the idolaters. Moḥammad had not spoken much in public; and when he did
speak to strangers, he restrained himself from attacking their
worship, and only enjoined them to worship the One God who had
created all things. The people were rather interested, and wondered
whether he were a soothsayer or madman, or if indeed there were truth
in his words. But now (A.D. 615) Moḥammad entered upon a more public
career. He summoned the Ḳureysh to a conference at the hill of
Eṣ-Ṣafá, and said, ‘I am come to you as a warner, and as the
forerunner of a fearful punishment.... I cannot protect you in this
world, nor can I promise you aught in the next life, unless ye say,
There is no God but Alláh.’ He was laughed to scorn, and the assembly
broke up; but from this time he ceased not to preach to the people of
a punishment that would come upon the unbelieving city. He told them,
in the fiery language of the early soorahs, how God had punished the
old tribes of the Arabs who would not believe in His messengers, how
the Flood had swallowed up the people who would not hearken to Noah.
He swore unto them, by the wonderful sights of nature, by the noonday
brightness, by the night when she spreadeth her veil, by the day when
it appeareth in glory, that a like destruction would assuredly come
upon them if they did not turn away from their idols and serve God
alone. He enforced his message with every resource of language and
metaphor, till he made it burn in the ears of the people. And then he
told them of the Last Day, when a just reckoning should be taken of
the deeds they had done; and he spoke of Paradise and Hell with all
the glow of Eastern imagery. The people were moved, terrified;
conversions increased. It was time the Ḳureysh should take some step.
If the idols were destroyed, what would come to them, the keepers of
the idols, and their renown throughout the land? How should they
retain the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes who came to worship
their several divinities at the Kaạbeh? That a few should follow the
ravings of a madman or magician who preferred one god above the
beautiful deities of Mekka was little matter; but that some leading
men of the city should join the sect, and that the magician should
terrify the people in open day with his denunciations of the worship
which _they_ superintended, was intolerable. The chiefs were seriously
alarmed, and resolved on a more active policy. Hitherto they had
merely ridiculed the professors of this new faith; they would now take
stronger measures. Moḥammad himself they dared not touch; for he
belonged to a noble family, which, though it was reduced and
impoverished, had deserved well of the city, and which, moreover, was
now headed by a man who was reverenced throughout Mekka, and was none
other than the adoptive father and protector of Moḥammad himself. Nor
was it safe to attack the other chief men among the Muslims, for the
blood-revenge was no light risk. They were thus compelled to content
themselves with the mean satisfaction of torturing the black slaves
who had joined the obnoxious faction. They exposed them on the
scorching sand, and withheld water till they recanted—which they did,
only to profess the faith once more when they were let go. The first
Muëddin alone remained steadfast: as he lay half stifled he would only
answer, ‘Aḥad! Aḥad!’—‘One [God]! One!’—till Aboo-Bekr came and bought
his freedom, as he was wont to do for many of the miserable victims.
Moḥammad was very gentle with these forced renegades: he knew what
stuff men are made of, and he bade them be of good cheer for their
lips, so that their hearts were sound.
At last, moved by the sufferings of his lowly followers, he advised
them to seek a refuge in Abyssinia—‘a land of righteousness, wherein
no man is wronged;’ and in the fifth year of his mission (616) eleven
men and four women left Mekka secretly, and were received in Abyssinia
with welcome and peace. These first emigrants were followed by more
the next year, till the number reached one hundred. The Ḳureysh were
very wroth at the escape of their victims, and sent ambassadors to the
Nejáshee, the Christian king of Abyssinia, to demand that the refugees
should be given up to them. But the Nejáshee assembled his bishops
and sent for the Muslims and asked them why they had fled; and one of
them answered and said—
‘O king! we lived in ignorance, idolatry, and unchastity; the strong
oppressed the weak; we spoke untruth; we violated the duties of
hospitality. Then a prophet arose, one whom we knew from our youth,
with whose descent and conduct and good faith and morality we are all
well acquainted. He told us to worship one God, to speak truth, to
keep good faith, to assist our relations, to fulfil the rights of
hospitality, and to abstain from all things impure, ungodly,
unrighteous. And he ordered us to say prayers, give alms, and to fast.
We believed in him; we followed him. But our countrymen persecuted us,
tortured us, and tried to cause us to forsake our religion; and now we
throw ourselves upon thy protection. Wilt thou not protect us?’ And he
recited a chapter of the Ḳur-án, which spoke of Christ; and the king
and the bishops wept upon their beards. And the king dismissed the
messengers and would not give up the men.
