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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mahomet, by Gladys M.

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Title: Mahomet
Founder of Islam
Author: Gladys M. Draycott
Release Date: January 18, 2004 [EBook #10738]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

Produced by Afra Ullah, Bonny Fafard and PG Distributed Proofreaders



"Il estimait sincèrement la force.... Jetée dans le monde, son

âme se trouva à la mesure du monde et l'embrassa tout.... C'est
l'état prodigieux des hommes d'action. Ils sont tout entiers dans la
moment qu'ils vivent et leur génie se ramasse sur un point."


The impetus that gave victory to Islam is spent. Since its material
prosperity overwhelmed its spiritual ascendancy in the first years of
triumph its vitality has waned under the stress of riches, then beneath
lassitude and the slow decrease of power. The Prophet Mahomet is at once
the glory and bane of his people, the source of their strength and the
mainspring of their weakness. He represents more effectively than any
other religious teacher the sum of his followers' spiritual and worldly
ideas. His position in religion and philosophy is substantially the
position of all his followers; none have progressed beyond the primary
thesis he gave to the Arabian world at the close of his career.
He closes a long line of semi-divine teachers and monitors. After him the
curtains of heaven close, and its glory is veiled from men's eyes. He is
the last great man who imposed enthusiasm for an idea upon countless
numbers of his fellow-creatures, so that whole tribes fought and died at
his bidding, and at the command of God through him. Now that the vital
history of Islam has been written, some decision as to the position and
achievements of its founder may be formulated.
Mahomet conceived the office of Prophet to be the result of an
irresistible divine call. Verily the angel Gabriel appeared to him,
commanding him to "arise and warn." He was the vehicle through whom the
will of Allah was revealed. The inspired character of his rule was the
prime factor in its prevailing; by virtue of his heavenly authority he
exercised his sway over the religious actions of his followers, their
aspirations and their beliefs. In order to promulgate the divine
ordinances the Kuran was sent down, inspired directly by the angel
Gabriel at the bidding of the Lord. Upon all matters of belief and upon
all other matters dealt with, however cursorily, in the Kuran Mahomet
spoke with the power of God Himself; upon matters not within the scope of
religion or of the Sacred Book he was only a human and fallible
"I am no more than man; when I order you anything with respect to
religion, receive it, and when I order you about the affairs of the
world, then am I nothing more than man."
There is no question of his equality with the Godhead, or even of his
sharing any part of the divine nature. He is simply the instrument,
endowed with a power and authority outside himself, a man who possesses
one cardinal thesis which all those within his faith must accept.
The idea which represents at once the scope of his teaching and the
source of his triumphs is the unity and indivisibility of the Godhead.
This is the sole contribution he has made to the progressive thought of
the world. Though he came later in time than the culture of Greece and
Rome, he never knew their philosophies or the sum of their knowledge. His
religion could never he built upon such basic strength as Christianity.
It sprang too rapidly into prominence, and had no foundation of slowly
developed ideas upon which to rest both its enthusiasm and its earthly
Mahomet bears closer resemblance to the ancient Hebrew prophets than to
any Christian leader or saint. His mind was akin to theirs in its
denunciatory fury, its prostration before the might and majesty
of a single God. The evolution of the tribal deity from the local
wonderworker, whose shrine enclosed his image, to the impersonal and
distant but awful power who held the earth beneath his sway, was
Mahomet's contribution to the mental development of his country, and the
achievement within those confines was wonderful. But to the sum of the
world's thought he gave little. His central tenet had already gained its
votaries in other lands, and, moreover, their form of belief in one God
was such that further development of thought was still possible to them.
The philosophy of Islam blocks the way of evolution for itself, because
its system leaves no room for such pregnant ideas as divine incarnation,
divine immanence, the fatherhood of God. It has been content to formulate
one article of faith: "There is no God but God," the corollary as to
Mahomet's divine appointment to the office of Prophet being merely an
affirmation of loyalty to the particular mode of faith he imposed.
Therefore the part taken by Islam in the reading of the world's
mystery ceased with the acceptance of that previously conceived central
In the sphere of ideas, indeed, Mahomet gave his people nothing original,
for his power did not lie in intellect, but in action. His mind had not
passed the stage that has just exchanged many fetishes for one spiritual
God, still to be propitiated, not alone by sacrifices, but by prayers,
ceremonies, and praise. In the world of action lay the strength of Islam
and the genius of its founder; it is therefore in the impress it made
upon events and not in its theology and philosophy that its secret is to
be found. But besides the acceptance of one God as Lord, Islam forced
upon its devotees a still more potent idea, whose influence is felt both
in the spheres of thought and action.
As an outcome of its political and military needs Mahomet created and
established its unassailable belief in fatality--not the fatalism
of cause and effect, bearing within itself the essence of a reason too
vast for humanity to comprehend, but the fatalism of an omnipotent and
capricious power inherent in the Mahomedan conception of God. With this
mighty and irresponsible being nothing can prevail. Before every event
the result of it is irrevocably decreed. Mankind can alter no tiniest
detail of his destined lot. The idea corresponds with Mahomet's vision of
God--an awful, incomprehensible deity, who dwells perpetually in the
terrors of earth, not in its gentleness and compassion. The doctrine of
fatalism proved Islam's greatest asset during its first hard years of
struggle, for it gave to its battlefields the glory of God's
surveillance: "Death is a favour to a Muslim." But with prosperity and
conquest came inaction; then fatalism, out of the weakening of endurance,
created the pessimism of Islam's later years. Being philosophically
uncreative, it descended into the sloth of those who believe, without
exercise of reason or will, in the uselessness of effort.
Before Islam decayed into inertia it had experienced a fierce and flaming
life. The impulse bestowed upon it by its founder operated chiefly in the
religious world, and indirectly in the realm of political and military
power. How far the religion of Islam is indebted to Mahomet's knowledge
of the Jewish and Christian systems becomes clear upon a study of the
Kuran and the Muslim institutions. That Mahomet was familiar with Jewish
Scriptures and tradition is beyond doubt.
The middle portion of the Kuran is filled to the point of weariness with
reiterations of Jewish legend and hero-myths. It is evident that Mahomet
took the God of the Jews to be his own deity, combining in his conception
also the traditional connection of Jehovah and His Chosen People with the
ancient faith and ceremonies of Mecca, purged of their idolatries. From
the Jews he took his belief in the might and terror of the Lord and the
admonitory character of his mission. From them also he took the
separatist nature of his creed. The Jewish teachers postulated a religion
distinct from every other belief, self-sufficient, owning no interpreter
save the Law and the Scriptures. Mahomet conceived himself also as the
sole vehicle during his lifetime and after his death for the commands of
the Most High. He aimed at the superseding of Rabbinical power, and hoped
to win the Jews into recognition of himself as successor to their own
teachers and prophets.
But his claims were met by an unyielding reliance upon the completed Law.
If the Jewish religion had rejected a Redeemer from among its own people,
it was impossible that it should accept a leader from an alien and
despised race. Mahomet, finding coalition impossible, gave free play to
his separatist instinct, so that in this respect, and also in its
fundamental conception of the deity, as well as in its reliance upon
inspired Scriptures and oral traditions, Mahomedanism approximates to the
Jewish system. It misses the influence of an immemorial history, and
receives no help in its campaign of warfare from the traditional glories
of long lines of warrior kings. Chief of all, it lacks the inspiration of
the matchless Jewish Scriptures and Sacred Books, depending for
instruction upon a document confined to the revelation of one man's
personality and view of life.
Still the narrowness of the Mahomedan system provoked its power; its
rapid rush to the heights Of dominion was born of the straitening of its
impulse into the channel of conquest and the forcible imposition of its
Of Christianity Mahomet knew far less than of Judaism. He went to the
Christian doctrines as they were known in heterodox Syria, far off from
the main stream of Christian life and teaching. He went to them with a
prejudiced mind, full of anger against their exponents for declaring the
Messiah to be the Son of God. The whole idea of the Incarnation and the
dogma of the Trinity were thoroughly abhorrent to him, and the only
conception he entertains as to the personality of Jesus is that of a
Prophet even as he is himself, the receiver of divine inspiration, but
having no connection in essence with God, whom he conceived pre-eminently
as the one supreme Being, indivisible in nature. Certainly he knew far
less of the Christian than of the Jewish Scriptures, and necessarily less
of the inner meaning of the Christian faith, still in fluid state,
unconsidered of its profoundest future exponents. His mind was assuredly
not attuned to the reception of its more revolutionary ideas. Very little
compassion and no tenderness breathe from the pages of the Kuran, and
from a religion whose Founder had laboured to bring just those two
elements into the thorny ways of the world, Mahomet could only turn away
baffled and uncomprehending. The doctrine of the non-resistance to evil,
and indeed all the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount, he passed by
It is useless and indeed unfair to attempt the comparison of Mahomedanism
with Christianity, seeing that without the preliminary culture of Greece
and Rome modern Christian doctrines would not exist in their present
form, and of the former Mahomet had no cognisance. He stands altogether
apart from the Christian system, finding no affinity in its doctrines or
practices, scorning its monasticism no less than its conception of the
Trinity. His position in history lies between the warriors and the
saints, at the head of the Prophets, who went, flail in hand, to summon
to repentance, but unlike the generality, bearing also the sword and
sceptre of a kingdom.
No other religious leader has ever bound his creed so closely to definite
political conceptions, Mahomet was not only the instrument of divine
revelation, but he was also at the end of his life the head of a temporal
state with minutest laws and regulations--chaotic it may be, but still
binding so that Islamic influence extended over the whole of the lives of
its adherents. This constitutes its strength. Its leader swayed not only
the convictions but the activities of his subjects.
His position with regard to the political institution of other countries
is unique. His temporal power grew almost in spite of himself, and he
unconsciously adopted ideas in connection with it which arose out of the
circumstances involved. Any form of government except despotism was
impossible among so heterogeneous and unruly a people; despotism also
bore out his own idea as to the nature of God's governance. Political
ideas were largely built upon religious conceptions, sometimes
outstripping, sometimes lagging behind them, but always with some
irrefragable connection. Despotism, therefore, was the form best suited
to Islam, and becomes its chief legacy to posterity, since without the
religious sanction Islam politically could not exist.
Together with despotism and inextricably mingled with it is the second
great Islamic enthusiasm--the belief in the supremacy of force. With
violence the Muslim kingdom was to be attained. Mahomet gave to the
battle lust of Arabia the approval of his puissant deity, bidding his
followers put their supreme faith in the arbitrament of the sword. He
knew, too, the value of diplomacy and the use of well-calculated
treachery, but chief of all he bade his followers arm themselves to seize
by force what they could not obtain by cunning. In the insistence upon
these two factors, complete obedience to his will as the revelation of
Allah's decrees and the justification of violence to proclaim the merits
of his faith, we gain the nearest approach to his character and beliefs;
for these, together with his conception of fate, are perhaps the most
personal of all his institutions.
Mahomet has suffered not a little at the hands of his immediate successors.
They have sought to record the full sum of his personality, and finding
the subject elude them, as the translation of actions into words must
ever fall short of finality, they have overloaded their narrative with
minutest and almost always apocryphal details which leave the main
outlines blurred. Only two biographies can be said to be in the nature
of sources, that of Muhammad ibn Hischam, written on the model of
an earlier biography, undertaken about 760 for the Abbasside Caliph
Mansur, and of Wakidi, written about 820, which is important as
containing the text of many treaties made by Mahomet with various tribes.
Al-Tabari, too, included the life of Mahomet in his extensive history of
Arabia, but his work serves only as a check, consisting, as it
does, mainly of extracts from Wakidi. By far the more valuable is the
Kuran and the Sunna of tradition. But even these are fragmentary and
confused, bearing upon them the ineradicable stamp of alien writers and
much second-hand thought.
In the dim, pregnant dawn of religions, by the transfusing power of a
great idea, seized upon and made living by a single personality, the
world of imagination mingles with the world of fact as we perceive it.
The real is felt to be merely the frail shell of forces more powerful and
permanent. Legend and myth crowd in upon actual life as imperfect
vehicles for the compelling demand made by that new idea for expression.
Moreover, personality, that subtle essence, exercises a kind of
centripetal force, attracting not only the devotion but the imaginations
of those who come within its influence.
Mahomet, together with all the men of action in history, possessed an
energy of will so vast as to bring forth the creative faculties of his
adherents, and the legends that cluster round him have a special
significance as the measure of his personality and influence. The
story, for instance, of his midnight journey into the seven heavens
is the symbol of an intense spiritual experience that, following the
mental temper of the age in which he lived, had to be translated into
the concrete. All the affirmations as to his intercourse with Djinn,
his inspiration by the angel Gabriel, are inherent factors in the
manifestation of his ceaseless mental activity. His marvellous birth and
the myths of his childhood are the sum of his followers' devotion, and
reveal their reverence translated into terms of the imagination.
Character was the mysterious force that his co-religionists tried
unconsciously to portray in all those legends relative to his life at
Medina, his ruthlessness and cruelty finding a place no less than his
humility, and steadfastness under discouragement.
But beneath the weight of the marvellous the real man is almost buried.
He has stood for so long with the mists of obscure imaginings about him
that his true lineaments are almost impossible to reproduce. The Western
world has alternated between the conception of him as a devil, almost
Antichrist himself, and a negligible impostor whose power is transient.
It has seldom troubled to look for the human energy that wrought out his
successes, the faith that upheld them, and the enthusiasm that burned in
the Prophet himself with a sombre flame, lighting his followers to prayer
and conquest.
And indeed it is difficult, if not impossible, to re-create effectively
the world in which he lived. It is so remote from the seas of the
world's progression, an eddy in the tide of belief which loses itself in
the larger surging, that it makes no appeal of familiarity. But that a
study of the period and Mahomet's own personality operating no less
through his deeds, faith, and institutions than in the one doubtfully
reliable record of his teachings, will result in the perception of the
Prophet of Islam as a man among men, has been the central belief during
the writing of this biography. Mahomet's personality is revealed in his
dealing with his fellows, in the belief and ritual that he imposed upon
Arabia, in the mighty achievement of a political unity and military
discipline, and therein he shows himself inexorable, cruel, passionate,
treacherous, bad, subject to depression and overwhelming doubt, but
never weak or purposeless, continually the master of his circumstances,
whom no emergency found unprepared, whose confidence in himself nothing
could shake, and who by virtue of enthusiasm and resistless activity
wrested his triumphs from the hands of his enemies, and bequeathed to
his followers his own unconquerable faith and the means wherewith they
might attain wealth and sovereignty.


"And how many cities were mightier in strength than thy city that
hath cast thee forth?"--_The Kuran_.
In Arabia nature cannot be ignored. Pastures and cornland, mountain
is a country governed by earth's primal forces. It has not yet emerged
inscrutable, revealing themselves seldom, and dwelling in a fierce
desolation it sets its ineradicable mark upon the creed built up within
services with his grandfather, taking part in its mercantile life,
learning something of Christian and Jewish doctrine through the varied
boundaries he wandered, searching for inspiration, waiting dumbly in the
darkness until the angel Gabriel descended with rush of wings through the
brightness of heaven, commanding:
in thy mantle, arise and warn!"
Mecca lies in a stony valley midway between Yemen, "the Blessed," and
During the Greater Pilgrimage the cauldron seethes with heat and
dream-city in a country of wide horizons.
immediately before the birth of Mahomet, and the legends concerning the
ground in torment, and God was merciful, so that from his heel marks
arose a spring of clear water--the well Zemzem, hallowed ever after by
Meccans. In this desolate place part of the Amalekites and tribes from
Yemen settled; the child Ishmael grew up amongst them and founded his
race by marrying a daughter of the chief. Abraham visited him, and under
his guidance the native temple of the Kaaba was built and dedicated to
the true God, but afterwards desecrated by the worship of idols within
Such are the legends surrounding the foundation of Mecca and of the
Kaaba, of which, as of the legends concerning the early days of Rome, it
may be said that they are chiefly interesting as throwing light upon the
character of the race which produced them. In the case of Mecca they were
mainly the result of an unconscious desire to associate the city as far
as possible with the most renowned heroes of old time, and also to
conciliate the Jewish element within Arabia, now firmly planted at
Medina, Kheibar, and some of the adjoining territory, by insisting on a
Jewish origin for their holy of holies, and as soon as Abraham and
Ishmael were established as fathers of the race, legends concerning them
were in perpetual creation.
The Kaaba thus reputed to be the work of Abraham bears evidence of an
antiquity so remote that its beginnings will be forever lost to us. From
very early times it was a goal of pilgrimage for all Arabia, because of
the position of Mecca upon the chief trade route, and united in its
ceremonies the native worship of the sun and stars, idols and misshapen
stones. The Black Stone, the kissing of which formed the chief
ceremonial, is a relic of the rites practised by the stone-worshippers of
old; while the seven circuits of the Kaaba, obligatory on all pilgrims,
are probably a symbol of the courses of the planets. Arab divinities,
such as Alilat and Uzza, were associated with the Kaaba before any
records are available, and at the time of Mahomet, idolatry mingled with
various rites still held sway among the Meccans, though the leaven of
Jewish tradition was of great help to him in the establishment of the
monotheistic idea. At Mahomet's birth the Kaaba consisted of a small
roofless house, with the Black Stone imbedded in its wall. Near it lay
the well Zemzem, and the reputed grave of Ishmael. The Holy Place of
Arabia held thus within itself traces of a purer faith, that
were to be discovered and filled in by Mahomet, until the Kaaba
became the goal of thousands, the recipient of the devotion and longings
of that mighty host of Muslim who went forth to subdue the world.
Mahomet's ancestors had for some time held a high position in the city.
He came of the race of Hashim, whose privilege it was to give service to
the pilgrims coming to worship at the Kaaba. The Hashim were renowned for
generosity, and Mahomet's grandfather, Abd al Muttalib, was revered by
the Kureisch, inhabitants of Mecca, as a just and honourable man, who had
greatly increased their prosperity by his rediscovery of the holy well.
"Dig up that which is pure!"
Three times the command fell on uncomprehending ears, until the angel
up the golden gazelles within it.
Abd al Muttalib figures very prominently in the early legends concerning
living continually in the presence of his god--a fitting guardian for
of the choice of Abdullah, Mahomet's father, and the repeated staying of
the father's hand, so that the sacrifice could not be accomplished until
is son's life was bought with the blood of a hundred camels. This and
of Mahomet's mission by dwelling on the intervention of a higher power
in the disposal of his fate.
Of Abd al Muttalib's ten sons, Abdallah was the most handsome in form
sickness and died at Medina.
before the child's eyes opened to the light, a brightness surrounded his
Syrian Bostra. A tenderness hangs over the story of Mahomet's birth,
birth of her son, and in the house of Mecca's leading citizen, hearing
also rumours of earthly strife and the threatenings of strange armies
from the south.
and finding he could in nowise coerce the people into forsaking the
Meccans that the year (A.D. 570) was called ever after "The Year of the
Elephant," and in August thereof Mahomet was born.
The countless legends surrounding Mahomet's birth, even to the physical
imaginative and incoherently poetical, and they indicate the weight of
essence one of relentless activity, neither contemplative nor
Christian histories, and dwell rather within the region of the
marvellous than of the spiritually symbolic. Neither Mahomet's father
instruments of Mahomet's prophetic mission. His real parents are his
that nurtured him, physically and mentally, that bounded his horizon
throughout his life and impressed its mighty mysteries upon his
unconscious childhood and his eager, imaginative youth.


"Paradise lies at the feet of mothers."--MAHOMET.
No more beautiful and tender legends cluster round Mahomet than those
foster-mother Hailima. She was a woman of the tribe of Beni Sa'ad, who
adventurous life beneath the sun and stars.
About the time of Mahomet's birth a famine fell upon the Beni Sa'ad,
which left nothing of all their stores, and the women of the tribe
journeyed,[28] weary and stricken with hunger, into the city of Mecca
that they might obtain foster-children whose parents would give them
money and blessings if they could but get their little ones taken away
from that unhealthy place. Among these was Hailima, who, according to
tradition, has left behind her the narrative of that dreadful journey
across the desert with her husband and her child, and with only an ass
and a she-camel for transport. Famine oppressed them sorely, together
with the heat of desert suns, until there was no sustenance for any
living creature; then, faint and travel-weary, they reached the city and
began their quest.
Mahomet was offered to every woman of the tribe, but they rejected him
as he had no father, and there was little hope of much payment from the
mothers of these children. Those of rich parents were eagerly spoken
for, but no one would care for the little fatherless child. And it
happened that Hailima also was unsuccessful in her search, and was like
to have returned to her people disconsolate, but when she saw
Mahomet she bethought herself and said to her husband:
"By the God of my fathers, I will not go back to my companions without
foster-child. I will take this orphan."
And her husband replied: "It cannot harm thee to do this, and if thou
takest him it may be that through him God will bless us."
So Hailima took him, and she relates how good fortune attended her from
that day. Her camels gave abundant milk during the homeward journey, and
in the unfruitful land of the Beni Sa'ad her cattle were always fattest
and yielded most milk, until her neighbours besought her to allow them
to pasture their cattle with hers. But, adds the chronicler naively, in
spite of this their cattle returned to them thin and yielding little,
while Hailima's waxed fat and fruitful. These legends are the translation
into poetic fact of the peace and love surrounding Mahomet during the five
years he spent with Hailima; for in all primitive communities every
experience must pass through transmutation into the definite and tangible
and be given a local habitation and a name.
When Mahomet was two years old and the time had come to restore him to
his mother, Hailima took him back to Mecca; but his mother gave him to
her again because he had thriven so well under desert skies, and she
feared the stifling air of Mecca for her only son. So Hailima returned
with him and brought him up as one of her children until he was five,
when the first signs of his nervous, highly-strung nature showed
themselves in a kind of epileptic fit. The Arabians, unskilled as they
were in any medical science, attributed manifestations of this kind to
evil spirits, and it is not surprising that we find Hailima bringing him
back to his grandfather in great alarm. So ended his fostering by the
desert and by Hailima.
Of these five years spent among the Beni Sa'ad chroniclers have spoken
in much detail, but their confused accounts are so interwoven with
legend that it is impossible to re-create events, and we can only obtain
a general idea of his life as a tiny child among the children of the
tribe, sharing their fortunes, playing and quarrelling with them, and at
moments, when the spirit seemed to advance beyond its dwelling-place,
gazing wide-eyed upon the limitless desert under the blaze of sun or
below the velvet dark, with swift, half-conscious questionings uttering
the universal why and how [31] of childhood. Legend regards even this
early time as one of preparation for his mission, and there are stories
of the coming of two men clothed in white and shining garments, who
ripped open his body, took out his heart, and having purged it of all
unrighteousness, returned it, symbolically cleansing him of sin that he
might forward the work of God. It was an imaginative rightness that
decreed that Mahomet's most impressionable years should be spent in the
great desert, whose twin influences of fierceness and fatalism he felt
throughout his life, and which finally became the key-notes of his
worship of Allah.
Hailima, convinced that her foster-son was possessed by evil spirits,
resolved to return him to Abd al Muttalib, but as she journeyed through
Upper Mecca, the child wandered away and was lost for a time. Hailima
hurried, much agitated, to his grandfather, who immediately sent his
sons to search, and after a short time they returned with the boy,
unharmed and unfrightened by his adventure. The legend--it is quite a
late accretion--is interesting, as showing an acquaintance with, and a
parallelism to, the story of the losing of Jesus among the Passover
crowds, and the search for Him by His kindred. Mahomet was at last
lodged with his mother, who indignantly explained to Hailima the real
meaning of his malady, and spoke of his future glory as manifested to
her by the light that enfolded her before his birth. Not long after,
Amina decided to visit her [32] husband's tomb at Medina, and thither
Mahomet accompanied her, travelling through the rocky, desolate valleys
and hills that separate the two, with just his mother and a slave girl.

Mahomet was too young to remember much about the journey to Medina,
except that it was hot and that he was often tired, and since his father
was but a name to him, the visit to his tomb faded altogether from his
mind. But on the homeward journey a calamity overtook him which he
remembered all his life. Amina, weakened by journeying and much
sorrow, and perhaps feeling her desire for life forsake her after the
fulfillment of her pilgrimage, sickened and died at Abwa, and Mahomet
and the slave girl continued their mournful way alone.
Amina is drawn by tradition in very vague outline, and Mahomet's memory
of her as given in the Kuran does not throw so much light upon the woman
herself as upon her child's devotion and affectionate memory of the
mother he lost almost before he knew her. His grief for her was very
real; she remained continually in his thoughts, and in after years
he paid tribute at her tomb to her tenderness and love for him.
"This is the grave of my mother ... the Lord hath permitted me to visit
it.... I called my mother to remembrance, and the tender memory of her
overcame me and I wept."
The sensitive, over-nervous child, left thus solitary, away from all his
kindred, must have brought back with him to Mecca confused but vivid
impressions of the long journey and of the catastrophe which lay at the
end of it. The uncertainty of his future, and the joys of gaining at
last a foster-father in Abd al Muttalib, finds reflection in the Kuran
in one little burst of praise to God: "Did He not find thee an orphan,
and furnish thee with a refuge?"
Life for two years as the foster-child of Abd al Muttalib, the venerable,
much honoured chief of the house of Hashim, passed very pleasantly for
Mahomet. He was the darling of his grandfather's last years of life; for,
perhaps having pity on his defencelessness, perhaps divining with that
prescience which often marks old age, something of the revelation this
child was to be to his countrymen, he protected him from the harshness of
his uncles. A rug used to be placed in the shadow of the Kaaba, and there
the aged ruler rested during the heat of the day, and his sons sat around
him at respectful distance, listening to his words. But the child
Mahomet, who loved his grandfather, ran fearlessly up, and would have
seated himself by Abd al Muttalib's side. Then the sons sought to
punish him for his lack of reverence, but their father prevented them:
"Leave the child in peace. By the God of my fathers, I swear he will one
day be a mighty prophet."
So Mahomet remained in close attendance upon the old man, until he died
in the eighth year after the Year of the Elephant, and there was mourning
for him in the houses of his sons.
When Abd al Muttalib knew his end was near he sent for his daughters, and
bade them make lamentation over him. We possess traditional accounts of
these funeral songs; they are representative of the wild rhetorical
eloquence of the poetry of the day. They lose immensely in translation,
and even in reading with the eye instead of hearing, for they were never
meant to find immortality in the written words, but in the speech of men.
"When in the night season a voice of loud lament proclaimed the sorrowful
tidings I wept, so that the tears ran down my face like pearls. I wept
for a noble man, greater than all others, for Sheibar, the generous,
endowed with virtues; for my beloved father, the inheritor of all good
things, for the man faithful in his own house, who never shrank from
combat, who stood fast and needed not a prop, mighty, well-favoured,
rich in gifts. If a man could live for ever by reason of his noble
nature--but to none is this lot vouchsafed--he would remain untouched of
death because of his fair fame and his good deeds."
The songs furnish ample evidence as to the high position which Abd al
Muttalib held among the Kureisch. His death was a great loss to his
nation, but it was a greater calamity to his little foster-child, for it
brought him from ease and riches to comparative poverty and obscurity
with his uncle, Abu Talib. None of Abd al Muttalib's sons inherited the
nature of their father, and with his death the greatness of the house of
Hashim diminished, until it gave place to the Omeyya branch, with Harb at
its head. The offices at Mecca were seized by the Omeyya, and to the
descendants of Abd al Muttalib there remained but the privilege of caring
for the well Zemzem, and of giving its water for the refreshment of
pilgrims. Only two of his sons, except Abu Talib, who earns renown
chiefly as the guardian of Mahomet, attain anything like prominence.
Hamza was converted at the beginning of Mahomet's mission, and continued
his helper and warrior until he died in battle for Islam; Abu Lahab (the
flame) opposed Mahomet's teaching with a vehemence that earned him one of
the fiercest denunciations in the early, passionate Suras of the
"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."
Mahomet, bereft a second time of one he loved and on whom he depended,
passed into the care of his uncle, Abu Talib. This was a man of no great
force of character, well-disposed and kindly, but of straitened means,
and lacking in the qualities that secure success. Later, he seems to have
attained a more important position, mainly, one would imagine, through
the lion courage and unfaltering faith in the Prophet of his son, the
mighty warrior Ali, of whom it is written, "Mahomet is the City of
Knowledge, and Ali is the Gate thereof." But although Abu Talib was
sufficiently strong to withstand the popular fury of the Kureisch against
Mahomet, and to protect him for a time on the grounds of kinship, he
never finally decided upon which side he would take his stand. Had he
been a far-seeing, imaginative man, able to calculate even a little the
force that had entered into Arabian polity, the history of the foundation
of Islam would have been continued, with Mecca as its base, and have
probably resolved itself into the war of two factions within the city,
wherein the new faith, being bound to the more powerful political party,
would have had a speedier conquest.
With Abu Talib Mahomet spent the rest of his childhood and youth--quiet
years, except for a journey to Syria, and his insignificant part in the
war against the Hawazin, a desert tribe that engaged the Kureisch for
some time. In Abu Talib's house there was none of the ease that had
surrounded him with Abd al Muttalib. But Mahomet was naturally an
affectionate child, and was equally attached to his uncle as he had been
to his grandfather.
Two years later Abu Talib set out on a mercantile journey, and was minded
to leave his small foster-child behind him, but Mahomet came to him
as he sat on his camel equipped for his journey, and clinging to him
passionately implored his uncle not to go without him. Abu Talib could
not resist his pleading, and so Mahomet accompanied him on that magical
journey through the desert, so glorious yet awesome to an imaginative
child, Bostra was the principal city of exchange for merchandise
circulating between Yemen, Northern Arabia, and the cities of Upper
Palestine, and Mahomet must thus have travelled on the caravan route
through the heart of Syria, past Jerash, Ammon, and the site of the
fated Cities of the Plain. In Syria, too, he first encountered the
Christian faith, and planted those remembrances that were to be revived
and strengthened upon his second journey through that wonderful land--in
religion, and in a lesser degree in polity, a law unto itself, forging
out its own history apart from the main stream of Christian life and
Legends concerning this journey are rife, and all emphasise the influence
Christianity had upon his mind, and also the ready recognition of his
coming greatness by all those Christians who saw him. On the homeward
journey the monk Bahirah is fabled to have met the party and to have
bidden them to a feast. When he saw the child was not among them he was
wroth, and commanded his guests to bring "every man of the company." He
interrogated Mahomet and Abu Talib concerning the parentage of the boy,
and we have here the first traditional record of Mahomet's speech.
"Ask what thou wilt," he said to Bahirah, "and I will make answer."
So Bahirah questioned him as to the signs that had been vouchsafed him,
and looking between his shoulders found the seal of the prophetic office,
a mole covered with hair. Then Bahirah knew this was he who was foretold,
and counselled Abu Talib to take him to his native land, and to beware
[39] of the Jews, for he would one day attain high honour. At this time
Mahomet was little more than a child, but although few thoughts of God or
of human destiny can have crossed his mind, he retained a vivid
impression of the storied places through which he passed--Jerash, Ammon,
the valley of Hejr, and saw in imagination the mighty stream of the
Tigris, the ruinous cities, and Palmyra with its golden pillars fronting
the sun. The tribes which the caravan encountered were rich in legend and
myth, and their influence, together with the more subtle spell of the
desert vastness, wrought in him that fervour of spirit, a leaping,
troubled flame, which found mortal expression in the poetry of the early
part of the Kuran, where the vision of God's majesty compels the gazer
into speech that sweeps from his mind in a stream of fire:
"By the Sun and his noonday brightness,
By the Moon when she followeth him,
By Day when it revealeth his glory,
By the night when it enshroudeth him,
By the Heaven and Him who built it,
By the Earth and Him who spread it forth,
By the Soul and Him who balanced it,
Breathed into its good, yea, and its evil--
Verily man's lot is cast amid destruction
Save those who believe and deal justly,
And enjoin upon each other steadfastness and truth."



