THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND INFLUENCE OF ISLAM
614–712
Comparative Religion, its Interest as a Study--The Benefits of
Islam--Arabia at the Birth of Mohammed--Condition of Christendom
and the Byzantine Empire--Popular Idea of the Prophet--His
Family--His Early Life--The First Revelation--Persecution of the
New Sect--The Hegira--Growing Prosperity of Islam--Character
of Mohammed--Causes of His Success--Polygamy--The Koran--Its
Arrangement, its Legends, its Sublime Maxims, its
Absurdities--Its Obligations to other Creeds--The Kiblah--The
Pilgrimage and its Ceremonies--Reforms accomplished by
Islam--Universal Worship of Force--Corruption of the Religion of
Mohammed--Its Wonderful Achievements--Mohammed the Apostle of
God.
The study of Comparative Religion is one of the most fascinating, but
at the same time one of the most unsatisfactory, of human employments.
In historical research, in mathematical calculation, in chemical
analysis, in the investigation of natural phenomena, either absolute
certainty or an approximate degree of accuracy is attainable. This,
however, is obviously impossible in the consideration of questions with
which the eternal happiness or misery of mankind may be concerned. Who
is competent to determine the relative value of the various religious
systems,--always mutually antagonistic, often irreconcilable,--yet all
alleged to have proceeded alike from the fiat of Almighty God? Who is
to judge of the peculiar qualifications of those who have arrogated
to themselves the important office of passing upon their respective
merits? Why should certain doctrines be accepted and others repudiated
by zealous but uncritical sectaries?, Where does this presumed
inspiration begin and end? To use the words of the Koran, “What is the
infallible? And who shall cause thee to understand what the infallible
is?” Who, in short, possesses the touchstone of truth?
The experience of all ages, the history of all nations, have
established the melancholy fact that systems of religion are, like
institutions of human origin, subject to the ordinary incidents of
mortality. They have their age of youthful vigor and enthusiasm; their
stationary epoch, when their principles have lost their expansive
power; their period of degeneracy and decay. Their duration, like that
of created beings, corresponds to the degree of vitality which they
may possess; their vitality is in proportion to the intrinsic merit of
their doctrines, and their adaptability to the moral nature of man. As
omniscience is denied to him, his estimate of the value of a divine
revelation must necessarily be speculative and uncertain, largely
dependent upon his intellectual capacity, and colored by the influences
to which he has been exposed. On the other hand, many learned
metaphysicians have argued with transcendent ability that faith is
not accidental, and merely derived from volition and association, but
is a matter of inexorable necessity, in which the will is absolutely
powerless. As a result of inherited prejudice, the principles of
every religion always appear heterodox, false, and absurd to sincere
believers in other forms of faith. Of all theological dogmas, none have
suffered more from the effects of ignorance and injustice than those
of Islamism. The name of its founder has for thirteen centuries been
a synonym of imposture. His motives have been impugned, his sincerity
denied. His character has been branded with every vice which degrades
or afflicts mankind. The greatest absurdities, the grossest inhumanity,
have been attributed to his teachings. Ecclesiastical malice has
exhausted its resources in efforts to blacken his memory. Even in
our day, comparatively few persons are even superficially conversant
with the doctrines which, in less than a century, were able to usurp
the spiritual and temporal dominion of a considerable portion of the
habitable globe.
The love of novelty which reigns supreme in the human breast is
nowhere more striking in its manifestations than in the facility
with which men adopt a fresh revelation. No new religion ever lacks
proselytes. Imagination, sentiment, hope, fear, interest, combine to
induce its acceptance, notwithstanding the obscurity which may invest
its doctrines or the illiteracy which often is the most prominent
characteristic of its interpreters; and if the conditions which attend
its promulgation are not decidedly unpropitious, it is morally certain
of success.
Some embrace it through curiosity, others from conviction, many from
motives of selfishness. Its power is frequently in a direct proportion
to the awe with which it inspires its votaries. As military glory
is most admired by the populace, great prestige must of necessity
attach to a creed which proselytes by conquest. On the other hand,
apotheosis was considered the highest distinction attainable by the
heroes and sovereigns of Pagan antiquity. Individuals whose genius
had conferred great benefits upon the human race were assigned by
public gratitude to a place among the gods. All the Roman emperors
from Cæsar to Constantine were deified. An atmosphere of peculiar
sanctity invested the eagles grouped in the post of honor in the camp
of the legion. The crucifix and the reliquary were borne in the van of
crusading armies. A more or less intimate association has thus always
existed between the sacerdotal and the military professions. The latter
has repeatedly furthered the projects of the former. The priest has
rarely refused to absolve the offences of the orthodox soldier. Most
religions have, in fact, been established or maintained by force.
When we recall the overthrow of Paganism, the successive attempts to
recover the Holy Sepulchre, the reconquest of Spain, the Inquisition,
the atrocities attending the subjugation of the New World, the utter
devastation of Provence and Languedoc, the religious wars of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we should certainly not subject to
invidious scrutiny the polity of Mohammed, whose history is free from
the reproach of persecution, and whose supremacy was only partially
established by arms.
The examination and criticism of a religion whose canons have been
honored with the implicit and reverent obedience of millions of men;
whose dogmas have been recognized by the devout of many diverse races
as inspirations of the wisdom of Almighty God; a religion which, by the
weapons of argument or by the resistless force of enthusiasm, subverted
the power and absorbed the leading principles of other creeds whose
traditions had hitherto enthralled the world, and which, despite the
degeneracy of its practice, the divisions and consequent antagonism of
its sectaries, the vicissitudes of many centuries, and the inevitable
accidents of war, persecution, and treason, still manifests an
astonishing and, to all appearances, an inexhaustible vitality, is a
great and arduous undertaking. The story of Islam, by whose influence
the natives of the East and West, heretofore hostile, were joined in
a bond of fraternal union and guided through a marvellous career of
prosperity and glory, is the realization of what would have ordinarily
appeared a most extravagant dream of conquest and dominion, and is
without parallel in the annals of humanity. In the moral as in the
material world, the most perfect and durable forms and systems usually
arrive slowly, and by almost imperceptible gradations, at ultimate
maturity. But to this rule Islam was a striking exception. It attained
the summit of its greatness, and raised the Arabians to an exalted rank
in the family of nations, in a shorter period of time than is generally
occupied by a people in passing through the primitive stages of their
intellectual development.
It refuted the familiar maxim of the Romans, whose foreign policy was
based upon the fomenting of dissensions and the subsequent discomfiture
of their enemies, and, assailing its adversaries simultaneously on
every side, won its way by a series of victories surpassing, in
momentous results, the most renowned triumphs of the consuls and the
Cæsars. In the traditions relating to the genealogy and history of its
Prophet there is much that is enigmatical and much that is romantic.
