” the insistent voice continued. “Even
as any of you occupy yourselves,” came the abrupt response. “He
would mend his clothes, and cobble his shoes. He used to help me
in my household duties; but what he did oftenest was to sew. If
he had the choice between two matters, he would always choose the
easier, so as that no sin accrued therefrom.” Ayesha obviously
had few illusions about Mohammed; but that is one of the peculiar
privileges of great men’s wives, and besides he was her senior by
more than forty years--a fact that probably accounts very largely for
her continual underestimation of his several abilities. Her highly
partial record, accordingly, should be corrected and supplemented
with equally pertinent particulars.

For indeed, despite his felicity in cobbling, sewing, milking his
goats and tarring his camels, there were many things that he did not
like at all. He detested lying on the part of others, and separated
himself from those of his adherents who cultivated a natural taste
for mendacity, until they repented; he held the custom of usury in
special abhorrence: “One dirhem of usury which a man eats, knowing
it to be so, is more grievous than thirty-six fornications,” he
declared. He also loathed dogs and pictures--“Angels will not enter
a house containing a dog or pictures,” and “Every painter will be
in hell,” he oracularly announced, but the reason for this outburst
is obscure. Perhaps it was because Arabian art was notoriously
bad--and then again, perhaps he was jealous of anything that, no
matter how rude and primitive, was entirely beyond his comprehension.
Once, during public prayers, he chanced to notice that his mantle
was richly figured, and when he had ended he said: “Take away that
mantle, for verily it hath distracted me in my prayers, and bring
me a common one”; and on another similar occasion he threw off a
silken robe in disgust, saying, “Such stuff it doth not become the
pious to wear.” He wore a golden ring until he noticed that all the
people were beginning to follow his example, whereupon he went into
the pulpit, pulled the ring off with the words, “By the Lord I will
not wear this ring ever again,” and then prohibited the use of such
adornments. A friend who had sent him a present in the form of a
steaming dinner was much chagrined when it was returned uneaten and
even untouched by his fingers--for he “used to eat with his thumb and
his two forefingers,” and, “after he had finished eating, he licked
his blessed fingers: first the middle one, then the prayer-finger,
and last the thumb”--but he was pacified when the Prophet explained
that he had not tasted it because onions had been cooked with the
food; for Gabriel, he went on to say, strenuously objected to the
odor of both onions and garlic. Furthermore, he abstained from
tasting lizards, for he feared that they were descended, by some
inexplicable metempsychosis, from a certain tribe of Israel. He
commonly reclined during his meals, though sometimes “he would sit
on his left leg, posting up the right; and if he was very hungry,
he would sit down altogether and post up both legs.”

Yet the catalogue of his likes was far more extensive than the list
of his aversions. He was so devoted to everlasting prayers that
his legs often became swollen from long standing; and when anyone
remonstrated with him, he would reply: “What! Shall I not behave as
a thankful servant should?” He was very careful not to yawn during
his devotions, and if perforce he sneezed, “he made a moderate noise,
covering his blessed face with his robe-sleeve and putting his
blessed hand before his nostrils,” after which he would ejaculate,
“Praise be to Allah!” Before commencing his orisons, he always
sniffed up several handfuls of water from his right hand and then
blew the liquid out with his left hand. Ordinarily, he prayed with
his shoes on, though he once took them off while engaged in public
supplication--a deed immediately aped by the entire audience; but
the Prophet at once informed them that their action was unnecessary,
“for he had merely taken off his own because Gabriel had apprised
him that there was some dirty substance attaching to them.” His
prayers were so earnest and vehement that “it might be known from a
distance that he was speaking by the motion of his beard”--which he
had let grow until it reached to the middle of his broad chest; but
he regularly clipped his moustache. When it was once suggested to
him that his appearance would be vastly improved if he reversed the
process, the counselor was properly rebuked. “Nay,” said Mohammed,
“for my Lord hath commanded me to clip the moustaches and allow
the beard to grow.”

In more mundane matters, too, his tastes were equally pronounced.
He affected white clothes chiefly, but was also partial toward
red, yellow and green garments, and he sometimes wore woolens.
Scrupulously neat in his personal habits, and ever ready to condemn
untidiness (yellow teeth, in particular) in his companions, he
yet wore a turban, wrapped many times around his head, whose
lower edge looked “like the soiled clothes of an oil-dealer.” But
such carelessness was uncommon, for his clothes, though mostly
inexpensive, were habitually clean and neat. When he donned freshly
laundered clothes, he was accustomed to remark: “Praise be to the
Lord, who hath clothed me with that which shall hide my nakedness
and adorn me while I live.” He had a perfect mania for toothpicks:
at night he invariably kept one handy to use before performing his
ablutions; while traveling he always carried a generous supply;
indeed, he used them so frequently between his wide-spaced teeth,
“white as hailstones,” that he gradually wore his gums away; and
one person chanced to observe him, toothpick in mouth, making a
gurgling, “a-ccha” noise as if he were going to disgorge his food.

The narrowness of his means at Medina limited his gluttonous desires
for a time, but his rapid successes soon enabled him to feast upon
delectable dainties. He was very fond of sweetmeats, honey, cucumbers
and ripe dates (“When he ate fresh dates he would keep such as were
bad in his hand”) and he eyed the pumpkin with particular favor.
One of his servants, gazing abstractedly at some pumpkins one day,
after Mohammed’s death, was overheard saying “Dear little plant,
how the Prophet loved thee!” Like a true Arab, he preferred mutton
to all other flesh. “I once slew a kid and dressed it,” narrated a
Medinan. “The Prophet asked me for the forequarter and I gave it to
him. ‘Give me another,’ he said; and I gave him the second. Then
he asked for a third. ‘O Prophet!’ I replied, ‘there are but two
forequarters to a kid.’” The meal that he relished with most gusto,
however, was “a mess of bread cooked with meat, and a dish of dates
dressed with butter and milk.” He had a predilection for several
wells around Medina whose waters, he said, were both “cold and
sweet,” and, after he drank, he sometimes bathed in them or invoked
a blessing on their contents by spitting into them. Close-fisted
and frugal most of the time, he readily loosed his purse-strings
when he saw something whose appeal was irresistible. He once paid
about twenty camels for a single dress, and also gave eight golden
pieces for a mantle. At bedtime he regularly put antimony on his
eyelids, “saying that it made the sight more piercing, and caused
the hair to grow”; he had a crystal goblet with silver trimmings,
a copper vase for his baths, and an ivory comb; but perhaps his
chief fancy inclined toward perfumes. “We always used to know when
Mohammed had issued forth from his chamber by the sweet perfume that
filled the air,” one of his servants testified. He indulged without
stint in musk and ambergris, and he burned camphor on odiferous
wood so that he might enjoy the smell. With her customary acumen,
Ayesha put the gist of the matter into one pithy sentence when she
said: “The Prophet loved three things--women, scents, and food; he
had his heart’s desire of the first two, but not of the last.” In
fact, Mohammed himself argued that these two innocuous diversions
intensified the ecstasy of his prayers.


                               II

Mohammed’s adoration of particular women was nevertheless tempered
with penetrating discretion toward the sex in general. It is true
that he abrogated the usage which permitted, and even encouraged,
sons to inherit their fathers’ wives, and that the code of Islam
allowed single ladies to be mistresses of their own actions; but it
is also true that married women continued to be treated merely as
sports and playthings for the convenience of their husbands. “Men
stand above women,” says the Koran, “because of the superiority
which God hath conferred on one of them over the other....
Wherefore let the good Women be obedient.... But such as ye may
fear disobedience or provocation from, rebuke them, and put them
away in separate apartments, and chastise them. But, if they be
obedient unto you, seek not against them an excuse for severity;
verily God is lofty and great.” While Moslem husbands might easily
obtain an absolute divorce if they chose, the idea that women might
occasionally desire the same privilege seems never to have entered
the Prophet’s head. Women might win Paradise, to be sure, yet no
provision was made whereby they could anticipate such captivating
entertainments as were promised to faithful men. Mohammed, in fact,
was sagacious enough to entice males to Islam by implying that there
would be no occasion for them to lament the loss of their wives in
Paradise: “Whenever a woman vexes her husband in this world, his
wife among the Houris of Paradise says: ‘Do not vex him (May God
slay thee!) for he is only a guest with thee. He will soon leave
thee and come to us’”--and indeed, the most subtly cruel punishment
that the Prophet ever inflicted upon erring males was to separate
them for a period from their wives. If, however, some wives remained
refractory in the face of this warning, Mohammed had still another
card up his sleeve: “If a man summon his wife to his bed and she
refuse to come, so that he spends the night in anger, the angels
curse her till morning.”

That the Prophet, as was only natural, allowed himself a wider
latitude of encounters than was granted to his adherents--who might
espouse only four women, but might also form liaisons “without
antecedent ceremony or any guarantee of continuance” with any number
of female slaves--was made clear by Ayesha. “I was jealous of the
women who gave themselves to the apostle of God,” she admitted,
“and said, ‘Does a woman give herself?’ Then when God revealed:
‘Thou mayst decline for the present whom thou wilt of them, and thou
mayst take to thy bed her whom thou wilt, and whomsoever thou shalt
long for of those thou shalt have before neglected; and this shall
not be a crime in thee.’ I said, ‘I see your Lord does nothing but
hasten to fulfil your desire!’” Yet due allowance should be made
for Ayesha’s jealousy; for, while Mohammed married approximately
twelve women, she was the only virgin among them--the others were
widows or divorcees who commonly brought him wealth or desirable
political connections. For indeed, though he once playfully chided
a Moslem who had married a mature woman instead of a “young damsel,
who would have sported with thee, and thou with her,” he was too
canny to follow his own counsel. At the same time, he preferred
women of spirit; in fact, he definitely rejected one girl because
“she never cried or complained”--a criticism that certainly could
not be aimed against most of his brides.