"God hath treasuries beneath the throne, the keys whereof are the tongues
of poets."--MAHOMET.
The Arabian calendar has always been in a distinctive manner subject to
the religion of the people. Before Mahomet imposed his faith upon Mecca,
there were four sacred months following each other, in which no war might
be waged. For four months, therefore, the tumultuous Arab spirit was
restrained from that most precious to it; pilgrimages to holy places were
undertaken, and there was a little leisure for the cultivation of art and
The Greater Pilgrimage to Mecca, comprising the sevenfold circuit of the
Kaaba and the kissing of the sacred Black Stone, and culminating in a
procession to the holy places of Mina and Arafat, could only be
undertaken in Dzul-Higg, corresponding in the time of Mahomet to our
March. The month preceding, Dzul-Cada, was occupied in a kind of
preparation and rejoicing, which took the form of a fair at Ocatz, three
days' journey east of Mecca, when representatives of all the surrounding
nations used to assemble to exchange merchandise, to take part in the
games, to listen to the contests in poetry and rhetoric, and sometimes to
be roused into sinister excitement at the proximity of so many tribes
differing from them in nationality, and often in their religion and moral
Into this vast concourse came Mahomet, a lad of fifteen, eager to see,
hear, and know. He was present at the poetic contests, and caught from
the protagonists a reflection of their vivid, fitful eloquence, with its
ceaseless undercurrent of monotony.
Romance, in so far as it represents the love of the strange, is a product
of the West. There is a rigidity in the Eastern mind that does not allow
of much change or seeking after new things. Wild and beautiful as this
poetry of Arabia is, its themes and their manner of treatment seldom
vary; as the desert is changeless in contour, filled with a brilliant
sameness, whirling at times into sombre fury and as suddenly subsiding,
so is the literature which it fostered. The monotony is expressed in a
reiteration of subject, barbarous to the intellect of the West; endurance
is born of that monotony, and strength, and the acquiescence in things as
they are, but not the discovery and development of ideas. Arabia does not
flash forth a new presentment of beauty, following the vivid apprehension
of some lovely form, but broods over it in a kind of slumbering
enthusiasm that mounts at last into a glory of metaphor, drowning the
subject in intensest light. The rival poets assembled to discover who
could turn the deftest phrases in satire of the opposing tribe, or extol
most eloquently the bravery and skill of his own people, the beauty and
modesty of their women, and from these wild outpourings Mahomet learnt to
clothe his thoughts in that splendid garment whose jewels illumine the
earlier part of the Kuran.
Perhaps more important than the poetical contests was the religious
aspect of the fair at Ocatz. Here were gathered Jew, Christian, and
Arabian worshipper of many gods, in a vast hostile confusion. Mahomet was
familiar with Jewish cosmogony from his knowledge of their faith within
his own land, and he had heard dimly of the Christian principles during
his Syrian journey. But here, though both Jews and Christians claimed to
be worshippers of a single God, and although the Jews took for their
protector Abraham, the mighty founder of Mahomet's own city, yet there
was nothing between all the sects but fruitless strife. He saw the Jews
looking disdainfully upon the Christian dogs, and the Christians firmly
convinced that an irrevocable doom would shortly descend upon every Jew.
Both united in condemning to eternal wrath the idol-worshippers of the
Kaaba. It was a fiercely outspoken, remorseless enmity that he saw around
him, and the impotence born of distrust he saw also.
It is not possible that any hint of his future mission enlightened him as
to the part he was to play in eliminating this conflict, but may it not
be that there was sown in his mind a seed of thought concerning the
uselessness of all this strife of religions, and the limitless power that
might accrue to his nation if it could but be persuaded to become united
in allegiance to the one true God? For even at that early stage Mahomet,
with the examples of Judaism and Christianity before him, must have
rejected, even if unthinkingly, the polytheistic idea.
The poetic and warlike contests partook of the fiery earnestness
characteristic of the combatants, and it was seldom that the fair at
Ocatz passed by without some hostile demonstration. The greatest rivals
were the Kureisch and the Hawazin, a tribe dwelling between Mecca and
The Hawazin were tumultuous and unruly, and the Kureisch ever ready to
rouse their hostility by numerous small slights and taunts. We read
traditionally of an insult by some Kureisch youths towards a girl of the
Hawazin; this incident was closed peaceably, but some years later the
Kureisch (always the aggressive party because of their stronghold in
Mecca) committed an outrage that could not be passed over. As the fair
progressed, news came of the murder of a Hawazin, chief of a caravan, and
the seizure of his treasure by an ally of the Kureisch. That tribe,
knowing themselves at a disadvantage and fearing vengeance, fled back to
Mecca. The Hawazin pursued them remorselessly to the borders of the
sacred precincts, beyond which it was sacrilegious to wage war. Some
traditions say they followed their foe undaunted by fear of divine wrath,
and thus incurred a double disgrace of having fought in the sacred month
and within the sacred territory. But their pursuit cannot have lasted
long, because we find them challenging the Kureisch to battle at the same
time the next year. All Mahomet's uncles took part in the Sacrilegious
War that followed, and stirring times continued for Mahomet until a truce
was made after four years. He attended his uncles in warfare, and we hear
of his collecting the enemy's arrows that fell harmlessly into their
lines, in order to reinforce the Kureisch ammunition.
A vivid picture by the hand of tradition is this period in Mahomet's
life, for he was between eighteen and nineteen, just at the age when
fighting would appeal to his wild, yet determined nature. He must have
learned resource and some of the stratagem of war from this attendance
upon warriors, if he did not become filled with much physical daring,
never one of his characteristics, nor, indeed, of any man of his nervous
temperament, and his imagination was certainly kindled by the spectacle
of the horrors and triumphs of strife. Several battles were fought with
varying success, until at the end of about five years' fighting both
sides were weary and a truce was called. It was found that twenty more
Hawazin had been killed than Kureisch, and according to the simple yet
equitable custom of the time, a like number of hostages was given to the
Hawazin that there might not be blood feud between them.
The Kureisch passed as suddenly into peace as they had plunged into
strife. After the Sacrilegious War, a period of prosperity began for the
city of Mecca. It was wealthy enough to support its population, and trade
flourished with the marts of Bostra, Damascus, and Northern Syria. Its
political condition had never been very stable, and it seems to have
preserved during the Omeyyad ascendancy the same loose but roughly
effective organisation that it possessed under the Hashim branch. The
intellect that could see the potentialities of such a polity, once it
could be knit together by some common bond, had not arisen; but the scene
was prepared for his coming, and we have to think of the Mecca of that
time as offering untold suggestions for its religious, and later for its
political, salvation to a mind anxious to produce, but uncertain as yet
of its medium.
Mahomet returned with Abu Talib, and passed with him into obscurity of a
poverty not too burdensome, and to a quiet, somewhat reflective
household. He lived under the spell of that tranquillity until he was
twenty-five, and of this time there is not much notice in the traditions,
but its contemplation is revealed to us in the earlier chapters of the
Kuran. At one time Mahomet acted as shepherd upon the Meccan hills--low,
rocky ranges covered with a dull scrub, and open to the limitless vaults
of sky. Here, whether under sun or stars, he learned that love and awe of
Nature that throbs through the early chapters of the Kuran like a deep
organ note of praise, dominated almost always with fear.
"Consider the Heaven--with His Hand has He built it up, and given it its
vastness--and the Earth has He stretched out like a carpet, smoothly has
He spread it forth! Verily, God is the sole sustainer, possessed of
might, the unshaken! Fly then to God."
Indeed, a haunting terror broods over all those souls who know the
desert, and this fear translated into action becomes fierce and terrible
deeds, and into the world of the spirit, angry dogmatic commands. It is
the result of the knowledge that to those who stray from the well-known
desert track comes death; equally certain is the destruction of the soul
for those who transgress against the law of the Ruler of the earth. The
God of the early Kuran is the spiritual representative of the forces
surrounding Mahomet, whether of Nature or government. The country around
Mecca conveys one central thought to one who meditates--the sense of
power, not the might of one kindly and familiar, but the unapproachable
sovereignty of one alien and remote, a dweller in far-off places, who
nevertheless fills the earth with his dominion. Mahomet passing by, as he
did, the gaieties and temptations of youth, had his mind alert for the
influences of this Nature, full of awful power, and for the contemplation
of life and the Universe around him.
In common with many enthusiasts and men of action, certain sides of his
nature, especially the sexual and the practical, awoke late, and were
preceded by a reflective period wherein the poet held full sway. He never
desired the companionship of those of his own age and their rather
debased pleasures. There are legends of his being miraculously preserved
from the corruption of the youthful vices of Mecca, but the more probable
reason for his shunning them is that they made no appeal to his desires.
Some minds and tastes unfold by imperceptible degrees--flowers that
attain fruition by the shedding of their earlier petals. Mahomet was of
this nature. At this time the poet was paramount in his mental activities
He loved silence and solitude, so that he might use those imaginative and
contemplative gifts of which he felt himself to possess so large a share.
It is not possible at this distance of time to attempt to estimate the
importance of this period in Mahomet's mental development. There are not
sufficient data to enable history to fill in any detailed sketch, but the
outlines may be safely indicated by the help of his later life and the
testimony of that commentary upon his feelings and actions, the Kuran.
His nature now seems to be in a pause of expectation, whose vain urgency
lasted until he became convinced of his prophetic mission. He must have
been at this time the seeker, whose youth, if not his very eagerness,
prevented his attaining what he sought. He was earnest and sincere, grave
beyond his years, and so gained from his fellows the respect always meted
out, in an essentially religion-loving community, to any who give promise
of future "inspiration," before its actuality has rendered him too
uncomfortable a citizen. He received from his comrades the title of
Al-Amin (the Faithful), and continued his life apart from his kind,
performing his duties well, but still remaining aloof from others as
one not of their world. From his sojourn in the mountains came the
inspiration that created the poetry of the Kuran and the reflective
interest in what he knew of his world and its religion; both embryos, but
especially the latter, germinated in his mind until they emerged into
full consciousness and became his fire of religious conviction, and his
zeal for the foundation and glory of Islam.



"Women are the twin-halves of men."--MAHOMET.
Abu Talib's straitened circumstances never prevented him from treating
his foster-child with all the affection of which his kindly but somewhat
weak character was capable. But the cares of a growing family soon became
too much for his means, and when Mahomet was about twenty-five his uncle
suggested that he should embark upon a mercantile journey for some rich
trader in Mecca. We can imagine Mahomet, immersed in his solitudes,
responding reluctantly to a call that could not be evaded. He was not by
nature a trader, and the proposal was repugnant to him, except for his
desire to help his uncle, and more than this, his curiosity to revisit at
a more assimilative age the lands that he remembered dimly from childhood.
Khadijah, a beautiful widow, daughter of an honoured house and the cousin
of Mahomet, rich and much sought after by the Kureisch, desired someone
to accompany her trading venture to Bostra, and hearing of the wisdom and
faithfulness of Mahomet, sent for him, asking if he would travel for her
into Syria and pursue her bargains in that northern city. She was willing
to reward him far more generously than most merchants. Mahomet, anxious
to requite his uncle in some way, and with his young imagination kindled
at the prospect of new scenes and ideas, prepared eagerly for the
journey. With one other man-servant, Meisara, he set out with the
merchandise to Bostra, traversing as a young man the same desert path he
had journeyed along in boyhood.
He was of an age to appreciate all that this experience could teach, in
the regions both of Nature and religion. The lonely desert only increased
his pervading sense of the mystery lying beyond his immediate knowledge,
and its vastness confirmed his vague belief in some kind of a power who
alone controlled so mighty a creation as the abounding spaces around him,
and the "star-bespangled" heaven above. On this journey, too, he first
saw with conscious eyes the desert storms in all the splendour and terror
of their fury, and caught the significance of those sudden squalls that
urge the waters of the upper Syrian lakes into a tumult of destruction.
Frequent allusions to sea and lake storms are to be found in the earlier
part of the Kuran: "When the seas shall be commingled, when the seas
shall boil, then shall man tremble before his creator." "By the swollen
sea, verily a chastisement from thy Lord is imminent." In every natural
manifestation that struck Mahomet's imagination in these early days, God
appeared to him as the sovereign of power, as terrible and as remote as
He was in the lightnings on Sinai. What wonder, then, that when the call
came to him to take up his mission it became a command to "arise and
The chroniclers would have us believe that his contact with Christianity
was more important than his communion with Nature. Most of the legends
surrounding his relations with Christian Syria may be safely accepted as
later additions, but it is certain that he paid some attention to the
religion of those people through whose country he passed. A Syrian monk
is said to have seen Mahomet sitting beneath a tree, and to have hailed
him as a prophet; there is even a traditional account of an interview
with Nestorius, but this must be set aside at once as pure fiction.
The kernel of these legends seems to be the desire to show that Mahomet
had studied Christianity, and was not imposing a new religion without
having considered the potentialities of those already existing. However
that may be, Christianity certainly interested Mahomet, and must have
influenced him towards the monotheistic idea. The Arabians themselves
were not entirely ignorant of it; they witnessed the worship of one God
by the Jews and Christians on the borders of their territory, and
although it is a very debatable point how far the idea of one God had
progressed in Arabia when Mahomet began his mission, it may fairly be
accepted that dissatisfaction with the old tribal gods was not wanting.
Mahomet saw the countries through which he passed in a state of religious
flux, and heard around him diverse creeds, detecting doubtless an
undercurrent of unrest and a desire for some religion of more compelling
With the single slave he reached Bostra in safety with the merchandise,
and having concluded his barter very successfully, and retaining in his
mind many impressions of that crowded city, returned to Mecca by the same
desert route. Meisara, the slave, relates (in what is doubtless a later
addition) of the fierce noonday heat that beset the travellers, and how,
when Mahomet was almost exhausted, two angels sat on his camel and
protected him with their wings. When they reached Mecca, Khadijah sold
the merchandise and found her wealth doubled, so careful had Mahomet been
to ensure the prosperity of his client, and before long love grew up in
her heart for this tall, grave youth, who was faithful in small things as
well as in great.
Khadijah had been much sought after by the men of Mecca, both for her
riches and for her beauty, but she had preferred to remain independent,
and continued her orderly life among her maidens, attending to her
household, and finding enough occupation in the supervision of her many
mercantile ventures. She was about forty, fair of countenance, and gifted
with a rich nature, whose leading qualities were affection and sympathy.
She seems to have been pre-eminently one of those receptive women who are
good to consult for the clarification of ideas. Her intelligence was
quick to grasp another's thought, if she did not originate thought within
herself. She was a woman fitted to be the helper and guide of such a man
as Mahomet, eager, impulsive, prone to swiftly alternating extremes of
depression and elation. A subtle mental attraction drew them together,
and Khadijah divined intuitively the power lying within the mind of this
youth and also his need of her, both mentally and materially, to enable
him to realise his whole self. Therefore as she was the first to awaken
to her desire for him, the first advances come from her.
She sent her sister to Mahomet to induce him to change his mind upon the
subject of marriage, and when he found that the rich and gracious
Khadijah offered him her hand, he could not believe his good fortune, and
assured the sister that he was eager to make her his wife. The alliance,
in spite of its personal suitability, was far from being advantageous to
Khadijah from a worldly point of view, and the traditions of how her
father's consent was obtained have all the savour of contemporary
The father was bidden to a feast, and there plied right royally with
wine. When his reason returned he asked the meaning of the great spread
of viands, the canopy, and the chapleted heads of the guests. Thereupon
he was told it was the marriage-feast of Mahomet and Khadijah, and his
wrath and amazement were great, for had he not by his presence given
sanction to the nuptials? The incident throws some light upon the
marriage laws current at the time. Khadijah, though forty and a widow,
was still under the guardianship of her father, having passed to him
after the death of her husband, and his consent was needed before she
married again.
The marriage contracted by mutual desire was followed by a time of leisure
and happiness, which Mahomet remembered all his life. Never did any man
feel his marriage gift (in Mahomet's case twenty young camels) more fitly
given than the youth whom Khudijah rescued from poverty, and to whom she
gave the boon of her companionship and counsel. The marriage was fruitful;
two sons were born, the eldest Kasim, wherefore Mahomet received the title
of Abu-el-Kasim, the father of Kasim, but both these died in infancy.
There were also four daughters born to Mahomet--Zeineb, Rockeya, Umm
Kolthum, and Fatima. These were important later on for the marriages they
contracted with Mahomet's supporters, and indeed his whole position was
considerably solidified by the alliances between his daughters and his
chief adherents.
Ten years passed thus in prosperity and study. Mahomet was no longer
obscure but the chief of a wealthy house, revered for his piety, and
looked upon already as one of those "to whom God whispers in the ear."
His character now exhibited more than ever the marks of the poet and
seer; the time was at hand when all the subdued enthusiasm of his mind
was to break forth in the opening Suras of the Kuran. The inspiration had
not yet descended upon him, but it was imminent, and the shadow of its
stern requirements was about him as he attended to his work of
supervising Khadijah's wealth or took part in the religious life of
In A.D. 605, when Mahomet was thirty-five years old, the chief men of
Mecca decided to rebuild the Kaaba. The story of its rebuilding is
perhaps the most interesting of the many strange, naive tales of this
adventurous city. Valley floods had shattered the house of the gods. It
was roofless, and so insecure that its treasury had already been rifled
by blasphemous men. It stood only as high as the stature of a man, and
was made simply of stones laid one above the other. Rebuilding was
absolutely necessary, but materials were needed before the work could
begin, and this delayed the Kureisch until chance provided them with
means of accomplishing their design. A Grecian ship had been driven in a
Red Sea storm upon the coast near Mecca and was rapidly being broken up.
When the Kureisch heard of it, they set out in a body to the seashore and
took away the wood of the ship to build a roof for the Kaaba. It is a
significant fact that tradition puts a Greek carpenter in Mecca who was
able to advise them as to the construction. The Meccans themselves were
not sufficiently skilled in the art of building.
But now a great difficulty awaited them. Who was to undertake the
responsibility of demolishing so holy a place, even if it were only that
it might be rebuilt more fittingly? Many legends cluster round the
demolition. It would seem that the gods only understood gradually that a
complete destruction of the Kaaba was not intended. Their opposition was
at first implacable. The loosened stones flew back into their places, and
finally none could be induced to make the attempt to pull down the Kaaba.
There was a pause in the work, during which no one dared venture near the
temple, then Al-Welid, being a bold and god-fearing spirit, took an axe,
and crying:
"I will make a beginning, let no evil ensue, O Lord!" he began to
dislodge the stones.
Then the rest of the Kureisch rather cravenly waited until the next day,
but seeing that no calamity had befallen Al-Welid, they were ready to
continue the work. The rebuilding prospered until they came to a point
where the Black Stone must be embedded in the eastern wall.
At this juncture a vehement dispute arose among the Kureisch as to who
was to have the honour of depositing the Black Stone in its place. They
wrangled for days, and finally decided to appeal to Mahomet, who had a
reputation for wisdom and resource. Mahomet, after carefully considering
the question, ordered a large cloth to be brought, and commanded the
representatives of the four chief Meccan houses to hold each a corner.
Then he deposited the Black Stone in the centre of it, and in this
manner, with the help of every party in the quarrel, the sacred object
was raised to the proper height. When this was done Mahomet conducted the
Black Stone to its niche in the wall with his own hand.
The building of the Kaaba was ultimately completed, and a great
festival was held in honour. Many hymns of praise were sung at the
accomplishment of so difficult and important a work. The Kaaba has
remained substantially the same as it was when it was first rebuilt. It
is a small place of no architectural pretensions, merely a square with no
windows, and a tiny door raised from the ground, by which the Faithful,
duly prepared, are allowed to enter upon rare occasions. The sacred Black
Stone lies embedded about three feet from the ground in the eastern wall,
at first a dark greenish stone of volcanic or aerolitic origin, now worn
black and polished by thousands of kisses. There is little in the Kaaba
to account for the reverence bestowed upon it, and its insignificance
bears witness to the Eastern capacity for worshipping the idea for which
its symbols stand. This was the sacred temple of Abraham and Ishmael,
therefore its exterior mattered little.
Mahomet's share in the construction of the Kaaba brought him further
honour among the Kureisch. From this time until the beginning of his
mission he lived a quiet, easeful domestic life, interrupted only by
mental storms and depressions. He found leisure to meditate and observe,
and of this necessarily uneventful time there is little or no mention in
the histories. He certainly gained an opportunity of examining somewhat
closely the tenets of Christianity by the entrance into his household of
Zeid, a Christian slave, cultured and well-informed as to the doctrines
of his religion, and his presence doubtless influenced Mahomet in the
spiritual battles he encountered at a time when as yet he was certain
neither of God nor himself. Besides Zeid another important personage
entered Mahomet's household, Ali, son of Abu Talib, and future convert
and pride of Islam, "the lion of the Faith." The adoption of Ali was
Mahomet's small recompense to Abu Talib for his care of him, and the
advantages there from to Islam were inestimable. Ali was no statesman,
but he was an indomitable fighter, with whose aid Mahomet founded his
religion of the sword.
In such quiet manner Mahomet passed the years immediately preceding the
discovery of his mission, and as religious doubts and fears alternated in
him with fervour and hopefulness, so signs were not wanting of a spirit
of inquiry found abroad in Arabia, discontented with the old religions,
seeking for a clearer enthusiasm and withheld from its goal. Legends
gather round the figures of four inquirers who are reputed to have come
to Mahomet for enlightenment, and the story is but the primitive device
of rendering concrete and material all those vague stirrings of the
communal spirit towards a more convincing conception of the world--
legends that embody ideas in personalities, mainly because their language
has no words for the expression of the abstract, and also that, clothed
in living garments, they may capture the hearts of men. The time for the
coming of a prophet and a teacher could not be long delayed, and a
foreboding of his imperious destiny, dark with war and aflame with God's
judgment, had already begun to steal across Mahomet's hesitant soul.