The latter deduced his origin from Ishmael, whom, with his unfortunate
mother, Abraham, the acknowledged head of God’s chosen people, had
inhumanly abandoned in the Desert to starve.
But in the seventy-one generations which separated Mohammed and
Ishmael, a radical change of circumstances had befallen the rival
branches of the house of Abraham. The descendants of Isaac, who had
been promised the earth for an inheritance, now enslaved or exiled,
and proverbial for bad faith, had become reviled and contemned of all
men. On the other hand, from Ishmael the vagabond, deserted by his
father and renounced by his kindred, had sprung a noble, valiant,
and hospitable race, whose destiny was the promotion of civilization
and the extension of empire. And in due time the latter, having
obtained possession of the opulent regions of the East, tolerated the
despised Hebrew only upon payment of tribute, and restricted him to a
distinctive costume as a symbol of his degradation. He was compelled,
in token of respect, to remove his slippers whenever he passed a
mosque, and under penalty of the lash to kneel abjectly in the dust
before the haughty Ishmaelite; while the capital of the land from which
he had been banished, endeared to him by the memory of his sovereigns
and the traditions of his faith, was in the power of his hereditary
enemies, whose sacrilegious hands had raised the gilded dome of one
of their proudest fanes upon the very spot long consecrated by the
most revered associations of his race and his religion. The law of
compensation, which controls the fate of man, was at last fulfilled,
and retribution, if long delayed, was then exacted with relentless
severity.
The benefits wrought by Mohammedans--especially during the Middle
Ages--have, until the end of the last century, been silently ignored
or studiously depreciated by historians; in some instances through
want of information, but, for the most part, because the phenomenal
progress of Islam, when compared with the apathetic condition of other
religions, suggested a formidable rivalry. But in this age, insatiable
of knowledge and equipped with every means of obtaining it, it is
no longer possible for clerical intolerance to obscure the splendid
achievements of Moslem science. The day has long since past when the
labors of astronomers like Ibn-Junis, of historians like Al-Makkari,
of philosophers like Averroes, of physicians like Avicenna, and of
botanists like Ibn-Beithar, can be treated with obloquy because they
were not authorized by the decree of an Ecumenical Council or approved
by a bull of his Holiness the Pope.
The history of a religion, the exposition of a form of faith, is not
infrequently the memoir of an individual and the chronicle of a race.
As a rule, the union of the offices of Prophet and Lawgiver in a single
personage deeply impresses the individuality of that personage upon the
character of his nation. The annals of the Hebrews are indissolubly
bound up with the Holy Scriptures and the precepts of Mosaic law.
The mention of ancient Persia suggests at once the texts of the
Zendavesta and the ordinances of Zoroaster. The Koran is practically
the biography of Mohammed, the tale of his sorrows, his aspirations,
his failures, and his triumphs. And what more noble monument could
Arabia boast than the proud distinction of having been the home of
a prophet and the cradle of a faith for centuries identified with
religious toleration, with princely munificence, with scientific
investigation, with literary merit,--all intimately associated with her
name and with the varying fortunes of her children? The latter, from
the first, devoted themselves to the interests of civilization. They
settled colonies of skilled artisans in the wake of their armies. They
promoted manufactures, encouraged commerce, and in every department of
industrial occupation stimulated the efforts of mechanical ingenuity.
They developed the science of astronomy. To them chemistry and pharmacy
owe their origin. While persevering botanists explored the flora of
many lands, the mathematician, in his secluded retreat, expanded and
perfected the science of algebra. When a new region was subjected
to their rule, all fruits, plants, and herbs, which examination or
experience had found to be either edible or curative, were inscribed
upon the lists of tribute, and their importation and distribution
became compulsory. They branded idleness with contempt; they ennobled
labor; and even royalty did not disdain to follow the example of the
Prophet, who, with his own hands, assisted in the erection of the
mosque of Medina, the first temple of Islam. They translated and
preserved for the pleasure and instruction of posterity the immortal
productions of the sages of Greece and Rome. They fostered learning,
and encouraged its pursuit by maxim, reward, and example, until it
became a matter of popular belief, as firmly grounded as the most
sacred tradition, that the diligent cultivation of the mental faculties
was an imperative religious duty.
In ancient times, to compel the observance of a salutary law, it was
connected with public worship and directly sanctioned by the precepts
of religion. In this way, hallowed by divine authority, it acquired a
force not obtainable by human enactment, and conclusively indicated
the wisdom of the sovereign or lawgiver who promulgated it. It was
thus with circumcision among the Jews, with the cultivation of the
soil in Mesopotamia, and with irrigation in Egypt, where the Nile was
deified as the creator and preserver of the harvests and the source of
the material prosperity of the nation. Mohammed was not blind to the
advantages to be secured by this theocratic supervision of the affairs
of mortals, and, by recourse to it, enforced the adoption and practice
of many healthful customs and profitable employments whose effects upon
the subjects of his successors were of the greatest importance.
The contagion of superstition, the impression produced by the grandeur
of scenery, and the periodical recurrence of mysterious natural
phenomena must always be attentively considered in determining the
philosophical belief and religious tendencies of a people. Intimate
relations with Egypt, sustained for a vast but unknown period of time,
have left ineffaceable traces upon the traditions of Arabia. In the
religious system of the former country there was one Supreme Being. All
other divinities were but manifestations of his majesty and omnipotence
concealed under different names. From him emanated the multifarious
triads, the personification of the Nile, the countless array of gods
to whom the days, the months, and even the very productions of the
earth, were sacred. The great secret that these inferior deities were
mere abstractions proceeding from a common Essence, to be eventually
absorbed into it,--a fate to which even the soul of man, after divers
transmigrations, was subject,--was jealously guarded by the Egyptian
priesthood, and was the chief of its famous mysteries. The Sabeans
of Yemen, instructed through their mercantile relations with the
inhabitants of the Valley of the Nile, had long been familiar with
the idea of a Supreme God and the personified attributes of His power
and dignity. This doctrine had spread from the South, and, at the
date of the advent of Mohammed, underlay the idolatrous worship of
which Mecca was the centre, and whose ramifications extended in every
direction to the borders of the Peninsula. A considerable number of
the more intelligent Arabs who professed adherence to the religion
of Abraham, yet, in fact, knew nothing of that religion except that
it was monotheistic, repudiated all forms of idolatry, and styled
themselves Hanifs--a word variously defined as “Incliners” and
“Heretics.” The Manichean conception of the Spirit of Darkness--or,
in other words, that important and enterprising personage the Persian
devil, without whose presence no modern creed would seem to be
complete--was also unknown to the ancient inhabitants of Arabia. As
the idea was imported,--no branch of the Semitic race having been
originally acquainted with it,--it probably travelled in the train of
Cambyses when he invaded the Desert; although Iblis, the Arabic name
by which this spirit is popularly designated, is evidently of European
derivation and a corruption of the Greek Διάβολος.