The Ḳureysh, foiled in their attempt to recapture the slaves, vented
their malice on those believers who remained. Insults were heaped upon
the Muslims, and persecution grew hotter each day. For a moment
Moḥammad faltered in his work. Could he not spare his people these
sufferings? Was it impossible to reconcile the religion of the city
with the belief in one supreme God? After all, was the worship of
those idols so false a thing? did it not hold the germ of a great
truth? And so Moḥammad made his first and last concession. He recited
a revelation to the Ḳureysh, in which he spoke respectfully of the
three moon-goddesses, and asserted that their intercession with God
might be hoped for: ‘Wherefore bow down before God and serve Him;’ and
the whole audience, overjoyed at the compromise, bowed down and
worshipped at the name of the God of Moḥammad—the whole city was
reconciled to the double religion. But this Dreamer of the Desert was
not the man to rest upon a lie. At the price of the whole city of
Mekka he would not remain untrue to himself. He came forward and said
he had done wrong—the devil had tempted him. He openly and frankly
retracted what he had said: and ‘As for their idols, they were but
empty names which they and their fathers had invented.’
Western biographers have rejoiced greatly over ‘Moḥammad’s fall.’ Yet
it was a tempting compromise, and few would have withstood it. And the
life of Moḥammad is not the life of a god, but of a man: from first to
last it is intensely human. But if for once he was not superior to the
temptation of gaining over the whole city and obtaining peace where
before there was only bitter persecution, what can we say of his
manfully thrusting back the rich prize he had gained, freely
confessing his fault, and resolutely giving himself over again to the
old indignities and insults? If he was once insincere—and who is
not?—how intrepid was his after-sincerity! He was untrue to himself
for a while, and he is ever referring to it in his public preaching
with shame and remorse; but the false step was more than atoned for by
his magnificent recantation.
Moḥammad’s influence with the people at large was certainly weakened
by this temporary change of front, and the opposition of the leaders
of the Ḳureysh, checked for the moment by the Prophet’s concession,
now that he had repudiated it, broke forth into fiercer flame. They
heaped insults upon him, and he could not traverse the city without
the encounter of a curse. They threw unclean things at him, and vexed
him in his every doing. The protection of Aboo-Ṭálib alone saved him
from personal danger. This refuge the Ḳureysh determined to remove.
They had attempted before, but had been turned back with a soft
answer. They now went to the chief, of fourscore years, and demanded
that he should either compel his nephew to hold his peace, or else
that he should withdraw his protection. Having thus spoken they
departed. The old man sent for Moḥammad, and told him what they had
said. ‘Now therefore save thyself and me also, and cast not upon me a
burden heavier than I can bear;’ for he was grieved at the strife
between his family and his wider kindred, and would fain have seen
Moḥammad temporize with the Ḳureysh. But though the Prophet believed
that at length his uncle was indeed about to abandon him, his courage
and high resolve never faltered. ‘Though they should set the sun on my
right hand and the moon on my left to persuade me, yet while God
commands me I will not renounce my purpose.’ But to lose his uncle’s
love!—he burst into tears, and turned to go. But Aboo-Ṭálib called
aloud, ‘Son of my brother, come back.’ So he came. And he said,
‘Depart in peace, my nephew, and say whatsoever thou desirest; for, by
the Lord, I will never deliver thee up.’
The faithfulness of Aboo-Ṭálib was soon to be tried. At first, indeed,
things looked brighter. The old chief’s firm bearing overawed the
Ḳureysh, and they were still more cowed by two great additions that
were now joined to the Muslim ranks. One was Moḥammad’s uncle, Ḥamzeh,
‘the Lion of God,’ a mighty hunter and warrior of the true Arab
mettle, whose sword was worth twenty of weaker men to the cause of
Islám. The other was ´Omar, afterwards Khalif, whose fierce impulsive
nature had hitherto marked him as a violent opponent of the new faith,
but who afterwards proved himself one of the mainstays of Islám. The
gain of two such men first frightened then maddened the Ḳureysh. The
leaders met together and consulted what they should do. It was no
longer a case of an enthusiast followed by a crowd of slaves and a few
worthy merchants; it was a faction led by stout warriors, such as
Ḥamzeh, Ṭalḥah, ´Omar,—half-a-dozen picked swordsmen; and the Muslims,
emboldened by their new allies, were boldly surrounding the Kaạbeh,
and performing the rites of their religion in the face of all the
people. The Ḳureysh resolved on extreme measures. They determined to
shut off the obnoxious family of the Háshimees from the rest of their
kindred. The chiefs drew up a document, in which they vowed that they
would not marry with the Háshimees, nor buy and sell with them, nor
hold with them any communication soever; and this they hung up in the
Kaạbeh.