"Recite thou in the name of thy Lord who created,

Yan, who hath made man from Clots of Blood,
Recite thou, for thy Lord, he is most bounteous."
_The Kuran_.
The mental growth by which Mahomet attained the capacity of Prophet and
ruler will always have spread about it a misty veil, wherein strange
shapes and awful visions are dimly discerned. Did his soul face the
blankness that baffles and entices the human spirit with any convictions,
the gradual products of thought and experience, or was it with an
unmeaning chaos within him that he stumbled into faith and evolved his
own creed? His knowledge of Christianity and Judaism undoubtedly helped
to foster in him his central idea of the indivisibility of God. But how
was this faith wrought out into his conception of himself as the Prophet
of his people?
It is impossible for any decision to be made as to the mainspring of his
beliefs, except in the light of his character and development of mind. He
was passionate and yet practical, holding within himself the elements of
seer and statesman, prophet and law-giver, as yet doubtful of the voice
which inspired him, but spurred on in his quest for the truth by an
intensity of spirit that carried him forward resistlessly as soon as
conviction came to him. The man who imposed his dauntless determination
upon a whole people, who founded a system of religious and social laws,
who moved armies to fight primarily for an idea, could not lightly gain
is right to exhort and control. His nature is almost cataclysmic, and
once filled with the fire of the Lord, he bursts forth among his
fellow-men "with the right hand striking," to use his own vivid metaphor,
but before this evidence of power has come an agonising period of doubt.
We read of his exhaustion after the inspiration comes, and of "the
terrific Suras" that took their toll of his vitality afterwards. The
concurrence of the supernatural; he sees material visions and dreams
and the divine injunctions must be translated into mental enthusiasms
before the true evolution of Mahomet's mind can be dimly conceived.
somewhat ironically, considering its natural barrenness, Jebel Nur, the
suffers more intensely through its imaginative foresight than in actual
rousing the enfolded not to meditation but to instant action.
Through all the legendary accounts there beats that excitement that tells
"I cannot read."
Again came the answer, "I cannot read," and again the angel covered him,
still repeating, "Read!"
"Recite thou in the name of thy Lord who created thee," and when he awoke
Mahomet went immediately up into the mountain, and there Gabriel appeared
to him waking and said:
"Thou art God's Prophet, and I am Gabriel."
The archangel vanished, but Mahomet remained rooted to the spot, until
Khadijah's messengers found him and brought him to her. The simple story
of Mahomet's call to the prophetic office from the lips of the old
chroniclers is peculiarly fragrant, but it leaves us in considerable
doubt as to the real means by which he attained his faith and was
emboldened to preach to his people. It is certain that he had no idea at
the time when he received his inspiration, of the ultimate political role
in store for him. He was now simply the man who warned the people of
their sins, and who insisted upon the sovereignty of one God. Very little
argument is ever used by Mahomet to spread his faith. He spoke a plain
message, and those who disregarded it were infallibly doomed. He saw
himself in the forefront as the man who knew God, and strove to win his
countrymen to right ways of life; he did not see himself at the head of
earthly armies, controlling the nucleus of a mighty and united Arabia,
and until his flight from Mecca to Medina he regarded himself merely as a
religious teacher, the political side of his mission growing out of the
exigencies of circumstance, almost without his own volition.
His exaltation upon the mountain of light soon faded into uncertainty and
fearfulness before the influence of the world's harsh wisdom. Mahomet
entered upon a period of hesitation and dreariness, doubtful of himself,
of his vision, and of the divine favour. His soul voyaged on dark and
troubled seas and gazed into abysmal spaces. At one time he would receive
the light of the seven Heavens within his mind, and feel upon him the
fervour of the Hebrew prophets of old, and again he would call in vain
upon God, and, and seeking, would be flung back upon a darkness of doubt
more terrible than the lightnings of divine wrath.
In all those exaltations and glooms Khadijah had part; she comforted his
distress and shared his elation until the sorrowful period of the
Fattrah, the pause in the revelation, was past. The period is variously
estimated by the chroniclers, and there are many nebulous and spurious
legends attaching to it, but whatever its length it seems certain that
Mahomet gained within it a fuller knowledge of Jewish and Christian
tenets, probably through Zeid, the Christian slave in his household, and
most accounts agree that the Fattrah was ended by the revelation of the
sura entitled "The Enwrapped," the mandate of the angel Gabriel:
"O thou enwrapped in thy mantle,
Arise and warn!"
The explanation of the term "enwrapped in thy mantle" shows the
prevailing belief in good and evil spirits characteristic of Mahomet's
time. Wandering on the mountain, he saw in a vision the angel Gabriel
seated on a throne between heaven and earth, and afraid before so much
glory, ran to Khadijah, beseeching her to cover him with his mantle that
the evil spirits whom he felt so near him might be avoided. Thereupon
Gabriel came down to earth and revealed the Sura of Admonition. This
supernatural command would appear to be the translation into the
imaginative world of the peace of mind that descended upon Mahomet, and
the conviction as to the reality of his inspiration following on a time
of despair.
The command fell to one who was peculiarly fitted by nature and
circumstance to obey it effectively. To Mahomet, who knew somewhat the
chaos of religions around him--Pagan, Jewish, and Christian struggling
together in unholy strife--the conception of God's unity, once it
attained the strength of a conviction, necessarily resolved itself into
an admonitory mission. "There is no God but God," therefore all who
believe otherwise have incurred His wrath; hasten then to warn men of
their sins. So his conviction passed out of the region of thought into
action and received upon it the stamp of time and place, becoming thereby
inevitably more circumscribed and intense.
From now onwards the course of Mahomet's life is rendered indisputably
plainer by our possession of that famous and much-maligned document, the
Kuran, virtually a record of his inspired sayings as remembered and
written down by his immediate successors. Apart from its intrinsic value
as the universally recognised vehicle of the Islamic creed, it is of
immense importance as a commentary upon Mahomet's career. When allowance
has been made for its numberless contradictions and repetitions, it still
remains the best means of tracing Mahomet's mental development, as well
as the course of his religious and political dominance. Although the
original document was compiled regardless of chronology, expert
scholarship has succeeded in determining the order of most of it
contents, and if we cannot say the precise sequence of every sura, at
least we can classify each as belonging to one of the two great periods,
the Meccan and Medinan, and may even distinguish with comparative
accuracy three divisions within the former.
After Mahomet's mandate to preach and warn his fellow-men of their peril,
the suras continue intermittently throughout his life. Those of the first
period, when his mission was hardly accepted outside his family, bear
upon them the stamp of a fiery nature, obsessed with its one idea; but
behind the wild words lies a store of energy as yet undiscovered, which
will find no fulfilment but in action. That zeal for an idea which caused
the Kuran to be, expressed itself at first in words alone, but later was
translated into political action, and it is the emptying of this vitality
from his words into his works that is responsible for the contrasting
prose of the later suras.
But no lack of poetic fire is discernible in the suras immediately
following his call to the prophetic office, and from them much may be
gathered as to the depth and intensity of his faith. They are almost
strident with feeling; his sentences fall like blows upon an anvil, crude
in their emphasis, and so swiftly uttered forth from the flame of his
zeal, that they glow with reflected glory:
"Say, he is God alone,
God the Eternal,
He begetteth not and is not begotten,
There is none like to Him."
"Verily, we have caused It (the Kuran) to descend on the night of
And who shall teach thee what the Night of Power is?
The Night of Power excelleth a thousand months,
Therein descend the angels and the spirit by permission of the Lord."
"By the snorting Chargers,
By those that breathe forth sparks of fire
And those that rush to the attack at morn!
And stir therein the dust aloft,
Cleaving their midmost passage through a host!
Truly man is to his Lord ungrateful,
And of this is himself a witness;
And truly he is covetous in love of this world's good.
Ah, knoweth he not, that when what lies in the grave shall be bared
And that brought forth that is in men's breasts,
Verily in that day shall the Lord be made wise concerning them?"
After the first fire of prophetic zeal had illuminated him, Mahomet
devoted himself to the conversion of his own household and family.
Khadijah was the first convert, as might have been expected from the
close interdependence of their minds. She had become initiated into his
prophetship almost equally with her husband, and it was her courage and
firm trust in his inspiration that had sustained him during the terrible
period of negation. Zeid, the Christian slave who had helped to mould
Mahomet's thought by his knowledge of Christian doctrine, was his next
convert, but both of these were eclipsed by the devotion to Mahomet's
gospel of Ali, the future warrior, son of Abu Talib, and one destined to
play a foremost part in the foundation of Islam.
Mahomet's gospel then penetrated beyond the confines of his household
with the conversion of his friend Abu Bekr, a successful merchant living
in the same quarter of the town as the Prophet. Abu Bekr, whose honesty
gained him the title of Al-Siddick (the true), and Ali were by far the
most important of Mahomet's "companions." They helped to rule Islam
during Mahomet's lifetime, and after his death took successive charge of
its fortunes. Ali was too young at this time to manifest his qualities as
warrior and ruler, but Abu Bekr was of middle age, and his nature
remained substantially the same as at the inception of Islam. He was of
short stature, with deep-seated eyes and a thoughtful, somewhat undecided
mouth, by nature he was shrewd and intelligent, but possessed little of
that original genius necessary to statesmanship in troublous times. His
mild, sympathetic character endured him to his fellow-men, and his calm
reasonableness earned the gratitude of all who confided in him. He was
never ruled by impulse, and of the fire burning almost indestructibly
within Mahomet he knew nothing.
It is strange to consider what agency brought these two dissimilar souls
into such close relationship. For the rest of his life Mahomet found a
never-failing friend in Abu Bekr, and the attachment between the two,
apart from their common fount of zeal for Islam, must have been such as
is inspired by those of contrasting nature for each other. Mahomet saw a
kindly, almost commonplace man, in whose sweet sanity his troubled soul
could find a little peace. He was burdened at times with over-resolve
that ate into his mind like acid. In Abu Bekr he could find the soothing
influence he so often needed, and after the death of Khadijah this friend
might be said in a measure to take her place. Abu Bekr, on the other
hand, revered his leader as a man of finer, subtler stuff than himself,
more alive to the virtue of speed, filled with a greater daring and a
profounder impulse than he was. Mahomet, in common with most men meriting
the title of great, had a capacity for lifelong friendships as well as
the power of inspiring belief and devotion in others.
Through Abu Bekr five converts were gained for the new religion, of whom
Othman is the most important. His part in the establishment of the
Islamic dominion was no slight one, but at the present he remains simply
one of the early enthusiastic converts to Mahomet's evangel, while he
enwound himself into the fortunes of his teacher by marrying Rockeya, one
of Mahomet's daughters.
The conversion to Islam proceeded slowly but surely among the Kureisch;
several slaves were won over, but at the end of four years only forty
converts had been made, among whom, however, was Bilal, a slave, who
later became the first Muaddzin, or summoner to prayer. During these four
years the suras of the first Meccan period were revealed, and enough may
be gathered from them to judge both the limits of Mahomet's preaching and
the attitude towards it on the part of the Kureisch.
Mahomet was content at this time to emphasise in eloquent, almost
incoherent words his central theme--the unity of God. He calls upon the
people to believe, and warns them of their fate if they refuse. The suras
indicate the attitude of indifference borne by the Kureisch towards
Mahomet's mission at its inception. Wherever there are denunciatory
suras, they are either for the chastisement of unbelievers or, as in Sura
cxi, in revenge for the refusal of his relations to believe in his
inspiration. Prophecies of bliss in store for the Faithful are frequent,
and of the corresponding woe for Unbelievers. The whole is permeated with
the spirit of the poet and visionary, a poetry tumultuous but strong, a
vision lurid but inspiring.
The little band of converts under guidance of this fierce rhetoric became
united and strengthened in its faith, prepared to defend it, and to
spread it as far as possible throughout their kindred.
About three years after Mahomet's receipt of his mission, in A.D. 618, an
important change came over the attitude of the Kureisch towards Islam.
Hitherto they had jeered or remained indifferent. Mahomet's uncles, Abu
Talib and Abu Lahab, represented the two poles of Kureischite feeling.
Abu Talib remained untouched by the new faith, but his kindly nature did
not allow him to adopt any severe measures for its repression, and,
moreover, Mahomet was of his kindred, and he was willing to afford him
protection in case of need. Abu Lahab jeered openly, and manifested his
scorn by definite speeches. But as the bands of converts grew, the
Kureisch found it undesirable to maintain their indifferent attitude.
They began to persecute, first refusing to allow the Believers to meet,
and then seeking them out individually to endeavour to torture them into
From this time dates the creation of one of the foremost principles in
the creed of the Prophet. If a Believer is in danger of torture, he may
dissemble his faith to save himself from infamy and death. Though in
striking contrast to the Christian tenets, this exhortation was neither
cowardly nor imprudent. In his eyes reckless courting of death would not
avail the propagation of Islam, and though a man might die to some good
service on the battlefield, smiting his enemies, no wise end could be
served when his death would merely gratify the lust of his murderers.
The persecution continued in spite of Mahomet's attempts to withstand it,
until he was forced to go to Abu Talib for protection. This was accorded
willingly, on account of kindred ties, but there can have been little
cordiality between uncle and nephew on the subject, for Mahomet was more
than ever determined upon the maintenance and growth of his principles.
Still the conversions to Islam continued, and the persecution of its
adherents, until there came to the Kureisch a sharp intimation that this
new sect arisen in their midst was not an ephemeral affair of a few
weeks, but a prolonged endeavour to pursue the ideal of a single God. In
615 the first company of Muslim converts broke from the confined
religious area of Mecca and journeyed into Abyssinia, where they could
practice their faith in peace. This move convinced the Kureisch of the
sincerity of their opponents, for they were almost strong enough to merit
the name, and compelled them to believe a little in the force lying
behind this strange manifestation of religious zeal in their midst.
Mahomet does not at this time seem to have been definitely ranged against
the Kureisch. He was still on negotiable terms with them, and they were a
little distrustful of his capacity and ignorant of his power. The stages
by which he developed from a discredited citizen, obsessed by one idea,
into a political opponent worthy of their best steel and bravest men was
necessarily gradual, and indeed the Prophet himself had no knowledge of
the role marked out for him by his own personality and the destinies
of Arabia. The cause of Islam stood as yet in parlous condition,
half-formulated, unwieldy, awaiting the moulding hand of persecution to
develop it into a political and social system.


"Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third idol beside?
These are the exalted females, and truly their intercession is to be
expected."--_The Kuran_ (last two lines excised later by Mahomet).
The little band of converts, driven by the Kureisch to seek peace and
freedom in Abyssinia, remained for two years in their country of refuge,
but in 615 returned to Mecca for reasons which have never been fully
explained, though it is easy, in the light of future events, to discover
the motive behind such a move.
Mahomet was not yet convinced of the impossibility of compromise, neither
was the powerful party among the Kureisch utterly indifferent to
Mahomet's ancestry as a member of the house of Hashim, and his position
as the husband of Khadijah. He had been respected among men for his
uprightness before he affronted their prejudices by scorning their gods.
His power was daily becoming a source of strife and faction within the
city, and the Kureisch were not averse from attempting to come to terms.
Mahomet for his part, as far as the scanty evidence of history unfolds
his state of mind, seems to have been almost desperately anxious to
effect an understanding with the Kureisch. His cause still journeyed by
perilous ways, and at the time hopes of his future achievement were
apparently dependent upon the goodwill of the dominant Meccan party.
The story runs that the chief men of Mecca were discussing within the
Kaaba the affairs of the city. Mahomet came to them and recited Sura
liii--The Star--a fulgent psalm in praise of God and heavenly joys. When
he came to the verses:
"Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third beside," he inserted:
"Verily these are the exalted females, and truly their intercession may
be expected."
They Kureisch were rejoiced at this homage to their deities, and
speedily welcomed Mahomet's change of front; but he, disquieted,
returned moodily to his house, where Gabriel appeared to him in
stern rebuke:
"Thou hast repeated before the people words I never gave to thee."
And Mahomet, whether conscience-stricken by his lapse from the Muslim
faith, or convinced that compromise with the Kureisch was impossible and
also undesirable in face of his growing power, quickly repudiated the
whole affair, which had been unquestionably born of impulse, or possibly
an adventurous mood that prompted him "to see what would happen" if he
ministered to the prejudices of the Kureisch. It must be acknowledged,
however, that repentance for his homage to heathen idols was the
mainspring of his recantation, for the period immediately following was
one of hardship and persecution for him, and his transitory lapse injured
his cause appreciably with the brethren of his faith. The attempt was
honourably made, and only failed by Mahomet's swift realisation that his
acknowledgment of Lat and Ozza as spirits sanctioned the worship of their
images by his fellow-citizens, and this his stern monotheism could not
for a moment entertain.
The Muslim, with numbers that increased very slowly, were harried afresh
by the Kureisch as soon as Mahomet had withdrawn his concessions, and
most of them were forced at length to return to Abyssinia. His pathetic
little band, wandering from city to city, doubtful of ever attaining
security and uncertain of its ultimate destiny, was the prototype in its
vagrancy of that larger and confident band which cast aside its
traditions and the city of its birth, headed by a spirit heroic in
disaster and supreme in faith, to find its goal in the foundation of a
new order for Arabia. Chief among them were Othman and Rockeya, and these
were the only ones who returned to Mecca, for the rest remained in
Abyssinia until after the migration to Medina, in fact until after
Mahomet had carried out the expedition to Kheibar.
Left without any supporters within the city, Mahomet was exposed to all
the vituperations and insults which his recent refusal of compromise had
brought him. The Kureisch now directed all their energies towards
persuading Abu Talib to repudiate his nephew. If once this could be
effected, the Kureisch would have a free hand to pursue their desire to
exterminate the Muslim and to overthrow the Prophet's power. He was
immune from bodily attack, chiefly because of Abu Talib's position in the
city as nominal head of the house of Hashim. No Kureisch could run the
risk of alienating so great a number of fellow-citizens, and a personal
attack upon Abu Talib's nephew could but have that result.
Dark and stormy as the Muslim destiny appeared during this period of
transition from religious to political conceptions, nevertheless it was
now enriched by the conversion of two of the most influential characters
upon its later fortunes--Hamza and Omar. Many stories have been woven
round their discovery of the truth of Islam, and by reading between the
lines later commentators may discover the forces at work to induce
them to take this dubious step. It is beyond question that Mahomet's
personality was the moving factor in the conversion of each, for each
relates an incident which serves peculiarly to illustrate the Prophet's
Hamza, "the lion of God," and a son of Abd-al-Muttalib in his old age,
was accosted by a slave girl as he passed on his way through the city
She told him breathlessly that she had seen "the Lord Mahomet" insulted
and reviled by Abu Jahl, and being unprotected and alone, he could only
suffer in silence. Hamza listened to her story with indignation, and
determined to revenge the insult to his uncle and foster-brother, for by
the ties of kinship they were one. In the Kaaba he publicly declared his
allegiance to Islam, and revenged upon Abu Jahl the injuries he had
inflicted upon his kinsman. Hamza never repented of his championship of
Mahomet. The adventurous fortunes of Islam satisfied his warrior-spirit,
and under Mahomet's guidance he helped to control and direct its military
zeal, until it had perforce established its religion through the sword.
Mahomet's personal magnetism had drawn him irresistibly to the religion
he upheld so steadfastly, and in the face of revilement and danger.
Omar was Mahomet's bitterest enemy, and had proved his ability by his
persistent opposition to Islam. He was feared by all the company of
religionists that had taken up their precarious quarters near Mahomet. He
was visiting the house of his sister Fatima when he heard murmurs of
someone reciting. He inquired what it was, and learned with anger that it
was the Sacred Book of the abhorred Muslim sect. His sister and Zeid, her
husband, tremblingly confessed their adherence to Islam, and awaited in
terror the probable result. Omar was about to fall upon Zeid, but his
wife interposed and received the blow herself. At the sight of his
sister's blood Omar paused and then asked for the volume, so that he
might judge the message for himself, for he was a writer of no mean
standing. Fatima insisted that he should first perform ablutions, so that
his touch might not defile the Sacred Book.
Then Omar took it and read it, and the strength and beauty of it smote
him. He felt upon him the insistence of a divine command, and straightway
asked to be led before Mahomet that he might unburden his conviction to
him. He girt on his sword and came to the Prophet's house. As he rapped
upon the door a Companion of Mahomet's looked through the lattice, and at
the sight of Omar with buckled sword fled in despair to his master. But
Mahomet replied:

"Let him enter; if he bring good tidings we will reward him; if he bring
bad news, we will smite him, yea, with his own sword."
So the door was opened and Mahomet advanced, asking what was his mission.
Omar answered:
"O Prophet of God, I am come to confess that I believe in Allah and in
his Prophet."
"Allah Akbar!" (God is great) replied Mahomet gravely, and all the
household knew that Omar had become one of themselves.
The conversion of Omar was infinitely important to Islam, and the
adherence of this impetuous and dauntless mind was directly due to the
strength and steadfastness of Mahomet's faith in himself and his message.
Omar was an influential personage among the Kureisch, quick-tempered, but
keen as steel, and rejoicing in strife; he stands out among the many
warrior-souls to whom Islam gave the opportunity of tasting in its
fullness "the splendour of spears." Mahomet had indeed gathered around
him a group of men who were remarkable for their character and influence
upon Islam. Ali, the warrior par excellence, Abu Bekr, statesman and
counsellor, Othman the soldier, Hamza and Omar, are not merely blind
followers, but forceful personalities, contributing each in his own
manner towards those assets of endurance, leadership, and unshaken faith
which ensured the continuance of the Medinan colony and its ultimate
victory over the Kureisch.
Omar's conversion did not have the effect of softening the Kureischite
fury. On the contrary, the event seems to have stimulated them to
further persecution, as if they had some foreshadowings of their waning
power, and had determined with a desperate energy to quell for ever, if
it might be, this discord in their midst. Their next step was to try an
introduce the political element into this conflict of faiths by putting a
ban upon the house of Hashim and confining it to Abu Talib's quarter of
Sheb. This act, instigated mainly by Abu Jahl, who now becomes prominent
as the most terrible of Mahomet's persecutors, had a very notable effect
upon his position as well as upon the qualities of the cause for which
his party was contending.
For the first time the political aspect of Islam obtrudes itself.
Mahomet's followers are now not only the opponents of the Kureischite
faith and the enemies of their idols, but they are also their political
foes, and have drawn the whole house of Hashim into faction against the
ruling power--the Omeyyad house. Moreover, Mahomet and his companions,
now shut up and almost besieged within a definite quarter of the city,
were precluded from all attempts to spread their faith. Mahomet had
secured his little company of followers, but cut off from the rest of the
city his cause remained stationary, neither gaining nor losing adherents,
during the years 617-619.
The suras of this period show some of the discouragement he felt at the
time, but through them all beats a note of endurance and confidence:
God is continually behind his cause, therefore that cause will prevail
against all obstacles. Mahomet has become more familiar with the Jewish
Scriptures, and many of the suras are recapitulations of the lives of
Jewish heroes, especial preference being given to Abraham as mythical
founder of his race, and to Lot as the typical example of one righteous
man sent to warn the iniquitous. The style has certainly matured, and in
so doing has lost much of its primal fire. It is still stirring and
vibrant, but passages of almost bald narrative are interposed, shadows
upon the shining floor of his original zeal. He has become increasingly
reiterative, too,--a quality easily attained by those who have but
one message, in this case a message of warning and exhortation, and
are feverishly anxious to brand its urgency upon the hearts of their

Confined within so limited an area, his energy recoiled upon itself, and
the despondency that so easily besets men of action when that necessity
is denied them, overcame his mind. Only at the yearly pilgrimage was he
able to gain a hearing from his Meccan brethren, and then, says the
chronicler bitterly, "none would believe." The Hashim could not trade or
intermarry with any outside their clan, and there seemed no chance of
circumstances removing their disabilities. Mahomet's hopes of embracing
all Mecca in his faith wavered and fled, until it seemed as if Allah no
longer protected his chosen.
But after two years of negation and impotence, an end to the persecution
of the Muslim was in sight, and in 619 the ban was removed. Legend has it
that when the chiefs of the Kaaba went to look upon the document they
found it devoured by ants, and took this as a sign of the displeasure of
their gods. The ban was thus removed by supernatural agency when its
prolongation would have meant final disaster for Mahomet. In the light of
later knowledge it is evident that the removal of the ban was the result
of the exertions of Abu Talib, and it was owing to his high reputation
among the Kureisch that they pardoned his turbulent and blasphemous
nephew. At the end of two years also, the Muslim were considerably
weakened, both in staying powers and reputation. They were now allowed to
go freely in the city, and the immediate prospect seemed certainly
brighter for Mahomet when there fell the greatest blow that could have
afflicted his sensitive spirit.
Khadijah, his companion and sustainer through so many troublous years,
died in 619, having borne with him all his revilings and discouragements,
his source of strength even when there appeared no prospect of the
abatement of his hardships, much less for the success of his cause.
Mahomet's grief was too profound for the passing shadow of it even to
darken the pages of the Kuran. He paid her the compliment of silence; but
her memory was continually with him, even when he had taken many fairer
women to wife. Ayesha, in all the insolence of beauty, scoffed at
Khadijah's age and lack of comeliness:
"Am I not dearer to thee than she was?"
"No, by Allah!" cried Mahomet; "for she believed when no one else
It was her strength of character and sweetness of mind that impelled him
to utter the amazing words--amazing for his time and environment,
seventh-century Arabia--"women are the twin-halves of men."
But fortune or Allah had not finished the "strong affliction" whereby
Mahomet was forced to cast off from his moorings and venture into strange
and perilous seas. Five weeks after the death of his wife came the death
of his uncle, Abu Talib. If the first had been a catastrophe affecting
his courage and quietude of mind, this was calculated to crush both
himself and his companions. Abu Talib was well loved by Mahomet, who
manifested throughout his life the strongest capacity for friendship. But
more important than the personal grief was the loss of the one man whose
efforts bridged over the widening gulf between himself and the Kureisch.
As such, his death was irreparable damage to Mahomet's safety from their
Abu Lahab, it is true, touched a little by the sorrows crowding so
thickly upon his nephew, protected him for a time, but very soon withdrew
his support and joined the opposition. Ranged against Abu Lahab and Abu
Jahl, with their influential following, and lacking the support hitherto
provided by Abu Talib, Mahomet perceived that a crisis was fast
approaching. His band was too numerous to be ignored or even tolerated by
the Kureisch, but against such odds as Mecca's most powerful citizens,
Mahomet was too wise to attempt to resist. There seemed no other way but
the withdrawal of his little concourse to such place of safety as would
enable them to strengthen themselves and prepare for the inevitable
struggle for supremacy. No more conversions of importance had taken place
since Omar's and Hamza's allegiance to Islam, and now three years
had passed. Mahomet felt increasingly the need for their exodus from the
city of his birth. It is not evident from the chroniclers that he had any
definite political aims whatever when he first considered the plan of
evacuation. His motive was simply to obtain peace in which he might
worship in his own fashion, and win others to worship with him. With this
idea in mind he cast about for a suitable resting-place for his small
flock, and discovered what he imagined his goal in Taif, a village
south-east of Mecca, upon the eastern slopes of Jhebel Kora.
Taif is situated on the fertile side of this mountain range, the side
remote from the sea. It stands amid a wealth of gardens, and is renowned
for its fruits and flowers. Thither in 620 Mahomet set out, filled with
the knowledge of his invincible mission, strong in his power to conquer
and persuade. Zeid, his slave and foster-child, was his only companion,
and together they had resolved to convert Taif to the one true religion.
But their adventure was doomed to failure, and though we have necessarily
brief descriptions of it, all Mahomet's biographers naturally passing
quickly over so painful a scene, there is sufficient evidence to show how
really disastrous their venture proved.
The chief men of the city remained unconvinced, and at last the populace,
in one of those blind furies that attack crowds at the sight of
impotence, egged on the rabble to stone them. Chased from the city, sore,
bleeding and despairing, Mahomet found shelter in one of the hill gardens
of the locality. There he was solaced with fruit by some kindly owners of
the place, and there he remained, meditating in profound dejection at his
failure, but still with supreme trust in the support of his God.
"O Lord, I seek refuge in the light of Thy countenance;
It is Thine to cleanse away the darkness,
And to give peace both for this world and the next."
In this valley of Nakhla, too, so runs the tale, he was consoled by
genii, who refreshed him, after the fashion of angels upholding the weary
prophets in the wilderness. Mahomet was now in dire straits; he could not
return to Mecca at once, because the object of his Taif journey was
known; as Taif had spurned him, so he was forced to halt in Hira until he
obtained the protection of Mutaim, an influential man in Mecca, and after
some difficulty made his way back to the city, discredited and solitary,
except for his former followers. For some months he rested in obscurity
and contempt at Mecca, gaining none to his cause, but still filled with
the fervent conviction of his future triumph, which neither wavered
nor faltered. The divine fire which upheld him during the period of
his violent persecution burned within his soul, and never was his
steadfastness of character and faith in himself and his mission more
fully manifested than during these despondent months.
He now began to seek in greater measure the society of women, although
the consuming sexual life of his later years had hardly awakened. While
Khadijah was with him he remained faithful to her, but her bright
presence once withdrawn, he was impelled by a kind of impassioned seeking
to the quest for her substitute, and not finding it in one woman, to
continue his search among others. He now married Sawda, a nonentity with
a certain physical charm but no personality, and sued for the hand of
Ayesha, the small daughter of Abu Bekr.
Mahomet at this time was not blessed with many riches. His frugal,
anxious life led him to perform many small duties of his household for
himself. His food was coarse and often scanty, and he lived among his
followers as one of themselves. It is no small tribute to his singleness
of mind and lofty character that in the "dreary intercourse of daily
life," lived in that primitive, communal fashion, which admits of no
illusions and scarcely any secrets, he retained by the force of
personality the reverence of the faithful, and ever in this hour of
defeat and negation remained their leader and lord--the symbol, in fact,
of their loyalty to Allah, and their supreme belief in his guidance and