Khadija was barely under ground when the Prophet prepared to embark
boldly upon matrimonial seas. About two months later he married
Sauda, a tall, corpulent, mature widow whose brother celebrated the
event by sprinkling ashes on his head; he synchronously engaged
himself to Abu Bekr’s daughter Ayesha, whom he eventually espoused
at the age of ten; but it has been suggested that “there may have
been something more than ordinarily precocious about the child.”
She herself attributed her hold on Mohammed’s affections not only
to her childish beauty, but to her plumpness. “When I was betrothed
to the Prophet,” she related, “my mother endeavored to make me fat;
and she found that with me nothing succeeded so well as gourds and
fresh dates. Eating well of them I became round”; yet, as she grew
up, she lost her flesh and became thin and willowy. In 624 Omar
found himself with Hafsa, a widowed daughter of twenty, upon his
hands. Irritated and scandalized by her exhaustive but fruitless
endeavors to win a second husband, he offered her in turn to Othman
and Abu Bekr, who, knowing that she inherited her father’s cranky
temper, refused to accept the honor. Omar was so insulted by this
double rebuff that he at once flew angrily to Mohammed to make a
complaint. The Prophet, at his wit’s end because of the social
uproar that had been started, saved the situation by marrying Hafsa
himself, and thus abundantly gratified his wish to have a wife
who cried and complained all the time. Zeinab, widow of one of
the heroes of Bedr, became his fifth wife in 626; her gentle and
charitable disposition perhaps accounts for the fact that she was
the only one of his wives who preceded him to Paradise. His sixth
bride was won in a peculiar way. As Abu Selama lay expiring of a
wound received at Uhud, Mohammed entered and quieted the wailing
women with this prayer: “O Lord! give unto him width and comfort
in his grave; lighten his darkness; pardon his sins; and raise up
faithful followers from his seed.” Just four months later (626), the
Prophet pressed his ardent suit upon Abu’s widow Um, who, against
her better judgment, finally yielded to his importunity.

Meanwhile the much-married man had discovered that his domestic
arrangements were getting more and more complicated. Founding a
precedent that has since been followed by many Christian churches,
he occupied a part of the Mosque. His domestic quarters were
established along its eastern wall; they seem to have been
constructed from a series of adjacent huts owned by one Haritha, who
retired more or less willingly from each of them whenever Mohammed
needed a new shelter for a bride; and as the years passed, poor
Haritha would barely fix up a new abode before he was shoved out
of it. An entrance for the Prophet’s exclusive use led from each
dwelling into the Mosque; having no separate apartment for himself,
he rotated daily from one hut to the other according to a fixed
schedule: “the day of Hafsa, the day of Um,” _ad finem_. Before
long, however, he deliberately infringed upon the rights of all
his other wives by breaking the routine in favor of Ayesha--the
now lithe and lissom beauty who still toyed with her playthings
and frolicked with Mohammed in nursery games--until the deserted
wives raised such a squabble that he was forced to emit the famous
revelation, so cuttingly commented on by Ayesha, which gave him
license to consort with her who pleased him most at the moment.

Conflicting reports have been handed down concerning the acquisition
of the Prophet’s seventh bride. Going one day to visit his adopted
son Zeid, who was absent, he was invited in by Zeid’s wife Zeinab,
who ... but here the tales diverge. Some say that Mohammed merely
saw her unveiled face, while others assert that her carelessly
disarranged dress gave him further glimpses; some say that the
Prophet, moved by a purely artistic admiration of her beauty, uttered
the words, “Praise be to God, the ruler of hearts!” but others
insist that his approbation was of a lower sort, and translate
his ejaculation thus: “Gracious Lord! Good Heavens! how Thou dost
turn the hearts of men!” It is agreed, however, that Zeinab was
so elated at the impression she had made on the Prophet’s facile
susceptibility to feminine wiles that she took special pains to
repeat his compliment over and over to Zeid, who, in addition to
being short, pug-nosed and generally ugly, was a mere freedman,
and, therefore, had never appealed too strongly to his high-born
wife. Hot with jealousy, Zeid went to Mohammed and declared that he
wished to divorce Zeinab. “Why,” he was asked, “hast thou found any
fault in her?” “No,” groaned Zeid, “but I cannot live with her.”
“Go and guard thy wife,” he was told, “treat her well and fear
God.” But Zeid, who presumably saw how matters lay, soon divorced
her “in spite of the command of the Prophet,” remarks an admirer,
who goes on to explain that Mohammed “was grieved at the conduct of
Zeid, more especially as it was he who had arranged the marriage of
these two uncongenial spirits.” Obviously, the trouble could be
mended in but one way. One day, as Mohammed sat by Ayesha’s side,
a prophetic spasm gripped him; after it had passed, he smiled and
gently inquired, “Who will go and congratulate Zeinab, and say that
the Lord hath joined her unto me in marriage?” The wedding soon
took place; yet, since many Moslems thought it rather odd that the
Prophet, after forbidding sons to wed their bereaved stepmothers,
should himself marry the wife of an adopted son, it seemed highly
advisable for him to have recourse to Allah. Thus runs the Koran:
“And when Zeid had fulfilled her [Zeinab’s] divorce, We joined thee
with her in marriage, that there might hereafter be no offence to
Believers in marrying the Wives of their adopted sons, when they have
fulfilled their divorce; and the command of God is to be fulfilled.”
Criticism immediately collapsed. Zeinab proudly boasted that “God
had given her in marriage to His Prophet, whereas his other wives
were given to him by their relatives”; but Ayesha retorted with
the caustic observation that there was no longer the least doubt
that Mohammed rendered Allah’s messages verbatim, inasmuch as this
last revelation showed the Prophet up most unmercifully. Ayesha,
however, was one woman in a thousand.


                               III

By this time Mohammed had come to be regarded as a highly desirable
catch by every widow in Medina, while attractive women came from all
the corners of Arabia to offer themselves to the impressionable man.
His inordinate masculinity prompted the other Moslems to justify
his excess of brides on the judicious ground that his “Excellency
had the power of thirty strong men given him”--a consideration
that was esteemed by certain discriminating traditionalists to be
a proof of what has been characterized as the Prophet’s “divinely
conferred preëminence.” In short, he was every inch a man. His spare,
well-moulded figure was tall and commanding; he walked so fast that
his gait has been compared to that of a man ascending a hill, or of
one “wrenching his foot from a stone,” and this rapid locomotion
made him unconsciously bend his back until in his last years he
became round-shouldered. “That blessed prince’s head was large,” we
are told, “and yet he was not big-headed.” His face was lean and
rosy, his skin was clear and “soft as woman’s,” his slightly Roman
nose was thin and shapely--some people “might regard his nasal bone
as exceedingly long, though in reality it was not so”--his neck,
on the unimpeachable authority of Ali, was “like that of a silver
urn,” and “his blessed mouth was open, but exceedingly graceful.”
The quality and abundance of his ebon hair has been explained in
great detail. Thick and curly masses of it--“not very frizzled
or very dangling but just right”--hung about his ears; his vast
expanse of beard presumably concealed from vulgar eyes an otherwise
conspicuous peculiarity: “from his chest down to the navel there
was drawn a thin line of hair, while the other parts of the chest
and stomach were hairless, although there was hair on his blessed
arms and shoulders and the upper part of his chest.” Even in his
slumbers he retained his appearance of ease and grace, for he “lay
on his right side, putting the palm of his right hand under his
right cheek.” An admirer summed up his manly comeliness in this
poetic outburst: “I saw him at full moon, and he was brighter and
more beautiful than she,” and another charming tradition affirms
that no fly ever alighted on his body. Yet the handsome man was
not flawless. The penetrating eyes, fringed with long and lustrous
lashes, were red-lidded and bloodshot; ugly gaps disfigured his
dazzling white teeth; and on his back was a birthmark which, though
held to be the divine “seal of prophecy” that distinguished him as
the last of the authentic prophets, was probably a large mole.

Encompassed by six wives and two slave concubines, Mohammed soon
discovered that the most energetic efforts were required to provide
for their wishes. They not only made a heavy drain on his purse
and his larder, but upon his patience; for, while he was rapidly
ageing, several of them were just nearing the height of feminine
attractiveness, and many youthful Moslems, envious of the conjugal
liberties which Mohammed so prodigally claimed, were in the habit
of calling at one or another of his houses on matters that had
little to do with religion. The favorite, Ayesha, soon got into
a scrape that turned his suspicions into open jealousy. She had
accompanied him on one of his martial expeditions--a custom of
which his other brides frequently availed themselves by the casting
of lots, Ayesha being the fortunate winner on this occasion--in
a vehicle drawn by a camel and punctiliously veiled from view;
and, after he had victoriously returned to Medina and the cart was
opened, he discovered to his great horror that she was not inside.
When she came up a little later, escorted by young Safwan, she
explained that she had lost her necklace, had gone to search for it,
and upon her return had found that her guides, thinking that she
was inside, had guided the camel and its supposed burden back to
Medina. Shortly afterward, she continued, Safwan had chanced to meet
her, “expressed surprise at finding one of the Prophet’s wives in
this predicament,” and, upon receiving no reply from the virtuous
maiden, had asked her to mount his camel; as she shyly complied, he
had averted his face so that he did not see her ascend the beast,
and not a word had passed between them on the return journey. No
one knows what Mohammed might have done had not scandalous tongues
started to wag; but wag they did, and the poor girl, noticing her
husband’s cold demeanor, promptly fell ill and went to visit her
father. The Prophet meanwhile was much disturbed, for the business
was very complicated. Should he punish the daughter of Abu Bekr,
his most valued and intimate friend, trouble would almost certainly
follow; on the other hand, such fellows as Abdallah ibn Obei and the
poet Hassan could not be permitted to go around making lewd jokes
at his expense. So, visiting Ayesha in the presence of her father
and mother, he said: “Ayesha! thou hearest what men have spoken
of thee. Fear God. If indeed thou art guilty, then repent toward
God, for the Lord accepteth the repentance of His servants.” The
grief-stricken girl burst out weeping and replied: “By the Lord! I
say that I will never repent towards God of that which ye speak of.
I am helpless. If I confess, God knoweth that I am not guilty. If I
deny, no one believeth me.” In this dire predicament, the Prophet
fortunately fell into a profound trance; upon his recovery, he
wiped great beads of sweat from his brow and exclaimed: “Ayesha!
rejoice! Verily, the Lord hath declared thine innocence.” “Embrace
thine husband!” cried Abu’s wife, but Ayesha contented herself with
the ejaculation, “Praise be to the Lord”--in Whom she apparently
recognized a capacity for chivalry that was foreign to her husband.
And one night not long afterward, hoping perhaps to turn the tables
on him, she secretly followed him when he slipped quietly out of
the house on what seemed to be an amorous expedition; but she was
grievously disappointed upon discovering that he was bent upon no
more exciting errand than going to a graveyard to offer up prayers
for the dead.