Nor have the physical features of the landscape less to do with
the formation of man’s moral impressions, and the direction of his
impulses, than the reciprocal interchange of the ideas of contiguous
nations. This is apparent in even a greater degree than the influence
of soil and climate in the modification of his physical aspect and
temperament. The more imposing those features, the more profound the
emotions they excite; and, partly for this reason, Asia, which Nature
has endowed with the most stupendous manifestations of her energy, has
been prolific of those superstitions which have exercised the most
extensive and lasting dominion over the human mind.
For more than a century before the birth of Mohammed, the most
deplorable ignorance had obscured the face of the Christian world.
The gentleness and beauty of the religion of Jesus had been
supplanted by the direst fanaticism; its altars had been profaned
by heathen sacrifices and the adoration of images; its priesthood
had become inconceivably corrupt and immoral. The countless sects
evoked by the machinations and worldly ambition of the clergy had,
by mutual recrimination, revolting crimes, relentless persecution of
their adversaries, and obstinate refusal to listen to any plan of
reconciliation, almost destroyed the faith of reasonable men in every
religion. Each of these sects had a leader who was regarded by his
followers as endowed, to a greater or less degree, with that mysterious
power conferred by divine inspiration. Disputes, frequently settled
by massacre, were constantly maintained upon abstruse and frivolous
questions in their very nature unanswerable; the precepts of justice
and the laws of morality were contemptuously disregarded; and the
sacerdotal class, instead of setting an example of piety and moderation
to its congregations, was conspicuous in the daily saturnalia of
rapine, lust, and murder. The Church had long since departed from
the simplicity and purity of its original institution. For a century
only after the death of the Saviour it had remained free from the
influence of schismatic doctrines. While in comparative obscurity and
acknowledged weakness, it offered no inducements to the disturbing
spirit of fanatical innovators or to the selfish schemes of political
aggrandizement and ecclesiastical ambition. In the beginning, divided
into a number of federated republics practically independent, yet
bound together by a common interest, governed by their own laws,
relying upon their own resources, guided by the wisdom of their own
ministers, their thoroughly organized polity, their obstinacy, their
claims to superior holiness, naturally excited the odium of the Pagan
populace, and frequently provoked the wrath and the interference
of Imperial authority. From a condition of meekness, humility, and
self-abnegation, the Church had become the prey of hostile factions,
and was already tainted with scandal. Its synods were polluted with
the blood of contending sectaries. Its councils resounded with the
unseemly disputes and mutual recriminations of prelates more ambitious
for the attainment of supreme power than for the discovery of divine
truth. The Trinitarian controversy had nourished prejudices which
centuries of apparent tranquillity had failed to eradicate. The spirit
of persecution, incomprehensible to the polytheists, the essence of
whose creed was universal toleration, and who could not appreciate the
motives impelling the Christian to the employment of force to establish
his doctrines, had early begun to manifest itself. Monasticism,
synonymous with ignorance and intolerance, represented the sentiments
and hopes of the most degraded of the populace in every community
of the Empire. At Alexandria and Nicea it had forced, by weight of
numbers and by turbulent demonstrations of violence, the adoption
of some of the most important articles of Christian faith. In every
ecclesiastical feud it had invariably espoused the cause of bigotry
and imposture. The monk of the sixth century united in his character
the inconsistent attributes of the priest and the politician, the
saint and the demagogue. His retreat in the solitude of the desert was
visited by thousands of weeping penitents, suppliants for the doubtful
but cherished privilege of his blessing. With his companions, armed
with clubs and stones, he fomented disorder in the streets of great
capitals. His voluntary renunciation of the follies of the world was
no bar to his greed of power. He dictated the policy of the Church.
He settled involved points of casuistry. He formulated canons of
ecclesiastical discipline. He enforced the claims of his faction by
intrigues, by corruption, by the commission of the most revolting
crimes. He aspired to and often attained the episcopal dignity. The
superior numbers, the fanatical spirit, the unanimous resolution of
his order, gave him a preponderating influence in the Church not to be
heedlessly resisted. Before the imperial organization of the Papacy,
the monk was the dominant factor in the determination of the laws, the
measures, and the regulations of Christendom.
It must be remembered that at that time there was no established,
centralized, sacerdotal authority. Nevertheless, for more than
a century, imperial officials, designated for that purpose, had
determined the degrees and inflicted the punishment of heresy.
Confiscation, banishment, torture, and death threatened all who refused
to subscribe to the doctrines which, varying with different reigns,
were promulgated as the momentary and uncertain standards of orthodoxy.
The incomprehensibility of a dogma was considered an infallible
indication of its truth. The philosopher was then, as now, stigmatized
as the implacable enemy of religion. A reign of terror overspread the
empire. Every scholar became an object of suspicious aversion. His
neighbors shunned his company. The clergy anathematized him from the
pulpit. Informers dogged his footsteps and intruded upon his privacy.
Indifference to religious duties, or an unguarded statement frequently
distorted by malice, was a sufficient cause for imprisonment. The
discovery of an heretical passage in a volume of his library rarely
failed to provoke a sentence of death. Such measures, equivalent to a
proscription of knowledge, produced the most lamentable consequences.
Literary occupations became to all intents and purposes criminal.
Everywhere valuable collections of books were hastily consigned to the
flames by their owners, apprehensive of being compromised by their
contents. Oratory, except that of the pulpit, could not survive such
restrictions. Public sentiment, controlled by ecclesiastical prejudice,
became inimical to the maintenance of even ordinary institutions of
learning. A blind reverence for the Church, and a disposition to
enforce obedience to its mandates by the merciless employment of the
secular arm, were popularly regarded as the duties of every member of
society. It was the ominous inauguration of that fearful power which
afterwards culminated in the irresponsible despotism of the Vatican.