Medina, city of exile and despairing beginnings, destined to achieve
glory by difficult ways, only to be eclipsed finally by its mightier
neighbour and mistress, became, rather by chance than by design, the
scene of Mahomet's struggles for temporal power and his ruthless wielding
of the sword for God and Islam. The city lies north-east of Mecca, on the
opposite side of the mountain spur that skirts the eastern boundary.
Always weakly peopled, it remained from immemorial time an arena of
strife, for it was on the borderland, the boundary of several tribes, and
was far enough north for the outer waves of Syrian disturbances to fling
their varying tides upon its shores--a meagre city, always fiercely at
civil warfare, impotent, unfertile.
In the dark days of Judaea's humiliation at the hands of Titus, two
Jewish tribes, the Kainukua and the Koreitza, outcast and desolate, even
as they had been warned in their time of dominion, lighted upon Medina in
desperate search for a dwelling-place and a respite from persecution, and
forthwith took possession of the little hill-girt town. They settled
there, driving out or conciliating the former inhabitants, until in the
fourth century their tenuous prosperity was disturbed by the inroads of
two Bedouin tribes, the Beni Aus and the Beni Khazraj. The desert was
wide, and these tribes were familiar with its manifold opportunities and
devious ways. Against such a foe, who swooped down suddenly upon the
city, plundered and then escaped into the limitless unknown, the Jews had
no chance of reprisal.
Before long the Beni Aus and Khazraj had subjugated the Jewish
communities, and their dominion in Medina was only weakened by their
devastating quarrels among themselves. The city therefore offered a
peculiar opening for the teaching of Islam within it. Its religious life
indeed was varied and chaotic. Jews, Arabian idolaters, immigrants from
Christian Syria, torn by schisms, thronged its public places, and this
confusion of faiths sharpened the religious and debating instincts of its
people. The ground was thus broken up for the reception of the new creed
of one God and of his messenger, who had already divided Mecca into
believers and heretics, and who was spoken of in the city with that awe
that attaches itself to distant marvels.
Intercourse with Mecca was chiefly carried on at the time of the yearly
Pilgrimage; the Greater Pilgrimage, only undertaken during Dzul Hijj,
corresponding then to our March, and in Dzul Hijj, 620, came a band of
strangers over the hills, along the toilsome caravan route to the Kaaba,
the goal of their intentions, the shrine of all their prayers. They
performed all the necessary ceremonies at Mecca, and were proceeding to
Mina, a small valley just east of Mecca, for the completion of their
sacred duties, when they were accosted by Mahomet.
The Prophet was despondent and sceptical of his power to persuade, though
his belief in Allah's might never wavered. He had failed so far to
produce any decisive impression upon the Meccan people, but might there
not be another town in Arabia which would receive his message? The little
band of pilgrims seemed to him sent in answer to his self-distrust, and
his failure at Taif as eclipsed by this sudden success. The caravan
returned to its native city, and there remained little for Mahomet to do
except to wait for the arrival of next year's pilgrims, and to keep
shining and ambient the flame of his religious fervour. He remained in
Mecca virtually on sufferance, and rapidly recognised the uselessness of
attempting any further conversions. His hopes were now definitely set on
Medina, and to this end he seems to devoted himself more than ever to the
perusal and interpretation of the Jewish scriptures.
The portion of the Kuran written at this time contains little else than
Bible stories told and retold to the point of weariness. Lot, of course,
is the characteristic figure; but we also have the life stories of
Abraham, Moses, Jonah, Joseph, and many others. The style has suffered a
marked diminution in poetic qualities. It has become reiterative and even
laboured. He continues his practice of alluding to current events, which
at Medina he was to pursue to the extent of making the Kuran a kind of
spasmodic history of his time, as well as an elementary text-book of law
and morality. In one of the suras--"The Cow"--Mahomet makes first mention
of that comfortable doctrine of "cancelling," by which later verses of
the Kuran cancel all previous revelations dealing with the same subject
if these prove contradictory: "Whatever verses we cancel or cause thee to
forget, we bring a better or its like; knowest thou not that God hath
power over all things?"
There is not much record in the Kuran of the influence of Christian
thought upon Islam. We have a few stories of Elizabeth and Mary, and
scattered allusions to the despised "Prophet of the Jews." But the great
body of Christian thought, its central dogmas of Incarnation and
Redemption, passed Mahomet entirely by, for his mind was practical and
not speculative, and indeed to himself no less than to his followers the
fundamentals of Christianity were of necessity too philosophic to be
realised with any intensity of belief. The Christian virtues of meekness
and resignation, too, might be respected in the abstract--passages in the
Kuran and tradition assure us they were--but they were so utterly
antagonistic to the fierce, free nature of the Arab that they never
entered into his religious life. Mahomet revered the Founder of
Christianity, and placed Him with John in the second Heaven of his
Immortals, but though He is secure among the teachers of the world, He
can never compete with the omnipotence and glory of the Prophet.
During the period of Mahomet's life immediately preceding his departure
to Medina, we have his personal appearance described in detail by Ali. He
is a man of medium stature, with a magnificent head and a thick, flowing
beard. His eyes were black and ardent, his jaw firm but not prominent. He
looked an upstanding man of open countenance, benignant and powerful,
bearing between his shoulders the sign of his divine mission. He had
great patience, says Ali, and "in nowise despised the poor for their
poverty, nor honoured the rich for their possessions. Nor if any took him
by the hand to salute him was he the first to relinquish his grasp."
He lived openly among his disciples, holding frequent converse with them,
mending his own clothes and even shoes, a frugal liver and a fervent
preacher of the flaming faith within him. He became at this time
betrothed to Ayesha, the splendid woman, now just a merry child, who was
to keep her reigning place in his affections until the end of his life.
Daughter of Abu Bekr, she united in herself for Mahomet both policy and
attractiveness, for by this betrothal he became of blood-kin with Abu
Bekr, and thereby strengthened his friend's allegiance. The union marks
the inauguration of his policy of marriage alliances by which he bound
the supporters of his Faith more closely to him, either through his own
marriage with their daughters, or the bestowal of his offspring upon
Ayesha was lovely and imperious, with a luxurious but shrewd nature,
and her counsel was always sought by Mahomet. Other women appeared
frequently like comets in his sky, flamed for a little into brightness
and disappeared into conjugal obscurity, but Ayesha's star remained fixed,
even if it was transitorily eclipsed by the brilliance of a new-comer.
Sexual relations held for Mahomet towards the end of his life a peculiar
potency, born of his intense energetic nature. He sought the society of
woman because of the mental clarity that for him followed any expression
of emotion. He was one of those men who must express--the artist, in fact;
but an artist who used the medium of action, not that of literature,
painting, or music. "Poète, il ne connut que la poésie d'action," and like
Napoleon, his introspection was completely overshadowed by his consuming
energy. Therefore emotion was to him unconsciously the means by which this
immortal energy of mind could be conserved, and he used it unsparingly.
Ayesha has revealed for us the most intimate details of Mahomet's life,
and it is due to her that later traditions are enabled to represent him
as a man among men. He appears to us fierce and subtle, by turns
impetuous and calculating, a man who never missed an opportunity, and
gauged exactly the efforts needed to compass any intention. To him "every
fortress had its key, and every man his price." He was as keen a
politician us he was a religious reformer, but before all he paid homage
to the sword, prime artificer in his career of conquest. But in those
confidently intimate traditions handed down to us from his immediate
entourage, and especially from Ayesha, we find him alternately passionate
and gentle, wearing his power with conscious authority, mild in his
treatment of the poor, terrible to his enemies, autocratic, intolerant,
with a strange magnetism that bound men to him. The mystery enveloping
great men even in their lifetime, among primitive races, creeps
down in these documents to hide much of his personality from us, but his
works proclaim his energy and tireless organising powers, even if the
mythical, allegoric element predominates in the earlier traditions. The
man who undertook and achieved the gigantic task of organising a new
social and political as well as religious order may be justly credited
with calling forth and centering in himself the vivid imaginations of
that most credulous age.
The year 620-621 passed chiefly in expectation of the Greater Pilgrimage,
when the disciples from Medina were to come to report progress and to
confirm their faith. The momentous time arrived, and Mahomet went almost
fearfully to meet the nucleus of his future kingdom in Acaba, a valley
near Mina. But his fears were groundless, for the little party had been
faithful to their leader, and had also increased their numbers.
They met in secret, and we may picture them a little diffident in so
strange a place, ever expectant of the swift descent of the Kureisch and
their own annihilation. Withal they were enthusiastic and confident of
their leader. One is irresistibly reminded, in reading of this meeting,
of that little outcast band from Judea which ultimately prevailed over
Cæsar Imperator through its mighty quality of faith. The accredited words
of the first pledge given at Acaba are traditionally extant; they combine
curiously religious, moral, and social covenants, and assert even at that
early stage the headship of the Prophet over his servants:
"We will not worship any but God; we will not steal, neither will we
commit adultery nor kill our children; we will not slander in any wise,
nor will we disobey the Prophet in anything that is right."
The converts then departed to their native city, for Mahomet did not deem
the time yet ripe enough for migration thither. He possessed the
difficult art of waiting until the effectual time should arrive, and
there is no doubt that by now he had formed definite plans to set up his
rule in Medina when there should be sufficient supporters there to
guarantee his success. Musab, a Meccan convert of some learning, was
deputed to accompany the Medinan citizens to their city and give
instruction therein to all who were willing to study the Muslim creed.
For yet another year Mahomet was to possess his soul in patience, but it
was with feelings of far greater confidence that he awaited the passing
of time. More than ever he became sure of the guiding hand of Allah, that
pointed indisputably to the stranger city as the goal of his strivings.
This city held a goodly proportion of Jews, therefore the connection
between his faith and that of Judaism must be continually emphasised.
We have seen how large a space Jewish legend and history fill in the
contemporary suras of the Kuran, and Mahomet's friendship with Israel
increased noticeably during his last two years at Mecca. He paid them the
honour of taking Jerusalem as his Kibla, or Holy Place, to which all
Believers turn in prayer, and the starting-place for his immortal
Midnight Journey was the Sacred City encompassing the Temple of the Lord.
No account of this journey appears except in the traditions crystallized
by Al Bokharil, but there is one short mention of it in the Kuran, Sura
"Glory be to him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple
of Mecca to the temple that is more remote, i.e. Jerusalem."
The vision, however, looms so large in his followers' minds, and
exercised so profound an influence over their regard for Mahomet, that it
throws some light, upon the measure of his ascendancy during his last
years at Mecca, and establishes beyond dispute the inspired character of
his Prophetship in the imaginations of the few Believers. There have been
solemn and wordy disputes by theologians as to whether he made the
journey in the flesh, or whether his spirit alone crossed the dread
portals dividing our night from the celestial day.
He was lying in the Kaaba, so runs the legend, when the Angel of the Lord
appeared to him, and after having purged his heart of all sin, carried
him to the Temple at Jerusalem. He penetrated its sacred enclosure and
saw the beast Borak, "greater than ass, smaller than mule," and was told
to mount. The Faithful still show the spot at Jerusalem where his steed's
hoof marked the ground as he spurned it with flying feet. With Gabriel by
his side, mounted on a beast mighty in strength, Mahomet scaled the
appalling spaces and came at last to the outer Heaven, before the gate
that guards the celestial realms. The angel knocked upon the brazen doors
and a voice within cried:
"Who art thou, and who is with thee?"
"I am Gabriel," came the answer, "and this is Mahomet."
And behold, the brazen gates that may not be unclosed for mortal man were
flung wide, and Mahomet entered alone with the angel. He penetrated to
the first Heaven and saw Adam, who interrogated him in the same words,
and received the same reply. And all the heavenly hierarchies, even unto
the seventh Heaven, John and Jesus, Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, Abraham,
acknowledged Mahomet in the same words, until the two came to "the tree
called Sedrat," beyond which no man may pass and live, whose fruits are
shining serpents, and whose leaves are great beasts, round which flow
four rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates guarding it without, and within
these the celestial streams that water Paradise, too wondrous for a name.
Awed but undaunted, Mahomet passed alone beyond the sacred tree, for even
the Angel could not bear any longer so fierce a glory, and came to
Al-M'amur, even the Hall of Heavenly Audience, where are seventy thousand
angels. He mounted the steps of the throne between their serried ranks,
until at the touch of Allah's awful hand he stopped and felt its icy
coldness penetrate to his heart. He was given milk, wine, or honey to
drink, and he chose milk.
"Hadst thou chosen honey, O Mahomet," said Allah, "all thy people would be
saved, now only a part shall find perfection."
And Mahomet was troubled.
"Bid my people pray to Me fifty times a day."
At the resistless mandate Mahomet turned and retraced his steps to the
seventh Heaven, where dwelt Abraham.
"The people of the earth will be in nowise constrained to pray fifty
times a day. Return thou and beg that the number be lessened."
So Mahomet returned again and again at Abraham's command, until he had
reduced the number to five, which the father of his people considered
was sufficient burden for his feeble subjects to bear. Wherefore the five
periods set apart for prayer in the Muslim faith are proportionately
sacred, and with this divine mandate the vision ceased.
With his hopes now set on founding an earthly dominion with the help of
Allah, he had perforce to consider the political situation, and to mature
his policy for dealing with it as soon as events proved favourable. The
achievements of the Persians on the Greek frontier had already attracted
his attention in 616; there is an allusion to the battle and the Greek
defeat in the Kuran, and a vague prophecy of their ultimate success, for
Mahomet was in sympathy with the Greek Empire, seeing that, from the
point of view of Arabia, it was the less formidable enemy.
But really the events of such outlying territories only troubled him in
regard to Medina, for his whole thoughts were centred now upon the chosen
city of his dreams. His followers became less aggressive in Mecca when
they knew that the Prophet had the nucleus of a new colony in another
city. Persecution within Mecca therefore died down considerably, and the
period is one of pause upon either side, the Kureisch watching to see
what the next move was to be, Mahomet carefully and secretly maturing his
During this year there fell a drought upon Mecca, followed by a famine,
which the devout attributed directly to divine anger at the rejection of
the Prophet's heavenly message, and which Mahomet interpreted as the
punishment of God, and this doubtless added to the sum of reasons which
impelled him to relinquish his native town.
From this time until the Hegira, or Flight from the City, events in the
world of action move but slowly for Mahomet. He was careful not to excite
undue suspicion among the Kureisch, and we can imagine him silent and
preoccupied, fulfilling his duties among them, visiting the Kaaba, and
mingling somewhat coldly with their daily life. Still keeping his purpose
immutable, he sought to strengthen the faith of his followers for the
trials he knew must come. The Kuran thus became more important as the
mouthpiece of his exhortations. The suras of this time resound with words
of encouragement and confidence. He is about to become the leader of a
perilous venture in honour of God. The reflex of the expectancy in the
hearts of the Muslim may be traced in his messages to them. Their whole
world, as it were, waited breathless, quiet, and tense for the record of
the year's achievements in Medina, and for the time appointed by God.
But how far their leader's actions were the result of painstaking
calculations, an insight into the qualities and energies of men, a
prevision startling in its range and accuracy, they never suspected; but,
serene in their confidence, they held their magnificent faith in the
divine guidance and in the inspiration of their Prophet.



"Knowest thou not that the dominion of the Heavens and of the
Earth is God's? and that ye have neither patron nor helper save
God?"--_The Kuran_.
The expectancy which burned like revivifying fire in the hearts of the
Meccan Muslim, kindled and nourished by their leader himself, was to
culminate at the time of the yearly pilgrimage in 622. In that month came
the great concourse of pilgrims from Yathreb to Mecca, among them seventy
of the "Faithful" who had received the faith at Medina, headed by their
teacher Musab and strengthened by the knowledge that they were before
long to stand face to face with their Prophet.
Musab had reported to Mahomet the success of his mission in the city, and
had prepared him for the advent of the little band of followers secured
for Islam. Secrecy was essential, for the Muslim from Medina were in
heart strangers among their own people, in such a precarious situation
that any treachery would have meant their utter annihilation, if not at
the hands of their countrymen, who would doubtless throw in their lot
with the stronger, certainly at the hands of the Kureisch, the implacable
foes of Islam, in whose territory they fearfully were. The rites of
pilgrimage were accordingly performed faithfully, though many breathed
more freely as they departed for the last ceremony at Mina. All was now
completed, and the Medinan party prepared to return, when Mahomet
summoned the Faithful by night to the old meeting-place in the gloomy
valley of Akaba.
About seventy men and two women of both Medinan tribes, the Beni Khazraj
and the Beni Aus, assembled thus in that barren place, under the
brilliant night skies of Arabia, to pledge themselves anew to an unseen,
untried God and to the service of his Prophet, who as yet counted but few
among his followers, and whose word carried no weight with the great ones
of their world.
To this meeting Mahomet brought Abbas, his uncle, younger son of
Abd-al-Muttalib, a weak and insignificant character, who had endeared
himself to Mahomet chiefly because of his doglike devotion. He was not a
convert, but he revered his energetic nephew too highly and was also too
greatly in awe of him to imagine such a thing as treachery. He was in
part a guarantee to the Khazraj of Mahomet's good faith, in part an asset
for him against the Kureisch, for his family were still influential in
The two made their way from the city unaccompanied, by steep and stony
ways, until they came to Akaba, and Mahomet saw awaiting him that
concourse summoned by his persistence and tireless faith--a concourse
part of himself, almost his own child, upon which all his hopes were now
set. Coming thus into that circle of faces, illumined dimly by the
torches, which prudence even now urged them to extinguish, he could not
but feel some foreshadowing of the mighty future that awaited this little
gathering, as yet impotent and tremulous, but bearing within itself the
seeds of that loyalty and courage that were to spread "the Faith" over
half the world.
When the greetings were over, Abbas stepped forward and spoke, while the
lines of dark faces closed around him in earnest scrutiny.
"Ye men of the Beni Khazraj, this my kinsmen dwelleth amongst us in
honour and safety; his clan will defend him, but he preferreth to seek
protection from you. Wherefore, ye Khazraj, consider the matter well and
count the cost."
Then answered Bara, who stood for them in position of Chief:
"We have listened to your words. Our resolution is unshaken. Our lives
are at the Prophet's service. It is now for him to speak."
Mahomet stepped forward into the circle of their glances, and with the
solemnity of the occasion urgent within him recited to them verses of the
Kuran, whose fire and eloquence kindled those passionate souls into an
enthusiasm glowing with a sombre resolve, and prompted them to stake all
upon their enterprise. At the end of those tumultuous words he assured
them that he would be content if they would pledge themselves to defend
"And if we die in thy defence, what reward have we?"
"Paradise!" replied Mahomet, exalted, raising his hand in token of his
belief in Allah and the certitude of his cause.
Then arose a murmur deep and long, the protestation of loyalty that
threatened to rise into triumphant acclamation, but Abbas, the fearful of
the party, stayed them in dread of spies. So the tumult died down, and
Bara, taking upon himself the authority of his fellows, stretched forth
his hand to Mahomet, and with their clasping the Second Pledge of the
Akaba was sealed. They broke up swiftly, dreading to prolong their
meeting, for danger was all around them and the air heavy with suspected
And their apprehension was not groundless, for the Kureisch had heard of
their assembly through some secret messenger, though not until the
Medinan caravan with its concourse of the Faithful and the Unbelievers
was well on its homeward way across the dreary desert paths which lead to
Mecca from Medina. Their wrath was intense, and in fury they pursued it;
but either they were ignorant as to which road the party had taken, or
the Medinans eluded them by greater speed, for they returned disconsolate
from the pursuit, having only succeeded in finding two luckless men, one
of whom escaped, but the other, Sa'd ibn Obada, was dragged back to Mecca
and subjected to much brutality before he ultimately made his escape to
his native city.
The Kureisch were not content with attempting reprisals against Medina,
or possibly they were enraged because they had effected so little, for
they recommenced the persecution of Islam at Mecca with much violence.
From March until April they harassed the Believers in their city,
imposing restrictions upon them, and in many cases inflicting bodily harm
upon Mahomet's unfortunate and now defenceless followers. The renewed
persecution doubtless gave an added impetus to the Prophet's resolve to
quit Mecca.
Indeed, the time was fully ripe, and with the prescience that continually
characterised him in his role of leader of a religious state, he felt
that now the ground was prepared at Medina, emigration of the Muslim from
Mecca could not fail to be advantageous to him.
The command was given in April 622, and found immediate popularity,
except with a few malcontents who had large interests in their native
city. Then began the slow removal of a whole colony. The families of
Abu Talib's quarter of Mecca tranquilly forsook their birthplace in
orderly groups, taking with them their household treasures, until the
neighbourhood showed tenantless houses falling into the swift decay
accompanying neglect in such a climate, barricaded doors and gaping
windows, filled only with an immense feeling of desolation and the
blankness which overtakes a city when its humanity has deputed to another
abiding place. Weeds grew in the deserted streets, and over all lay a
fine film of dust, the almost impalpable effort of the desert to merge
once more into itself the territory wrung from it by human will.
The effect of this emigration upon the Kureisch can hardly be estimated.
They were amazed and helpless before it; for with their wrath hot against
Mahomet, it was as if their antagonist had melted into insubstantial
vapours to leave them enraged and breathless, pursuing a phantom
continually elusive. So silent was the emigration that they were only
made aware of it when the quarter was almost deserted. Scattered
groups of travellers journeying along the desert tracks had evoked no
hostilities, and no treachery broke the loyalty to Islam at Mecca. The
Kureisch were indeed outwitted, and only became conscious of the
subtleties of their antagonist when his plan was accomplished.
But in spite of the seemingly favourable situation, the leader tarried
because "the Lord had not as yet given him command to emigrate." The very
natural hesitation of Mahomet is only characteristic of him. He knew very
well what issues were at stake, and was not anxious to burn his boats
rashly; indeed, he bore upon his shoulders at this time all the
responsibility of the future of his little flock, who so confidently
resigned their fortunes into his hands. If his scheme at Medina should
fail, he knew that nothing would save him from Kureischite fury, and he
also felt great reluctance in leaving Mecca himself, for at that time it
could not but mean the knell of his hopes of gaining his native city to
his creed. He must have foreseen his establishment of power in Medina,
and possibly he had visions of its extension to neighbouring tribes, but
he could not have foreseen the humiliation of his native city at his
feet, glad at last to receive the faith of one whom she now regarded as
the sovereign potentate of Arabian territory.
And with their friend and guide remained Abu Bekr and Ali--Abu Bekr
because he would not leave his companion in prayer and persecution,
and Ali because his valour and enthusiasm made him a protector against
possible attacks. Here was the opportunity for the Kureisch. They knew
the extent of the emigration, and that Abu Bekr and Ali were the only
Muslim of importance left except the Prophet. They determined to make one
last attempt to coerce into submission this fantastic but resolute
leader, who possessed in supreme measure the power of winning the faith
and devotion of men.
Tradition has it that Mahomet's assassination was definitely planned, and
Mahomet assuredly thought so too, when he discovered that a man from each
tribe had been chosen to visit his home at night. The motive can hardly
have been assassination, but doubtless the chiefs were prepared to take
rather strong measures to restrain Mahomet, and this action finally
decided the Prophet that delay was dangerous.
At this crisis in his fortunes he had two staunch helpers, who did not
hesitate to risk their lives in his service, and with them he anticipated
his foes. Ali was chosen to represent his beloved master before the
menaces of the Kureisch. Mahomet put him into his own bed and arrayed
him in his sacred green mantle; then, as legend has it, taking a handful
of dust, he recited the sura "Ya Sin," which he himself reverenced as
"the heart of the Kuran," and scattering the dust abroad, he called down
confusion upon the heads of the Unbelievers. With Abu Bekr he then fled
swiftly and silently from the city and made his way unseen to the cave of
Thaur, a few miles outside its boundaries.
Around the cave of Thaur cluster as many and as beautiful legends as
surround the stable at Bethlehem. The wild pigeons flew out and in
unharmed, screening the Prophet by their untroubled presence from the
searchings of the Kureisch, and a thorn tree spread her branches across
the mouth of the cave supporting a spider's frail and glistening web,
which was renewed whenever a friend visited the two prisoners to bring
food and tidings.
Here Mahomet and Abu Bekr, henceforward known as the "Second of Two,"
remained until the fierceness of the pursuit slackened. Asma, Abu Bekr's
daughter, brought them food at sundown, and what news she could glean
from the rumours that were abroad, and from the lips of Ali. There was
very real danger of their surprise and capture, but once more Mahomet's
magnificent faith in God and his cause never wavered. Abu Bekr was afraid
for his master:
"We are but two, and if the Kureisch find us unarmed, what chance have
"We are but two," replied Mahomet, "but God is in the midst a third."
He looked unflinchingly to Allah for succour and protection, and his
faith was justified. His thanksgiving is contained in the Kuran: "God
assisted your Prophet formerly, when the Unbelievers drove him forth in
company with a second only; when they two were in the cave; when the
Prophet said to his companion, 'Be not distressed; verily God is with
us.' And God sent down his tranquillity upon him and strengthened him
abased, and the word of God was the exalted."
At the end of three days the Kureischite search abated, and that night
Mahomet and Abu Bekr decided to leave the cave. Two camels were brought,
and food loaded upon them by Asma and her servants. The fastenings were
not long enough to tie on the food wallet; wherefore Asma tore her girdle
in two and bound them round it, so that she is known to this day among
the Faithful as "She of Two Shreds." After a prayer to Allah in thanks
for their safety, Mahomet and Abu Bekr mounted the camels and sallied
forth to meet what unknown destiny should await them on the road to
Medina. They rapidly gained the sea-coast near Asfan in comparative
safety, secure from the attacks of the Kureisch, who would not pursue
their quarry so far into a strange country.
The Kureisch had indeed considerably abated their anger against Mahomet.
He was now safely out of their midst, and possibly they thought
themselves well rid of a man whose only object, from their point of view,
was to stir up strife, and they felt that any resentment against either
himself or his kin would be unnecessary and not worth their pains. With
remarkable tolerance for so revengeful an age, they left the families of
Mahomet and Abu Bekr quite free from molestation, nor did they offer any
opposition to Ali when they found he had successfully foiled them, and he
made his way out of the city three days after his leader had quitted it.
Mahomet and Abu Bekr journeyed on, two pilgrims making their way,
solitary but unappalled, to a strange city, whose temper and disposition
they but faintly understood. But evidences as to its friendliness were
not wanting, and these were renewed when Abu Bekr's cousin, a previous
emigrant to Medina, met them half-way and declared that the city waited
in joy and expectation for the coming of its Prophet. After some days
they crossed the valley of Akik in extreme heat, and came at last to
Coba, an outlying suburb at Medina, where, weary and apprehensive,
Mahomet rested for a while, prudently desiring that his welcome at Medina
might be assured before he ventured into its confines.
His entry into Coba savoured of a triumphal procession; the people
thronged around his camel shouting, "The Prophet; he is come!" mingling
their cries with homage and wondering awe, that the divine servant of
whom they had heard so much should appear to them in so human a guise, a
man among them, verily one of themselves. Mahomet's camel stopped at the
house of Omm Kolthum, and there he elected to abide during his stay in
Coba, for he possessed throughout his life a reverence for the instinct
in animals that characterises the Eastern races of all time. There,
dismounting, he addressed the people, bidding them be of good cheer, and
giving them thanks for their joyous welcome:
"Ye people, show your joy by giving your neighbours the salvation of
peace; send portions to the poor; bind close the ties of kinship, and
offer up your prayers whilst others sleep. Thus shall ye enter Paradise
in peace."
For four days Mahomet dwelt in Coba, where he had encountered unfailing
support and friendship, and there was joined by Ali. His memories of Coba
were always grateful, for at the outset of his doubtful and even
dangerous enterprise he had received a good augury. Before he set out to
Medina he laid the foundations of the Mosque at Coba, where the Faithful
would be enabled to pray according to their fashion, undisturbed and
beneath the favour of Allah, and decreed that Friday was to be set apart
as a special day of prayer, when addresses were to be given at the Mosque
and the doctrines of Islam expounded.
Even as early as this Mahomet felt the mantle of sovereignty descending
upon him, for we hear now of the first of those ordinances or decrees by
which in later times he rules the lives and actions of his subjects to
the last detail. Clearly he perceived himself a leader among men, who had
it within his power to build up a community following his own dictates,
which might by consolidation even rival those already existent in
Arabia. He was taking command of a weak and factious city, and he
realised that in his hands lay its prosperity or downfall; he was, in
fact, the arbiter of its fate and of the fate of his colleagues who had
dared all with him.
But he could not stay long in Coba, while the final assay upon the
Medinans remained to be undertaken, and so we find him on the fourth day
of his sojourn making preparations for the entry into the city. It was
undertaken with some confidence of success from the messages already sent
to Coba, and proved as triumphal an entry as his former one. The populace
awaited him in expectation and reverence, and hailed him as their
Prophet, the mighty leader who had come to their deliverance. They
surrounded his camel Al-Caswa, and the camels of his followers, and when
Al-Caswa stopped outside the house of Abu Ayub, Mahomet once more
received the beast's augury and sojourned there until the building of the
Mosque. As Al-Caswa entered the paved courtyard, Mahomet dismounted to
receive the allegiance of Abu Ayub and his household; then, turning to
the people, he greeted them with words of good cheer and encouragement,
and they responded with acclamations.
For seven months the Prophet lodged in the house of Abu Ayub, and he
bought the yard where Al-Caswa halted as a token of his first entry into
Medina, and a remembrance in later years of his abiding place during the
difficult time of his inception. The decisive step had been taken. The
die was now cast. It was as if the little fleet of human souls had
finally cast its moorings and ventured into the unpathed waters of
temporal dominion under the command of one whose skill in pilotage was as
yet unknown. Many changes became necessary in the conduct of the
enterprise, of which not the least was the change of attitude between the
leader and his followers. Mahomet, heretofore religious visionary and
teacher, became the temporal head of a community, and in time the leader
of a political State. The changed aspect of his mission can never be
over-emphasised, for it altered the tenor of his thoughts and the
progress of his words. All the poetry and fire informing the early pages
of the Kuran departs with his reception at Medina, except for occasional
flashes that illumine the chronicle of detailed ordinances that the Book
has now become.
This apparent death of poetic energy had crept gradually over the Kuran,
helped on by the controversial character of the last two Meccan periods,
when he attempted the conciliation of the Jewish element within Arabia
with that long-sightedness which already discerned Medina as his possible
refuge. In reality the whole energy of his nature was transmuted from his
words to his actions and therein he found his fitting sphere, for he was
essentially the doer, one whose works are the expression of his secret,
whose personality, in fact, is only gauged by his deeds. As a result of
his political leadership, the despotism of his nature, inherent in his
conception of God, inevitably revealed itself; he had postulated a Being
who held mankind in the hollow of his hand, whose decrees were absolute
among his subjects; now that he was to found an earthly kingdom under the
guidance of Allah, the majesty of divine despotism overshadowed its
Prophet, and enabled him to impose upon a willing people the same
obedience to authority which fostered the military idea.
We must perforce believe in Mahomet's good faith. There is a tendency in
modern times to think of him as a man who knowingly played upon the
credulity of his followers to establish a sovereignty whereof he should
be head. But no student of psychology can support this conception of the
Prophet of Islam. There is a subtle _rapprochement_ between leader
and people in all great movements that divines instinctively any
imposture. Mahomet used and moulded men by reason of his faith in his own
creed. The establishment of the worship of Allah brought in its train the
aggrandisement of his Prophet, but it was not achieved by profanation of
the source whence his greatness came.
Mahomet is the last of those leaders who win both the religious
devotion and the political trust of his followers. He wrought out his
sovereignty perforce and created his own _milieu_; but more than all, he
diffused around him the tradition of loyalty to one God and one state
with sword for artificer, which outlived its creator through centuries of
Arabian prosperity. Stone by slow stone his empire was built up, an
edifice owing its contour to his complete grasp of detail and his
dauntless energy. The last days at Mecca had shown him a careful schemer,
the early days at Medina proved his capacity as leader and his skill in
organisation and government.



