SOME ACCOUNT OF MOHAMMED THE PROPHET
The passengers of the Guardian-Mother fell back into their former sea
habits when there was nothing particular to be seen, and only the young
men appeared on deck before seven o'clock. Mrs. Belgrave and Louis were
the first to meet the commander on the second morning. He had been to
the pilot-house several times during the night; but he was an early
riser, and had already looked over the log slate, and visited every part
of the ship.
"Good-morning, Mrs. Belgrave; good-morning, Louis; I hope you have both
slept well," said the captain, saluting them.
"I have slept like a rock all night long," replied the lady.
"I have fallen into sailors' ways, so that I go to sleep whenever I lie
down," added Louis. "I could sleep my four hours on board of the Maud,
and wake at the right time without being called. But where are we now,
sir?"
"You see the lighthouse ahead; that is in latitude 25°. We are now
nearly as far south as the first cataract on the Nile, as far south as
we went in Africa."
"I can understand that better than simple figures," said Mrs. Belgrave.
"But we went a little farther south than that off Cuba," suggested
Louis.
"We shall cross the Tropic of Cancer while we are at luncheon," added
the commander. "You learned at school that this boundary was at
twenty-three and a half degrees north of the equator, and it is
generally so stated, though it is not quite accurate."
"I wish you would explain this at the next conference, Captain Ringgold,
for what you say is a surprise to me," said Louis.
"I will do it in a general way, though I am not an astronomer in the
scientific sense of the word," answered the captain. "We are approaching
the Dædalus lightship. I suppose you remember the name."
"I know that Dædalus was a very ingenious artist of Athens, who planned
the Cretan labyrinth, invented carpentry and some of the tools used in
the trade; but I don't know why his name was given to this lighthouse."
"I cannot inform you why it is so called, if there was any reason for
doing so; very likely it was given to it for no reason at all, as some
of the ships in the British navy are supplied with classical names for
the mere sound of the words, as Agamemnon, Achilles, though with some
reference to the trade of the originals in war."
"Why is it placed here all alone in the middle of this sea?" asked
Louis, who had looked about it for any signs of rocks.
"It is built on a dangerous reef which is never above water, though some
small round black rocks are seen at low tide awash. They look like the
kettles in which cooks get up a boiled dinner; and for this reason the
Arabs call the reef Abu Kizan, which means the 'father of pots.' As you
perceive, the ship is now out of sight of land; for the Red Sea is a
hundred and twenty miles wide at this point. But there is the gong for
breakfast, and we must attend to that."
The usual hour for the conference was nine o'clock when the ship was at
sea. So far the weather was remarkably pleasant; the north-west wind was
very gentle, and the ship hardly pitched at all. At the regular hour the
passengers had assembled on the promenade. The map of Arabia had been
placed on the frame as before, and it was understood that Mohammed was
to be the subject of the conference.
"What has become of Koser, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave, as
the commander joined the party.
"We passed it about two o'clock this morning," replied the captain.
"I felt some interest in that town; for when we were on the Nile we came
to a place where the Arabs wanted us to take the journey of four days
across the desert to Koser on camels," the lady explained.
"It is the first port in Egypt we come to, and was formerly an
important place, though the Suez Canal has diverted the greater part of
its trade. It was one of the chief outlets for the productions of Egypt,
especially grain, while those of Arabia and other Eastern countries
passed in by the same route. The poorer Mohammedans of Egypt make their
pilgrimage to Mecca this way, journeying across the Arabian Desert on
foot or by camel, and by steamers or dhows to Yembo.
"General Sir Ralph Abercromby, who commanded the British army at Abukir
when the French had possession of Egypt, landed at this port, marched
across the desert to the Nile, which he descended to Cairo, where he
found that the French army had surrendered to the English. The
population has fallen from seven thousand to twelve hundred. The more
wealthy Egyptians and Arabs make their pilgrimage now by the way of
Suez, and in the season there are plenty of steamers to take them to
Yembo.
"We are now nearing the Tropic of Cancer, and when we have passed it we
shall be in the Torrid Zone, in which are situated all those places on
the globe where the sun is ever directly overhead. The tropics are
generally said to be twenty-three and a half degrees from the equator,
which is near enough for ordinary purposes, but it is not quite
accurate. When the sun is at the summer solstice, June 21, it is
overhead on this tropic, and enters the constellation of Cancer, after
which it is named. Nicer calculations than I can follow show that the
sun is not precisely overhead at this place every year. In January of
this year the tropics were in latitude 23° 27' 11.84'', which places it
nearly three miles farther south than the location usually named. I
yield the floor to Professor Giroud."
"I am informed by the commander that we shall be off Yembo, the nearest
seaport to Medina, at about half-past three this afternoon; and this
place is a hundred and thirty-two miles from it. The two cities of
Medina and Mecca are the holy places of the Mohammedans. The principal
and enjoined pilgrimage of the sect is to the latter, though many devout
Moslems visit the other with pious intentions.
"Mecca is the birthplace of Mohammed; but, for reasons which will
presently be given, he went to Medina at the age of fifty-two, where he
lived the rest of his life, and died there. What I have to say of Medina
will come in better after we have followed the prophet through the first
portion of his life.
"I give the name according to the best English authorities at the
present time, though some call it Mahomet still, as we call it in
French. The word means 'praised' in Arabic. Mohammed the Prophet was
born at Mecca about A.D. 570; but the precise year is not known, though
the date I give is within a year of it. His father's name was Abdallah,
a poor merchant, who died about the time of the child's birth. A great
many stories have been invented in later years about the mother and the
child.