Thus the affair ended. Mohammed, however, immediately improvised a
law that imposed a severe scourging upon scandal-mongers who failed
to produce four witnesses to substantiate any charge of whoredom--a
penalty that was at once inflicted upon Hassan, another man named
Mistah, and even one of the Prophet’s sisters-in-law; but he dared
not treat Abdallah ibn Obei thus. Hassan, moreover, had already been
badly wounded by the indignant Safwan; and so Mohammed, who really
loved the incorrigibly mischievous versifier, salved his double hurts
by presenting him a costly piece of property and a concubine. The
grateful fellow immediately manufactured new stanzas in praise of
Ayesha’s purity, her pert humor, and her supple figure--a series
of compliments to which she had the bad grace to retort that the
poet himself was disgustingly fat.

Nor did Mohammed stop here; he quickly proceeded to bring about
other equally desirable reforms. The institution of the Veil for
women--a custom, already not unknown, whose origin was probably due
to the common superstitious fear of the horrific “evil eye”--was
now imposed upon his harem; and the Koran also made it clear that
the day of Moslem peeping Toms was over. “O ye believers! Enter not
the apartments of the Prophet, except ye be called to sup with him,
without waiting his convenient time.... And stay not for familiar
converse; for verily that giveth uneasiness to the Prophet. It
shameth him to say this unto you; but verily God is not ashamed of
the Truth. And when ye ask anything of the Prophet’s wives, ask
it of them from behind a curtain; this will be more pure for your
hearts and for their hearts. It is not fitting that ye should give
uneasiness to the Apostle of God, nor that ye should marry his
Wives after him for ever. Verily that would be a grievous thing
in the sight of God.... The Prophet is nearer unto the Believers
than their own souls, and his Wives are their Mothers.” All Moslem
women, furthermore, were commanded to veil themselves, at home or
while walking abroad, from the prying eyes of everyone except a rich
variety of relatives. “And say to the believing women that they
cast down their looks and guard their private parts and display
not their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear
their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their
ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers
of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or
their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons,
or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the
male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have
not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women ... and turn to
Allah, O Believers! so that you may be successful.”


                               IV

Yet somehow or other, despite all his efforts to do Allah’s will,
the Prophet’s wives still continued to be rebellious and even
fractious. Sadly unmindful of her recent misadventure, Ayesha in
particular continued to be as saucy and impudent as ever. When in her
distress she had gone to her parents, Ali, who next to Abu Bekr was
Mohammed’s bosom friend, had consoled him in this way: “O Prophet!
there is no lack of women, and thou canst without difficulty supply
her place.” Upon hearing of this, Ayesha took a temporary revenge
by shouting in Mohammed’s very face that he liked Ali better than
her own father, and a permanent one by treating Ali like a dog for
the rest of his life. It chanced, however, that Abu Bekr overheard
his vixenish daughter thus berating her husband; utterly unmoved by
the fact that she had been standing up for him, Abu at once rushed
in and roared, “I will not hear thee lift thy voice against the
apostle of God!” But when he seized her and lifted his hand to slap
her face, Mohammed interfered; so Abu went away in a foaming rage,
while the Prophet heaped coals of fire on Ayesha’s head with the
comment, “You see how I delivered you from the man.” Abu continued
to growl and grumble for several days, but eventually returned to
find the pair completely reconciled. “Include me in your peace as
you included me in your quarrel!” he begged; and Mohammed joyfully
answered, “We do, we do!” But perhaps Ayesha provoked the Prophet
most of all by failing to treat his religious views with proper
decorum; when she was particularly miffed about something, she
showed her disrespect by refusing to address him as the “Apostle
of God.” Once he unwisely told her that, on the day of judgment,
all mankind would be raised in the same condition as they had
been born--naked, barefooted and uncircumcised. She immediately
interrupted his disquisition with the remark that, if this were so,
immodest thoughts would prevail, and all that he could think of to
say in reply to her untimely jest was that “the business of the day
would be too weighty and serious to allow them the making use of
that liberty.” With an even more lamentable lack of judgment, he
once commented on his great love for Khadija--an indiscretion that
brought the swift retort: “Was she not old? Has not God given you
a better in her place?” “No, by God!” exclaimed the homesick man,
“there can never be a better! She believed in me, when men despised
me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and persecuted by the
world.”

Besides Ayesha’s shrewishness, too, he was forced to endure mean
tricks used by some of his other pestering wives, who, knowing his
strong aversion to such smells as onion and garlic, sometimes took
pains to eat malodorous foods. In his perplexity he devised various
avenues of escape; but even the horse-races and the performances
of singing-girls, which he not infrequently included in his list
of pleasures, afforded him little lasting relief. There was some
solace, however, in the fact that many of his famous followers
were also stung by domestic broils. Abu Bekr and Omar, coming one
day to visit the Prophet, found him gloomy and glum in the midst
of his family. After Omar had made the aside remark, “I must say
something to make the Prophet laugh,” he began thus: “O Apostle
of God, if I see Bint Kharija [his wife] asking me for money I
get up and throttle her!” Mohammed, immensely tickled in spite of
himself, replied, “These women about me, as you see, are asking
for money.” Abu Bekr immediately bounded up and started to choke
Ayesha; Omar also seized his daughter Hafsa by the throat and
savagely demanded, “Will you ask the Apostle of God for what he
does not possess?”--upon which both women simultaneously gasped,
“By God, we will never ask him for anything he does not possess!”
This incident seems to have taught Mohammed how to manage his women
better. Having first absented himself from their ministrations for
about a month, he appeared with a new string of commandments. “O
Prophet, say unto thy Wives--If ye seek after this present Life
and the fashion thereof, come, I will make provision for you and
dismiss you with a fair dismission. But if ye seek after God and
His Apostle, and the Life to come, then verily God hath prepared
for the excellent amongst you a great reward. O ye Wives of the
Prophet! if any amongst you should be guilty of incontinence, the
punishment shall be doubled unto her twofold; and that were easy
with God.... Ye are not as other women.... And abide within your
houses; and array not yourselves as ye used to do in the bygone
days of ignorance. And observe the times of Prayer; and give Alms;
and obey God and His Apostle.”

After this the air cleared somewhat, so that Mohammed enjoyed a
temporary peace; yet it was not long before he incontinently got
himself into another scrape. His harem had not particularly objected
when he took four other brides in fairly rapid succession--Juweiriya
and Safiya, both captives taken in war; Um Habiba, the daughter,
_mirabile dictu_, of Abu Sufyan; and the beauteous Meimuna, the
sister-in-law of his uncle Al-Abbas,--but when his wives discovered
that one of his latest concubines, Mary the Coptic maid, was about
to become a mother, confusion was worse confounded. For they knew
that, above all else, Mohammed desired a son: he had no living boy,
he was naturally affectionate, and he suffered agonies from his
enemies who applied to him the sobriquet “al-abtar,” which means
one without descendants, or, translated literally, “one whose tail
has been cut off.” When in the course of time Mary gave birth to
a son, who was named Ibrahim, she was raised from the status of a
slave to a position almost on par with her “Sisters”; and Mohammed,
overjoyed at his long frustrated good fortune, immediately shaved
his head--which had been shorn about a month before--weighed the
snippings, and distributed among the poor a corresponding weight
of silver. He was also foolish enough to carry his little son to
Ayesha and to burst out, in the fulness of parental pride, “Look,
what a likeness it is to me!” “I do not see it,” snapped Ayesha.
“What!” he cried, “canst thou not see the likeness, and how fair
and fat he is?” “Yes, and so would be any other child that drank
as much milk as he,” was the answer.

Not long afterward he was even more imprudent. Hafsa, chancing one
day to find the Prophet and Mary in her own particular apartment,
lashed out her ever ready tongue at him, and promised that she
would tell all his other wives without delay. Mohammed, frightened
even more than he had ever been on a battlefield, humbly prayed
her to keep quiet and agreed to leave Mary for good; but Hafsa,
utterly unable to keep such a flagrant breach of domestic etiquette
to herself, at once told Ayesha who of course promptly informed
all the other “Sisters.” The Prophet, discovering that home life
was now absolutely unendurable, once more went into retirement for
about a month. He was comforted in his seclusion by both Mary and
Allah, one of whom suggested that this passage should be added to
the Koran: “Maybe, his Lord, if he divorce you, will give him in
your place wives better than you, submissive, faithful, obedient,
penitent, adorers, fasters, virgins.” But this threat of wholesale
divorce does not appear to have worried the enraged women so much
as it did their relatives; Abu Bekr and Omar, for instance, were
much upset upon learning that their chief should have deserted
their daughters in favor of an ex-slave concubine. At this juncture
Gabriel luckily appeared on the scene; he informed Mohammed that
Hafsa, after all, was a fairly good woman and advised him to take
her back. Thus, in fact, the breach was healed; but impartiality
necessitates the inclusion of a statement by Mohammed’s most
adequate modern defender, who swears that the whole episode was an
“absolutely false and malicious” invention of the Prophet’s enemies.
He goes on to say that the passage in the Koran which deals with
the affair actually refers to Mohammed’s fondness for honey: Hafsa
and Ayesha persuaded him to forego it; but then “came the thought
that he was making something unlawful in which there was nothing
unlawful, simply to please his wives.” Thus the Prophet, it is to
be inferred, thought that honey was more precious than ten legal
brides.