"The Infidels, moreover, will say: Thou art not sent of God.
Say: God is witness enough betwixt me and you, and whoever hath
knowledge of the Book."--_The Kuran_.
Mahomet, now established at Medina, at once began that careful planning
of the lives of his followers and the ceaseless fostering of his own
ideas within them that endeared him to the Believers as leader and lord,
and enabled him in time to prosecute his designs against his opponents
with a confidence in their faith and loyalty.
His grasp of detail was wonderful; without haste and without coercion he
subdued the turbulent factions within Medina, and his own perfervid
followers to discipline as despotic as it was salutary; Mahomet became
what circumstances made him; by reason of his mighty gift of moulding
those men and forces that came his way, he impressed his personality upon
his age; but the material fashioning of his energy, the flower of his
creative art, drew its formative sustenance from the soil of his
surroundings. The time for admonition, with the voice of one crying in
the wilderness, the time for praise and poesy, for the expression of that
rapt immortal passion filling his mind as he contemplated God, all these
were past, and had become but a lingering brightness upon the stormy
urgency of his later life.
Now his flock demanded from him organisation, leadership, political and
social prevision. Therefore the full force of his nature is revealed to
us not so much as heretofore in the Kuran, but rather in his institutions
and ordinances, his enmities and conciliations. He has become not only
the Prophet, but the Lawgiver, the Statesman, almost the King.
His first act, after his establishment in the house of Abu Ayub, was the
joining together in brotherhood of the Muhajerim and Ansar. These were
two distinct entities within Medina; the Muhajerim (refugees) had either
accompanied their master from Mecca or had emigrated previously; the
Ansar (helpers) comprised all the converts to Islam within the city
itself. These parties were now joined in a close bond, each individual
taking another of the opposite party into brotherhood with himself, to be
accorded the rights and privileges of kinship. Mahomet took as his
brother Ali, who became indeed not only his kinsman, but his military
commander and chief of staff. The wisdom of this arrangement, which
lasted about a year and a half--until, in fact, its usefulness was
outworn by the union of both the Medinan tribes under his leadership
--was immediate and far-reaching. It enabled Mahomet to keep a close
surveillance over the Medinan converts, who might possibly recant when
they became aware of the hazards involved in partnership with the Muslim.
It also gave a coherence to the two parties and allowed the Muhajerim
some foothold in an alien city, not as yet unanimously friendly. And the
Muhajerim had need of all the kindliness and help they could obtain, for
the first six months in Medina were trying both to their health and
endurance, so that many repented their venture and would have returned if
the Ansar had not come forward with ministrations and gifts, and also if
their chances of reaching Mecca alive had not been so precarious.
The climate at Medina is damp and variable. Hot days alternate with cold
nights, and in winter there is almost continuous rain. The Meccans, used
to the dry, hot days and nights of their native city, where but little
rain fell, and even that became absorbed immediately in the parched
ground, endured much discomfort, even pain, before becoming acclimatised.
Fever broke out amongst them, and it was some months before the epidemic
was stayed with the primitive medical skill at their command.
Nevertheless, in spite of their weakness and the difficulties of their
position, in these first seven months the Mosque of Mahomet was built
Legend says that the Prophet himself took a share in the work, carrying
stones and tools with the humblest of his followers, and we can well
believe that he did not look on at the labour of his fellow-believers,
and that his consuming zeal prompted him to forward, in whatever way was
necessary, the work lying to his hand.
The Medinan Mosque, built with fervent hearts and anxious prayers by
the Muslim and their leader, contains the embryo of all the later
masterpieces of Arabian architecture--that art unique and splendid, which
developed with the Islamic spirit until it culminated in the glorious
temple at Delhi, whose exponents have given to the world the palaces of
southern Spain, the mysterious, remote beauty of ancient Granada. In its
embryo minarets and domes, its slender arches and delicate traceries, it
expressed the latent poetry in the heart of Islam which the claims of
Allah and the fiercely jealous worship of him had hitherto obscured; for
like Jahweh of old, Allah was an exacting spirit, who suffered no emotion
but worship to be lord of his people's hearts.
The Mosque was square in design, made of stone and brick, and wrought
with the best skill of which they were capable. The Kibla, or direction
of prayer, was towards Jerusalem, symbolic of Mahomet's desire to
propitiate the Jews, and finally to unite them with his own people in a
community with himself as temporal head. Opposite this was the Bab
Rahmah, the Gate of Mercy, and general entrance to the holy place. Ranged
round the outer wall of the Mosque were houses for the Prophet's wives
and daughters, little stone buildings, of two or three rooms, almost
huts, where Mahomet's household had its home--Rockeya, his daughter, and
Othman, her husband; Fatima and Ali, Sawda and Ayesha, soon to be his
girl-bride, and who even now showed exceeding loveliness and force of
Mahomet himself had no separate house, but dwelt with each of his wives
in turn, favouring Ayesha most, and as his harem increased a house was
added for each wife, so that his entourage was continually near him and
under his surveillance. On the north side the ground was open, and there
the poorer followers of Mahomet gathered, living upon the never-failing
hospitality of the East and its ready generosity in the necessities of
As soon as the Mosque was built, organised religious life at Medina came
into being. A daily service was instituted in the Mosque itself, and the
heaven-sent command to prayer five times a day for every Muslim was
enforced. Five times in every turn of the world Allah receives his
supplicatory incense; at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, at sunset, and
at night the Muslim renders his due reverence and praise to the lord of
his welfare, thanking Allah, his supreme guide and votary, for the gift
of the Prophet, guide and protector of the Faithful. Lustration before
prayer was instituted as symbolic of the Believers' purification of heart
before entering the presence of God, and provision for the ceremony made
inside the Mosque. The public service on Friday, instituted at Coba, was
continued at Medina, and consisted chiefly of a sermon given by Mahomet
from a pulpit, erected inside the Mosque, whose sanctity was proverbial
and unassailed. Thus the seed was sown of a corporate religious life, the
embryo from which the Arabian military organisation, its polity, even its
social system, were to spring.
In spite of the increasing numbers of the Ansar, there still remained a
party in Medina, "the Disaffected," who had not as yet accepted the
Prophet or his creed. Over these Mahomet exercised a strict surveillance,
in accordance with his conviction that a successful ruler leaves nothing
to Providence that he can discover and regulate for himself. "Trust in
God, but tie your camel." By this means, as well as by personal influence
and exhortation, "Disaffected" were controlled and ultimately converted
into good Muslim; for the more cautious of them--those who waited to see
how events would shape--soon assured themselves of Mahomet's capacity,
and the weakly passive were caught in the swirl of enthusiasm surrounding
the Prophet that continually drew unto itself all conditions of men
within its ever-widening circle.
Having organised his own followers, and secured their immunity from
internal strife, Mahomet was forced to turn his attention to the Jewish
element within his adopted city, and to decide swiftly his policy towards
the three Israelite tribes who comprised the wealthier and trading
population of Medina.
From the first, Mahomet's desires were in the direction of a federal
union, wherein each party would follow his own faith and have control of
his own tribal affairs and finances, save when the necessity of mutual
protection against enemies called for a union of forces. Again Mahomet
framed his policy upon the doctrine of opportunism. His ultimate aim was
beyond doubt to unite both Jews and Medinans under his rule in a common
religious and political bond, but he recognised the present impossibility
of such action in view of the Jews' greater stability and the weakness of
his party within the city. His negotiations and conciliations with the
Jews offer one of the many examples of his supreme skill as a statesman.
The Jews themselves, taken almost unawares by the suddenness of Mahomet's
entry into their civic life, agreed to the treaty he proposed, and
acquiesced unconsciously in his subtle attempts to merge the two faiths
into a whole wherein Islam would be the dominant factor. When Mahomet
made Jerusalem his Kibla, or direction of prayer, and emphasised the
connection between Jewish and Arabian history, they suffered these
advances, and agreed to a treaty which would have formed the foundations
of a political and social convergence and ultimate absorption of their
own nation.
Mahomet knew that federalism with the Jews was a necessary step to his
desired end, and therefore he drew up a treaty wherein mutual protection
against outward enemies, as well as against internal sedition, was
assured. Hospitality was to be freely rendered and demanded, and neither
party was to support an Infidel against a Believer. Guarantees for mutual
security were exchanged, and it was agreed that each should be free to
worship in his own fashion. The treaty throws light upon the clan-system
still obtaining in seventh-century Arabia. The Jews were their own
masters in the ordering of their lives, as were the Medinan tribes, even
after many years of neighbourhood and frequent interchange of commerce
and mutual assurances. The most significant political work achieved by
Mahomet, the planting of the federal, and later, the national idea in
Arabia in place of the tribal one, was thus inaugurated, and throughout
the development of his political power it will be seen that the struggles
between himself and the surrounding peoples virtually hinged upon the
acceptance or rejection of it.
The Jews, with their narrow conception of the political unit, could
acquiesce neither in federalism nor in union, and as soon as Mahomet
perceived their incapacity he became implacable, and either drove them
forth or compelled their submission by terror and slaughter. But for the
present his policy and prudence dictated compromise, and he was strong
enough to achieve his will.
The political and social problems of his embryo state had found temporary
solution, and Mahomet was free to turn his attention to external foes. In
his attitude towards those who had persecuted him he evinced more than
ever his determination to build up not only a religious society, but a
powerful temporal state.
The Meccans would have been content to leave matters as they stood, and
were quite prepared to let Mahomet establish his power at Medina
unmolested, provided they were given like immunity from attacks. But from
the beginning other plans filled the Prophet's thoughts, and though
revenge for his privations was declared to be the instigator of his
attacks on the Kureisch trade, the determining motive must be looked for
much more deeply. The great project of the harassment and final overthrow
of the Kureisch was dimly foreshadowed in Mahomet's mind, and he became
ever more deeply aware of the part that must be played therein by the
As yet he hesitated to acclaim war as the supreme arbiter in his own and
his followers' destinies, for the valour of his levies and the skill of
his leaders was unproved. The forays undertaken before the battle of Bedr
are really nothing more than essays by the Muslim in the game of war, and
it was not until proof of their power against the Kureisch had been given
that Mahomet gave up his future policy into the keeping of that bright
disastrous deity that lures all sons of men. In a measure it was true
that the clash between Mahomet and the Kureisch was unavoidable, but that
it loomed so large upon the horizon of Medina's policy is due to the
Prophet's determination to strike immediately at the wealth and security
of his rival. Lust for plunder, too, added its weight to Mahomet's
reprisals against Mecca; even if that city was content to leave him in
peace, still the Kureischite caravans to Bostra and Syria, passing so
near to Medina, were too tempting to be ignored.
Along these age-old routes Meccan merchandise still travelled its devious
way, at the mercy of sun and desert storms and the unheeding fierceness
of that cataclysmic country, a prey to any marauding tribes, and
dependent for its existence upon the strength of its escort. And since
plunder is sweeter than labour, every chief with swift riders and good
spearmen hoped to gain his riches at Meccan expense. But their attempts
were for the most part abortive, chiefly because of the lack of cohesion
and generalship; until Mahomet none really constituted a serious menace
to the Kureischite wealth.
In Muharram 622 (April) the Hegira took place, and six months sufficed
Mahomet to establish his power securely enough to be able to send out his
first expedition against the Kureisch in Ramadan (December) of the same
year. The party was led by Hamza, whose soldier qualities were only at
the beginning of their development, and probably consisted of a few
Muslim horsemen on their beautiful swift mounts and one or two spearmen,
and possibly several warriors skilled in the use of arrows. They sallied
forth from Medina and went to meet the caravan as it prepared to pass by
their town. The Kureisch had placed Abu Jahl in command--a man whose
invincible hatred for Islam and the Prophet had manifested itself in the
persecution at Mecca, and whose hostility increased as the Muslim power
The caravan was guarded, but none too strongly, and Hamza's troop pursued
and had almost attacked it when a Bedouin chief of the desert more
powerful than either party interposed and compelled the Muslim to
withdraw, while he forbade Abu Jahl to pursue them or attempt revenge. So
the caravan continued its way unmolested into Syria and there exchanged
its gums, leather, and frankincense for the silks and precious metals,
the fine stuffs and luxurious draperies which made the Syrian markets a
vivid medley of sheen and gloss, stored with bright colours and burnished
surfaces shimmering in the hot radiance of the East. In Jan. 623 the
caravan set out homeward "on its lone journey o'er the desert," and again
the Muslim sent out an attacking party in the hope of securing this
larger prize. But the Kureisch were wise and had provided themselves
with a stronger escort before which the Muslim could do nothing but
retreat--not, however, before they had sent a few tentative arrows at the
cavalcade. Obeida, their leader and a cousin of Mahomet, gave the command
to shoot, and is renowned henceforth as "he who shot the first arrow for
After a month another essay was made upon a northward-bound caravan by
Sa'd, again without success, for he had miscalculated dates and missed
his quarry by some days. Each leader on his return to Medina was received
with honour by Mahomet as one who had shown his prowess in the cause of
Isalm and presented with a white banner.
So far the prophet himself had not taken the field; now, however, in the
summer and autumn of 623, in spite of signs that all was not well with
the Jewish alliance at home, Mahomet took the field in person and
conducted three larger but still unsuccessful expeditions; the last
attacking levy of October 623 consisted of 200 men, but even then Mahomet
was able to effect nothing against the Kureischite escort. The attempted
raid had nevertheless an important outcome, for by this exhibition of
strength Mahomet succeeded in convincing a neighboring desert tribe,
hitherto friendly to Mecca, of the advisability of seeking alliance with
the Muslim.
The treaty between Mahomet and the Bedouin tribe marks the beginning of a
significant development in his foreign polity. Like the Romans, and all
military nations, he knew the worth of making advantageous alliances,
while he was clear-sighted enough to realise that the struggle with Mecca
was inevitable. During the months preceding the battle of Bedr he
concluded several treaties with desert tribes, and it is to this policy
he owes in part his power to maintain his aggressive attitude towards the
Kureisch, for with the alliance of the tribes around the caravan routes
Mahomet could be sure of hampering the Meccan trade.
While the Prophet was in the field he left representatives to care for
the affairs of his city. These representatives were designated by him,
and were always members of his personal following. Ali and Abu Bekr were
most often chosen until All proved his worth as a warrior, and so usually
accompanied or commanded the expeditionary force. The representatives
held their authority direct from Mahomet, and had in all matters the
identical power of the Prophet during his absence. It speaks well for the
loyalty and acumen of these ministers that Mahomet was enabled to leave
the city so often and so confidently, and that the government continued
as if under his personal supervision.
Whether the Jews were overbold because of Mahomet's frequent absences, or
whether they now became conscious of the trend of Mahomet's policy
towards the absorption of the Jewish element within the city into Islam,
will never be made clear, beyond the fact that the Jewish tribes were not
enthusiastic in their union with the Muslim, and that their national
character precluded them from accepting an alliance that threatened the
autonomy of their religion. It is, however, certain that the discontent
of the Jews voiced itself more and more loudly as the year advanced. The
suras of the period are full of revilings and threats against them, and
form a greater contrast coming after the later Meccan suras wherein
Israel was honoured and its heroes held up as examples. A few Jews had
been won over to his cause, but the mass showed themselves either hostile
or indifferent to the federal idea. As yet no definite sundering
of relationships had occurred, but everything pointed to a speedy
dissolution of the treaty unless one side or the other moderated its
The autumn of 628 saw Mahomet fully established in Medina. He had made
his worth known by his energy and organising power, by his devotion to
Allah and his zeal for the faith he had founded. The Medinans regarded
him already as their natural leader, and he had definitely adopted their
city as his headquarters. Through his skill as a statesman and his
loyalty to an idea he wrought out, the foundations of his future state,
and if the latter months of 623 saw him not yet strong enough to overcome
the Meccans, at least he was so firmly established that he could afford
to dispense with any overtures to the increasingly hostile Jews, and he
had gained sufficient adherents to allow him to contemplate with
equanimity the prospect of a sharp and prolonged struggle with the



_"Even though thou shouldst bring every kind of sign to those who have
received the Scriptures, yet Thy Kibla they will not adopt; nor shalt
thou adopt their Kibla; nor will one part of them adopt the Kibla of the
other."--The Kuran_.
Mahomet realised the position of affairs at Medina too acutely to allow
of his undertaking in person any predatory expeditions against the
Kureisch during the autumn and winter of 623. The Jews were chafing under
his tacit assumption of State control, and although their murmurings had
not reached the recklessness of strife, still both their leaders and the
Muslim perceived that their disaffection was inevitable. Insecurity at
home, however, did not prevent him from sending out an expedition in
Rajab (October) of that year under Abdallah. Rajab is a sacred month in
the Mohamedan calendar, one in which war is forbidden. Strictly,
therefore, in sending out an expedition at all just then Mahomet was
transgressing against the laws of that religion which, purged of its
idolatries, he claimed as his own. But it was a favourable opportunity to
attack the Kureischite caravan on its way to Taif, and therefore Mahomet
recked nothing of the prohibition.
Taif was a very distant objective for an expeditionary band from Medina,
and that Mahomet contemplated attack upon his enemy by a company so far
removed from its base is convincing proof, should any be needed, of his
confidence in his followers' prowess and his conciliation of the tribes
lying between the two hostile cities.
Sealed orders were given to Abdallah, with instructions not to open the
parchment until he was two days south of Medina. At sunset on the second
day he came with his eight followers to a well in the midst of the
desert. There under the few date palms, which gave them rough shelter, he
broke the seal and read:
"When thou readest this writing depart unto Nakhla, between Taif and
Mecca; there lie in wait for the Kureisch, and bring thy comrades news
concerning them."
As Abdallah read his mind alternated between apprehension and daring, and
turning to his companions he took counsel of them.
"Mahomet has commanded me to go to Nakhla and there await the Kureisch;
also he has commanded me to say unto you whoever desireth martyrdom for
Islam let him follow me, and whoever will not suffer it, let him turn
back. As for me, I am resolved to carry out the commands of God's
Then one and all the eight companions assured him they would not forsake
him until the quest was achieved. At dawn they resumed their march and
arrived at length at Nakhla, where they encountered the Kureisch caravan
laden with spice and leather. Now, it was the last day of the month of
Rajab, wherein it was unlawful to fight, wherefore the Muslim took
counsel, saying:
"If we fight not this day, they will elude us and escape."
But the Prophet's implied command was strong enough to induce initiative
and hardihood in the small attacking party. They bore down upon the
Kureisch, showering arrows in their path, so that one man was killed and
several wounded. The rest forsook their merchandise and fled, leaving
behind them two prisoners, whose retreat had been cut off. Abdallah was
left in possession of the field, and joyfully he returned to Medina,
bearing with him the first plunder captured by the Muslim.
But his return led Mahomet into a quandary from which there seemed
no escape. Politically, he was bound to approve Abdallah's deed;
religiously, he could neither laud it nor share the fruits of it. For
days the spoils remained undivided, but Abdallah was not punished or even
reprimanded. Meanwhile, the Jews and the Kureisch vied with one another
in execrating Mahomet, and even his own people murmured against him. It
was clearly time that an authoritative sanction should be given to the
deed, and accordingly in the sura, "The Cow," we have the revelation from
Allah proclaiming the greater culpability of the Infidels and of those
who would stir up civil strife:
worse in the sight of God; civil strife is worse than bloodshed."
No possible doubt must be cast in this and similar cases upon Mahomet's
sincerity. The Kuran was the vehicle of the Lord; he had used it to
proclaim his unity and power and his warnings to the unrighteous. Now
that Islam had recognised his august and indissoluble majesty, and had
accorded the throne of Heaven and the governance of earth to him
indivisibly, the world was split up into Believers and Unbelievers. The
Kuran, therefore, must of necessity cease to be merely the proclamation
of divine unity that it had been and become the vehicle for definite
orders and regulations, the outcome of those theocratic ideas upon which
Mahomet's creed was founded. The justification would not appeal to the
people unless Allah's sanction supported it, and Mahomet realised with
all his ardour of faith that the transgression was slight compared with
the result achieved towards the progress of Islam. The Prophet therefore
received, with Allah's approval, a fifth of the spoil, but the captives
he released after receiving ransom.
"This," says the historian, "was the first booty that Mahomet obtained,
the first captives they seized, and the first life they took." The
significance of the event was vividly felt throughout Islam, and
Abdallah, its hero, received at Mahomet's hands the title of "Amir-al-
Momirim," Commander of the Faithful--a title which recalls inseparably
the cruelty and magnificence, the glamour and rapacity, of Arabian Bagdad
under Haroun-al-Raschid. The valorous enterprise had now been achieved,
the Kureisch caravan was despoiled, and the Kureisch themselves wrought
into fury against the Prophet's insolence; but more than all, the channel
of Mahomet's policy of warfare became thereby so deeply carved that he
could not have effaced it had he desired. Henceforth his creative genius
limited itself to the deepening of its course and the direction of its
The Jews had not rested content with murmuring against Mahomet's rule,
they sought to embarrass him by active sedition. One of their first
attempts against Mahomet's regime was to stir up strife between the
Refugees and Helpers. In this they would have been successful but for
Mahomet's efficient system of espionage, a method upon which he relied
throughout his life. Failing to foment a rebellion in secret they
proceeded to open hostilities, and the Muslim, jealous for their faith,
retaliated by contempt and estrangement. During the winter of 623
personal attack was made by the mob upon Mahomet. The people were hounded
on by their leaders to stone the Prophet, but he was warned in time and
escaped their assaults.
The popular fury was merely the reflex of a fundamental division of
thought between the opposing parties. The Jewish and Muslim systems
could never coalesce, for each claimed the dominance and ignored all
compromise. The age-long, hallowed traditions of the Jews which supported
a theocracy as unyielding as any conception of Divine sovereignty
preached by Mahomet, found themselves faced with a new creative force
rapidly evolving its own legends, and strong enough in its enthusiasm to
overwhelm their own. The Rabbis felt that Mahomet and his warrior
heroes--Ali, Omar, Othman, and the rest--would in time dislodge from
their high places their own peculiar saints, just as they saw Mahomet
with Abu Bekr and his personnel of administrators and informers
already overriding their own councillors in the civil and military
departments of their state. The old regime could not amalgamate with the
new, for that would mean absorption by its more vigorous neighbour, and
the Jewish spirit is exclusive in essence and separatist perforce.
Mahomet took no pains to conciliate his allies; they had made a treaty
with him in the days of his insecurity and he was grateful, but now his
position in Medina was beyond assailment, and he was indifferent to their
goodwill. As their aggression increased he deliberately withdrew his
participation in their religious life, and severed his connection with
their rites and ordinances.
The Kibla of the Muslim, whither at every prayer they turned their faces,
and which he had declared to be the Temple at Jerusalem, scene of his
embarkation upon the wondrous "Midnight Journey," was now changed to the
Kaaba at Mecca. What prevision or prophetic inspiration prompted Mahomet
to turn his followers' eyes away from the north and fix them upon their
former home with its fierce and ruthless heat, the materialisation, it
seemed, of his own inexorable and passionate aims? Henceforth Mecca
became unconsciously the goal of every Muslim, the desired city, to be
fought for and died for, the dwelling-place of their Prophet, the crown
of their faith.
The Jewish Fast of Atonement, which plays so important a part in Semite
faith and doctrine, had been made part of the Muslim ritual in 622, while
a federal union still seemed possible, but the next year such an
amalgamation could not take place. In Ramadan (Dec. to January),
therefore, Mahomet instituted a separate fast for the Faithful. It was to
extend throughout the Sacred Month in which the Kuran had first been sent
down to men. Its sanctity became henceforth a potent reminder for the
Muslim of his special duties towards Allah, of the reverence meet to be
accorded to the Divine Upholder of Islam. During all the days of Ramadan,
no food or drink might pass a Muslim lip, nor might he touch a woman, but
the moment the sun's rim dipped below the horizon he was absolved from
the fast until dawn. No institution in Islam is so peculiarly sacred as
Ramadan, and none so scrupulously observed, even when, by the revolution
of the lunar year, the fast falls during the bitter heat of summer. It is
a characteristic ordinance, and one which emphasises the vivid Muslim
apprehension of the part played by abstention in their religious code.
At the end of the fast--that is, upon the sight of the next new
moon--Mahomet proclaimed a festival, Eed-al-Fitr, which was to take the
place of the great Jewish ceremony of rejoicing.
At this time, too, Mahomet, evidently bent on consolidating his religious
observances and regulating their conduct, decreed a fresh institution,
with parallels in no religion--the Adzan, or call to prayer. Mahomet
wished to summon the Believers to the Mosque, and there was no way except
to ring a bell such as the Christians use, which rite was displeasing to
the Faithful. Indeed, Mahomet is reported later to have said, "The bell
is the devil's musical instrument."
But Abdallah, a man of profound faith and love for Islam, received
thereafter a vision wherein a "spirit, in the guise of man, clad in green
garments," appeared to him and summoned him to call the Believers to
prayer from the Mosque at every time set apart for devotion.
"Call ye four times 'God is great,' and then, 'I bear witness that there
is no God but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet. Come unto prayer, come
unto salvation. God is great; there is no God but Him.'"
"A true vision," declared Mahomet. "Go and teach it to Bilal, that he may
call to prayer, for he has a better voice than thou."
When Bilal, a slave, received the command, he went up to the Mosque, and
climbing its highest minaret, he cried aloud his summons, adding at each
And when Omar heard the call, he went to Mahomet and declared that he had
the previous night received the same vision.
And Mahomet answered him, "Praise be to Allah!"
Therewith was inaugurated the most characteristic observance in Islam,
the one which impresses itself very strongly upon the Western traveller
as he hears in the dimness of every dawning, before the sun's edge is
seen in the east, the voices of the Muezzin from each mosque in the city
proclaiming their changeless message, their insistent command to prayer
and praise. He sees the city leap into magical life, the dark figures of
the Muslim hurrying to the Holy Place that lies shimmering in the golden
light of early day, and knows that, behind this outward manifestation,
lies a faith, at root incomprehensible by reason of its aloofness from
the advancing streams of modern thought, a faith spiritually impotent,
since it flees from mysticism, generating an energy which has expended
its vital force in conquest, only to find itself too intellectually
backward and physically sluggish to gather in prosperity the fruits of
its attainments. Its lack of imagination, its utter ignorance of the lure
of what is strange, have been responsible for its achievement of
stupendous tasks, for the driving energy behind was never appalled by
anticipation, nor checked by any realisation of coming stress and terror.
And the same qualities that led the Muslim to world-conquest thereafter
caused their downfall, for their minds could not visualise that world of
imagination necessary for any creative science, while they were not
attuned in intellect for the reception of such generative ideas as have
contributed to the philosophic and speculative development of the Western
All the characteristics which distinguish Islam to the making and the
blasting of its fortunes may be found in embryo in the small Medinan
community; for their leader, by his own creative ardour, imposed upon his
flock every idea which shaped the form and content of its future career
from its rising even to its zenith and decline.