"The father was said to be the handsomest man of his time, and it is
claimed that his wife Aminah was of a noble family. She was of a nervous
temperament, and fancied she was visited by spirits. She was inclined to
epilepsy, which may explain her visions. Mohammed was her only child. As
soon as he was born, his mother is said to have raised her eyes to
heaven, exclaiming: 'There is no God but God, and I am his Prophet.' It
is also declared that the fire of the fire-worshippers, which had burned
without going out for a thousand-years, was suddenly quenched, and all
the idols in the world dropped from their pedestals."
"Goodness, gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom.
"The mother of the Prophet handed him over to a Bedouin woman to bring
up, in order that he might have the benefit of the desert air; but the
child appears to have been afflicted with his mother's malady, and the
nurse returned him because he was subject to frequent fits. When he was
six years old his mother died, and his grandfather adopted him; but the
old man lived only two years after, and then he was taken by Abu Talib,
his uncle, who, though poor himself, gave him a home, and continued to
be his best friend through life.
"At first the boy gained a precarious living by tending the flocks of
the Meccans. When he was twenty-five years old he went into the service
of a rich widow named Khadija, having the blood of the same ancestors in
their veins. Up to this time his position had been in a low grade of
poverty. He did not take the advice of Mr. Weller, and 'beware of the
vidders,' and his fortunes suddenly changed. Doubtless he was a handsome
man, as his father was said to be; and he was too much for the
susceptible Khadija, twice widowed, and fifteen years older than her
employe, and she offered him her hand and heart, which he accepted.
"They had two sons and four daughters; but both of the former died in
early life. He established himself as a merchant after his marriage; and
he continued in the business, though he spent most of his time in
meditation by himself. Up to the age of forty Mohammed was a strict
devotee in the religion of his fathers, which was a species of idolatry.
When he was about thirty years old Christianity had made its way into
Arabia through Syria on one side, and Abyssinia on the other, and there
were Jewish colonies in the peninsula. Though the missionaries of the
new faith pervaded Mecca and Medina, the future Prophet was not
converted, more is the pity!
"It was at this time that he was moved to teach a new religion which
should displace the idolatry of the people, and come into competition,
as it were, with the teachings of the missionaries of Judaism and
Christianity. He was forty years old when he received what he claimed as
his first divine communication, on a mountain near Mecca. He declared
that Gabriel appeared to him there, and commanded him to preach the true
religion. It is now generally admitted that he was no vulgar and tricky
impostor, and it cannot be known to what extent his inherited epilepsy
or hysteria governed the alleged revelations.
"After his long and lonely vigils passed in meditation, he proclaimed
what he insisted had been revealed to him; and at these times he appears
to have been little better than a lunatic, for he was moved to the most
frightful fanatical vehemence. He frothed at the mouth, his eyes became
red, and the perspiration rained from his head and face. He roared like
a camel in his wrath, and such an exhibition could hardly fail to make a
strong impression upon his ignorant audience.
"His first revelations were related to Khadija and other members of his
household; and they accepted his teachings, while his other relatives
rejected them with scorn. His uncle called him a fool; and his adopted
father never believed in him as a prophet, though for the honor of the
family he remained his friend. After four years of preaching he mustered
forty converts, slaves and men of the lowest social rank. Then he spoke
more publicly, in response to new revelations commanding him to do so,
denouncing boldly the superstitions of his people, exhorting them to
lead pious and moral lives, and to believe in the one all-wise,
almighty, and all-merciful God, who had chosen him as his Prophet. He
held out the reward of paradise to those who accepted his religion, and
the penalty of hell to those who rejected it.
"Two of the most sacred objects of the Arabians were the fetich of a
black stone and the spring of Zemzem, both of which were believed to be
endowed with miraculous powers for the healing of the body and the soul.
These imparted a sanctity above any other charms to the Kaaba in which
the stone and the fountain were to be visited. In the valley by the city
stands the great mosque, in which there is an immense square holding
35,000 people. In the centre of it is the Kaaba, which is not a
Mohammedan invention, for it existed ages before the Prophet was born.
Pilgrimages had been made to it from Medina for many generations. The
stone is perhaps a meteorite, set in a corner at a proper height for
kissing.
"The Kaaba was one of the superstitions with which the Prophet had to
contend; and he was too politic, as well as too deeply rooted in his own
belief, to think of abolishing it. He therefore converted the heathen
shrine into an altar of his own faith, inventing the legend that it had
been constructed by Abraham when he sent away his son Ishmael to found a
nation. Though Mohammed was prudent in many things, he offended the
people, particularly by prohibiting certain kinds of food. He condemned
the Bedouin for killing their newly born daughters, and for other
barbarous practices.
"Though the number of proselytes increased more rapidly, he had raised a
fierce opposition against him. About this time his faithful wife Khadija
died, and then his devoted uncle. His misery over these events was
increased by the fact that his business failed him, and he was reduced
to poverty. He tried to improve his fortunes by emigration; but the
scheme was a failure. He was so persecuted by the Meccans that he had on
occasions narrowly escaped with his life. After his return he married
again; and afterwards he had as many as nine wives at one time, though
he never took a second while Khadija was living.
"Now, good friends, I think we all need a rest, which the commander
instructed me to give you at a convenient place in my remarks."
The professor retired from the rostrum, and the company scattered over
the ship.