In any case, harmony was restored. Mohammed, worn and haggard from
his domestic tribulations, was soon restored to health and amused
himself by watching the antics of his growing boy. But when Ibrahim
was yet hardly able to toddle around, he began to pine away. Just
before his decease, the Prophet clasped him in his arms and sobbed
bitterly; when the other watchers endeavored to console him by
recalling his own strong objection to the outward expression of
grief, he replied in a broken voice: “Nay, it is not this that
I forbade, but wailing and fulsome laudation of the dead.... We
grieve for the child: the eye runneth down with tears, and the
heart swelleth inwardly; yet we say not aught that would offend our
Lord. Ibrahim! O Ibrahim!” For the child had died while his father
was talking, and, after making the observation, “The remainder of
the days of his nursing shall be fulfilled in Paradise,” Mohammed
tenderly comforted Mary. Speechless and heavy-eyed, he kept a
steadfast guard while the body was washed and laid out; then he
prayed over it and finally followed the procession to the little
grave. After it had been filled with earth, he sprinkled fresh water
upon the mound and spoke these words: “When ye do this thing, do
it carefully, for it giveth ease to the afflicted heart. It cannot
injure the dead, neither can it profit him; but it giveth comfort
to the living.”




                       [Illustration: IX]

                      THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN


                                I

Six long years, with their burden of foreign and domestic struggles,
had elapsed since the Hegira; yet the recollections of Mecca,
the Kaba, the Black Stone--in short, the memories of _home_--had
remained ineradicably fixed in the minds of the Prophet and his
flock. About half of Arabia, and approximately three-fourths of his
wives, might now be pretty well under his dominion; but his heart
often troubled him when he recalled his sins of omission in failing
to fulfil the Lesser and Greater Pilgrimages--and, incidentally,
the hateful truth that the intransigent Koreish still ruled the
beloved city. Why, therefore, should he not undertake a pilgrimage
during one of the sacred months? for surely, the mere fact that he
himself had previously violated their sanctity could not rightly be
held against him if he returned as a humble penitent. The Koreish,
bound by adamant Arabian custom, would almost certainly allow him
and his followers to make their sacrifices to the national religion;
and, even in case his ancient foes should molest the journeying
Moslems, perhaps--_perhaps_--he would be able to deal with them.

In a dream he imagined himself and his worshiping band going through
the stiff ritual of pilgrimage: encircling the Kaba, slaughtering
the sacrificial victims, and completing the other well-remembered
ceremonies. The Moslems, after listening to his fervid narration of
this vision, pulsated with desire to accompany him; and so, having
taken a bath and donned the two-piece pilgrim garb, in February,
628, he set out, mounted on Al-Kaswa, at the head of some fifteen
hundred votaries each of whom was armed with a sword, a bow and
a quiver of arrows. At one stage of the journey they halted and,
uttering the plaintive cry “Labbeik! Labbeik! (Here am I, O Lord!
Here am I!),” placed their curious ornaments around the necks of
seventy votive camels. In the busy midst of these pious engagements,
however, the Prophet did not neglect to dispatch a spy to report on
the behavior of the Koreish; the envoy finally returned with the news
that the Meccans were obviously distrustful of Mohammed’s peacefully
religious intentions, and that, in very truth, a large body of armed
Koreish was guarding the road that led to Mecca. “Their wives and
little ones are with them,” said the spy, “and they have sworn to
die rather than let thee pass,” adding the further detail that they
were clothed in panthers’ skins--a symbol of their determination
to fight like beasts in an effort to bar any advance. Mohammed and
his people therefore decided to continue toward Mecca by a sinuous
route that would lead them to the edge of the sacred city. At this
juncture Al-Kaswa stopped short and refused to budge another inch.
“She is weary,” the Moslems insisted; but the Prophet replied:
“Nay, Al-Kaswa is not weary; but the same hand restraineth her as
aforetime held back the elephant”--for, as became a loyal Arab,
he had not forgotten how Arabia had been saved from the invader
Abraha. He further declared that he would not march upon the city,
for fear that the few Moslems who were still living there might
chance to be harmed in the struggle that might take place; but it
is also possible that he checked his advance because he had learnt
that the Koreish, hearing of his own manœuver, had also deviated
in such a way that they still blocked his path.

Very soon afterward, a Koreishite deputation approached to interview
Mohammed. “I have no other design but to perform the pilgrimage of
the Holy House,” he insisted, “and whosoever hindereth us therefrom,
we shall fight against them.” This sally was met by the retort
that the desperate Meccans “will not suffer this rabble of thine
to approach the city.” A long, wrangling dispute followed in which
blows came near being struck; and the only concession that the
Prophet could obtain was the information that “this year he must
go back; but in the year following he may come, and having entered
Mecca then perform the pilgrimage.” Mohammed, who realized that
his acquiescence to these instructions would irreparably harm his
prestige, decided to send a counter delegation to Mecca. Omar was
the first man requested to act in this capacity; but that fearless
fighter begged off on the plea that he had no powerful relatives
in the city to protect him against the Koreish, and, pointing to
Othman--whose slight to Hafsa had not been forgotten--suggested
that _he_ be the Moslem representative. Othman had excused himself
from fighting at Bedr on the grounds that his wife, the Prophet’s
own daughter, was ill; but, realizing that the influence of his
family connections would protect him on this occasion, he readily
consented to depart. His return was so long delayed that Mohammed
feared he might have been treacherously slain, and a tensely dramatic
scene took place. The Prophet, standing beneath an acacia tree and
encircled by the entire number of his votaries, requested a solemn
pledge that they would not turn their backs, but, if necessary,
would fight till the last man dropped; the covenant was individually
sealed as each man clasped Mohammed’s outstretched hand--when Othman
suddenly appeared, entirely unharmed. Nevertheless, the Prophet
was immensely pleased; indeed, he never ceased to refer to this
auspicious event, which had symbolized the strength of the union of
religious ecstasy and martial enthusiasm that dominated his willing
slaves.

A treaty of peace was eventually drawn up. For ten years the
Koreish caravans were to be unmolested, and during this same period
extraneous clans could be converted either to Islam or to the
faith--such as it was--of Mecca; in the following year, also, the
Moslems were to be allowed to complete their pilgrimage, but this
year they must return unedified and still burdened with their sins.
Perhaps Mohammed swallowed this bitter medicine the more readily
because previous experience had taught him that treaties were mere
scraps of paper; yet he found it excessively irritating to endure
the high-handed methods of the noted orator Suheil, ambassador
for the Koreish. The Prophet, assuming as a matter of course that
he himself should phrase the language of the covenant, began to
dictate to Ali, who willingly served as a scribe, in this high-flown
manner: “In the name of God, most gracious and merciful”--“Stop!”
Suheil abruptly interrupted, “as for God, we know Him; but this new
name, we know it not. Say, as we have always said, _In thy name,
O God!_” “In thy name, O God,” Mohammed repeated, “These are the
conditions of peace between Mohammed the Prophet of God and”--“Stop
again!” commanded the imperturbable spokesman. “If thou wert what
thou sayest, I had not taken up arms against thee. Write, as the
custom is, thine own name and thy father’s name.” “Write, then,”
said the amazed but ever tactful Prophet, “between Mohammed son of
Abdallah, and Suheil son of Amr....” and so on until the end. The
document was then duly witnessed by members of both factions; and
Mohammed, firmly resolved to perform at least a modicum of his vows,
shaved his head (or cut his hair; historians have not determined
the facts about the matter), and, while all the Moslems treated
their heads in a similar manner, he directed that the doomed camels
should be sacrificed.

The unexpected outcome of this journey left many Moslems unsatisfied.
Some of them--both the “Shavers” and the “Cutters”--had refused
to part with their hair until the Prophet ordered them to do so;
Omar, in particular, had so completely recovered the strength of
his trembling knees that he threatened to head a renegade movement.
Obviously, therefore, it was high time to produce a new message
from on high. Even before the return journey was begun, the words
“Inspiration hath descended on him” were eagerly repeated throughout
the encampment, and a great crowd collected around the Prophet, who,
standing upright on Al-Kaswa’s broad back, began to intone thus:
“Verily, We have given unto thee an evident Victory,” adding, at
the end of a tediously prolix mass of jubilantly phrased but wholly
unintelligible rhetoric: “Now hath God verified unto His Apostle the
Vision in truth; ye shall surely enter the Holy Temple, if it please
God, in security, having your heads shaven and your hair cut. Fear
ye not; for He knoweth that which ye know not.” As he concluded, one
of the onlookers exclaimed, “What! is _this_ the Victory?” “Yes,”
came the calm reply, “by Him in whose hand is my breath, it is a
Victory.” And in fact, despite the Prophet’s muddy-mindedness on
this occasion, there was much to justify his statement. Perhaps he
realized that the peaceful outcome of his pompous expedition, which
was certain to be noised over a large part of Arabia, would win him
more converts than force had ever done--for had he not convinced
the Koreish of his pacific intentions, and had _they_ not treated
him with high honor? Thus, indeed, it turned out; various tribes,
hoodwinked by highly colored accounts of the pilgrimage, at once
sought to make alliances with Mohammed; and the result was that,
during the next year, Islam grew as it had never grown before.

