INSPIRATION
"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.
Traces of his mental turmoil are seen abundantly in his physical nature.
We read of his exhaustion after the inspiration comes, and of "the
terrific Suras" that took their toll of his vitality afterwards. The
mission imposed upon him was no light burden, and demanded of him
strength both of body and mind. The successive stages by which he became
convinced of his divine call are only detailed in the histories with the
concurrence of the supernatural; he sees material visions and dreams
fervent dreams. With the ecstacy of Heaven about him, according to
legend, he holds converse with the angel Gabriel, arch-messenger of God,
and the divine injunctions must be translated into mental enthusiasms
before the true evolution of Mahomet's mind can be dimly conceived.
When he was forty he sought solitude more constantly than formerly. There
were deeps in his own nature of which he was only now becoming aware. A
restlessness of mind beset him, and continually he retired to a cave at
the base of Mount Hira, where he could meditate undisturbed. This
mountain, hallowed for ever by the followers of Islam, is now called
somewhat ironically, considering its natural barrenness, Jebel Nur, the
mountain of Light. Mahomet was of a nervous temperament, the nature that
suffers more intensely through its imaginative foresight than in actual
experience. He was of those who see keenly and feel towards their
beliefs. His faith in God produced none of that self-abnegating
rapture to be found in the devotions of many early Christians; it was a
personal passion, sweeping up his whole nature within its folds, and
rousing the enfolded not to meditation but to instant action.
Through all the legendary accounts there beats that excitement that tells
of a mind wrought to the highest pitch, afire with visions, alive with
desire. Then, when his fervour attained its zenith, Gabriel came to him
in sleep with a silken cloth in his hand covered with writing and said to
Mahomet:
"Read!"
"I cannot read."
Then the angel wrapped the cloth about him and once more commanded,
"Read!"
Again came the answer, "I cannot read," and again the angel covered him,
still repeating, "Read!"
Then his mouth was opened and he read the first sura of the Kuran:
"Recite thou in the name of thy Lord who created thee," and when he awoke
it seemed to him that these words were graven upon his heart.
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
power,
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
recanting.
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.