_"They plotted, but God plotted, and of plotters is God the best."--The
Mahomet's star, now continually upon the ascendant, flamed into sudden
glory in Ramadan of the second year of the Hegira. Its brilliance and the
bewilderment caused by its triumphant continuance is reflected in all the
chronicles and legends clustered around that period.
If Nakhlu had been an achievement worthy of God's emissary, the victory
which followed it was an irrefutable argument in favour of Mahomet's
divinely ordained rulership of the Arabian peoples. It appeared to the
Muslim, and even to contemporary hostile tribes, nothing less than a
stupendous proof of their championship by God. Muslim poets and
historians are never weary of expatiating upon the glories achieved by
their tiny community with little but abiding zeal and supreme faith with
which to confound their foes. No military event in the life of the
Prophet called forth such rejoicings from his own lips as the triumph at
"O ye Meccans, if ye desired a decision, now hath the decision come to
you. It will be better for you if ye give over the struggle. If ye
return to it, we will return, and your forces, though they be many, shall
never avail you aught, for God is with the Faithful."
Through the whole of Sura viii the strain of exultation runs, the
presentment in dull words of fierce and splendid courage wrought out into
victory in the midst of the storms and lightnings of Heaven.
Such an earth-shaking event, the effects of which reached far beyond its
immediate environment, received fitting treatment at the hands of all
Arabian chronicles, so that we are enabled to reconstruct the events
preceding the battle itself, its action and result, with a vivid
completeness that is often denied us in the lesser events.
The caravan under Abu Sofian, about thirty or forty strong, which had
eluded Mahomet and reached Syria, was now due to return to Mecca with its
bartered merchandise. Mahomet was determined that this time it should not
escape, and that he would exact from it full penalty of the vengeance he
owed the Meccans for his insults and final expulsion from their city. As
soon as the time for its approach drew nigh, Mahomet sent two scouts to
Hama, north of Medina, who were to bring tidings to him the moment they
caught sight of its advancing dust. But Abu Sofian had been warned of
Mahomet's activity and turned off swiftly to the coast, keeping the
seaward route, while he sent a messenger to Mecca with the news that an
attack by the Muslim was meditated.
Dhamdham, sent by his anxious leader, arrived in the city after three
days' journey in desperate haste across the desert, and flung himself
from his camel before the Kaaba. There he beat the camel to its knees,
cut off its ears and nose, and put the saddle hind foremost. Then,
rending his garments, he cried with a loud voice:
"Help, O Kureisch, your caravan is pursued by Mahomet!"
With one accord the Meccan warriors, angered by the news that spread
wildly among the populace, assembled before their holy place and swore a
great oath that they would uphold their dignity and avenge their loss
upon the upstart followers of a demented leader. Every man who could bear
arms prepared in haste for the expedition, and those who could not fight
found young men as their representatives. In the midst of all the tumult
and eager resolutions to exterminate the Muslim, so runs the tale, there
were few who would listen to Atikah, the daughter of Abd-al-Muttalib.
"I have dreamed three nights ago, that the Kureisch will be called to
arms in three days and will perish. Behold the fulfilment of my dream!
Woe to the Kureisch, for their slaughter is foretold!"
But she was treated as of no account, a woman and frail, and the army set
out upon its expedition in all the bravery of that pomp-loving nation.
With Abu Jahl at its head, and accompanied by slave girls with lutes and
tabrets, who were to gladden the eyes and minister to the pleasure of its
warriors, the Kureisch army moved on through the desert towards its
destined goal; but we are told by a recorder, "dreams of disaster
accompanied it, nor was its sleep tranquil for the evil portents that
appeared therein." Thus, apprehensive but dauntless, the Meccan army
advanced to Safra, one day's march from Bedr, where it encountered
messengers from Abu Sofian, who announced that the caravan had eluded the
Muslim and was safe.
Then arose a debate among the Kureisch as to their next course. Many
desired to return to Mecca, deeming their purpose accomplished now that
the caravan was secure from attack, but the bolder amongst them were
anxious to advance, and the more deliberative favoured this also, because
by so doing they might hope to overawe Mahomet into quietude. But before
all there was the safety of their homes to consider, and they were
fearful lest an attack by a hostile tribe, the Beni Bekr, might be made
upon Mecca in the absence of its fighting men. Upon receiving assurances
of good faith from a tribe friendly to both, they dismissed that fear and
resolved to advance, so that they might compel Mahomet to abandon his
attacks upon their merchandise.
This proceeding seemed a reasonable and politic measure, until it was
viewed in the light of its consequences, and indeed, judging from
ordinary calculation, such a host could have no other effect than a
complete rout upon such a small and inefficient band as Mahomet's
followers. Therefore, in estimating, if they did at all carefully, the
forces matched against them, the Kureisch found themselves materially
invincible, though they had not reckoned the spiritual factor of
enthusiasm which transcended their own physical superiority.
These events had taken over nine days, and meanwhile Mahomet had not been
idle. His two spies had brought news of the approach of the caravan, but
beyond that meagre information he knew nothing. The Kureischite activity
thereafter was swallowed up in the vastnesses of the desert, which drew a
curtain as effective as death around the opposing armies.
But news of the caravan's advance was sufficient for the Prophet. With
the greatest possible speed he collected his army--not, we are told,
without some opposition from the fearful among the Medinan population,
who were anxious to avoid any act which might bring down upon them the
ruthless Meccan hosts. Legend has counted as her own this gathering
together of the Muslim before Bedr, and translating the engendered
enthusiasm into imaginative fact, has woven a pattern of barbaric
colours, wherein deeds are transformed by the spirit which prompts them.
The heroes panted for martyrdom, and each craved to be among the first to
pour forth his blood in the sacred cause. They crowded to battle on
camels and on foot. Abu Bekr in his zeal walked every step of the way,
which he regarded as the road to supreme benediction. Mahomet himself led
his valorous band, mounted on a camel with Ali by his side, having before
him two black flags borne by standard-bearers whose strength and bravery
were the envy of the rest. He possessed only seventy camels and two
horses, and the riders were chosen by lot. Behind marched or rode the
flower of Islam's warriors and statesmen--Abu Bekr, Omar, Hamza, and
Zeid, whose names already resounded through Islam for valiant deeds;
Abdallah, with Mahomet's chosen leaders of expeditions; the rank and
file, three hundred strong, regardless of what perils might overtake
them, intent on plunder and the upholding of their vigorous faith,
sallied forth from Medina as soon as they could be equipped, and took the
direct road to Mecca. On reaching Safra, for reasons we are not told,
they turned west to Bedr, a halting-place on the Syrian road, possibly
hoping to catch the caravan on its journey westwards towards the sea.
But Abu Sofian was too quick for them. Mahomet's scouts had only reached
Bedr, reconnoitered and retired, when Abu Sofian approached the well
within its precincts and demanded of a man belonging to a neighbouring
tribe if there were strangers in the vicinity.
"I have seen none but two men, O Chief," he replied; "they came to the
well to water their camels."
But he had been bribed by Mahomet, and knew well they were Muslim.
Abu Sofian was silent, and looked around him carefully. Suddenly he
started up as he caught sight of their camels' litter, wherein were
visible the small date stones peculiar to Medinan palms.
"Camels from Yathreb!" he cried quickly; "these be the scouts of
Mahomet." Then he gathered his company together and departed hastily
towards the sea. He despatched a messenger to Mecca to tell of the
caravan's safety, and a little later heard with joy of his countrymen's
progress to oppose Mahomet.
"Doth Mahomet indeed imagine that it will be this time as in the affair
of the Hadramate (slain at Nakhla)? Never! He shall know that it is
But the army that caused such joy to Abu Sofian created nothing but
apprehension in Mahomet's camp. He knew the caravan had eluded him, and
now there was a greater force more than three times his own advancing on
him. Hurriedly he convened a council of war, whereat his whole following
urged an immediate advance. The excitement had now fully captured their
tumultuous souls, and there was more danger for Mahomet in a retreat than
in an attack. An immediate advance was therefore decided upon, and
Mahomet sent Ali, on the day before the battle, to reconnoitre, as they
were nearing Bedr. The same journey which told Abu Sofian of the
presence of the Muslim also resulted for them in the capture of three
water-carriers by Ali, who dragged them before Mahomet, where they were
compelled to give the information he wanted, and from them he learned the
disposition and strength of the enemy.
The valley of Bedr is a plain, with hills flanking it to the north and
east. On the west are small sandy hillocks which render progress
difficult, especially if the ground is at all damp from recent rains.
Through this shallow valley runs the little stream, having at its
south-western extremity the springs and wells which give the place its
importance as a halting stage. Command of the wells was of the highest
importance, but as yet neither army had obtained it, for the Muslim had
not taken up their final position, and the Kureisch were hemmed in by the
sandy ground in front of them.
The wretched water-carriers being brought before Mahomet at first
declared they knew nothing, but after some time confessed they were Abu
Jahl's servants.
"And where is the abiding place of Abu Jahl?"
"Beyond the sand-hills to the east."
"And how many of his countrymen abide with him?"
"They are numerous; I cannot tell; they are as numerous as leaves."
"On one day nine, the next ten."
"Then they number 950 men," exclaimed the Prophet to Ali; "take the men
Mahomet now called a council of generals, and it was decided to advance
up the valley to the farther side of the wells, so as to secure the
water-supply, and destroy all except the one they themselves needed. This
manoeuvre was carried out successfully, and the Muslim army encamped
opposite the Kureisch, at the foot of the western hills and separated
from their adversaries by the low sandy hillocks in front of them. A
rough hut of palm branches was built for Mahomet whence he could direct
the battle, and where he could retire for counsel with Abu Bekr, and for
Both sides had now made their dispositions, and there remained nothing
but to wait till daybreak. That night the rain descended upon the doomed
Kureisch like the spears of the Lord, whelming their sandy soil and
churning up the rising ground in front of the troops into a quagmire of
bottomless mud. The clouds were tempered towards the higher Muslim
position, and the water drained off the hilly land.
"See, the Lord is with us; he has sent his heavy rain upon our enemies,"
declared Mahomet, looking from his hut in the early dawn, weary with
anxiety for the issue of this fateful hour, but strong in faith and
confident in the favour of Allah. Then he retired to the hut for prayer
and contemplation.
"O Allah, forget not thy promise! O Lord, if this little band be
vanquished idolatry will prevail and thy pure worship cease from off the
He set himself to the encouragement and instruction of his troops. He had
no cavalry with which to cover an advance, and he therefore ordered his
troops to remain firm and await the oncoming rush until the word to
charge was given.
But on no account were they to lose command of the wells. Drawn up in
several lines, their champions in front and Mahomet with Abu Bekr to
direct them from the rear, the little troop of Muslim awaited the
onslaught of their greater foes.
But dissent had broken out among the Kureisch generals. Obi, one of
their best warriors, perhaps feeling the confident carelessness of the
Kureisch was misplaced, wanted to go back without attacking. He was
overruled after much discussion and some bad feeling by Abu Jahl, who
declared that if they refrained from attack now all the land would ring
with their cowardice. So a general advance was ordered, and the Kureisch
champions led the way.
The battle began, as most battles of primitive times, by a series of
single combats, one champion challenging another to fight. The glory of
being the first Muslim to kill a Meccan in this encounter fell to Hamza.
Aswad of the Kureisch swore to drink of the water of those wells guarded
by the Muslim. Hamza opposed, and his first sword stroke severed the leg
of Aswad; but he, undaunted, crawled on until at the fountain he was
slain by Hamza before its waters passed his lips. Now three champions of
the Kureisch came forward to challenge three Muslim of equal birth.
Hamza, Ali, and Obeida answered the charge, and in front of the opposing
ranks three Homeric conflicts raged.
Hamza, the lion of God, and Ali, the sword of the faith, quickly overcame
their opponents, but Obeida was wounded before he could spear his man.
The sight gave courage to the Kureisch, and now the main body of them
pressed on, seeking to overwhelm the Muslim by sheer weight. The heavy
ground impeded their movements, and they came on slowly with what anxious
expectation on the part of Mahomet's soldiers, whom their Prophet had
commanded to await his signal.
When the Kureisch were near enough Mahomet lifted his hand:
"Ya Mansur amit!" (Ye conquerors, strike!) he cried, pointing with
outstretched finger at the close ranks bearing down upon them; "Paradise
awaits him who lays down his life for Islam."
The Muslim with a wild cry dashed forward against their foe. But the
Kureisch were brave and they were numerous, and the Muslim were few and
almost untutored. The battle raged, surging like foam within the narrow
valley; its waves now roaring almost up to the Prophet's vantage ground,
now retreating in eddies towards the rear of the Kureisch, under a
lowering sky, whose wind-swept clouds seemed to reflect the strife in the
"Behold Gabriel with a thousand angels charging down upon the Infidels!"
cried Mahomet, as a blast of wind tore shrieking down the valley. "See
Muhail and Seraphil with their troops rush to the help of God's chosen."
Then as the Muslim seemed to waver, pressed back by the mass of their
enemies, he appeared in their midst, and, taking a handful of dust, cast
it in the face of the foe:
"Let their faces be confounded!"
The Muslim, caught by the magnetism of Mahomet's presence, seized by the
immortal energy which radiated from him, rallied their strength. With a
shout they bore down upon the Kureisch, who wavered and broke beneath
this inspired onrush, within whose vigour dwelt all Mahomet's surcharged
ambition and indomitable aims. He commanded the attack to be followed up
at once, and the Kureisch, hampered in their retreat by the marshy
ground, fell in confusion, their ranks shattered, their champions crushed
in the welter of spears and horsemen, swords, armour, sand, blood, and
the bodies of men.
The order went forth from Mahomet to spare as much as possible his own
house of Hashim, but otherwise the slaughter was as remorseless as the
temper of the Muslim ensured. Of the Prophet's army, so tell the
Chronicles, only fourteen were killed, but of the Kureisch the dead
numbered forty-nine, with a like haul of prisoners. Abu Jahl was among
those sorely wounded; but when Abdallah saw him lying helpless, he
recognised him, and slew him without a word. Then having cut off his
head, he brought the prize to Mahomet.
"It is the head of God's enemy," cried the Prophet as he gazed on it in
exaltation; "it is more acceptable to me than the choicest camel in all
The broken remnants of the Kureisch army journeyed slowly back to Mecca
through the same desert that had seen all the bravery and splendour of
their advance, and the news of their terrible fate preceded them. All the
city was draped in cloths of mourning, for there was no distinguished
house that did not bewail its dead. One alone did not weep--Hind, wife of
Abu Sofian, went forth to meet her husband.
"What doest thou with unrent garments? Knowest thou not the affliction
that hath fallen on this thy city?"
"I will not weep," replied Hind, "until this wrong has been avenged. When
thou hast gone forth, hast conquered this accursed, then will I mourn for
those who are slain this day. Nay, my lord, I will not deck myself, nor
perfume my hair, nor come near thy couch until I see the avenging of this
Then Abu Sofian swore a great oath that he would immediately collect men
and take the field once more against Islam.
There remained now for the victors but the distribution of the spoil and
the decision of the fate of the prisoners. The less valuable of these
were put to death, their bodies cast into a pit, but the Muslim took the
rest with them, hoping for ransom. The spoil was taken up in haste, and
the Prophet repaired joyfully to Safra, where he proposed to divide
it. But there contention arose, as was almost inevitable, over the
distribution of the wealth, and so acute did the disaffection become that
Mahomet revealed the will of Allah concerning it:
"And know ye, when ye have taken any booty, a fifth part belongeth to God
and to the Apostle, and to the near of kin and to orphans and to the
meeting of the Hosts." As part of his due, Mahomet took the famous sword
Dhul Ficar, which has gathered around it as many legends as the weapons
of classical heroes, and which hereafter never left him whenever he took
command of his followers in battle. So the Muslim, flushed with victory,
laden with spoil, returned to Medina, whose entire population assembled
to accord them triumphal entry.
"Abu Jahl, the sinner, is slain," cried the little children, catching the
phrase from their parents' lips.
"Abu Jahl, the sinner, is slain, and the foes of Islam laid low!" was
cried from the mosque and market-place, from minaret and house-top.
"Allah Akbar Islam!"
The great testing day had come and was past. In open fight, before a host
of their foes, the Muslim with smaller numbers had prevailed. The effect
upon Medina and upon Mahomet's later career cannot be overestimated. It
was indeed a turning point, whence Mahomet proceeded irrevocably upon the
road to success and fame. Reverses hereafter he certainly had, and at
times the outlook was almost insuperably dark, but no misfortune or gloom
could dull the splendour of that day at Bedr, when besides his own
slender following, the hosts of the Lord, whose turbans glowed like
crowns, led by Gabriel in golden armour, had fought for him and
vanquished his foes. The glory of this battle was the lamp by which he
planned his future wins.
At Medina the Disaffected were triumphantly gathered beneath his banner;
his position became, for the time at least, established. No longer did he
need to conciliate, flatter, spy upon the various factions within his
walls. His prisoners were kindly treated, and some converted by these
means to the faith he had vainly sought to impose upon them. Affairs
within the city were organised and consolidated. Registers were prepared,
the famous "Registers of Omar," which were to contain the names of all
those who had given distinguished service to the cause of Allah, and to
confer upon them exalted rank. The three hundred names inscribed therein
were the embryo of a Muslim aristocracy, constituting, in fact, a peerage
of Islam. Mahomet's religious ordinances were strengthened and confirmed,
while his faith received that homage paid to success which had raised its
founder from the commander of a small hand of religionists to the chief
of a prosperous city, the leader of an efficient army, the head of a
community which held within itself the future dominion of Arabia, of
western Asia, southern Europe, in fact, the greater part of the middle
More than ever Mahomet perceived that his success lay in the sword. Bedr
set the seal upon his acceptance of warfare as a means of propaganda.
Henceforth the sword becomes to him the bright but awful instrument
through which the will of Allah is achieved. In the measure that he
trusted its power and confided to it his own destiny and that of his
followers, so did war exact of him its ceaseless penalty, urging him on
continually, through motives of policy and self-defence, until he became
its slave, compelled to continue along the path appointed him, or perish
by that very instrument by which his power had been wrought. Henceforward
his activities consist chiefly of wars aggressive and defensive, while
the religion actuating them receives slighter notice, because the main
thesis has been established in his own state and requires the force of
arms to obtain its supremacy over alien races.
After Bedr, the poet and Prophet becomes the administrator and Prophet.
The quietude and meditation of the Meccan hill-slopes are exchanged for
the council-chamber and the battlefield, and appear upon the background
of his anxious life with the glamour and aloofness of a dream-country;
the inevitable turmoil and preoccupation which accompanies the direction
of affairs took hold upon his life. The fervour of his nature, its
remorseless activity, compelled him to legislate for his followers with
that minute attention to detail almost inconceivable to the modern mind
with its conceptions of the various "departments" of state.
We see him mainly through tradition, but also to a great extent in the
Kuran directing the humblest details in the lives of the Muslim,
organising their ritual, regulating their commerce, their usury laws,
their personal cleanliness, their dietary, their social and moral
relations. Regarding the multifarious duties and cares of his growing
state, its almost complete helplessness in its hands, for he alone was
its guiding force, it is the clearest testimony to his vital energy, his
strength and sanity of brain, that he was not overwhelmed by them, and
that the creative side of his nature was not crushed beyond recovery;
although confronted by the clamorous demands of government and warfare,
these could not touch his spiritual enthusiasm nor his glowing and
changeless devotion to Allah and his cause. At the end of his long years
of rule he could still say with perfect truth, "My chief delight is in



"And if the people of the Book had believed, it had surely been better
for them: Believers there are among them, but most of them are perverse."
--_The Kuran_.
The songs of triumph over Bedr had scarcely left the lips of Muslim poets
when the voice of faction was heard again in Medina. The Jews, that
"stiff-necked nation," unimpressed by Mahomet's triumph, careful only of
its probable effect on their own position, which effect they could not
but regard as disastrous, seeing that it augured their own submission to
a superior power, murmured against his success, and tried their utmost to
sow dissension by the publication of contemptuous songs through the
mouths of their poets and prophetesses. Not only did the Jews murmur in
secret against him, but they tried hard to induce members of the original
Medinan tribes to join with them in a desperate effort to throw off the
Muslim yoke.
Chief among these defamers of Mahomet's prestige was Asma, a prophetess
of the tribe of Beni Aus. She published abroad several libellous songs
upon Mahomet, but was quickly silenced by Omeir, a blind man devoted to
his leader, who felt his way to her dwelling-place at dead of night, and,
creeping past her servant, slew her in the midst of her children. News of
the outrage was brought to Mahomet; it was expected he would punish
Omeir, but:
"Thou shalt not call him blind, but the seeing," replied the Prophet;
"for indeed he hath done me great service."
faith to keep their resistance alive. "The only alternative to a hopeless
blood feud was the adoption of Islam." But the Jews, with stubborn
consciousness of their own essential autonomy, preferred the more
remembered that these compositions took the place of newspapers, were as
representative of the prophetic spirits of old, fired by the ancient
glory of Israel and its present threatened degradation at the hands of
contempt and hatred for the Prophet.
alight the flame of rebellion. Therefore Mahomet, with his inexorable
time. The singer was slain by his express command.
"Who will rid me of this pestilence?" he cried, and like all strong
of another.
one who had given so efficient proof of his power.
Kainukaa, goldsmiths of Medina, whose works lay outside the city's
in their faith and refused him with contemptuous coldness.
"O Mahomet, thou thinkest we are men akin to thine own race! Hitherto
know we are men!" Therewith Mahomet was forced to acknowledge defeat, and
him opportunity he would avenge this slight upon Islam and his own
divinely appointed mission. Friction between him and the Kainukaa
naturally increased, and it was therefore not long before a pretext
arose. The story of a Jew's insult to a Muslim girl and its avenging by
Mahomet's aggression against this tribe. It is uncertain how the first
_casus belli,_ such a development was inevitable.
The anger of the Prophet was aroused, for were they not presuming to
oppose his will and that of Allah, whose instrument he was? He marshalled
his army and put a great white banner at their head, gave the leadership
to Hamza, and so marched forth to attack the rebellious Kainukaa. For
fifteen days the tribe was besieged in its strongholds, until at last,
beaten and discouraged, faced by scarcity of supplies, and the certainty
of disease, it surrendered at discretion.
Then was shown in all its fullness the implacable despotism conceived by
Mahomet as the only possible method of government, which indeed for those
times and with that nation it certainly was. The order went forth for the
slaying and despoiling of the Kainukaa, and the grim work began by the
seizure of their armour, precious stones, gold, and goldsmith's tools.
But Abdallah, chief of the Khazraj, and formerly leader of the
Disaffected, became suppliant for their release. He sought audience of
Mahomet, and there petitioned with many tears for the lives of his
friends and kinsmen. But Mahomet turned his back upon him. Abdallah, in
an ecstacy of importunity, grasped the skirt of Mahomet's garment.
"Loose thou thy hand!" cried Mahomet, while his face grew dark with
But Abdallah in the boldness of desperation replied, "I will not let thee
go until thou hast shown favour to my kinsmen."
Then said Mahomet, "As thou wilt not be silent, I give thee the lives of
those I have taken prisoner."
Nevertheless, the exile of the tribe was enforced, and Mahomet compelled
their immediate removal from the outskirts of Medina. The Prophet's
later policy towards the Jews was hereby inaugurated. He set himself
deliberately to break up their strongholds one by one, and did not swerve
from his purpose until the whole of the hated race had been removed
either by slaughter or by enforced exile from the precincts of his
adopted city. He would suffer no one but himself to govern, and uprooted,
with his unwavering purpose, all who refused to accept him as lord.
For about a month affairs took their normal and uninterrupted course in
Medina, but in the following month, Dzul Higg (March), the last of that
eventful second year, a slight disturbance of his steady work of
government threatened his followers.
Abu Sofian's vow pressed sorely upon his conscience until, unable to
endure inaction further, he gathered together 200 horsemen and took the
highway towards Medina. He travelled by the inland road, and arrived at
length at the settlements of the Beni Nadhir, one of the Jewish tribes in
the vicinity of Medina. He harried their palm-gardens, burnt their
cornfields, and killed two of their men. Mahomet had plundered the Meccan
wealth, his allies should in turn be harassed by his victims. It was
purely a private enterprise undertaken out of bravado and in fulfilment
of a vow. As soon as the predatory attack had been made, Abu Sofian
deemed himself absolved and prepared to return.
But Mahomet was on his traces. For five days he pursued the flying
Kureisch, whose retreat turned into such a headlong rout that they threw
away their sacks of meal so as to travel more lightly. Therefore the
incident has been known ever since, according to the vivid Arab method of
description, as the Battle of the Meal-bags. But the foe was not worthy
of his pursuit, and Mahomet made no further attempt to come up with Abu
Sofian, but returned at once to Medina. The attack had ended more or less
in fiasco, and as a trial of strength upon either side it was negligible.
The sacred month, Dzul Higg, and the only one in which it was lawful to
make the Greater Pilgrimage in far-off Mecca, was now fully upon him, and
Mahomet felt drawn irresistibly to the ceremonies surrounding the ancient
and now to him distorted faith. He felt compelled to acknowledge his
kinship with the ancient ritual of Arabia, and to this end appointed a
festival, Eed-al-Zoha, to be celebrated in this month, which was not only
to take the place of the Jewish sacrificial ceremony, but to strengthen
his connection with the rites still performed at Mecca, of which the
Kaaba and the Black Stone formed the emblem and the goal.
In commemoration of the ceremonial slaying of victims in the vale of Mina
at the end of the Greater Pilgrimage, Mahomet ordered two kids to be
sacrificed at every festival, so that his people were continually
reminded that at Mecca, beneath the infidel yoke, the sacred ritual, so
peculiarly their own by virtue of the Abrahamic descent and their
inexorable monotheism, was being unworthily performed.
The institution is important, as indicating the development of Mahomet's
religious and ritualistic conceptions. In the first days of his
enthusiasm he was content to enjoin worship of one God by prayer and
praise, taking secondary account of forms and ceremonies. Then came the
uprooting of his outward religious life and the demands of his embryo
state for the manifestations essential to a communistic faith. He found
Israelite beliefs uncontaminated by the worship of many Gods, and turned
to their ritual in the hope of establishing with their aid a ceremonial
which should incorporate their system with his own fervent faith. Now,
finding no middle road between separatism and absorption possible with
such a people as the Jews, and unconsciously divining that in no great
length of time Islam would be sufficient unto itself, he turned again to
the practices of his native religion and ancestral ceremonies. Henceforth
he puts forward definitely his conception of Islam as a purified and
divinely regulated form of the worship followed by his Arabian forbears,
purged of its idol-worship and freed from numerous age-long corruptions.
Not only in ritual did his mind turn towards Mecca. It looms before his
eyes still as the Chosen City, the city of his dreams, whose conquest and
rendering back purified to the guidance of Allah he sets before his mind
as the ultimate, dim-descried goal of all his intermediary wars. The
Kibla had long since been changed to Mecca; thither at prayer every
Muslim turned his face and directed his thoughts, and now every possible
detail of ancient Meccan ritual was performed in scrupulous deference to
the one God, so that when the time came and in fulfilment of his desires
he set foot on its soil, no part of the ceremonies, with the lingering
enthusiasm of his youth still sweet upon them, might be omitted or be
allowed to lose its savour through disuse.
The third year of the Hegira began favourably for Mahomet. During the
first month, Muharram, there were three small expeditions against unruly
desert tribes. The Beni Ghatafan on the eastern Babylonian route were
friendly to the Kureisch. This was undesirable, because they might allow
the Meccan caravan to pass through in safety, and the Prophet had
resolved that it should be despoiled by whichever route it journeyed,
coast road or arid tableland. When therefore he received news that they
were assembling in force at Carcarat-al-Kadr, a desert oasis on the
confines of their territory, he marched thither in haste, hoping to catch
and overcome them before they dispersed.
But the Beni Ghatafan were too wise to suffer this, and when Mahomet came
to the place he found it deserted, save for some camels, left behind in
the flight, which he captured and brought to Medina, deeming it useless
to attempt the pursuit of his quarry through the trackless desert.
The raid in Jumad II (September) by Zeid was far more successful. Since
the victory at Bedr the coast route had been entirely barred for the
Kureischite caravans, and they were forced to try the central desert,
which road lay through the middle tableland leading on to Babylonia and
the Syrian wastes. The Meccan caravan had only reached Carada when it was
met by a Muslim force under Zeid, sent by the prescience and predatory
instincts of Mahomet. The guard was not strong, possibly because the
Meccans thought there was little fear of attack by this route, and so
Zeid was easily able to overcome his foe and secure the spoil, which
amounted to many bales of goods, camels, trappings, and armour. The
conquerer returned elated to Medina, where he cast the spoil at the feet
of the Prophet. The usual division was made, and the whole city rejoiced
over the wealth it had secured and the increasing discomfiture of its
Meanwhile matters were becoming urgent between the Muslim and the Jews.
Neither the murder of their singers, nor the expulsion of the Kainukaa
could silence the voice of Jewish discontent, which found its most
effective mouthpiece in the poet Ka'b al' Ashraf, son of a Jewess of the
tribe of the Beni Nadhir. This man had been righteously indignant at the
slaughter of the Kureischite champions at Bedr. The story seemed to him
so monstrous that he could not believe it.
"Is this true?" he asked the messenger; "has Mahomet verily slain these
earth better than the surface thereof!"
As soon as he returned he published verses lamenting the disgraceful
disaffection as possible. At last Mahomet waxed impatient and cried:
"Who will give me peace from this Ka'b al' Ashraf?"
Mahomet Mosleima replied, "I, even I will slay him."
The method of his accomplishment of this deed is instructive of the
estimation in which individual life was then held. Mosleima secured the
assistance of Ka'b's treacherous brother--how, we are not told, but most
probably by bribes. Together the two went to the poet's house by
young wife would have prevented Ka'b, sensing treachery from the manner
moonbeams the three walked past the outskirts of the city in deepest
converse, the subject of which was rebellion against the Prophet.
soon his brother began to stroke the hair of Ka'b until he had lulled him
into drowsiness. Then suddenly seizing the forelock he shouted:
"Let the enemy of God perish!"
Ka'b was pinioned, while four men of the Beni Aus slashed at him with
life dearly. The struggle became furious.
"When I saw that," relates Mosleima through the mouth of tradition, "I
the ground."
Mahomet rejoiced, and was at no pains to conceal his satisfaction. Ka'b
had made himself objectionable to the Prophet and dangerous to Islam; Ka'b
was removed; it was well; Allah Akbar Islam.
interpreted by that inflexible will and determination to achieve his
aims, which lies at the root of all his crimes of state. But the
unfortunate Jews went in fear and trembling, and their panic was
increased when Mahomet issued an order to his followers with permission
to kill them wherever they might be found. He very soon, however, allowed
so drastic a command to lapse, but not before some had taken advantage of
his savage policy, and after a time he made a new treaty with the Jews,
not at all on the old federal lines, but guaranteeing them some sort of
security, provided they showed proper submission to his superior power.
This treaty smoothed over matters somewhat, but nevertheless the Jews
were now thoroughly intimidated, and those who were left lived a
restricted life, wherein fear played the greater part.
But for the time being Mahomet was satisfied, and no further punitive
acts were attempted; not many months later he was faced with a far
greater danger, the appearance in force of his old enemy the Kureisch,
burning for vengeance, fierce in their hatred of such a despoiler, and
before them Mahomet in the new-found arrogance of his dominion was forced
to pause.