Two interesting incidents took place soon after Mohammed had
returned to Medina. Abu Basir, a youthful acolyte of Islam who
still lived in Mecca, became so restless under the domination of
the Koreish that, after a series of bold assaults and hairbreadth
escapes, he managed to reach Medina in safety; the Prophet was so
much stirred by the lad’s tale of rash but admirable bravery that
he commented, as if speaking to himself: “What a kindler of war, if
he had but with him a body of adherents!” Abu Basir, encouraged by
these words, at once organized a band of seventy similarly inclined
young braves who, for the next few months, assaulted Koreishite
caravans and killed the captives with so much gusto that Mohammed,
at the humble request of the Meccans, finally felt constrained to
command the robbers to cease from kindling war. The second event
was of an entirely different sort. Some of the Medinese Jews,
who had openly and loudly proclaimed their adherence to Islam,
surreptitiously obtained several of the Prophet’s blessed hairs,
and, after tying them into eleven knots around the branch of a
palm-tree, lowered the evil invention into a well. Their sly and
malignant design was soon rewarded: Mohammed grew feeble, his mind
became afflicted with stranger hallucinations than ever before, he
neglected his devotions, and he even showed indifference toward
his wives. But Gabriel shortly revealed the cause of his malady;
the well was examined, the necromantic knots were loosed, and
the Prophet, thus freed from the voodooistic spell, experienced a
lively recrudescence of his manifold talents.

The time finally drew near when, according to the terms of the
treaty, the Koreish were to evacuate Mecca for three days so that the
Moslems might perform their pilgrimage in peace. On this occasion
about two thousand zealots accompanied Mohammed, and, although each
one was restricted by treaty to carry only a sword, a large amount
of armor was taken along, while the travelers were also preceded
by a considerable force of cavalry. As the procession approached
the holy city, the Koreish obediently withdrew and, stationed on
the surrounding hills, kept a wary eye on the curious scenes that
followed. The eager devotees, upon viewing the deeply revered Kaba
again for the first time in seven years, raised the now almost
joyous ululation, “Labbeik! Labbeik!” Mohammed, astride Al-Kaswa
as usual, neared the Kaba, gently touched the Black Stone with his
staff, and--apparently still mounted on Al-Kaswa--went seven times
around the sacred temple. His absorption in these reverent pursuits,
however, did not cause him to forget more important concerns: at
his special bidding, the Moslems footraced around the Kaba three
times at top speed, to demonstrate to the observant Koreish that
they were in excellent physical condition; then, at a somewhat
slower pace, they circled the building four times more.

Three days were occupied in fulfilling the remaining rites; yet
the Prophet, who, through the aid of Al-Kaswa, had kept himself
fresher than his foot-sore compatriots, and who had meanwhile
taken the opportunity to engage himself to Meimuna, continued to
tarry in apparent forgetfulness of his sworn promise to leave the
city on the third day. He was brought rudely to his senses on the
morning of the fourth day, when two leaders of the Koreish came
abruptly up and said: “The period allowed thee hath elapsed; depart
now therefore from amongst us.” “And what harm if ye allowed me to
stay a little longer,” Mohammed graciously inquired, “celebrate my
nuptials in your midst, and make for the guests a feast at which
ye too might all sit down?” “Nay,” was the harsh answer, “of any
food of thine we have no need. Withdraw from hence!” To disobey
was to invite an immediate war; and inasmuch as the Prophet was
not yet ready for the struggle that, in his heart of hearts, he
had long anticipated, he directed that an immediate departure be
made--a stipulation that compelled him to content himself with the
consummation of his nuptials at a spot about ten miles from Mecca.

But, despite its somewhat inglorious conclusion, the grandiose
adventure accomplished several things of much importance. In a
general way, Mohammed benefited from the fact that the Koreish had
not failed to be impressed by the dignified yet ominous Moslemite
display of religious and warlike ardor. With their own eyes, they
had seen what an exalted rank the renegade Prophet had attained
among his servile henchmen; they had noted, too, the instantaneous
and unquestioning obedience with which his least desire had been
met. He profited, also, in that the deepest instincts of his
confederates had been aroused at the renewed visitation of the
familiar and unforgettable scenes of those happy, bygone days when
they had dwelt in peace and moderate prosperity at Mecca, until
the implacable requirements of Islam had wrenched them from their
cherished moorings. Once again they had been irresistibly compelled
to realize that they were but outcasts and wanderers, to whom Medina
had never grown really congenial, and who now poignantly reflected
that Mecca, and Mecca alone, was home. In particular, the Prophet
gained two notable converts to Islam: Khalid, who had commanded
the cavalry that brought about the Moslem defeat at Uhud, and
Amr--who was equally versatile in poetry, diplomacy, and military
strategy--were so impressed by Mohammed’s magnificent gesture in
conducting the Moslems to Mecca that they decided to desert the
vacillating Koreish and cast their fortunes with the progressive
cause of Islam. Under the Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet, the
intrepid Khalid--divinely protected by some of Mohammed’s hair
which he wore in his cap as a charm against misfortune--won such
imperial victories that he acquired the title “The Sword of Allah”;
and the sagacious counsels of Amr also won him a high place in the
annals of Islam. Furthermore, the accession of these two was not
without its immediate effect. They were straws that showed how the
wind was veering: the Koreish had not only failed to recover the
prestige they had dropped at Bedr, and to benefit by the Moslem
debacle at Uhud, but they had lost the confidence of some of their
outstanding men of action. The time was swiftly approaching when
the rankling stigma of Uhud would be blotted out, when the Prophet
would take a final and complete revenge on his life-long enemies,
and when the Meccans would treat Allah with an even more touching
reverence than they already bestowed upon Al-Ozza, Hubal, the Kaba
and the Black Stone.


                               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.




                        [Illustration: X]

                       MOHAMMED AND ALLAH


                                I

The time rapidly approached when the Prophet was to renounce the
multitudinous burdens and joys of his earthly existence, and depart
to that supernal haven which he had so frequently and so eloquently
depicted. For Allah, who had not gazed upon his faithful servant
since the episode of the midnight journey, yearned to clasp him
forever to his breast; and Mohammed believed that Khadija, the Virgin
Mary, Potiphar’s wife, and Kulthum, sister of Moses, longingly
anticipated his arrival; so too, though for very different reasons,
did Gabriel, who desired a respite from his enervating trips between
Paradise and Medina. But a few months more were yet to be granted
Mohammed--months that were to exemplify the same indomitable energy,
the same assiduous zealotry, that he had manifested for the last
twenty years.

Mecca was now irrevocably sealed to Islam; but that very fact caused
fearful apprehension among those Bedouin peoples who were yet
idolistic and untamed. The powerful Hawazin and Beni Thakif tribes,
who occupied an extensive territory southeast of Mecca, decided
that they had a fair chance to crush the arrogant dominion of this
would-be conqueror of all Arabia while he was yet rejoicing in his
easy conquest of the holy city; and to that end they assembled about
six thousand men. Mohammed, on learning of their plans, determined to
nip this insurrection in the bud, and quickly departed at the head
of twelve thousand seasoned troops; so imposingly spectacular was
this great force that Abu Bekr could not restrain his admiration.
“We shall not this day be worsted by reason of the smallness of
our numbers!” he gleefully shouted, and the Prophet smiled in
agreement. Then, seated on a white mule, he followed in the rear
of the soldiers.

As the Moslem troops were defiling through a narrow pass in the
valley of Honein, the ambushed foe suddenly charged upon them
with such impetuosity that they first hesitated, then recoiled
and fled in utter panic. “Whither away?” shouted Mohammed, while
the broken columns sped by him. “The Prophet of the Lord is here!
Return! return!” But his lungs were unequal to the emergency, so
he bade Al-Abbas try the strength of his voice; and his uncle used
his stentorian oratory to such good effect that it rose above the
clamorous turmoil of retreat. A number of the penitent fighters
came shamefacedly back, and, shouting out, “Ya Labbeik! Here we
are, ready at thy call!” stopped the flight of the rest and turned
to face the pursuing Bedouins. Mohammed, gazing at the bloody
spectacle from the safety of an adjacent hill, was so overpowered
with warlike ardor that he screamed: “Now is the furnace heated; I
am the Prophet that lieth not; the seed of Abd al-Muttalib!” Then,
hurling a fistful of gravel at the foe, he continued: “Ruin seize
them! I swear they are discomfited. By the Lord of the Kaba, they
yield! God hath cast fear into their hearts.” The hard-won victory
was indeed so complete that thousands of prisoners, forty thousand
sheep and goats, and four thousand ounces of silver were seized as
spoil. And the Prophet, repenting of his self-confidence before the
battle, indited a Sura which stated that the preliminary defeat
had been caused by over-confidence in numbers, and that success
had come only because God “sent down Hosts which ye saw not, and
thereby punished the Unbelievers.”

Yet he realized that, in order to clinch the victory, it would
be imperative to capture the Bedouin stronghold at At-Taif. In
assaulting that place he trusted, in addition to the heavenly hosts,
to the most modern Byzantine inventions of warfare--the testudo
and the catapult. But they both proved to be ineffective, for the
simple reason that the besieged garrison destroyed the wooden
testudo by hurling molten metal upon it, thus making it impossible
to use the catapult at all. As the weary weeks dragged on, Mohammed
endeavored to expedite the surrender of the fort by destroying the
vineyards around At-Taif and offering freedom to any slaves who
would desert the stronghold; but even these traditional devices
proved to be useless, and, warned by a dream that the heavenly will
was not in favor of continuing the siege, he decided to accept the
counsels of his assistants, who were also getting very tired of the
business. The Prophet then withdrew to the place where the booty
won at Honein had been stored.