The Roman Pontiff had not yet stretched forth his mighty hand from the
seat of ancient empire to allay dissension, and to enforce obedience
to the edicts of the greatest hierarchy that has ever arisen to
enchain the intelligence and repress the independent aspirations of
mankind. The final decisions of councils had not been formulated upon
controverted points of doctrine. The Patriarch of Constantinople--first
in ecclesiastical precedence, yet almost rivalled in pomp and
prestige by the great episcopal dignitaries of Antioch, Alexandria,
and Carthage--exacted with difficulty the reverence of the giddy
and scoffing mob of the capital, and could not always maintain the
dignity of his office, even in the presence of his sovereign, who was
sometimes a skeptic and often a tyrant. Nor was the civil power, to
which the ecclesiastical system was still jealously subordinated, in a
less degraded condition. The authority of the Emperor was persistently
defied in the precincts of his own palace, which, with the Cathedral
of Saint Sophia, had become the theatre of the treasonable plots
and licentious intrigues of infamous combinations of every class
and nationality, and where a portentous union of monks, eunuchs,
and women reigned unquestioned and supreme. A cumbrous and pompous
etiquette; a theatrical display of costumes and devices; a court
swarming with buffoons and parasites; an atmosphere of cowardice,
duplicity, effeminacy, and corruption had supplanted the high sense
of national honor, the austere dignity, the proud consciousness of
superior manhood which, in the early days of republican simplicity and
imperial grandeur, marked the exercise of Roman power. The incursions
of pirates, which the diminished naval power of the emperors was
inadequate to check, had driven commerce from the sea.
Intestine broils, and the lawless conduct of the barbarian soldiery
who chafed at the restraints of discipline, and whose incessant
and exorbitant demands upon the imperial treasury had aided not a
little to impoverish the country, rendered agricultural operations
unsafe and unprofitable, and land was no longer tilled except in the
immediate vicinity of large cities. Whole provinces, which, under the
Romans, had flourished like a succession of gardens, now abandoned
and uninhabited, were growing up with forests and relapsing into the
wilderness of primeval times. The dire effects of barbarian warfare
were conspicuous in every province of the Empire. The fruits of
centuries of civilization had disappeared with the conditions which had
been favorable to their maturity and to the political corruption and
moral degeneracy which, more than the fortunes of war, had contributed
to their annihilation. The proud title of Roman citizen, once coveted
alike by foreign princes and aspiring plebeians, had been erased
from the tables whereon were inscribed the most exalted distinctions
of nations. Society no longer wore the alluring aspect which it had
exhibited under the luxurious dominion of the Cæsars. The patrician,
deprived of property and freedom, reluctantly swelled the train of
barbaric pomp in the city which had been the scene of his extravagance,
his tyranny, and his vices. The slave who had fled to the camp of
Alaric or Attila now ruled in the palace which had formerly witnessed
his humiliation, and was served by the children of those who but a few
months before had made him the victim of their cruelty and caprice.
The face of the country, repeatedly overrun by swarms of ruthless
savages, presented a picture of hopeless desolation. The trail of
the Gothic or Lombard marauder could be traced by heaps of whitened
bones, by dismantled cities, by ravaged fields and fire-swept hamlets.
The beautiful temples of antiquity, which had survived the decay of
Paganism and the assaults of Christianity, were defaced or ruined.
The exquisite memorials of classic art, the triumphs of the Grecian
sculptor, were broken and scattered. Vases, whose elegance and symmetry
had called forth the admiration of all who beheld them, had been melted
for the sake of the bronze and silver of which they were composed.
The gardens which had been the pride of the capital had been trampled
under the hoofs of the Gothic cavalry. Here and there, amidst a heap
of blackened ruins, arose a crumbling wall or a group of tottering
columns, which alone remained to mark the site of a once magnificent
shrine of Venus or Apollo. The repression of general intelligence and
individual ambition among the masses had always been a leading maxim
of imperial policy. No system of education was provided. All exertion
was discouraged. The populace was for generations provided with food
and amusement by the government. There was no inducement to mental or
physical activity. The natural march of human destiny, the improvement
of man’s physical and social condition, was arrested. Enjoyment of the
comforts of life rendered labor unnecessary. The paternal supervision
and generosity of the sovereign made the criticism, or even the
discussion, of public affairs irksome, ungrateful, dangerous. There
being no longer any incentive to progress, society, in obedience to
the organic law of its existence, began to rapidly retrograde towards
barbarism; a condition to which the division of the people into
castes--noble, plebeian, mercantile, military, and sacerdotal--greatly
contributed. Through ideas of mistaken piety, and allured by the
prospect of idleness and comparative ease, a multitude of able-bodied
men had withdrawn from the occupations of active life to the seclusion
of the cloister, whence they issued at intervals, when summoned to
raze some Pagan temple; to influence, by the terror of their presence,
the vacillating spirit of an ecclesiastical assembly; or to wreak the
pitiless vengeance of their superiors upon some virtuous philosopher
whose intelligence was not profound enough to grasp the meaning of a
theological mystery. The enterprising general who had raised himself
from a subordinate command in Britain to the imperial throne, and
who, for reasons of state policy, had adopted and made compulsory the
ceremonial of a religion whose benign precepts the base profligacy
of his whole life insulted, possessed at least the stern and rugged
virtues of a soldier. His effeminate descendants, however, both
ignorant and careless of the arts of war and government, and devoted
to the practice of every vice, had abandoned the administration to
the perfidious and venal instincts of their retainers and slaves.
Through the incompetency of the rulers, the insatiable ambition of the
priests, and the unbridled license of the mercenaries who composed
the bulk of the army, all desire of the majority of the people--in
which was, of course, included the useful classes of farmer and
artisan--for the improvement of their circumstances had yielded to
a sluggish indifference to their fate. In a few generations social
isolation became so thorough that the community of thought and
interest indispensable to national prosperity ceased to exist; and
this seclusion of caste, increasing in a direct ratio with rank,
finally fastened upon the most noble families the stigma of exceptional
ignorance. Indeed, in the palace itself, whence ecclesiastical bigotry
had expelled all valuable knowledge, the education of princes was
entrusted to nurses and domestic servants, whose pernicious influence
was speedily exhibited in the superstitious fears and arrogant
behavior of their pupils, the future masters of the Roman Empire. The
fusion of races had produced mongrel types, in whose characters were
developed the most objectionable and vicious traits of their depraved
progenitors. Constant intercourse with barbarians had transformed the
polished language of Homer and Plato into an uncouth dialect, where the
gutturals of the Danube, mingling with the scarcely less discordant
accents of the Nile and the Rhone, had overwhelmed the copious and
elegant idiom of the Greek poets and historians. The fanaticism of an
intolerant sect and the weakness of a succession of impotent sovereigns
had extinguished the spirit of Pagan philosophy and ancient learning.