"If a wound hath befallen you, a wound like it hath already befallen
others; we alternate these days (of good and evil fortune) among men,
that God may know those who have believed and that He may take martyrs
from among you."--_The Kuran_.
The Jews had been alternately forced and cajoled into submission, the
Disaffected had been swept into temporary loyalty after the triumph at
Bedr, his own followers were magnificently proud of his dominance,
the Kureisch had made as yet no serious endeavours to avenge their
humiliation at Bedr; moreover, the religious and political affairs of the
city had been regulated so that it was possible to carry on the usual
business of life in security--a security which certainly possessed no
guaranteed permanence, and which might at any moment crack beneath the
feet of those who walked thereon and plunge them back into an anarchy of
warring creeds and chiefs--still a security such as Medina had seldom
known, built up by the one strong personality within its walls.
For a few months Mahomet could live in peace among his followers,
and the interest shifts not to his religious ordinances and work of
government--these had been successfully started, and were now continuing
almost automatically--but to his domestic life and his relations with his
intimate circle of friends. As his years increased he felt the continual
need of companionship and consolation, and while he sought for advice in
government and counsel in war from such men as Abu Bekr, Ali, and Othman,
he found solace and refreshment in the ministering hands of women.
Sawda he already possessed, and her slow softness and unimaginative mind
had already begun to pall; Ayesha, with her beauty and shrewdness, her
jewel-like nature, bright and almost as hard, could lessen the continual
strain of his life, and induce by a kind of reflex action that tireless
energy of mind find body which was the secret of his power. But these
were not enough, and now he sought fresh pleasure in Haphsa, and in other
and lesser women, though he never cast away his earlier loves, still with
the same unformulated desire, to obtain some respite from the cares which
beset him, some renewal of his vivid nature, burning with self-destroying
The emotional stimulus, whose agents women were, became for him as
necessary as prayer, and we see him in later life adding experience after
experience in his search for solace, nevertheless cleaving most to
Ayesha, whose vitality fulfilled his intensest need. Secondary to the
necessity of refreshment came the not inconsiderable duty of securing the
permanence of his power by the foundation of a line of male successors.
His earlier marriages had been productive only of daughters, while his
later unions, and also his most recent with Haphsa, had been unfruitful.
But though so far no direct male issue had been vouchsafed him, he was
careful to unite with himself the most important men in his state by
marriage with his children, binding them thereby with the closest blood
ties. Rockeya, now dead, had married the warrior Othman, and Fatima, the
Prophet's youngest daughter, was bestowed upon the bright and impetuous
Ali, whose exploits in warfare had filled the Muslim with pride and a
wondering fear. Of this marriage were born the famous Hassan and Hosein,
names written indelibly upon the Muslim roll of fame.
As each inmate became added to his household, rough houses, almost huts,
were built for their reception, but the Prophet himself had no abiding
place, only a council-chamber, where he conducted public business, and
dwelt by turn in the houses of his wives, but delighted most to visit
Ayesha, who occupied the foremost position by virtue of her beauty and
personality. Mahomet's household grew up gradually near the Mosque in
this manner; together with the houses of his sons-in-law, not far away,
and the sacred place itself, it constituted the centre of activity for
the Muslim world, witnessing the arrival and despatch of embassies, the
administration of justice and public business, the performance of the
Muslim religious ceremonial, the Kuranic revelations of Allah's will. It
radiated Mahomet's personality, and concentrated for his followers all
the enthusiasm and persistence that had gone to its creation, as well as
the endurance and foresight ensuring its continuance.
But such security was not permanently possible for Mahomet; his spirit
was doomed to perpetual sojourn amid tumult and effort. It was almost
twelve months since the victory of Bedr. The broken Kureisch had had time
to recover themselves, and they were now prepared for revenge. The wealth
of Abu Sofian's caravan, so dearly acquired, had not been distributed
after Bedr. It remained inviolate at Mecca, a weapon wherefrom was to be
wrought their bitter vengeance. All their fighting men were massed into a
great host. Horses and armour, weapons and trappings were bought with
their hoarded wealth, and at length, 3000 strong, including 700 mailed
warriors and 200 well-mounted cavalry, they prepared to set forth upon
their work of punishment.
Not only were their own citizens pressed into the service, but the
fighting men from allied neighbouring tribes, who were very ready to take
part in an expedition that promised excitement and bloodshed, with the
hope of plunder. The wives of their chief men implored permission to go
with the army, pointing out their usefulness and their great eagerness to
share the coming triumph. But many warriors murmured against this, for
the undertaking was a difficult one, and they knew the discomforts of a
long march. At length fifteen specially privileged women were allowed to
travel with the host, among them Hind, the fierce wife of Abu Sofian, who
brought in her train an immense negro, specially reserved for her
crowning act of vengeance, the murder of Hamza, in revenge for the
slaying of her father. The army took the easier seaward route, travelling
as before in all the pomp and gorgeousness of Eastern warfare, and
finally reached the valley of Akik, five miles west of Medina. Thence
they turned to the left, so as to command a more vulnerable place in the
city's defences, and finally encamped at Ohod at the base of the hill on
a fertile plain, separated from the city to the north by several rocky
ridges, impassable for such an army.
Mahomet's first news of the premeditated attack reached him through his
uncle Abbas, that weak doubter, who never could make up his mind to
become either the friend or the foe of Islam. He sent a messenger to Coba
to say that the Kureiseh were advancing in force. Mahomet was inevitably
the leader of the city in spite of the bad feeling between himself and
certain sections within it. Jews and Disaffected alike looked to him for
leadership in such a crisis; by virtue of his former prowess his counsels
were sought.
Mahomet knew perfectly well that this attacking force was unlike the
last, which had been gathered together hurriedly and had underestimated
its opposition. He knew that besides a better equipment they possessed
the strongest incentive to daring and determination, the desire to avenge
some wrong. It was with no false estimate of their foe that he counselled
his followers to remain in their city and allow the enemy to waste his
strength on their defences. Abdallah agreed with the Prophet's decision,
but the younger section, and especially those who had not fought at Bedr,
were clamorously dissentient. They pointed out that if Mahomet did not go
forth to meet the Kureisch he would lay himself open to the charge of
cowardice, and they openly declared that their loyalty to the Prophet
would not endure this outrage, but would turn to contempt. Against his
will Mahomet was forced into action. He might succeed in defeating his
foe, and at all events his position would not endure the disloyalty and
disaffection that his refusal would entail.
After Friday's service he retired to his chamber, and appeared before the
people in armour. He called for three lances and fixed his banners to
them, designing one for the leaders of the refugees, and the other two
for the tribes of the Beni Aus and Khazraj. He could muster in this
year an army of 1000 men, but he had no cavalry, and fewer mailed
warriors than the Kureisch. Abdallah tried his best to dissuade Mahomet,
but the Prophet was firm.
"It does not become me to lay aside my armour when once I have put it on,
without meeting my foe in battle."
At dawn the army moved to Ohod, and he drew up his line of battle at the
base of the hill directly facing the Kureisch. But before he could take
up his final position, Abdallah with three hundred men turned their backs
upon him and hastened again to Medina, declaring that the enterprise was
too perilous, and that it had been undertaken against their judgment.
Mahomet let them go with the same proud sufficiency that he had showed
before the advancing host at Bedr.
"We do not need them, the Lord is on our side."
Then he directed his attention to the disposition of his forces. He
stationed fifty archers under a captain on the left of his line, with
strict orders that they were to hold their ground whatever chance befell,
so as to guard his rear and foil a Kureischite flank movement. Then,
having provided for the enemy's probable tactics, he drew out his main
line facing Medina in rather shallow formation.
The attack began as usual, by single combats, in which none of the
champions seem to have taken part, and soon Mahomet's whole line was
engaged in a ruthless onward sweep, before which the Kureisch wavered.
But the Muslim pressed too hotly, and unable to retain their ground at
all points, were driven back here and there. Again their long line
recovered and pursued its foes, only to lose its coherence and
discipline; for a section of them, counting the day already won, began
plundering the Kureisch camp. This was too much for the archers on the
left. Forgetting everything in one wild desire to share the enemy's
wealth, they left their post and charged down into the struggling central
Here was Khalid's chance. The chief warrior and counsellor of the
Kureisch gathered his men together hastily, and circling round the now
oblivious Muslim, drove his force against their rear, which broke up and
fled. Mahomet instantly saw the fatal mistake, and commanded the archers
across the sea of men and weapons to remember their orders and stand
firm. But it was too late, and all he could do was to attempt to stay the
Muslim flight.
"I am the Apostle of God, return!" he called across the tumult.
But even his magnetism failed to rally the stricken Muslim, and they
rushed in headlong flight towards the slopes of Ohod. In the chaos
that followed, Hind saw her enemy standing against the press of his
fellow-citizens, striving to encourage them, while with his sword he cut
at the pursuing Kureisch. She sent her giant negro, Wahschi, to cleave
his way to the abhorred one through the struggling men, and he crashed
them asunder with spear uplifted to strike. Hamza was felled to the
ground, and with one despairing upward thrust, easily parried by his huge
assailant, he succumbed to Wahschi's spear and lay lifeless, the first
martyr in the cause of Islam, which still remembers with pride his
glorious end.
Seven refugees and citizens gathered round their leader to defend him,
but the battle raged in his vicinity, and his friends could not keep off
the blows of his enemies. He was wounded, and some of his teeth were
knocked out. Then the cry arose that he was slain, and the evil tidings
heightened the Muslim disaster. A wretched remnant managed to gain the
security of the hill slopes, and not the good news of Mahomet's escape
when they saw him amongst them could make of them aught but a vanquished
and ignominious band. They lay hidden among the hills, while the Kureisch
worked their triumphant vengeance upon the corpses of their victims,
which they mutilated before burying, after the barbarous fashion of the
time, and the savage wrath of Hind found appeasement in her destruction
of Hamza's body. At length the Kureisch prepared to depart, and their
spokesman, going to the base of the fatal hill, demanded the Prophet's
agreement to a fresh encounter in the following year. Omar consented on
behalf of the Prophet and his followers, and Mahomet remained silent,
wishing to confirm the impression that he was dead.
Why the Kureisch did not follow up their victory and attempt a raid upon
Medina, it is difficult to imagine. Possibly they were apprehensive that
Mahomet might have fresh reserves and strong defences within the city;
but more probably they felt they had accomplished their purpose and the
Muslim would now be cured of seeking to plunder their caravans. So they
retreated again towards Mecca, and the forlorn Muslim crept silently from
their hiding-places to discover the extent of their defeat. They found
seventy-four bodies of their own following and twenty of the enemy. Their
ignominy was complete, and to the bitterness of their reverse was added
the terrible fear that the Kureisch would proceed further and attack
their defenceless city.
They returned to Medina at sunset, a mournful and piteous band, bearing
with them their leader, whose wounds had been hastily dressed on the
field. Mahomet was indeed in sore straits; himself maimed, the bulk of
his army scattered, his foes victorious and his headquarters full of
seething discontent, brought to the surface by his defeat, he felt
himself in peril even at Medina, and passed the night fearfully awaiting
what events might bring fresh disaster. But his determination and
foresight did not desert him, and once the tormenting night was passed he
recovered his old resourcefulness and his wonderful energy.
apprise the Kureisch that he was not utterly crushed.
suffered so much, had suddenly demonstrated His frailty and human
who saw with joy some measure of the Prophet's brutality towards them
being meted to him in turn. The situation was grave, and Mahomet's
divine commands. The passage is written in Mahomet's most forcible style,
receive at his hands their crown of praise.
"And repute not those slain on God's path to be dead. Nay, alive with
mercy; and that God suffereth not the reward of the faithful to perish."
events which called it forth.
the Prophet.
of overawing him into quietude towards them, but its ultimate results
defensive and punitive expeditions, and attacks upon his followers by
desert tribes. His position at Medina had been rendered thoroughly
demonstration against him. Jew and Arabian both pitted themselves
had murdered or exiled every Jew, and carried out repeated campaigns
removed beyond possibility of assailment.
he relaxed his vigilance or allowed any humane feelings to prevent the
sword's rough means. The thinker has become irrevocably the man of
action; prayer has been supplemented by the command, "Fight, and yet
again fight, that God may conquer and retain." Reverses show the temper
was lost, refusing to acknowledge that his position was impaired,
asset of an impregnable faith.



"And we have sent down Iron. Dire evil resideth in it, as well as
advantage to mankind."--_The Kuran._
unable to undertake any aggressive expeditions, and both the Jews at
Medina and the exterior desert tribes were lulled into tranquillity by
the character of his future wars he was fully prepared--sufficient proof,
He knew the Kureisch had instituted a policy of alliance with the
ceaseless pressure from the east, united to the inevitable disaffection
within the city as its inhabitants witnessed the decline of their
leader's power. Watchfulness and severity were the only means of holding
secured his ultimate success.
The first threatenings came from the Beni Asad, a powerful tribe
inhabiting the country directly east of Medina. Under their chief
The Beni Asad were wise enough to give up the attempt after Mahomet's men
In the next month Mahomet sent six of his followers to Mecca, probably as
spies, but they were not allowed to reach their goal in safety. At Raja
they fell in with a party of the Beni Lahyan proceeding the same way. The
men were armed, and Mahomet's followers were glad to accompany them,
because of the additional security. At the oasis the party encamped for
the night, and the Muslim prepared unsuspectingly for sleep. At dead of
night they were surrounded by their professed friends, who were resolved
on revenge for the murder of their chief. Four were killed, and two, Zeid
and Khubeib, taken bound to Mecca, whose citizens gloated over their
prey. Legends in plenty group themselves around these two figures--the
first real martyrs for Islam, and one of the most profound testimonies to
the love which Mahomet inspired in his followers is given traditionally
in a few significant sentences dealing with the episode.
The prisoners were kept a month before being led to the inevitable
torture. Abu Sofian, the scoffer, came to Zeid as he was preparing to
face his death.
"Wouldst thou not, O Zeid," he asked, "that thou wert once more with thy
family, and that Mahomet suffered in thy place?"
"By Allah! I would not that Mahomet should suffer the smallest prick from
a thorn; no, not even if by that means I could be safe once more among my
Then the enemy of Islam marvelled at his words and said: "Never have I
seen among men such love as Mahomet's followers bear towards him."
And after that Zeid was put to death. Mahomet was powerless to retaliate,
and was obliged to suffer from afar the murder of his fellow-believers.
The fate of these six Muslim gave courage to Mahomet's enemies
everywhere, and prompted even his friends to treachery. The Beni Aamir,
a branch of the great Hawazin tribe dwelling between the Beni Asad and
the Beni Lahyan, were friendly towards Medina, and sent Mahomet gifts as
a guarantee. These Mahomet refused to receive unless the tribe became
converts to Islam. He knew the danger of compromise--his Meccan
experiences had not faded from his mind; moreover, he recognised that in
his present weakened position firmness was essential. He could not open
the gates of his fortress even a chink without letting in a flood before
which it must topple into ruin.
But their chief would not be so coerced, neither would he give up his
ancestral faith without due examination of that offered in its stead. He
demanded that a party of Muslim should accompany him back to his own
people and strive by reasoning and eloquence to convert them to Islam.
After much deliberation, for he was chary of sending any of his chosen to
what would be swift death in the event of treachery, Mahomet consented,
and gave orders for a party of men skilled in their faith to accompany
Abu Bera back to his people. The men were received in all honour, and
were escorted as befitted their position as far as Bir Mauna, where they
halted, and a Muslim messenger was sent with a letter to the chief of
another branch of the same tribe. This leader, Aamir ibn Sofail,
immediately put the messenger to death, and called upon his allies to
exterminate the followers of the blasphemous Prophet. But the tribe
refused to break Abu Bera's pledge, so Aamir, determined to root them
out, appealed to the Beni Suleim, Mahomet's avowed enemies, and with
their aid proceeded to Bir Mauna. There they fell upon the band of Muslim
and slaughtered them to a man, then returned to their desert fastnesses,
proudly confident in their ability to elude pursuit. The news was carried
to Mahomet, and at first he was convinced that Abu Bera had betrayed him.
His followers, who had brought the news, had fallen upon and killed some
luckless members of the Beni Aamir in reprisal, and Mahomet acclaimed
their action. When, however, he heard from Abu Bera that he and his tribe
had been faithful to their pledge, he paid blood money for the murdered
men; then calling his people together he solemnly cursed each tribe by
name who had dared to attack the Faithful by treachery.
But the incident did not end here. Mahomet could not compass the
destruction of the Beni Aamir; they were too powerful and dwelt too far
off for his vengeance to assail them, but the Beni Nadhir, the second
Jewish tribe within the Prophet's territory, were near, and they were
confederate with the treacherous people. Mahomet's action was swift and
effective. Force was his only temporal weapon; compulsion his only
The command went forth through the lips of Mosleima:
"Thus saith the Prophet of the Lord: Ye shall go forth out of my land
within a space of ten days; whosoever that remaineth behind shall be
put to death."
The Beni Nadhir were aghast and trembling. They urged their former
treaties with Mahomet, and the antiquity of their settlements. It was
impossible that they should break up their homesteads thus suddenly and
depart forlorn into an unknown land. But Mahomet was obdurate, with that
same fixity of purpose which was everywhere the keynote of his dominance.
"Hearts are changed now," was the only reply to their prayers, their
entreaties, and their throats. Abdallah, leader of the Beni Aus and
Khazraj, sought desperately for a reconciliation, but to no purpose; the
die was cast. Then the Jews, brought to bay and careless with the despair
of impotence, refused to obey the command, and prepared to encounter the
wrath of Allah and the vengeance of his emissary.
"Behold the Jews prepare to fight: great is the Lord!" the Prophet
declared when the news was brought to him.
He was sure of his victim, and ruthless in destruction. All things were
made ready for the undertaking. The army was assembled and the march
begun. Ali carried the great green banner of the Prophet towards the
stronghold of his enemies. The Beni Nadhir were invested in their own
quarters, the date trees lying outside their fort were burned, their
fields were laid waste. For three weeks the siege endured, each day
bringing the miserable garrison nearer to the inevitable privations and
final surrender. At last the Jews recognised the hopelessness of their
lot and came to reluctant terms, submitting to exile and agreeing to
depart immediately.
Then followed the terrible breaking up of homes, and the wandering forth
of a whole tribe, as of old, to seek other dwelling-places. Some went to
Kheibar, where they were to suffer later on still more severely at
Mahomet's hands; some went to Jericho and the highlands south of Syria,
but all vanished from their ancient abiding places as suddenly as if a
plague had reduced their land to silence. It was an important conquest
for Mahomet, and has found fitting notice in the Kuran. The number of his
enemies within the city was considerably reduced. He was gradually
proving his power by breaking up the Jewish federations, and thereby
advancing far towards his goal, his unassailable, almost royal dominance
of Medina. Moreover, he bound the refugees closer to him by dividing the
despoiled country amongst them. It was an event worthy of incorporation
into the record of divine favours, for by it the sacred cause of Islam
had been rendered more triumphant.
"God is the mighty, the wise! He it is who caused the unbelievers among
the people of the Book to quit their homes. And were it not that God had
but in the world to come the chastisement of the fire awaiteth them. This
because they set them against God and His Apostle, and whoso setteth him
against God--! God truly is vehement in punishing."
The sura ends in a mood of fierce exultation unrivalled by any ecstatic
utterances of his early visions. It is the measure of his relief at his
first great success since the humiliation of Ohod. His fervour beats
through it like the clamour of waters, in whose triumphant gladness no
pauses are heard.
"He is God, beside whom there is no God: He is the King, the Holy, the
High! Far be the glory of God from that which they unite with Him! He is
titles. What ever is in the Heavens and in the Earth praiseth Him. He is
the Mighty, the Wise!"
The expulsion of the Beni Nadhir was a brutal, but necessary act. The
choice lay between their security and his future dominion, and he
uprooted their dwellings as ruthlessly as any conqueror sets aside the
obstacles in his path. Half measures were impossible, even dangerous, and
Mahomet was not afraid to use terrible means to achieve his all-absorbing
end. He had avowedly accepted the behests of the sword, and did not
repudiate his master. The hated Jews were enemies of his God, whose
vicegerent he now ranked himself; their ruin was in the divinely
appointed order of the world.
The time was soon at hand when, by arrangement, the Medinan army was to
repair to Bedr to meet the Kureisch. The Meccans sent a messenger in
Schaban (Nov. 625) to Mahomet, saying that they were prepared to advance
against him with 2000 foot and 50 horse. This large army did in reality
set out, but was soon forced to return, owing to lack of supplies and
scarcity of food.
The message was sent mainly in the hope of intimidating the Muslim, but
Mahomet was probably as well informed of the Kureisch movements as they
were themselves, and knew that no real attack was possible. He therefore
determined to show both friends and enemies that he was ready to meet
his foes. The Muslim were not very agreeable, knowing what fate had
decreed at their last encounter with the Meccans, but Mahomet's stern
determination prevailed. He declared that he would go to Bedr even if he
went alone, and so collected by sheer force of will 1500 men. He marched
to Bedr, held camp there for eight days, during which, of course, no
demonstration was made, and the whole expedition was turned into a
peaceable mercantile undertaking. When all their goods had been
profitably sold or exchanged, Mahomet broke up the camp and returned in
triumph to Medina. His prestige had certainly been much increased by this
unmolested sortie. It was therefore in a glad and confident mood that he
returned to his native city and prepared to enjoy his success.
He took thereupon two wives, Zeinab and Omm Salma, of whom very little is
known, except that Zeinab was the widow of Mahomet's cousin killed at
Bedr. The incident of his marriage with Zeinab finds allusion in the
Kuran in the briefest of passages. She was probably taken as much out of
a desire to protect as a desire to possess, and she quickly became one of
the many with whom Mahomet was content to pass a few days and nights.
There are also signs in the Kuran at this time of disagreements between
the different members of his household, and of their extravagant demands
upon Mahomet.
It was evidently not so easy to rule his wives as to acquire them.
Moreover, he was beginning to feel the sting of jealousy towards every
other man of the Muslim.
Here really begins the insistence upon restrictive regulations for women
which has been ever since the bane of Islam. Mahomet could not allow his
wives to go abroad freely, decked in the ornaments he himself had
bestowed, to become a mark for every envious gazer. They were not as
other women, and his imperious nature regarded them as peculiarly
inviolate, so that he fenced in their actions and secluded their lives.
As early as his marriage with Zeinab he imposed restrictions upon women's
dress abroad. They are not to traverse the streets in jewels or beautiful
robes, but are to cover themselves closely with a long sober garment.
Whereas his former sura regarding women had been confined to codifying
and rendering fairer divorce and property laws, now the personal note
sounds strongly, and continues throughout the whole of his later
pronouncements, regarding Muslim women. The next few months were to see
dangers and disturbances in his domestic life which were to fix the
position of women in Islam throughout the coming centuries, but before he
had long completed his latest marriage he was called away upon another
necessary expedition. Thus casually, almost from purely personal
considerations, was the law regarding the status of women established in
Islam. His ordinances have the savour of their impetuous creator, who
found in the subject sex no opposition against the writing down, in their
most sacred book, of those decrees which rendered their inferior position
permanent and authorised. It was Allah speaking through the lips of His
Prophet, and they submitted with willing hearts with no shadow of the
knowledge of all it was to mean to their descendants darkening their
In Muharram of 626 the Beni Ghatafan, always formidable on account
of their size and their desert hinterland, assembled in force at
Dzat-al-Rica. Mahomet determinedly marched against them, and once more at
the news of his approach their courage failed them, and they fled to the
mountains. Mahomet came unexpectedly upon their habitations, carried off
some of their women as slaves, and returned to Medina after fifteen days,
having effectively crushed the incipient rising against him. The event is
chiefly important as being the occasion which led Mahomet to institute
the Service of Danger described in the Kuran, whereby half the army
prayed or slept while the other watched. A body of men was therefore kept
constantly under arms while the army was in the field, and public prayers
were repeated twice.
cut short your prayers.... And when thou, O Apostle, shalt be among
them and shalt pray with them, then let a party of them rise up with
take their precautions and their arms."
The military organisation is being gradually perfected, so that the
Mahometan sword may finally be in the perpetual ascendant. This was the
chief significance of a campaign which at best was only an interlude in
the daily life of prayer, civil and domestic cares and regulations which
took up Mahomet's life in the breathing space before the great Meccan
Mahomet was absent from Medina but fifteen days, and he returned home
resolved to take advantage of the respite from war. Not long after his
return he happened to visit the house of Zeid, his adopted son, and
chanced not on Zeid, but on his wife at her tiring. Mahomet was filled
with her beauty, for her loveliness was past praise, and he coveted her.
Zeinab herself was proud of the honour vouchsafed her, and was willing,
indeed anxious, to become divorced for so mighty a ruler. Zeid, her
husband, with that measureless devotion which the Prophet inspired in his
followers, offered to divorce her for him. Mahomet at first refused,
declaring it was not meet that such a thing should be, but after a time
his desire proved too strong for him, and he consented. So Zeinab was
divorced, and passed into the harem of the Prophet. And he justified the
proceedings in Sura 33:
"And when Zeid had settled concerning her
to divorce her, we married her to thee, that it
might not be a crime in the Faithful to marry
the wives of their adopted sons, when they have
settled the affair concerning them.... No
blame attacheth to the Prophet when God hath
given him a permission."
There follows the sum of Mahomet's restrictions upon the dress and
demeanour of women. They are to veil their faces when abroad, and suffer
no man but their intimate kinsmen to look upon them. The Faithful are
forbidden to go near the dwelling-places of the Prophet's wives without
his permission, nor are they even to desire to marry them after the
Prophet is dead. By such casual means, by decrees born out of the
circumstances of his age and personal temperament, did Mahomet institute
the customs which are more vital to the position and fate of Muslim women
than all his utterances as to their just treatment and his injunctions
against their oppression.
Power was already taking its insidious hold upon him, and his feet were
set upon the path that led to the despotism of the Chalifate and the
horrors of Muslim conquests. Allah is still omnipotent, but He is making
continual and indispensable use of temporal means to achieve His ends,
and His servant does likewise.
After the interlude of peace, Mahomet was called upon in July, 626,
to undertake a punitive expedition to Jumat-al-Gandal, an oasis
midway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Persia. The expedition was
successful, and the marauders dispersed. He had now reached the confines
of Syria, and, with the extension of his expeditionary activities, his
political horizon widened. He began to conceive himself as the predatory
chief of Arabia, one who was regarded with awe and fear by the
surrounding tribes, with the one exception of the stiff-necked city,
Mecca, whose inhabitants he longed in vain to subdue. The success
fostered his love of plunder, and inclined him more than ever to hold out
this reward of valour to his followers. His stern and wary policy was
justified by its success, for by it he had recovered from the severe blow
at Ohod, but it threatened to become his master and set its perpetual
seal upon his life.
In December, 626, he heard of the defection of the Beni Mustalik, a
branch of the Khozaa tribe. They joined the Kureisch for mixed motives,
chiefly political, for they hoped to make themselves and their religion
secure by alliance with Mahomet's enemies. Mahomet learnt of their
desertion through his efficient spies, and determined to anticipate any
disturbance. With Ayesha and Omm Salma to accompany him, and an adequate
army to support him, he set out for the quarters of the Beni Mustalik,
and before long reached Moraisi, where he encamped. The Beni Mustalik
were deserted by their allies, and in the skirmish that followed Mahomet
was easily successful. Their camp was plundered, their women and some of
their men taken prisoner. The expedition was, however, provocative of two
consequences which take up considerable attention in contemporary
records, the quarrel between the Citizens and the Refugees, and the
scandal regarding Ayesha.
The punishment of the Beni Mustalik had been effected, and nought
escape him.
"Wilt thou hearken to what may be better?" he asked her, "even that I
should pay thy ransom and take thee myself?"
lives of her fellow tribesmen.
"Wherefore," says Ayesha, "Juweira was the best benefactress to her
people in that she restored the captives to their kinsfolk."
was a long smouldering discontent that finally burst into flame. Mahomet
orders for an immediate march prevented the outbreak of desperate
passions--greed and envy.
whole affair brings down the strength of Mahomet's scorn upon his
offending people.
she was left alone in the desert's velvet dusk with no alternative but to
night Safwan, one of Mahomet's rear, came towards her as she sat forlorn,
and was amazed to find the Prophet's wife in such a position. He brought
next day they came up with the main column.
believe her story, and remained estranged from her until she asked
which germinated later into open hatred, was inclined to believe her
"They who defame virtuous women and bring not four witnesses, scourge
speak the truth."
The revelation ends with a repetition of the restrictions imposed upon
women and an injunction to the Muslim not to enter each other's houses
until they have asked leave. This was a necessary ordinance in that
primitive community, where bolts were little used and there was virtually
no privacy, and was designed, in common with most of his present
utterances, to encourage the leading of decent, well-regulated lives by
the followers of so magnificent a faith. Ayesha's defamers were publicly
scourged, and the matter dismissed from the Muslim mind, save that
regulations had once more been framed upon personal feelings and specific
events, and were to constitute the whole future law regarding an
important and difficult question.
Mahomet was justly content with the position of affairs after the
dispersion of the Beni Mustalik. He had shown his strength to the
surrounding desert tribes; by systematically crushing each rebellion as
it arose, he had demonstrated to them the impossibility of alliance
against him. He knew they were each prone to self-seeking and distrustful
of each other, and he played unhesitatingly upon their jealousies and
passions. Thus he kept them disunited and fearful, afraid even to ally
with his powerful enemy the Kureisch. For after all, the Meccans were his
chief obstacle; their opposition was spirited and urged on by the memory
of past humiliations and triumphs. They alone were really worthy of his
steel, and he knew that, as far as the intermediary wars were concerned,
they were but the prelude to another encounter in the year-long warfare
with his native city.
The drama closes in now upon the protagonists; save for the expulsion of
the last Jewish tribe in the neighbourhood of Medina, there is little to
compare with that central causal hatred. The final hour was not yet, but
the struggle grew in intensity with the passage of time--the struggle
wherein one fought for revenge and future freedom from molestation, but
the other for the establishment of a faith in its rightful environment,
the manifestation before men of that Faith's determined achievement, the
symbol of its destined conquests and divinely appointed power.