Now it happened that the worldly wise members of the Hawazin,
having had plenty of time to reflect upon the matter, had decided
that by embracing Islam they might get off with a lesser punishment
than would otherwise be the case. Mohammed, of course, was much
pleased to welcome them to the faith; but when they suggested that,
inasmuch as they were now loyal Moslems, both their property and
their prisoners should be returned to them, he was wholly unable
to concur. Instead, he gave them this choice: “Whether of the two,
your families or your property, is the dearer to you?” Impaled on
the horns of this dilemma, they were forced to admit that their
relatives were more precious, and the prisoners were accordingly
set free. The Prophet was so much pleased by the possibilities of
this barter and trade in the name of Islam that he offered one
hundred camels to Malik, chief of the Hawazin, if he too would
embrace the Moslem cause; and Malik, being a wise and prudent man,
speedily accepted the terms. But some of the other people, fearing
that they were to lose the loot as well as the prisoners, rushed
up to Mohammed and, shouting aloud, “Distribute to us the spoil,
the camels and the flocks!” treated him so roughly that his mantle
was ripped from him, whereupon he sought to save himself by backing
against a tree. “Return to me my mantle, O Man!” he cried, “return
the mantle; for I swear by the Lord that if the sheep and the camels
were as many as the trees of the forest in number, I would divide
them all amongst you.” Since they still continued to press him, he
held up a hair and exclaimed: “Even to a hair like this, I would
keep back nought but the fifth; and even that,” he hastily decided
to add, “I will divide amongst you.”

Thus the mob was quieted and the Prophet soon made good his word;
in fact, so generous was he in dealing presents out among his new
auxiliaries that he sometimes gave a double gift to those who
insisted that they deserved it. Spectacles such as these could not
fail to anger many of his veteran associates who had received
nothing at all; never before had they met with such cavalier
treatment as this. When one of them made the direct charge that
Mohammed was unfair, he was met with the irate reply: “Out upon
thee! If justice and equity be not with me, where will ye find
them?” The Prophet furthermore stated that, so far as the elder
Moslems were concerned, faith was its own reward--a saying which
the Medinese, who had waxed fat and rich on the plunder of so many
conquests, found very hard to swallow. They continued to show their
displeasure so long that Mohammed finally called them together
and spoke honeyed words. “Ye men of Medina, it hath been reported
to me that ye are disconcerted, because I have given unto these
Chiefs largesses, and have given nothing unto you. Now speak unto
me. Did I not come unto you whilst ye were wandering, and the
Lord gave you the right direction? needy, and He enriched you;
at enmity among yourselves, and He hath filled your hearts with
love and unity?” As murmurs of assent began to rise, he continued:
“Why are ye disturbed in mind because of the things of this life
wherewith I have sought to incline these men unto the faith in
which ye are already stablished? Are ye not satisfied that others
should have the flocks and herds, while ye carry back with you the
Prophet of the Lord? Nay, I will never leave you. If all mankind
went one way, and the men of Medina another way, verily I would
go the way of the men of Medina. The Lord be favorable unto them,
and bless them, and their sons and their sons’ sons for ever!”
Then, weeping until the tears streamed down their manly beards,
his confederates shouted in unison, “Yea, we are well satisfied,
O Prophet, with our lot!” However, lest any doubt might remain in
the minds of any, Allah Himself speedily revealed that alms--for
both taxes and war-plunder were thus ingenuously disguised--were
intended, among other persons, “for them whose hearts are to be
gained over.... It is an ordinance from God; and God is knowing
and wise.” Thus, by timely revelations, the faith of Islam was
steadily increased; the most devout Moslems, indeed, regarded the
inexorable duty of paying onerous financial tributes to Allah as an
inestimable privilege; though it is true that a few hard-hearted
wretches publicly proclaimed that each successive addition to the
Koran furnished them new cause for amusement.


                               II

Honein was the last of a series of victories that laid the Koreishite
ghost forever; the Prophet was now virtually the ruler of the entire
Arabian peninsula; and, having made a triumphant entrance into
Medina, he proceeded to execute a project that had long been dear
to his heart. As early as the year 627, he had sent out feelers to
a branch of the empire of Byzantium on the subject of conversion to
Islam; his envoy on that occasion, though courteously welcomed and
given a special dress of honor, had accomplished little. But now,
while embassies from numerous Arabian tribes made haste to present
themselves to him, hoping to make a good bargain by trading their
recreant idols for the all-conquering Allah, Mohammed’s apparently
chimerical fancy to extend Islam in, and even beyond, the bounds
of the Roman Empire was again aroused. The lonely visionary of
Mount Hira, the Meccan outcast, risen to the imperial position of
temporal and spiritual dictator of all Arabia, vibrated with the
insatiable desire to make Islam dominant over the world. _He_ might
not live to see that glorious fulfilment; yet perhaps his notorious
gift of prophecy enabled him to pierce the veil that shadowed the
future: the advance of Islam under successive Caliphates until
its haughty realm extended from India to the western limits of
Spain--the stemming of the onrushing Saracen tide by Charles Martel
at Tours--the wayfaring Crusaders bent upon rescuing the Holy Land
from Mohammedan dominion--the revival of interest in classic lore
which was the direct result of the Crusades--the concomitant
Renaissance of learning and of Christianity until Christian warriors,
with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, supplanted the
imperial Crescent with the even more imperial Cross--the Cross that
has itself become associated with imperialism. Thus, by a grotesque
chain of closely linked events, Mohammed might--had his prophetic
eye been gifted with sufficient range--have envisaged himself in
the odd position of being the chief instrument in the world-wide
promulgation of classicism and of Christianity. For, had the Middle
Age Crusaders not been inspired with unremitting zeal to wrest the
Holy Grail from Islam, there might well have been no Renaissance, no
stimulation of mental and spiritual activities, and, consequently,
no such Christian imperialism as now holds so much of the world
under its righteous sway.

Had Mohammed foreseen all this, however, he might possibly have
had less interest in those embassies to and from his house in the
Mosque, where, sprawling on his mat and cooling his face with a
palm-leaf fan, he issued his endless commands and listened to
endless requests from suppliants. Indeed, his office work had
become so voluminous that he now made use of an amanuensis, Zeid
the son of Thabit, who was specially skilled in the Hebrew and
Syriac languages. Though quick-witted and agile of tongue, Zeid
was inclined to be so forgetful and generally scatter-brained that
the Prophet was obliged to tell him to thrust his pen behind his
ear, “for this will bring to remembrance that which the distracted
mind is seeking after.”

If tradition may be trusted, Mohammed was not always over-successful
in his dealings with prospective converts. The Christian tribe
of Nejran, in central Arabia, came to him after an ostentatious
exhibition of prayer in the Mosque, and loudly declared that they
were Moslems; but the Prophet, observing that they wore silk-lined
clothes--which he particularly detested, though it is true that
he ordered such hapless Moslems as became afflicted with the itch
or “louse-disease” to wear silken shirts--rightly doubted their
sincerity and merely turned up his nose at them; they therefore
departed and shortly returned in monastic garb. Their leader,
doubtless inspired with the hope that a display of knowledge on his
part would gain them better terms, offered to debate with Mohammed
concerning the mystical nature of Christ, but he wisely declined
to comply and stated that he would prefer to engage in a cursing
contest; and in fact, while one of his most uncritical admirers
affirmed that the worst oath he ever used was “May his forehead be
darkened with mud!” the Koran, among other authentic documents,
furnishes considerable evidence to the contrary. Realizing that
they would be no match for him in such an ordeal, the Nejranites
capitulated to the extent of agreeing to pay tribute, though they
refused to acknowledge his divine mission; the Prophet acceded
to this compromise, but soothed his ruffled dignity by declaring
that they were one of the two worst tribes in all Arabia, and
by announcing that Christians, as well as Jews, were to act as
substitutes for Moslems in Hell-fire. Moreover, believing that
Christianity and Judaism were both on their last legs, he devised the
humane stipulation that, provided Christians and Hebrews submitted
to the earthly rule of Islam and paid “tribute with their hands,”
they would be permitted to profess whatever faith they chose. Yet
he would presumably have been better pleased had all Arabians
manifested the delicate concern shown by a fellow named Al-Jarud. “O
Prophet,” said he, “I have hitherto followed the Christian faith,
and I am now called on to change it. Wilt thou be _Surety_ for me
in the matter of my religion?” “Yea, I am thy surety that God hath
guided thee to a better faith than it,” Mohammed gladly answered.

Two dispatches were probably sent to Heraclius, Emperor of Byzantium,
who had just completed a victorious struggle with Persia. The first
one, which requested him to cease the idolatrous worship of Jesus
and His Mother, to reverence the one true God, and to recognize
the mission of Mohammed, was apparently disregarded; a second
message, couched in like terms, prompted a vassal of Heraclius to
request permission to punish the insolent pretender who sent it, but
Heraclius forbade any needless expedition against the contemptible
person who had audaciously signed himself “Mohammed the Apostle of
God.” The King of Persia, on receiving a similar note, merely tore
it up; and the Prophet, on hearing of this outrage, prayed aloud:
“Even thus, O Lord! rend thou his kingdom from him!” It may be
presumed that neither Heraclius nor the Persian King even suspected
that, within a decade or two, their mighty empires would be paying
tribute to Islam. A letter that Mohammed sent to Ruayyah, of Suhaim,
was treated more respectfully than the one that had been dispatched
to the Persian monarch; for Ruayyah used it to mend a hole in his
water-skin. Another powerful chief, having listened to Mohammed’s
delegate, instructed him to carry back this message: “How excellent
is that Revelation to which thou invitest me, and how beautiful!
Know that I am the Poet of my tribe, and an Orator. The Arabs revere
my dignity. Grant unto me, therefore, a share in the rule, and I
will follow thee.” The Prophet, on being informed of this, snarled:
“Had this man asked of me but an unripe date, as his share in the
land, I would not have given it. Let him perish, and his vainglory
with him!”--and it is confidently stated that the presumptuous snob
did, in fact, die within a year. The Roman Governor of Egypt, too,
refused to endorse Mohammed’s claims--“I am aware,” he said, “that
a prophet is yet to arise; but I am of opinion that he will appear
in Syria”--yet he atoned for his stubbornness of heart by sending
Mohammed a double present in the form of a white mule and a black
concubine.