The Háshimees were not many enough to fight the whole city, so they
went every man of them, save one, to the shi-b (or quarter) of
Aboo-Ṭálib,—a long, narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of
Mekka, cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one narrow
gateway,—and there shut themselves up. For though the ban did not
forbid them to go about as heretofore, they knew that no soul would
speak with them, and that they would be subject to the maltreatment of
any vagabond they met. So they collected their stores and waited.
Every man of the family, Muslim or Pagan, cast in his lot with their
common kinsman, Moḥammad, saving only his own uncle, Aboo-Lahab, a
determined enemy to Islám, to whom a special denunciation is justly
consecrated in the Ḳur-án.
For two long years the Háshimees remained shut up in their quarter.
Only at the pilgrimage-time—when the blessed institution of the sacred
months made violence sacrilege—could Moḥammad come forth and speak
unto the people of the things that were in his heart to say. Scarcely
any converts were made during this weary time; and most of those who
had previously been converted, and did not belong to the doomed clan,
took refuge in Abyssinia; so that in the seventh year of Moḥammad’s
mission there were probably not more than twelve Muslims of any weight
who remained by him. Still the Háshimees remained in their quarter. It
seemed as if they must all perish: their stores were almost gone, and
the cries of starving children could be heard outside. Kind-hearted
neighbours would sometimes smuggle-in a camel’s load of food, but it
availed little. The Ḳureysh themselves were getting ashamed of their
work, and were wishing for an excuse for releasing their kinsmen. The
excuse came in time. It was discovered that the deed of ban was eaten
up by worms, and Aboo-Ṭálib turned the discovery to his advantage. The
venerable old chief went out and met the Ḳureysh at the Kaạbeh, and
pointing to the crumbling leaf he bitterly reproached them with their
hardness of heart towards their brethren: then he departed. And
straightway there rose up five chiefs, heads of great families, and,
amid the murmurs of the fiercer spirits who were still for no quarter,
they put on their armour, and going to the shi-b of Aboo-Ṭálib, bade
the Háshimees come forth in peace. And they came forth.
It was now the eighth year of Moḥammad’s mission; and for the last two
years, wasted in excommunication, Islám had almost stood still, at
least externally. For though Moḥammad’s patient bearing under the ban
had gained over a few of his imprisoned clan to his side, he had made
no converts beyond the walls of his quarter. During the sacred months
he had gone forth to speak to the people,—to the caravans of strangers
and the folk at the fairs,—but he had no success; for hard behind him
followed Aboo-Lahab, the squinter, who mocked at him, and told the
people he was only ‘a liar and a sabian.’ And the people answered that
his own kindred must best know what he was, and they would hear
nothing from him. The bold conduct of the five chiefs had indeed
secured for Moḥammad a temporary respite from persecution; but this
relief was utterly outweighed by the troubles that now fell upon him
and fitly gave that year the name of ‘The Year of Mourning.’ For soon
after the revoking of the ban Aboo-Ṭálib died, and five weeks later
Khadeejeh. In the first Moḥammad lost his ancient protector, who,
though he would never give up his old belief, had yet faithfully
guarded the Prophet from his childhood upwards, and, with the true
Arab sentiment of kinship, had subjected himself and his clan to years
of persecution and poverty in order to defend his brother’s son from
his enemies. The death of Khadeejeh was even a heavier calamity to
Moḥammad. She first had believed in him, and she had ever been his
angel of hope and consolation. To his death he cherished a tender
regret for her; and when his young bride ´Áïsheh, the favourite of his
declining years, jealously abused ‘that toothless old woman,’ he
answered with indignation, ‘When I was poor, she enriched me; when
they called me a liar, she alone believed in me; when all the world
was against me, she alone remained true.’