Since the erection of the famous church of Saint Sophia--the final
effort of the genius of Byzantine architecture--that art had fallen
into desuetude, and such of the famous structures of the ancients as
survived were used as quarries, whence were derived the materials for
the basilica and the palaces of the wealthy and luxurious patriarch and
bishop. But this, unhappily, was not the worst of the prevalent evils
of the time. An organized conspiracy against learning existed, and
was most active in those quarters where education, however imperfect,
should at least have suggested the importance of preserving the
priceless remains of antiquity. The art of making parchment had, with
many other useful inventions, been lost, and, in consequence, writing
materials had become rare and expensive. The monk, too idle to invent,
but ever ready to destroy, soon devised means for supplying this
deficiency. Invading the public libraries, he diligently collected all
the available manuscripts upon which were inscribed the thoughts of
classic writers--of whom many are now only known to us by name--and,
erasing the characters, used their pages to record the legends of his
spurious saints and apocryphal martyrs. It is not beyond the range
of probability that the original books of the New Testament, falling
during these evil days into the hands of persons ignorant of Greek,
may have undergone a similar fate; which hypothesis may also account
for the thirty thousand different readings of which learned divines
admit that the Gospels and Epistles are susceptible. The manifold
and prodigious achievements of Roman civilization--its palaces, its
temples, its amphitheatres, its aqueducts, its triumphal arches;
its majestic forums, with their colonnades of snowy marble adorned
with the statues of the heroes, the philosophers, the legislators of
antiquity; its military roads; its marvels of mechanical engineering;
its magnificent works of art; its eternal monuments of literature; the
graceful legends of its mythology, perpetuated by the genius of the
sculptor in creations of unrivalled excellence; the glowing words of
its orators which stir the blood after the lapse of twenty centuries;
the prestige of its conquests; the wise principles of its civil polity,
generally enlightened, often audacious, always successful--were but
trifles in the eyes of the debased Byzantine when compared with a
fragment of the true cross, or a homily preached by some unclean and
fanatic anchorite upon the metaphysical subtleties of the Trinity or
the theological value of a diphthong.
Such, then, was the condition of the Christian Church and the Byzantine
Empire at the close of the sixth century; to such a deplorable
extent had barbarian encroachment, social corruption, and sectarian
controversy undermined the foundation of both Church and State. In
spite of its degradation, the latter represented the highest embodiment
of mental culture and political organization which had survived the
incessant depredations of barbarian armies and the demoralizing effects
of generations of misrule; where the character of the monarch, both
before and after his elevation to the throne, was dominated by the
passions and infected with the vices of the most wicked and infamous
of mankind. Throughout Europe the state of affairs was even more
deplorable. The Goths were masters of the continent, and the Vandals,
traversing the Spanish Peninsula and planting their victorious
standards upon the northern coast of Africa, had, after the commission
of atrocities which have made their name proverbial, driven the
descendants of Hannibal and Hamilcar into the desert and the sea. The
schools of Athens--that sole remaining seat of philosophical discussion
and free inquiry in the world--had been suppressed, a hundred and fifty
years before, by Justinian. The descendants of the Cæsars, stripped of
their splendid inheritance and reduced to degrading vassalage, cowered
beneath the scowling glances of the skin-clad savages who had issued
in countless numbers from the forests of Germany and the shores of the
Baltic. The effigies of the gods, the masterpieces of the skill of the
Augustan age, had been tumbled from their pedestals, and the fetichism
introduced by the strangers had been superseded by a corrupt form of
Christianity scarcely less contemptible and fully as idolatrous. Rome
had twice been sacked; Milan had been razed to the ground; prosperous
seaports had fallen into decay; the fairest fields of Italy had been
made desolate, her highways were overgrown with grass, her aqueducts
were broken, her fertile Campagna, once the paradise of the capital,
had become a pestilential marsh, whose vapors were freighted with
disease and death. Among the miserable, half-famished, and turbulent
population of the cities, riot and sedition were frequent, but were
hardly noticed by the haughty barbarian ruler, so long as the outbreak
did not seriously menace his life or his dignity. Civil war, relentless
in atrocity, completed the devastation begun by barbaric conquest and
servile tyranny. The army, filled with traitors, offered no warrant
for the stability of government. Informers, that pest of a decadent
state, swarmed in the Byzantine capital. Oppressive taxation, enforced
by torture, impoverished the opulent. Promiscuous massacre, instituted
upon the most frivolous pretexts, intimidated the poor. There was no
loyalty, no sense of national honor, no appreciation of the mutual
obligations of prince and people. The martial spirit which had been
the distinguishing characteristic of ancient Rome was extinct. The
proverbial discipline of the legions had been supplanted by license
and disorder. Immunity from foreign incursion was secured by the
ignominious and obnoxious expedient of tribute. Yet, in the midst of
this accumulation of horrors which threatened the total destruction
of a society already thoroughly disorganized, numbers of resolute men
existed in every community who, while despoiled and oppressed, had not
entirely abandoned themselves to despair, and in the minds of many of
these, imperceptibly to the masses, and, indeed, scarcely discernible
save by the most acute and sagacious observer, a great moral revolution
was passing. The misfortunes which had befallen in succession the Pagan
and the Christian religions had weakened the hold of both upon the
reverence and affections of the multitude. Persons familiar with the
Gospels, and with whom the Apocrypha claimed as much respect as the
remaining portions of the Scriptures, looked forward to the coming of
a reformer, known as the Paraclete, or Comforter, repeatedly promised
in the Bible, whose mission was to restore to mankind, in its pristine
purity, the truth as expounded by Christ. The material advantages
which might accrue from the realization of this prediction were fully
appreciated by the heads of a considerable number of contemporary
sects--among them the Gnostics, the Cerintheans, the Montanists, and
the Manicheans, each of whom confidently asserted that he was the
heavenly messenger referred to and that all others were impostors. The
Gospel of St. Barnabas is said, upon very respectable authority, to
have originally contained the word Περικλῦτὸς, “Illustrious,” instead
of Παράκλητος, “Comforter;” and to have been subsequently altered,
with a view to checking the increasing number of claimants to divine
inspiration, whose pretensions were becoming troublesome and dangerous.
Moslem ingenuity has shrewdly availed itself of this prophecy, which
popular credulity accepted as a direct announcement of the coming
Mohammed, whose name, “The Illustrious,” is the Arabic equivalent of
Περικλῦτὸς. It is also stated in the most ancient chronicles that a
prophet called Ahmed, or Mohammed, had for centuries been expected in
Arabia, where the Gospels were widely distributed; and it is therefore
possible that a word written in an unknown tongue, a thousand miles
from Mecca, may have had no inconsiderable share in determining the
political and religious destinies of a large portion of the human race.