Mohammed, meanwhile, was showing his interest in his recent converts
by altering their Pagan names to titles that better suited his almost
feminine fondness for daintily euphemistic words. For example,
“Zeid of the Stud” right gladly abandoned his plebeian appellation
when he was rechristened “Zeid of the Good”; “the Wolf, son of the
Cub,” was similarly glorified by becoming “Allah’s Servant”; and an
“Oppressor” suffered a welcome sea-change into a “Well-doer.” But
when a tribe called the “Sons of Bastardy” were politely accosted
as the “Sons of Chastity,” they announced their steadfast desire
to remain true to their ancient heritage.

Nor did Mohammed’s reforms stop here. The Koran had already
prohibited the use of wine; for, years earlier, the Prophet, while
attempting to chide his uncle, Hamza, who was riotously drunk, had
received the tipsy response, “Are you not my father’s slave?” Liquor,
therefore, had been proscribed as a foe to Islam and the dignity
of the prophetic office; this rule was so rigorously enforced, in
truth, that even a hero of Bedr had been beaten again and again for
perennial intoxication, and on one occasion Mohammed himself hurled
clods of dirt at another offender. Gambling, too--the casting of
lots and the “arrow-game,” in which camels were the prizes--had been
divinely banned as abominations “from amongst the works of Satan.”
Mohammed’s acutely sensitive nature now led him to proscribe anything
that savored of torture inflicted on animals: living birds might
not be used as targets in shooting contests; camels were not to be
tied up and left to die on their owners’ graves; cattle were not to
be blinded to avert the evil eye; droughts were not to be broken
by the common process of affixing flaming torches to the tails of
cattle; horses were not to lose their manes and tails, and asses
were no longer to be branded or hit in the face. So scrupulously
fastidious was the Prophet that he once ordered some Moslems to
stop burning an ant-hill, and he also strongly disapproved the
ubiquitous practice of cursing camels and cocks.

His humanity and foresight were also manifested in more important
matters. Blood-feuds--the time-honored and almost ineradicable
system of tribal revenge for homicide--he endeavored, with partial
success, to wipe out by emphasizing the brotherhood of Islam, and
by advocating the acceptance of money as a partial compensation:
ethical and legislative essays that gradually led to a saner and
more peaceful system of government. Whatever may be thought of
his general attitude toward women, he certainly benefited them
incalculably by setting up laws that enabled them to inherit and
hold property; and the luridly overemphasized harem system, Pagan
though it may be, has some virtues that are perhaps absent from the
Occidental system of prostitution. His advocacy of the custom by
which the wives of captives automatically became the concubines of
Moslem conquerors has especially irritated certain modern moralists,
who apparently have not reflected very deeply on certain canons
of contemporary conduct, in which wealth and social distinction
play the rôle of the victorious Islamites. He accepted slavery as
a matter of course--and, indeed, Islam has never indulged in any
foolish civil strife over the question of bondage--but he insisted
that slaves must be treated with the utmost kindness. Men who
beat their slaves were placed by him among the lowest of the low;
he stated that manumission was a pious act, and he sometimes let
offenders off from any punishment when they agreed to free their
serfs--in short, the present industrial system has little to boast
of in comparison with Mohammed’s attitude toward serfdom. One other
inhuman custom--the ancient practice of female infanticide--was
summarily abolished by him; and a tale survives that well illustrates
the horror he felt concerning such deeds. Two men, about to yield
themselves to the claims of Islam, chanced to question the Prophet
about his views on child-murder. “Our mother Muleika was full of
good deeds and charity; but she buried a little daughter alive. What
is her condition now?” they inquired. “The burier and the buried
both in hell,” replied Mohammed, upon which his guests became very
angry and started to leave. “Come back,” he requested, “mine own
mother, too, is there with yours.” But even this inducement failed
to convince them, and so they returned into the outer darkness.


                               III

Old age, meanwhile, crept gently though inexorably upon the Prophet;
but its stealthy approach seemed only to quicken the strength of
his arm and the matchless fertility of his intellect. His groveling
acolytes, completely bewitched by the magical power of his colossal
personality, had exalted him to such a dazzling deification that,
had Allah Himself chosen to appear in the streets of Medina, He
might easily have passed unnoticed amid the encomiums that were
daily showered upon His Apostle--or, rather, Allah might carelessly
have been classified with the famous Three Pretenders who, by their
conjuring tricks and fake miracles, excited the wrathful amusement
of the Prophet in the last year of his earthly life. In fact, it has
been pointed out as a matter for deep regret that, while the Koran
allows Allah only ninety-nine separate and distinct appellations,
His Prophet, at the zenith of his career, was addressed by no fewer
than two hundred and one individual titles, including a round score
of those that had been applied to Allah Himself.

In the autumn of the year 630, Mohammed conducted his final military
expedition. Setting out at the head of a Moslem army that seems to
have totaled nearly thirty thousand men, he planned to chastise a
Byzantine force that was reputed to have gathered on the Syrian
border near Tebuk; but when that place was reached, it was found
that there was no Byzantine or any other force to be conquered.
Mohammed, thus finding himself in much the same position as the
French King in the doggerel ballad, proceeded to march home again
after exacting pledges of conversion and immense booty from
contingent tribes. His followers, who stated their belief that
the “wars for religion now are ended,” foolishly began to sell
their weapons; but the far-sighted Prophet sternly stopped them
and uttered the fateful remark: “There shall not cease from the
midst of my people a party engaged in fighting for the truth, until
Antichrist appear.” Scarcely had he returned to Medina when his
heart was gladdened by two events: the death of his only important
rival, Abdallah ibn Obei--to whom the Prophet deemed it safe and
expedient to pay tribute by following his bier and praying at his
grave--and the surrender of At-Taif, the single stronghold that had
ever successfully defied his might. He was so exhilarated by the
downfall of this fort, indeed, that he let its defenders off from
the necessity of breaking their own idols, and, in their stead,
elected two Moslems to perform the peculiarly pleasant task.

But perhaps Mohammed most enjoyed the multitudinous activities
inherent in his position as a kind and fatherly counselor of his
people. The matters which he was besought to adjudicate were
extraordinary in their range. One day his prayers would be requested
by some prospective bridegroom, who hoped, by the aid of such divine
sorcery, to win a wife of unusual goodness and humility; next day
he would be begged to specify the precise hour when the world was
destined to end; another day would find him busily laying down
oracles governing the proper boiling of meat. Only two types of
interrogation were taboo: matters that were wholly rational or
wholly metaphysical; and Mohammed probably barred these topics on
the sensible grounds that preceding prophets who had tampered with
either of them had almost uniformly come to grief. Thus it came about
that countless apothegms, whose absolute authenticity can never be
nicely determined, were confidently claimed to be the children of
his brain. Yet, despite the fact that most of these sayings betray a
hard-headed and close-fisted sagacity, he was in debt when he died;
and perhaps, therefore, the stories concerning his senile delight
in the children of his body deserve more credence. Sonless though
he was, he could partially console himself by playing with his
grandsons, Al-Hasan and Al-Hosein, the progeny of Ali and Fatima,
and by reflecting on the transcendent heritage that awaited them
as male descendants of himself. In fact, legends sprang up that
made a Moslem holy family out of Mohammed, the two boys, and their
mother, Fatima, who was further honored by being entitled “The Lady
of Paradise”; but, unfortunately for his beatific visions concerning
Al-Hasan and Al-Hosein--who frequently entertained themselves by
clambering upon their grandfather’s broad back while he was bowed
in prayer--they turned out to be scurvy fellows who excelled only
in incompetence and cowardice.

It may be that Mohammed had a premonition of his imminent death.
He decided, at all events, to make a “Farewell Pilgrimage” to
Mecca in March, 632, so that he might for the last time feast his
eyes on that sacred citadel and undergo the solemn rites of the
Greater Pilgrimage--a thing he had not done since the Hegira. He
first took a careful bath, then mounted Al-Kaswa, and, accompanied
by his entire harem and one hundred votive camels, set forth on
the long journey. Having meticulously and painfully performed the
prescribed gyrations and genuflections, he cast some small stones at
the “Devil’s corner”--a spot near Mecca where Abraham was reputed
to have met and conquered Satan--and concluded his toilsome duties
by delivering a notable speech. After making many additions to,
and revisions upon, the already numberless regulations which he
had been formulating for more than twenty years, he concluded with
these words: “Verily, I have fulfilled my mission. I have left
that amongst you--a plain command, the Book of God, and manifest
Ordinances--which, if ye hold fast, ye shall never go astray.”
Then, turning his eyes heavenward, he exclaimed: “O Lord! I have
delivered my message and discharged my Ministry.” “Yea,” came
the deep-throated voice of the throng that hemmed him in, “yea,
verily thou hast.” “O Lord!” he continued, unmindful of the pious
interruption, “I beseech Thee bear Thou witness unto it.” Returning
straightway to Mecca, he encircled the Kaba seven times; thence he
went to Zemzem and, having drunk part of the contents of a pitcher
filled with its holy water, he rinsed his mouth and asked that the
water still remaining in the vessel should be poured back into the
well. After abiding three more days at Mecca, he departed from it
forever and ambled by easy stages back to Medina.