Moḥammad might well feel himself alone in the world. Most of his
followers were in Abyssinia; only a few tried friends remained at
Mekka. All the city was against him; his protector was dead, and his
faithful wife. Dejected, almost hopeless, he would try a new field. If
Mekka rejected him, might not Et-Ṭáïf give him welcome? He set out on
foot on his journey of seventy miles, taking only Zeyd with him; and
he told the people of Et-Ṭáïf his simple message. They stoned him out
of the city for three miles. Bleeding and fainting, he paused to rest
in an orchard, to recover strength before he went back to the insults
of his own people. The owners of the place sent him some grapes; and
he gathered up his strength once more, and bent his weary feet towards
Mekka. On the way, as he slept, his fancy called up a strange dream:
men had rejected him, and now he thought he saw the Jinn, the spirits
of the air, falling down and worshipping the One God, and bearing
witness to the truth of Islám. Heartened by the vision, he pushed on;
and when Zeyd asked him if he did not fear to throw himself again into
the hands of the Ḳureysh, he answered, ‘God will protect His religion
and help His prophet.’
So this lonely man came back to dwell among his enemies. Though a
brave Arab gentleman, compassionating his aloneness, gave him the
Bedawee pledge of protection, yet he well knew that the power of his
foes made such protection almost useless, and at any time he might be
assassinated. But the Ḳureysh had not yet come to think of the last
resource, and meanwhile a new prospect was opening out for Moḥammad.
That same year, as he was visiting the caravans of the pilgrims who
had come from all parts of Arabia to worship at the Kaạbeh, he found a
group of men of Yethrib who were willing to listen to his words. He
expounded to them the faith he was sent to preach, and he told them
how his people had rejected him, and asked them whether Yethrib would
receive him. The men were impressed with his words and professed
Islám, and promised to bring news the next year; then they returned
home and talked of this matter to their brethren. Now at Yethrib,
besides two pagan tribes that had migrated upwards from the south,
there were three clans of Jewish Arabs. Between the pagans and Jews,
and then between the two pagan clans, there had been deadly wars; and
now there were many parties in the city, and no one was master. The
Jews, on the one hand, were expecting their Messiah; the pagans looked
for a prophet. If Moḥammad were not the Messiah, the Jews thought that
he might at least be their tool to subdue their pagan rivals. ‘Whether
he is a prophet or not,’ said the pagans, ‘he is our kinsman by his
mother, and will help us to overawe the Jews; and if he is the coming
prophet, it is our policy to recognise him before those Jews who are
always threatening us with their Messiah.’ The teaching of Moḥammad
was so nearly Jewish, that a union of the two creeds might be hoped
for; whilst to the pagan Arabs of Yethrib monotheism was no strange
doctrine. All parties were therefore willing to receive Moḥammad and
at least try the experiment of his influence. As a peace-maker,
prophet, or messiah, he would be equally welcome in a city torn
asunder by party jealousies.
When the time of pilgrimage again came round, Moḥammad waited at the
appointed place in a secluded glen, and there met him men from the two
pagan tribes of Yethrib—the clans of Khazraj and Aws—ten from one and
two from the other. They told him of the willingness of their people
to embrace Islám, and their hope to make ready the city for his
welcome. They plighted their faith with him in these words: ‘We will
not worship save one God; we will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor
kill our children; we will in nowise slander, nor will we disobey the
prophet in anything that is right.’ This is the first pledge of the
´Aḳabeh.
The twelve men of Yethrib went back and preached Islám to their
people. ‘So prepared was the ground, so zealous the propagation, and
so apt the method, that the new faith spread rapidly from house to
house and from tribe to tribe. The Jews looked on in amazement at the
people, whom they had in vain endeavoured for generations to convince
of the errors of Polytheism and dissuade from the abominations of
idolatry, suddenly and of their own accord casting away their idols
and professing belief in God alone.’ They asked Moḥammad to send them
a teacher versed in the Ḳur-án, so anxious were they to know Islám
truly; and Muṣ´ab was sent, and taught them and conducted their
worship; so that Islám took deep root at Yethrib.
Meanwhile Moḥammad was still among the Ḳureysh at Mekka. His is now an
attitude of waiting; he is listening for news from his distant
converts. Resting his hopes upon them, and despairing of influencing
the Mekkans, he does not preach so much as heretofore. He holds his
peace mainly, and bides his time. One hears little of this interval of
quietude. Islám seems stationary at Mekka, and its followers are
silent and reserved. The Ḳureysh are joyful at the ceasing of those
denunciations which terrified whilst they angered them, yet they are
not quite satisfied. The Muslims have a waiting look, as though there
were something at hand.