"And God drove back the Infidels in their wrath; they won no
advantage; God sufficed the Faithful in the fight, for God is strong,
mighty."--_The Kuran._
The Kureischite plans for the annihilation of Mahomet were now complete.
They had achieved an alliance against him not only among the Bedouin
tribes of the interior, but also among the exiled and bitterly vengeful
Medinan Jews. Now in Schawwal, 627, Mahomet's unresting foes summoned all
their confederates to warfare "against this man." The allied tribes,
chief among whom were the Beni Suleim and Ghatafan, always at feud with
Mahomet, hastened to mass themselves at Mecca, where they were welcomed
confidently by the Kureiseh.
The host was organised in three separate camps, and Abu Sofian was placed
at the head of the entire army. Each leader, however, was to have
alternating command of the campaign; and this primitive arrangement--the
only one, it seems, by which early nations, lacking an indisputable
leader, can surmount the jealousy and self-will displayed by every petty
chief--is responsible in great measure for their ultimate failure. In
such fashion, still with the bravery and splendour of Eastern warfare
wrapped about them, an army of 4000 men, with 300 horses, 1500 camels,
countless stores, spears, arrows, armour and accoutrements, moved forward
upon the small and factious city of the Prophet, whose fighting strength
was hampered by the exhaustion of many campaigns and the disloyalty of
those within his very walls.
The Prophet was outwardly undismayed; whatever fears preyed upon his
inner mind, they were dominated by his unshakable belief in the
protection and favour of Allah. He did not allow the days of respite to
pass him idly by. As soon as he received the news of this fateful
expedition, he called together a meeting of his wisest and bravest, and
explained to them the position. He told them of the hordes massed against
them, and dwelt upon the impossibility of opposing them in the open field
and the necessity of guarding their own city. This time there were no
dissentient voices; both the Disaffected and the Muslim had had a lesson
at Ohod that was not lightly forgotten. Then Salman, a Persian, and one
skilled in war, suggested that their stronghold should be further
defended by a trench dug at the most vulnerable parts of the city's
Medina is built upon "an outcropping mass of rock" which renders attack
impossible upon the north-west side. Detached from it, and leaving a
considerable vacant space between, a row of compactly built houses stood,
making a very passable stone wall defence for that portion of the city.
The trench was dug in that level ground between the rocks and the houses,
and continued also upon the unsheltered south and east sides. There are
many legends of the digging of the trench and the desperate haste with
which it was accomplished. Mahomet himself is said to have helped in the
work, and it is almost certain that here tradition has not erred. The
deed coincides so well with his eager and resolute nature, that never
neglected any means, however humble, that would achieve his purpose. The
Faithful worked determinedly, devoting their whole days to the task, and
never resting from their labours until the whole trench was dug. The hard
ground was softened by water, and legendary accounts of Mahomet's powers
in pulverising the rocks are numerous.
The great work was completed in six days, and on the evening of its
achievement the Muslim army encamped between the trench and the city in
the open space thus formed. A tent of red leather was set up for Mahomet,
where Zeinab and Omm Salma, as well as his favourite and companion,
Ayesha, visited him in turn. Around him rested his chief warriors, Ali,
Othman, Zeid, Omar, with his counseller Abu Bekr and his numerous
entourage of heroes and enthusiasts. They were infused with the same
exalted resolve as their leader, and waited undismayed for the Infidel
attack. But with the rest of the citizens, and especially with the
Disaffected, it was otherwise. Ever since the rumour of the onrush of
their foe reached Medina, they had murmured openly against their leader's
rule. They had refused to help in the digging of the ditch, and now
waited in ill-concealed discontent mingled with a base panic fear for
their own safety.
The Meccan host advanced as before by way of Ohod, and pursued their way
to the city rejoicing in the freedom from attack, and convinced thereby
that their conquest of Medina would be rapid and complete. They
penetrated to the rampart wall of houses and marched past them to the
level ground, intending to rush the city and pen the Muslim army within
its narrow streets, there to be crushed at will by the sheer mass of its
foes. Then as the whole army in battle array moved forward, strong in its
might of numbers, the advance was checked and thrown into confusion by
the opposing trench. Abu Sofian, hurrying up, learnt with anger of this
unexpected barrier. Finding he could not cross it, he waxed indignant,
and declared the device was cowardly and "unlike an Arab." The
traditionalist, as usual, was disconcerted by the resourceful man of
action, and the Muslim obstinately remained behind their defence.
The Kureisch discharged a shower of arrows over the ditch among the
entrenched Muslim and then retired a little from their first position, so
as to encamp not far from the city and try to starve it into surrender.
Mahomet was content that he had staved off immediate attack, and set to
work to complete his defences and strengthen his fighting force, when
grave news reached him from the immediate environs of the city.
Successful as he had been in extirpating two of the hated Jewish tribes,
Mahomet was nevertheless forced to submit to the presence of the Beni
Koreitza, whose fortresses were situated near the city on its undefended
side. It is uncertain whether there was ever a treaty between this tribe
and the Prophet, or what its provisions were supposing such a document to
have existed, but it is evident that there must have been some peaceable
relations between the Muslim and the Koreitza, and that the latter were
of some account politically. Now, the Jewish tribe, resentful at the
treatment of their fellow-believers, and seeing the t me ripe for
secession to the probable winning side, cast away even their nominal
allegiance to Mahomet and openly joined his enemies. A Muslim spy was
sent to their territory to discover their true feeling, and his
report was so disquieting that the Prophet immediately set a guard over
his tent, fearing assassination, and ordered patrols to keep the Medinan
streets free from any attempts to disturb the peace and threaten his army
from within the city's confines.
The Muslim were now in parlous state. The trench might avail to stop the
enemy for a time, but an opportunity was sure to occur when they would
attempt a crossing, and once within the city Mahomet knew they would
carry destruction before them, and irretrievable ruin to his cause. His
Jewish enemies made common enmity against him with the Kureisch, and the
Disaffected declared their intention of joining the rest of his foes. But
he would not yield, and continued unabashed to defend the trench and city
with all the skill and energy he could command from his harassed
The Kureisch remained several days inactive, but at last Abu Jahl
discovered a weak spot in his enemies' line where the trench was narrow
and undefended. He determined on immediate attack, and sent a troop of
horsemen to clear the ditch and give battle on the opposite side. The
move was noticed from within the defence. Ali and a body of picked men
were sent to frustrate it. Ali reached the ground just as the foremost of
the Kureisch cleared the ditch and prepared to advance upon the city.
Swiftly he leapt from his horse, and challenged an aged chief of the
Kureisch to single combat. The gage was accepted, but the chieftain could
stand up to Ali no better than a reed stands upright before the wind that
shakes it. The chief was slain before the eyes of his friend, and
thereupon the general onslaught began. The Muslim fought like those
possessed, until in a little space there remained not one of the defiant
party that had recently crossed the gulf between the armies. But the
Kureisch were undaunted; the order for a general attack upon the trench
was now ordered. The assault began in the early morning and continued
throughout the day. For long weary hours, without respite and with very
little sustenance the Muslin army kept the Kureisch host at bay. The
encounters were sharp and prolonged, and none of the men could be spared
from the strife to make their daily devotions to Allah.
"They have kept us from our prayers," declared Mahomet in wrath, as he
watched the unresting attack, "God fill their bellies and their graves
with fire!"
He cursed the Infidel dogs, while exhorting his men to stand firm, and
before all things keep their lines unbroken. The attack was repulsed, but
not without great loss and misery upon Mahomet's side. His prestige was
now entirely lost among the citizens, only the Faithful still rallied
round him out of their invincible trust in his personality. The
Disaffected began to foment agitation within the narrow streets, the
bazaars and public places. There was great distress among the people of
Medina; scarcity of food mingled with their fears for the future to
create an insecurity wherein crime finds its dwelling-place and brutality
its fostering soil. "Then were the Faithful tried, and with strong
quaking did they quake." Nevertheless, they stood firm, and took no part
in the murmuring of the Disaffected, and presently Allah sent them down
succour for their steadfastness and high courage.
Mahomet, failing in direct warfare to drive back his enemies, resorted to
strategy. He planned to send a secret embassy to buy off the Beni
Ghatafan, and so strive to break up the Kureisch alliance. But the rest
of the city were unwilling to adopt this measure, preferring to trust
more firmly in the strength of their defences. Finally, Mahomet
determined to essay upon his own initiative some means of subtlety
whereby he might force back this encompassing foe that hourly threatened
his whole dominion. He sent an embassy to the Jews outside the city with
intent to sow dissension between them and the Kureisch.
"See now," he commanded his envoy, "whether thou canst not break up this
confederacy, for war, after all, is but a game of deception."
The Muslim pursued his way unchecked to the camp of the Koreitza, just
outside the city, where he whispered his insidious messages into the ears
of the chief, saying the Kureisch were already weary of fighting and were
even now planning a retreat, and would forsake their allies as soon as
was expedient, leaving them to the mercy of a Muslim revenge. He promised
bribes of money, slave girls, and land from the Prophet if they would
betray their new-found allies. Self-interest prevailed; at last the plan
was agreed upon, and the messenger returned to Mahomet with the good news
of the breaking-up of the confederacy.
The treachery of the Koreitza spread discouragement among the Arab
chiefs. Moreover, their supplies were already running short. They ceased
to press the siege so severely; the attacks became weaker, and Mahomet
was easily able to prevent any further incursions beyond the trench. And
now the weather broke up. The sunny country was transformed suddenly into
a dreary, storm-swept wilderness. Blasts of wind came skurrying down upon
the Kureisch camp, driving rain and sleet before them. To Mahomet it was
the wrath of the Lord made manifest upon the presumptuous Meccans. Their
camp-fires were blown out, their tents damp and draggled, their men
dispirited, their forage scarce. Suddenly Abu Sofian, weary of inaction,
thoroughly disheartened by the hardships of his position, broke up the
camp and ordered a retreat.
The vast army faded away as magically as it had come. The morning after
their departure the Muslim awoke to see only a few scattered tents and
the disorderly remains of human occupation as evidences of the presence
of a foe that had accounted itself invincible. The Meccans evidently
accepted defeat, for they returned speedily to their own country,
realising bitterly the impossibility of keeping together so heterogeneous
an army in the face of a prolonged check. Medina was free of its
immediate menace, and great was the rejoicing when the camp was abandoned
and Islam returned in security to its sanctuary within the city. Mahomet
repaired immediately to Ayesha's house, and was cleansing the stains of
conflict from his body when the mandate came from Heaven through the lips
of Gabriel:
"Hast thou laid aside thine arms? Lo, the angels have not yet put down
their weapons, and I am come to bid thee go against the Beni Koreitza to
destroy their citadel."
Mahomet's swift nature, alive to the value of speed, had realised in a
flash that now was the time to strike at the Koreitza, the treacherous
Hebrew dogs, before they could grow strong and gather together any allies
to help them ward off their certain chastisement. The enterprise was
proclaimed at once to the weary Muslim, and the great banner, still
unfurled, placed in the hands of Ali. The Faithful were eager for rest,
but at the command of their leader they forgot their exhaustion and
rallied round him again with the same loving and invincible devotion that
had sustained them during the terrible days of siege.
The expedition marched to the Koreitza fortress, and laid siege to it in
March, 627. For twenty-five days it was besieged by Islam, says the
chronicler, until God put terror into the hearts of the Jews, and they
were reduced to sore straits. Then they offered to depart as the Kainukaa
had departed, empty-handed, with neither gold nor cattle, into a strange
land. But Mahomet had not forgotten their treachery to him under the
suasion of the Kureisch, and he determined on sterner measures. The Jews
were now thoroughly terrified, and sent in haste to crave permission
for a visit from Abu Lubaba, an ally of the Beni Aus, their former
confederates. Mahomet consented, as one who grants the trivial wish of a
doomed man. In sorrow Abu Lubaba went into the camp of the Koreitza,
and when they questioned him he told them openly that they must abandon
hope. Their doom was decreed by the Prophet, sanctioned by Allah; it was
When the Koreitza heard the sentence they bowed their heads, some in
wrath, some in despair, and charged Abu Lubaba with supplications for
Mahomet's clemency. The messenger returned and told the Prophet what he
had disclosed to the Jews concerning their impending fate.
"Thou hast done ill," declared Mahomet, "for I would not that mine
enemies know their doom before it is accomplished."
Thereupon, says tradition, Abu Lubaba was filled with remorse at having
displeased his master, and entering the Mosque bound himself to one of
its pillars, whence it is called the Pillar of Repentance to this day. At
last the Jews, worn out with the siege, without resources, allies, or any
hope of relief, surrendered at discretion to the Beni Aus. Immediately
their citadel was seized and plundered, while their men were handcuffed
and kept apart, their women and children given into the keeping of a
renegade Jew. Their cattle were driven into Medina before their eyes, and
soon the whole tribe was withdrawn from its ancestral habitation,
awaiting what might come from the hand of their terrible foe.
Then Mahomet pronounced judgment. He sent for Sa'ad ibn Muadh, the chief
of the Beni Aus, and into his hands he gave the fate of all those souls
who belonged to the tribe of Koreitza. Sa'ad was elderly, fat, irritable,
and vindictive. He had a long-standing grudge against this people, and
knew nothing of the mercy which greater men bestow upon the fallen.
"My judgment is that the men shall be put to death, the women and
children sold into slavery, and the spoil divided among the army."
Mahomet was exultant at the sentence.
"Truly the judgment of Sa'ad is the judgment of God pronounced on high
from beyond the seventh Heaven."
It accorded with his mood of angry resentment against the earlier
treachery of the Koreitza, but why he deputed its pronouncement to Sa'ad
instead of taking it upon himself is not easy to discover. Possibly he
may have dreaded to acquire such a reputation for cruelty as this would
bestow upon him, possibly he wished to make clear to the world that the
Jews had been doomed to death by a member of their allied tribe.
Certainly he welcomed the terrible sentence, and ensured its
accomplishment. The Koreitza were dragged pitilessly to Medina, the men
kept together under strict guard, the women and children made ready to be
sold at the marts within the city.
That night the outskirts of Medina became the scene of grim activity. In
the soft darkness of the Arabian night Mahomet's followers laboured with
dreadful haste at the digging of many trenches. The day dawned upon their
uncompleted work, and not until the sun was high did they return to the
heart of the city. Then the men of the Koreitza were divided into
companies and led out in turn to the trenches. The slaughter began. As
they filed to the edge of the pits they were struck down by the waiting
Muslim, so that their bodies fell into the common grave, mingled with the
blood and quivering flesh of those who followed. As one company after
another marched out and did not return, their chief man asked the Muslim
soldier concerning his countrymen's fate:
"Seest thou not that each company departs and is seen no more? Will ye
never understand?"
The doom of the Koreitza was wrought out to its terrible end, which was
not until set of sun. The number of butchered men is variously estimated,
but it cannot have been less than between 700 and 800.
So the Koreitza perished, each moving forward to meet the irremediable
without fear, without supplication, and when the carnage was over,
Mahomet turned to the distribution of the spoil. His eyes lighted upon
Rihana, a beautiful Jewess, and he desired her as solace after this
ruthless but necessary punishment. He offered her marriage; she refused,
and became of necessity and forthwith his concubine. Then he took the
possessions, slaves, and cattle of the vanquished tribe and divided them
among the Faithful, keeping a fifth part himself, and the land he
partitioned also. A few women who had found favour in the eyes of Muslim
were retained, the rest were sent to be sold as slaves among the Bedouin
tribes of Nejd. The Koreitza no longer existed; their treachery had been
visited again upon themselves.
made it possible. Mahomet had defeated a most formidable attempt to
which followed he sought to make such treachery henceforth impossible. He
instantly after the failure of the Meccan attack, and unhesitatingly he
accomplished his work.
the failure of the Meccan attack was to restore in great measure
Mahomet's reputation, so that he had less trouble hereafter with the
Disaffected within Medina and with the maraudings of desert tribes. For
the moment his position within the city was comparatively secure;
regard himself as master of all its neighbouring territory. The
declare that Sa'ad ibn Muadh's death, which occurred soon after, was the
direct result of his bloody judgment. But their resentment was confined
attack again for some time at least.
opposition had been driven out.
shall make of that city the goal of its followers' prayers, the crown of
its earthly sovereignty.



"And He it was who held their hands from you and your hands
from them in the valley of Mecca, after that He had given you the
victory over them; for God saw what ye did."--_The Kuran._
Mahomet, now secure from immediate attack, counted himself permanently
rid of the Meccan menace and devoted his care to the strengthening of his
position among the surrounding desert tribes. The year 627-628 is filled
with minor expeditions to chastise or conquer his numerous enemies in the
interior. His ceaseless vigilance, made effectual through his elaborate
spy system, enabled him to keep the Bedouin hordes in check, though he
was by no means uniformly successful in his attacks upon them. The period
is characterised by the absence of pitched battles, and by the employment
of very small raiding parties, who go out simply to plunder and to
disperse the hostile forces.
His first expedition after the Koreitza massacre in June 627 was directed
against the Beni Lahyan, in revenge for their slaughter of the Faithful
at Radji. He took the north-west road to Syria as a feint, then swiftly
turning, marched along the sea-shore route to Mecca, and the Beni Lahyan
fled before him. Mahomet was anxious to give battle, but as he found his
foe was moving hastily towards the hostile city with intent to draw him
on to his doom, he gave up the chase and contented himself with breaking
up their encampments, plundering their wealth and women, and so returned
to Medina.
He had been there only a few nights when he learnt that Oyeina, chief of
the Fazara tribe, in concert with the Beni Ghatafan, had made a raid upon
his milch camels at Ghaba, killing their keeper and torturing his wife.
Mahomet pursued, but the raiders were too quick for him and got away with
the spoil. Mahomet did not follow them up, as nothing was to be gained
from such a fruitless quest.
In August of the same year another raid on his camels was attempted by
the famished tribes of Nejd, and Mahomet sent an expedition under Maslama
to chastise them, but the Muslim were overpowered by a superior force and
most of their company slain. The Prophet vowed vengeance upon the
perpetrators of this defeat when he should have the power to carry it
out. And now the Meccan caravan, venturing once more to take the seaward
road, so long barred to them, was plundered by Zeid at Al Is, thereby
confirming Mahomet's hostile intentions towards the Kureisch, and
ensuring their continued enmity. But reprisals on their part were
impossible after the failure before Medina, and they suffered the outrage
in silence.
Mahomet was not content to rest upon his newly won security, but now
determined to send out messengers and embassies to the rulers of
surrounding lands, exhorting them to embrace Islam. This policy was to
develop later into a regular system, but for the moment only one envoy
was sent upon a hazardous mission to the Roman emperor, whose recent
conquests in Persia had made him famous among the Arabs. The envoy was
not permitted a quiet journey. At Wadi-al-Cora he was seized and
plundered by the Beni Judzam, but his property afterwards restored by the
influence of a neighbouring tribe allied to Mahomet, who knew something
of the revenge meted out by the Prophet. As it was, as soon as he heard
of it he despatched Zeid with 500 men, who fell upon the Beni Judzam and
slaughtered many. When the expedition returned to Medina with the news,
they found that the tribe in question had sent in its submission before
the slaying of its members. The Judzam envoys demanded compensation.
"What can be done?" replied Mahomet. "I cannot restore dead men to life,
but the booty that has been taken I will return and give you safe escort
Mahomet's next enterprise was to send one of his chief warriors and wise
men to Dumah to try and convert the tribe. They listened to his words
and promises, and after a time, judging it was not alone to their
spiritual, but also to their political welfare to follow this powerful
leader, they embraced Islam, and received the protectorship of the
Zeid returned from the plunder of the Kureisch caravan and straightway
set out upon several mercantile journeys, upon one of which he was set
upon and plundered by the Beni Fazara, near Wadi-al-Cora. Swift
retribution followed at the hands of Mahomet, who was not minded to see
the expeditions that were securing the wealth of his land the prey of
marauding tribes. Many barbarities were practised at the overthrow of the
Beni Fazara, possibly as a salutary lesson to neighbouring tribes, lest
they should presume to attempt like attacks.
But now a further menace threatened Mahomet from the persecuted but still
actively hostile Jews at Kheibar. They were suspected of stirring up
revolt, and so the Prophet, knowing the activity centred in their leader,
slew him by treachery. Still, his successor continued his father's work,
only in the fullness of time to be removed from the Prophet's path by the
same effectual but illicit means. Dark and tortuous indeed were some of
the ways by which Mahomet held his power. His cruelty and treachery were
in a measure demanded of him as a necessity for his continued office.
They were the price he paid for earthly dominion, and together with the
avowed help of the sword they were the stern and pitiless means that
secured the triumph of Islam. As time went on the scope of his
state-craft widened; its exigencies became more varied, and exacted new
and often barbarous deeds, that the position won with years of thought
and energy might be maintained. Mahomet has now paid complete homage to
the fickle goddesses force and craft.
The sacred month Dzul-Cada of 628 came round, bringing with it disturbing
dreams and yearnings for Mahomet. For long past, indeed ever since he had
found himself the leader of a religious organisation and had taken the
broad traditions of Meccan ceremony half unconsciously to himself as the
basis of his faith, he had longed to perform the pilgrimage to the holy
city. He had upheld Mecca before the eyes of his followers as the crown
and cradle of their faith. He had preached of pilgrimage thereto as a
sacred duty, the inalienable right of every Muslim. Six years had elapsed
since he had himself performed the sacred rites; it is no wonder,
therefore, that his whole being was seized with the fervent dream of
accomplishing once more the ceremonies inseparable from his faith.
Political considerations also swayed his decision. If he were allowed to
come peaceably to Mecca and perform the pilgrimage, it was conceivable
that a permanent truce might be agreed upon by the Kureisch, and the deed
itself could not but enhance his prestige among the Bedouins. He was
strong enough to resist the Meccans in case of an attack, and if such a
thing should occur the blame would attach to the Kureisch as violators of
the sacred month.
With his thoughts attuned thus, it is not surprising that in Dzul-Cada a
vision was vouchsafed him, wherein he saw himself within the sacred
precincts, performing the rites of pilgrimage. The dream was communicated
to the Faithful, and instant preparations made for the expedition,
Mahomet called upon the surrounding tribes to join in his march to Mecca,
but they, fearing the Kureisch hosts, for the most part declined, and
earned thereby Mahomet's fierce anger in the pages of the Kuran. At
length the cavalcade was ready; 1500 men in the garments of pilgrims, but
with swords and armour accompanying them in the rear, journeyed over the
desert track that had seen the migration to Medina of a small hunted band
six short years previously. With them were seventy camels devoted to
sacrifice. The pilgrims marched as far as Osfan, when a messenger came to
them saying that the Kureisch were opposing their advance.
"They have withdrawn their milch camels from the outskirts, and now lie
encamped, having girded themselves with leopard skins, a signal that they
will fight like wild beasts. Even now Khalid with their cavalry has
advanced to oppose thee."
"Curses upon the Kureisch!" replied Mahomet. "Who will show me a way
where they will not meet us?"
A guide was quickly found, and Mahomet turned his company aside,
journeying by devious routes until he came to the place of Hodeibia, a
plain upon the verge of the sacred territory. Here Al-Cawsa, Mahomet's
prized camel, halted, and would in nowise be urged farther.
"She is weary," clamoured the populace, but Mahomet knew otherwise.
"Al-Caswa is not weary," he replied, "but that which restrained the
armies in the Year of the Elephant now restraineth her."
And he would go no farther into the sacred territory, fearing the doom
that had afflicted Abraha in that fateful year. So his pilgrim host
encamped at Hodeibia, and Mahomet sent men to clear the wells of sand and
dust, so that there might be ample supply of water. Thereupon
negotiations began between the Prophet and Mecca. The Kureisch sent an
ambassador to learn the reason of the appearance of Mahomet. When the
peaceable intent of the army had been explained to him he remained in
earnest converse with the Prophet, until at last he moved to catch
at the sacred beard after the manner of his race when speaking. Instantly
one of Mahomet's companions seized his hand:
"Come not near the sacred countenance of God's Prophet."
The enemy was amazed, and returning told the citizens that he had seen
many kings in his lifetime but never a man so devotedly loved as Mahomet.
The negotiations, however, proceeded very tardily, and at last Mahomet
sent Othman, his famous warrior and companion, to Mecca to conduct the
final overtures. He had been chosen because of his kinship with the most
powerful men of Mecca. He was invited to perform the sacred ceremony of
encircling the Kaaba, but this he refused to do until the Prophet should
accompany him. The Kureisch then detained him at Mecca to complete, if it
might be, the negotiations.
While Othman tarried, the report spread among the Muslim that he was
treacherously slain. Mahomet felt that a blow had been struck at his very
heart. Instantly he summoned the Faithful to him beneath a tall tree upon
that undulating plain of Hodeibia, and enjoined upon them an oath that
they would not forsake him but would stand by him till death. The Muslim
with one accord gave their solemn word in gladness and devotion, and the
Pledge of the Tree was brought into being. Mahomet felt the significance
of their loyalty very deeply. It was the first oath he had enjoined upon
the Believers since the days of the Pledge of Acaba long ago when he was
but a persecuted zealot fleeing before the menace of his foes. He was
glad because of this proof of loyalty, and his joy finds expression in
the Muslim Book of Books:
"Well pleased hath God been now with the Believers when they plighted
fealty to thee under the tree; and He knew what was in their hearts;
rewarded them with a speedy victory."
But rumour, as ever, proved untrustworthy, and before long Othman
returned with the news that the Kureisch were undisposed to battle, and
later they sent Suheil of their own clan to make terms with Mahomet,
namely, that he was to return to Medina that year, but that the next year
he might come again as a pilgrim during the sacred month, and having
entered Mecca perform the Pilgrimage. Ali was commanded to write down the
conditions of the treaty, and he began with the formula:
Suheil protested, "I know not that title, write, 'In Thy Name, O God.'"
Mahomet acquiesced, and Ali continued, "The Treaty of Mahomet, Prophet of
God, with Suheil ibn Amr," but Suheil interrupted again:
"If I acknowledged Thee as Prophet of God I should not have made war on
thee; write simply thy name and the name of thy father."
text of the treaty stood substantially in these terms:
"In thy Name, O God! These are the conditions of peace between Mahomet,
those of the traveller, namely, to each a sheathed sword."
After the solemn pledging of the treaty Mahomet sacrificed his victims,
exulting in the promise that next year the sacred ceremonies would be
accomplished by all true Believers.
The depression that at first seized his followers at the conclusion of
has a sura inspired directly by it and entitled "Victory," the burden of
which is the goodness of God upon the occasion of the Prophet's
pilgrimage to Hodeibia.
"In truth they who plighted fealty to thee really plighted fealty to God;
his engagements with God, He will give him a great reward."
It was, in fact, a great step forward towards his ultimate goal. It
involved his recognition by the Kureisch as a power of equal importance
with themselves. No longer was he the outcast fanatic for whose overthrow
the Kureisch army was not required to put forth its full strength. No
longer even was he a rebel leader who had succeeded in establishing his
precarious power by the sword alone. The treaty of Hodeibia recognises
him as sovereign of Medina, and formally concedes to him by implication
his temporal governance. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that his
mood on returning to the city was one of rejoicing and praise to Allah
who had made such a victory possible.
Henceforward the dream of universal sovereignty took ever more
distinctive lineaments in his mind. He pictured first a great and united
Arabia, mighty because of its homage to the true God, and supreme because
of its birthing of the world-subduing faith. To say that these thoughts
had been with him since his first hazardous entry into Medina is to grant
him a long-sightedness which his opportunist rule does not warrant. The
creator of them was his boundless energy, his force of personality, which
kept steadily before him his unquenchable faith and led him from strength
to strength. By diplomacy and the sword he had carved out his kingdom,
and now he purposed to extend it by suasion and cunning, which
nevertheless was to be supported by his soldier's skill and courage. The
next phase in his career is one in which reliance is placed as much upon
statecraft as warfare, in which he tries with varying success to array
his state and his religion along with the great empires and
principalities of his Eastern world

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