                               IV

By this time the sinister tokens of physical decay, unavoidably
betrayed by the Prophet, filled everyone with deepest concern. Abu
Bekr observed him one day, stroking his beard and looking intently
at it; then Abu, his eyes filling with sudden tears, broke out:
“Ah, thou, for whom I would sacrifice father and mother, white
hairs are hastening upon thee!” “Yes,” came the slow response, “it
is the travail of inspiration that hath done this. The Suras Hud,
and the Inevitable, and the Striking, with their fellows, these
have made white my hair.” Yet when he actually became ill with
pleurisy, or some sort of fever, he named a definite source for
the malady: the poisoned mutton which Zeinab, the Jewess, had fed
him. “This, verily, is the effect of that which I ate at Kheibar,”
he declared. “The artery in my back feeleth as though it would
just now burst asunder.” If his theory was correct, he doubtless
died--as his worshipers fervently claimed--the honorable death of
a martyr; but it seems probable that his illness had some more
tangible origin. Believing that water could not be contaminated, he
sometimes carelessly drank from a cistern that was used for slops;
as a medicine man who had often attempted to cure his people by
charms, cauterization and cupping, he had submitted himself to these
practices so frequently that his system must have been gradually
weakened; furthermore, Ayesha stated that his health had been poor
for years, and that she had constantly dosed him with a profusion
of odd concoctions which she herself compounded from innumerable
prescriptions recommended by sympathizing friends.

It is not strange, therefore, that, shortly after he had presented
a banner to a Moslem army which he commanded to march toward Syria
on May 27, 632, for the purpose of avenging the defeat at Muta,
he found himself curiously listless and weak. Late one subsequent
night, accompanied only by a servant, he stole out to the cemetery
on the edge of Medina. After a long and melancholy period of
meditation, he thus apostrophized the souls of the dead: “Verily,
both ye and I have received fulfilment of that which our Lord did
promise us. Blessed are ye! for your lot is better than the lot
of those that are left behind. Temptation and trial approach like
portions of a dark night that follow one upon another, each darker
than that preceding it. O Lord! have mercy upon them that lie buried
here!” Next morning, as he passed Ayesha’s chamber, he heard her
calling out, “My head!--O, my head!” Entering, he gently reproved
her thus: “Nay, Ayesha, it is rather I that have need to cry _My
head, my head!_ But wouldst thou not,” he continued, in a feeble
attempt to be humorous, “desire to be taken whilst I am yet alive;
so that I might pray over thee, and wrapping thee, Ayesha, in thy
winding-sheet, myself commit thee to the grave?” Then, in spite
of her pain, she railed at him. “Ah, that, I see, is what thou
wishest for! Truly, I can behold thee, when all was over, returning
straightway hither, and sporting with a new beauty in my chamber
here!” But, perceiving that he was really ailing, she forgot her
own headache and tenderly cared for him.

Multitudes of conflicting stories have been handed down concerning
the happenings of the week that preceded his dissolution; but,
inasmuch as they emanated from three distinct political groups, each
of whom wished to be recognized as the sole source of truth, the
precise occurrences of that fateful period will never be accurately
known. At the beginning of his illness it appears certain that, on
account of his predilection for baths, he commanded his wives to
drench him in cold water on the intriguing theory that, since fever
was caused by sparks of Hell-fire, it could be summarily squelched by
water; but in this case the douche seems to have had the unfortunate
result of sending him into convulsions. It is claimed that, during
an interval of temporary relief, he went forth and addressed his
devotees in the Mosque--a proceeding which, if it was true, was
presumably the reason for his consequent relapse. By Saturday, June
6, his temperature is said to have been so high that Omar, having
placed his hand on the tormented man’s forehead, quickly withdrew
it with the consoling exclamation, “O Prophet, how fierce is the
fever upon thee!” “Yea, verily,” Mohammed gasped, “but I have been
during the night season repeating in praise of the Lord seventy
Suras, and among them the seven long ones”; and a moment later he
added, “Just as this affliction prevaileth now against me, even
so shall my reward hereafter be.” On Sunday he was delirious much
of the time and suffered such excruciating pain that, following a
consultation among his wives, it was decided to administer physic;
so they forced the drug down his throat, but, notwithstanding his
agony, he readily recognized the too familiar noxious taste and
bitterly reproached them. When they admitted their guilt, he cried:
“Out upon you! this is a remedy for pleurisy ... an evil disease
is it which the Lord will not let attack me. Now shall ye all of
you within this chamber partake of the same. Let not one remain
without being physiked, even as ye have physiked me, excepting only
my uncle, Al-Abbas.” The repentant women immediately arose, and
each obediently gave the drug to the other until all had swallowed
some of it; and this strange scene around the Prophet’s deathbed
is one of the small number that are best authenticated.

Certain other tales may be accepted without too much over-scrupulous
demur. As he lay alternately drawing the bed-clothes over his
face and then tossing them off, he would shriek out unconnected
sentences: “The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians!... O Lord, let
not my tomb be ever an object of worship!... Verily the chiefest
among you all for love and devotion to me is Abu Bekr. If I were
to choose a bosom friend it would be he; but Islam hath made a
closer brotherhood amongst us.... O my soul! Why seekest thou
refuge elsewhere than in God alone?... Fetch me hither pen and ink,
that I may make for you a writing which shall hinder you from
going astray for ever.” On Monday he seemed a little better, but
it was only the final flicker of the dying candle. Toward midday,
as Ayesha sat holding his head tenderly on her bosom “between her
lungs and her neck,” she noticed that his wandering eye had fixed
upon a green toothpick; and, after chewing it so that it might be
more pliable, she offered it to the dying man who used it for a
moment with all his old vigor. But he soon began to sink rapidly,
and, as though realizing the imminence of death, he called aloud:
“O Lord, I beseech thee assist me in the agonies of death!” Then,
while he spasmodically blew breath over his burning body, he thrice
repeated, “Gabriel, come close unto me!” It is a regrettable fact
that the interesting question of his final utterance must forever
remain undecided. One authority declares that he expressed a wish
to have concubines treated with consideration; but it is perhaps
more appropriate to accept the story that, as consciousness slowly
departed, he gently breathed: “Lord, grant me pardon; and join me
to the blessed companionship on high. Eternity in Paradise!...
Pardon!... The blessed companionship on high!...”--his head fell
lower, a cold drop of moisture trickled down upon Ayesha’s breast,
and all was over.

Yet no one, not even Ayesha, could believe it for a time. Thinking
that he had only fainted, she called aloud for help; and Omar,
who immediately came in, looked lovingly upon the familiar and
still lifelike features and exclaimed: “The Prophet is not dead;
he hath but swooned away.” But Abu Bekr, who was welcomed into the
sacred adytum with the feminine salutation, “Come, for this day
no permission needeth to be asked,” at once realized the awful
truth, which he cautiously made known by stooping and kissing his
master’s face, and saying: “Sweet wast thou in life, and sweet thou
art in death. Yes, thou _art_ dead! Alas, my friend, my chosen
one!” After kissing the face a second time, he covered it with a
striped cloth and gently withdrew from the room, while Mohammed’s
wives beat their faces, uttered loud and plaintive ululations, “and
there arose a wailing of celestial voices.” The corpse was washed
and laid out, and, in addition to the garment which he wore at the
time of his death, two sheets of costly white linen were wrapped
around it. After some discussion, it was decided on the advice of
Islam’s new leader, Abu Bekr--“I have heard it from the lips of
Mohammed himself,” he announced, “that in whatsoever spot a prophet
dieth, there also should he be buried”--that a deep grave should
be excavated beneath the apartment of Ayesha. During the night
the ominous thud of pickaxes disturbed the troubled dreams of
the Prophet’s widows--“I did not believe that Mohammed was really
dead,” confessed Um Selama, “till I heard the sound of the pickaxes
at the digging of the grave, from the next room”--and next day a
constant stream of weeping Moslems filed by to look for the last
time upon the beloved face that now resembled a sheet of withered
parchment. That evening the body was lowered into the grave, whose
bottom had been covered with the Prophet’s precious red mantle; the
gaping hole was built over with unbaked bricks, plain earth was
then shoveled upon the tomb, and there, in the august simplicity
of his domestic abode, Mohammed’s form has ever since remained.

Meanwhile--since all things are possible with Allah--it may surely
be conjectured that Gabriel had abundantly granted the Prophet’s
dying request, and had borne him, along the familiar route previously
traversed in the midnight journey from Jerusalem, for the second
and last time into the presence of his Maker. And there--may not
one hope?--at the zenith of the Seventh Heaven, in that ravishing
Paradise which so closely resembles an infinitely idealized Arabian
oasis, he abides even unto this day and will continue to dwell
“For ever therein--a fair abode and resting place!”--enjoying the
ineffable entertainments that have been prepared for the Moslem
saints and martyrs who, triumphant over sin and suffering, have been
welcomed to the indepictable felicities of the divine beatitudes;
quaffing deep draughts from those inexhaustible “rivers of wine”
which the Koran promises to those who have manfully abstained from
all earthly elixirs; continually cherished by seventy dark-eyed,
deep-bosomed Houris who, as befits inhabitants of the “Garden of
Delight,” individually reside within the modest seclusion of enormous
hollow pearls; ever and anon chanting, through his black-bearded
lips, the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, and concluding
with the inevitable refrain, “_La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammed rasul
Allah!_”




                       Transcriber's Notes


Other than the apparent typographical errors noted below,
inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained as
printed.

1. Page 60: "third party of the Pentateuch" has been changed to
"third part of the Pentateuch".

2. Page 85: "the the inscribed name" has been changed to "the
inscribed name".

3. Page 131: "crown of martydom" has been changed to "crown of
martyrdom".

4. Page 165: "Moses asssuredly would not" has been changed to "Moses
assuredly would not".

5. Page 231: An exclamation point has been inserted after "Ruin
seize them!".



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 73644 ***