All things considered, perhaps no more auspicious time could have been
selected for the announcement of a system of belief which based its
claims to public attention upon the specious plea that it was not an
innovation, but a reform, the purification of a mode of worship which
had been practised for ages. It is usually far easier, because more
consonant with the prejudices of human nature, to introduce an entirely
new religion than to engraft changes, no matter how beneficial, upon
the old. Mankind regards with eager curiosity a recent communication
from Heaven, yet instinctively shrinks from serious interference with
the time-honored ceremonial and revered traditions of a popular and
long-established faith. But in Arabia, as has already been remarked,
while there were innumerable shrines and temples and a host of idols,
there was in reality no deep-seated religious feeling. The prevalent
worship was maintained through the influence of long association
rather than by any general belief in its truth, its wisdom, or its
benefits. The claims of kindred, the maintenance of tribal honor, and
the inexorable obligation of revenge had far greater weight with the
Bedouin than the respect he owed to the factitious observances of his
creed or the doubtful veneration he professed for the innumerable
deities of his pantheon. The absurdity of their attributes, the
inability of their gods to change or to resist the operations of
nature, had long been tacitly recognized by the Arabs. Their idols
partook of the character of the fetich, whose favor was propitiated
with gifts, whose obstinacy was punished by violence. Long familiarity
had lessened or entirely abrogated the awe with which they had once
been regarded. The system which they represented had fallen behind
the intelligence of the age, limited though that might be amidst the
prejudices and superstitions of the Desert. A wide-spread and silent,
but none the less vehement, protest against polytheism had arisen.
At no time in the history of the Peninsula had been evinced such a
disposition for reconciliation and compromise. In Arabia, therefore,
as well as in the other countries of Asia, the season was eminently
propitious to the promulgation of a new religion.
The ignorance of the natural talents, general characteristics, and
daily habits of the Prophet of Arabia almost universally prevalent,
even among persons of education and of more than ordinary intellectual
attainments, is extraordinary; especially when the abundant facilities
for information upon these points are considered. No name in history
has been subjected to such fierce assaults by sectarian bigotry and
theological rancor as his. The popular idea of Mohammed is that he
was a vulgar impostor, licentious, cunning, brutal, and unscrupulous;
periodically insane from repeated attacks of epilepsy; given to the
practice of fraudulent miracles; a monster, who hesitated at no crime
that would further his ends; who wrote a book called the Koran, which
is full of sensual images, and describes heaven as a place especially
set apart for the unrestricted indulgence of the animal passions.
In former times public credulity went still farther, and Christian
writers of the eleventh century, and even later, were in the habit
of representing the greatest of iconoclasts--who excepted from the
clemency of the victor only the adorers of fire and of idols--as
a false god; a conception which, indicated by the familiar word
“mummery,” has been incorporated into our language. Afterwards he was
considered merely as a propagator of heresy, and, punished as such, he
figures in the immortal work of Dante:
“Poi che l’un pié per girsene sospese,
Maometto;”
and, finally, the absurdity of ignorance having reached its
culmination, he was described as a camel-thief, and an apostate
cardinal who preached a spurious doctrine through envy, because he had
failed to reach the coveted dignity of Pope! Motives of ecclesiastical
jealousy and religious intolerance led also to the suppression of
information and the falsification of truth respecting the Koran. Hardly
one person in ten thousand has read a translation of it; indeed, this
feat has been repeatedly declared an impossibility, on account of the
monotonous and prosaic character of its contents; nor has one foreigner
in a million perused the original, which, it may be added, cannot be
appropriately rendered into another tongue. No complete rendition of
this famous book into a living language was made for eleven hundred
years after the death of Mohammed, and to-day not more than a dozen
versions, all told, exist. It has been, moreover, a rule, subject
to but few exceptions and those of recent date, that translations,
commentaries, and analyses of the Koran, edited by misbelievers, have
been written with the express design of casting odium upon the Prophet
and his followers. Under such unfavorable circumstances, an impartial
examination of the doctrines of Islam was impossible to one not versed
in Arabic, and the public mind, which received its impression of such
subjects largely from the pulpit, obstinately refused to consider any
view which was at variance with its preconceived opinions. To obtain
a competent idea of the principles, the virtues, and the defects of
the religion which he established, it will not be unprofitable to
glance for a moment at the salient points of the career and character
of this wonderful man, the most prominent of his country, and the most
illustrious of his race.
Among the ancient tribes of Arabia, highest in rank, most esteemed
for intelligence and courage in a nation of poets and warriors,
and renowned for a generous hospitality, was that of the Koreish,
the hereditary guardians of the temple of Mecca. Proud of their
distinguished ancestry and of the exalted position they enjoyed by
reason of their office, which its religious functions invested with a
dignity not inferior to that of royalty itself, and superior to all
other employments in a country where the jealous independence of the
people precluded the exercise of kingly power, the influence of the
Koreish over their countrymen was unbounded. The annual pilgrimage to
the Bait-Allah, or “House of God,” when hostilities were suspended,
and devotees and merchants, rhymers and thieves, met upon a common
equality in the enclosure of the temple--an occasion which is said to
have called together the brightest minds of the Peninsula to contend
in friendly rivalry for the prize of literary distinction--was the
most important event of the year to the Arabian, and was particularly
advantageous to the perpetuation of the wealth and authority of
the Koreish. Some of the tribe enjoyed the exclusive privilege of
distributing water and provisions among the pilgrims during their
sojourn in the Holy City--an employment originally gratuitous, but
afterwards a lucrative monopoly; others had charge of the buildings
of the shrine; others, again, were the custodians of the sacred
banner, which was only raised upon the occasion of the annual re-union
of the Kaaba, or when the safety of Mecca was threatened by war
or sedition. The Koreish, moreover, aspired to a state of petty
sovereignty; they despatched embassies to the neighboring tribes, made
treaties, established regulations for the departure and arrival of
caravans, which secured an organized, and consequently a more safe and
profitable, traffic with surrounding nations, and exercised a nominal
jurisdiction in both civil and religious matters over the entire
Peninsula. Elated by their success, and by the homage universally paid
them, they boldly abrogated many of the ancient ceremonies connected
with the national worship, and substituted others better calculated for
the advancement of their pecuniary interests or the gratification of
their political ambition. Some of these new regulations were unjust,
and, as may be easily conjectured, were accepted with great reluctance
by a population so opposed to innovation and impatient of restraint as
that of Arabia; and the fact that they were adopted without serious
disturbance shows conclusively that the attachment of the Arab to the
gods of his country bore no approximate ratio to the awe with which he
regarded their powerful guardians. In time, however, the rivalry of
influential chieftains of the various divisions of the tribe produced
mutual distrust and enmity; dissensions became frequent, and the
national influence of the Koreish, which the hearty co-operation of
their leaders could alone sustain, began to be seriously impaired.