It was during this year of expectation that the Prophet’s celebrated
‘Night Journey’ took place. This Mi´ráj has been the subject of
extravagant embellishments on the part of the traditionists and
commentators, and the cause of much obloquy to the Prophet from his
religious opponents. Moḥammad dreamed a dream, and referred to it
briefly and obscurely in the Ḳur-án. His followers persisted in
believing it to have been a reality—an ascent to heaven in the
body—till Moḥammad was sick of repeating his simple assertion that it
was a dream. The traditional form of this wonderful vision may be read
in any life of Moḥammad, and though it is doubtless very different
from the story the Prophet himself gave, it is still a grand vision,
full of glorious imagery, fraught with deep meaning.
Again the time of pilgrimage came round, and again Moḥammad repaired
to the glen of the Mountain-road. Muṣ´ab had told him the good tidings
of the spread of the faith at Yethrib, and he was met at the
rendezvous by more than seventy men. They came by twos and threes
secretly for fear of the Ḳureysh, ‘waking not the sleeper, nor
tarrying for the absent.’ Then Moḥammad recited to them verses from
the Ḳur-án, and in answer to their invitation that he should come to
them, and their profession that their lives were at his service, he
asked them to pledge themselves to defend him as they would their own
wives and children. And a murmur of eager assent rolled round about
from the seventy, and an old man, one of their chiefs, stood forth and
said, ‘Stretch out thy hand, O Moḥammad.’ And the chief struck his own
hand into Moḥammad’s palm in the frank Bedawee fashion, and thus
pledged his fealty. Man after man the others followed, and struck
their hands upon Moḥammad’s. Then he chose twelve of them as leaders
over the rest, saying, ‘Moses chose from among his people twelve
leaders. Ye shall be the sureties for the rest, even as the apostles
of Jesus were; and I am the surety for my people.’ A voice of some
stranger was heard near by, and the assembly hastily dispersed and
stole back to their camp. This is the second pledge of the ´Aḳabeh.
The Ḳureysh knew that some meeting had taken place, and though they
could not bring home the offence to any of the Yethrib pilgrims, they
kept a stricter watch on the movements of Moḥammad and his friends
after the pilgrims had returned homeward. It was clear that Mekka was
no longer a safe place for the Muslims, and a few days after the
second pledge Moḥammad told his followers to betake themselves
secretly to Yethrib. For two months at the beginning of the eleventh
year of the mission (622) the Muslims were leaving Mekka in small
companies to make the journey of 250 miles to Yethrib. One hundred
families had gone, and whole quarters of the city were deserted, left
with empty houses and locked doors, ‘a prey to woe and wind.’ There
were but three believers now remaining in Mekka—these were Moḥammad,
Aboo-Bekr, and ´Alee. Like the captain of a sinking ship, the Prophet
would not leave till all the crew were safe. But now they were all
gone save his two early friends, and everything was ready for the
journey; still the Prophet did not go. But the Ḳureysh, who had been
too much taken by surprise to prevent the emigration, now prepared
measures for a summary vengeance on the disturber of their peace and
the emptier of their city. They set a watch on his house, and, it is
said, commissioned a band of armed youths of different families to
assassinate him together, that the blood recompense might not fall on
one household alone. But Moḥammad had warning of his danger, and
leaving ´Alee to deceive the enemy, he was concealed with Aboo-Bekr in
a narrow-mouthed cave on Mount Thór, an hour-and-a-half’s journey from
Mekka, before the Ḳureysh knew of his escape. For three days they
remained hidden there, while their enemies were searching the country
for them. Once they were very near, and Aboo-Bekr trembled:—‘We are
but two.’ ‘Nay,’ answered Moḥammad, ‘we are three, for God is with
us.’ And a spider, they say, wove its web over the entrance of the
cave, so that the Ḳureysh passed on, thinking that no man had entered
there.
On the third night the pursuit had been almost given over, and the two
fugitives took up their journey again. Mounted on camels they
journeyed to Yethrib. In eight days they reached the outskirts of the
city (September 622). Moḥammad was received with acclamation, and took
up his residence among his kindred. The seat of Islám was transferred
from Mekka to Yethrib, henceforward to be known as
Medina,—_Medeenet-en-Nebee_, ‘the City of the Prophet.’
This is the _Hijreh_, or Flight of the Prophet, from which the Muslims
date their history. Their first year began on the 16th day of June of
the Year of Grace 622.
* * * * *