Of one of the haughtiest clans of this distinguished tribe--the
Beni-Hashem--was born, in the year 570 of the Christian era, Mohammed,
known to misbelievers as the False Prophet, and to the Moslems as
the Messenger of God. A strange fatality, which is evidently based
upon something more substantial than the uncertain authority of
tradition, appears to have attended his family both before and after
his birth. The household of his grandfather, Abd-al-Muttalib, although
it contained several daughters, could boast of only one son,--a
circumstance which, to a man of noble birth, in a country like Arabia,
where a chieftain’s consideration was founded upon the number of his
male descendants, where female relatives were classed with camels and
horses as chattels, and were often buried alive to get rid of them,
was looked upon as a disgrace as well as a misfortune. In bitterness
of spirit, the sheik betook himself to the Kaaba, and invoked the aid
of Hobal, the presiding genius of the assembled deities of the nation.
At the conclusion of his supplications he promised that, if ten sons
should be born to him, one of them should be sacrificed upon the
altar of the god. The prayer was answered, and in due time inexorable
religious obligation demanded the fulfilment of the vow. Accompanied by
his sons, Abd-al-Muttalib again approached the shrine of Hobal, and the
customary lots having been cast, the god made choice of Abdallah, who
subsequently became the father of Mohammed. Abdallah was the favorite
of his parents and the idol of his kindred; his manners possessed
a rare fascination; he excelled the most accomplished of his tribe
in the arts of poetry and eloquence, and his manly beauty has been
celebrated by the extravagant praise of his countrymen. Appalled at
the prospect of losing his best-beloved child, Abd-al-Muttalib was in
despair, when the shrewdness of a female diviner proposed an ingenious
solution of the difficulty. The established compensation for homicide,
when the injured family was willing to accept one, was ten camels;
and the prophetess suggested that Abd-al-Muttalib again consult the
deity, in the hope that he might be propitious and consent to receive
the less valuable sacrifice. The mystic arrows were once more shaken
and drawn, and, for the second time, Abdallah was devoted to death.
The father doubled the number of camels with the same result; but,
nothing daunted, persevered until the tenth lot had been drawn, when
the god deigned to accept the costly ransom. Thus upon the cast of a
die depended the regeneration of the Arabian people, the conquest and
subversion of the Byzantine and Persian empires, the impulse of modern
scientific inquiry, and the future hopes of the Moslem world!
Mohammed was a posthumous child. His father died while on a journey
to Medina, and left to his widow Amina little save the memory of his
domestic virtues, and a reputation for manly courage and unblemished
integrity. The boy passed his early years, as was the custom at Mecca,
with one of the tribes of the Desert, where the coarse fare and active
life of the Bedouin developed and strengthened a frame naturally robust
and vigorous. At the age of five he returned to his mother’s home,
where, within a few months, he was left an orphan. His grandfather
Abd-al-Muttalib then took charge of him until the death of the former
two years afterwards, when Mohammed was taken into the family of his
uncle Abu-Talib. The successive bereavements of relatives to whom he
was devotedly attached had no small effect in determining the character
of the future Prophet, already thoughtful and reserved beyond his
years, and imparted a permanent tinge of sadness to his life. When he
grew older he was employed by his uncle as a shepherd, an occupation
considered by the Arabs as degrading, and only proper to be exercised
by slaves and women. In his twenty-sixth year his handsome face and
figure, and his reputation for honesty, which had acquired for him the
flattering title of Al-Amin, “The Faithful,” attracted the attention
of Khadijah, a wealthy widow and a distant relative, who made him a
proposal of marriage, which he accepted. Khadijah was forty years
old, and had already been twice married; yet for twenty-five years
which intervened before her death--and long after she must have lost
her attractiveness--Mohammed never failed in the duties of a constant
and affectionate husband. She bore him six children, four girls and
two boys, of whom the daughters alone survived the period of infancy.
When he reached the age of forty, a great change came over Mohammed,
and there appeared the first positive indication of his aversion to
the established worship of his country. His mother, who seems to have
been a woman of highly excitable temperament, had transmitted to him
a hypersensitive condition of the nervous system, which developed
occasional attacks of muscular hysteria, a disease rarely affecting
the masculine sex. Long accustomed to abstinence, contemplation, and
revery, he contracted the habit of seeking solitude, to muse upon the
moral condition of himself and his countrymen; and as he grew older,
and especially after his fortunate marriage had removed the necessity
for labor, the passion for dreaming grew upon him. He often betook
himself to Mount Hira, where a recluse once had his abode; and for
days at a time, with but little food and depriving himself of sleep,
in tears and mental agony, he strove to solve the problem of divine
truth. As continued fasting, excitement, and solitude inevitably
produce hallucinations, it was not long before Mohammed believed
himself visited by an angel, the bearer of celestial tidings. Doubtful
at first of the significance of these startling visions, and in his
enfeebled condition easily terrified, he fancied he was possessed
by devils, and was almost driven to suicide. Finally, mastering his
emotion, he returned to Mecca, and from that time visitations of the
angel--who declared himself to be Gabriel--were frequent. In the
original revelation, Mohammed was addressed as the “Messenger of
Allah,” and was directed to preach the unity of God to his erring
and misguided countrymen. His converts in the beginning were very
few and composed of the members of his own family, his wife being the
first believer. The new doctrines made slow progress; apprehension
of the summary interference of the ruling powers made the proselytes
cautious, and they rehearsed its texts behind locked doors and in the
most private apartments of their houses. At the expiration of four
years the adherents of Islam had only reached the insignificant number
of thirty-nine souls. But now Mohammed grew bolder; expounded his
doctrines before the Kaaba itself; openly advocated the destruction of
idols, and denounced the unbelieving Arabs as devoted to the horrors
of everlasting fire. The impassioned oratory of the Great Reformer had
at first no appreciable effect. Most of his auditors regarded him as
under the influence of an evil spirit; some ridiculed, others reviled
him; but respect for his family and a wholesome dread of blood-revenge
protected him from serious violence. In vain did he depict in words of
thrilling eloquence the joys of heaven and the tortures of hell; his
exhortations were lost upon the skeptical Arab, whose religion was a
matter of hereditary custom, and who, in common with the other members
of the Semitic race, had no belief in an existence beyond the grave. At
length his denunciations became so furious as to raise apprehensions
among the Koreish that their political supremacy, as well as the
lucrative employments of their offices, might be endangered. A solemn
deputation of the chiefs of the tribe waited upon Abu-Talib, the head
of the family to which Mohammed belonged, and demanded that the daring
apostate should be delivered over to their vengeance. This Abu-Talib,
although himself an idolater, without hesitation, declined to do, and,
in consequence of his refusal, the entire clan of the Beni-Hashem was
placed under an interdict. No one would trade or associate with its
members, and for two years they were imprisoned in a quarter of the
city by themselves, where they endured great hardships. Nothing can
exhibit more prominently the family attachment of the Arab and his high
sense of honor than the self-sacrifice implied by this event, for it
must not be forgotten that the large majority of those who suffered
with Mohammed had no confidence in the truth of his mission, but were
still devoted to the idolatrous and barbarous rites of the ancient
faith.
The cause of Islam had received a severe blow, and the threats and
armed hostility of its adversaries boded ill for its future success.
The Moslems who did not belong to the Koreish sought refuge with the
Christian king of Abyssinia, who peremptorily refused to surrender
them upon the demand of an embassy from Mecca. At length, through very
shame, the interdict was removed; the members of the imprisoned band
came forth once more to mingle with their townsmen, and the exiles
were permitted to return in peace. But persecution had not intimidated
Mohammed, and his condemnation of idolatry and its supporters increased
in violence. His uncle and protector, Abu-Talib, having died, his
position daily became more critical. A fortunate occurrence, however,
soon opened an avenue of escape. Some years before, a handful of
the people of Medina had secretly embraced his doctrines and sworn
fealty to him as their temporal sovereign. Their numbers had greatly
increased, and now, in acceptance of an invitation tendered him by
these zealous proselytes, Mohammed prepared to withdraw from the midst
of his enemies to the proffered asylum at Medina. The inhabitants of
the latter city, who were principally agriculturists, were heartily
despised by the Meccans, who considered every occupation but those of
war, plunder, and the cheating of pilgrims derogatory to the dignity
of an Arab. The irreconcilable rivalry between the two principal
towns of the Hedjaz had much to do with the adoption of Islam by the
Medinese. The influence of the numerous Jews of Medina had materially
affected the religion of that locality, and their predictions of the
speedy coming of the Messiah, and the bestowal of the possessions of
the Gentiles upon his chosen people, had attracted the attention,
and at times aroused the fears, of the idolaters of that city. When,
therefore, the report was circulated that a prophet had arisen at
Mecca, the Medinese naturally concluded that he must be the Messiah
expected by the Hebrews, and they determined to forestall the latter
by being the first to extend to him a welcome, and thereby secure his
favor. It was from these motives that the alliance between Mohammed
and the citizens of Medina was concluded; an alliance whose results
were little anticipated by the parties to its provisions, and whose
importance has been disclosed by the portentous events of many
subsequent centuries. Intelligence of this proceeding having reached
the Koreish, they prepared for decisive measures, and held a meeting,
in which, without apparently taking any precautions to conceal their
design, the assassination of Mohammed was resolved upon. The latter,
having received timely warning, escaped by night, with his friend
Abu-Bekr, and, concealed in a cave in the mountains, eluded the
vigilance of his enemies until a few days afterwards they found means
to reach Medina. This event occurred in the year 622 A.D.,
and, marking the era of the Hegira or “Flight,” is, as is well known,
the starting-point of Moslem chronology. Its usefulness, however,
anticipated its legality for three hundred years, and it was not
publicly authorized by law until the tenth century.
On his arrival, the first care of the Prophet was the erection of a
mosque and the institution and arrangement of the ritual of Islam;
the next, the reconciliation of the two hostile Arab factions whose
tumults kept the city in an uproar; and the third--the only task in
which he was unsuccessful--the conversion of the Jews. Hardly was
he domiciled at Medina before he abandoned the continence which had
hitherto adorned his life and placed his character in such a favorable
light when compared with the excesses of his libidinous countrymen,
and by degrees increased his harem until it numbered, including wives
and concubines, nearly a score of women. And now appeared also other
changes of a religious and political nature, when the humility and
patience of the preacher were eclipsed by the ambitious plans of the
sovereign, eventually realized in the proselytism of entire nations and
the intoxication and glory of foreign conquest. The employment of force
had never been mentioned at Mecca, but the vexations, contempt, and
ill-usage of years had borne bitter fruit, and at Medina was received
the first revelation commanding the propagation of Islam by the sword.
At first desultory attacks were made upon caravans; then followed the
engagement of Bedr, where three hundred believers defeated a thousand
of the Koreish, and the battle of Ohod, which ended with the wounding
of Mohammed and the total rout of the Moslem army. The blockade of
Medina, undertaken three years later by the chiefs of Mecca, ended
disastrously for them, as the fiery Arab could not be brought to endure
the restraint and inactivity incident to the protracted operations of a
siege. Next came the expulsion of the disaffected Jews from the city,
a measure not unattended by acts of injustice and sanguinary violence,
but imperatively demanded by the requirements of political necessity.
The power and prestige of Mohammed now grew apace; tribe after
tribe joined his standard; distant princes sent him costly gifts and
voluntarily tendered their allegiance; and in the year 630--the eighth
of the Hegira--he prepared for the invasion of the sacred territory
and the conquest of Mecca. Only a short time before, guarded by two
faithful companions, he had fled from the Holy City with a reward of a
hundred camels and forty ounces of gold upon his head; now he returned
in royal state, at the head of ten thousand warriors, most of whom
would have gladly laid down their lives at his command, and all of
whom acknowledged him to be the Apostle of God. Before this imposing
array, inspired with the fervor of religious enthusiasm, resistance
was hopeless. The people fled to their houses and to the sanctuary
of the temple, and the invading army occupied the city. The rights
and property of the citizens were respected; there was no massacre
and no pillage; no violence was offered, except to the images of the
Kaaba, which were shattered to pieces without delay or opposition,
for the idolaters viewed with but little emotion the destruction of
the tutelary deities of many generations, whose inability to protect
their worshippers had been so signally demonstrated. With a magnanimity
unequalled in the annals of war, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and
but four persons, whose offences were considered unpardonable, suffered
the penalty of death. When the various ceremonies consecrated by the
usage of centuries and destined henceforth to form an integral part of
the Moslem ritual had been accomplished, and the Pagan altars in the
vicinity of Mecca had been swept away, Mohammed set forth to subdue
the remaining tribes that disputed his authority. A single battle
sufficed; Tayif, the sole important stronghold that still held out,
voluntarily submitted after an unsuccessful siege; and the supremacy of
the Prophet was henceforth acknowledged over the Arabian Peninsula.
Three months after the subjugation of Mecca, Mohammed, who already
seemed to have had a presentiment of his approaching end, accompanied
by an immense multitude, performed the pilgrimage which his teachings
enjoined as an indispensable duty upon all his followers. Leaving Mecca
for the last time, he slowly retraced his steps to the home of his
adoption, whose people, more generous than his kinsmen, had received
and protected him when a persecuted fugitive, whose factions he had
reconciled, who were proud of his renown, and who, despite his kindness
and the natural urbanity of his manners, never failed to approach his
presence with all the reverential awe due to the possessor of divine
favor and supernatural powers. His constitution, though originally
fortified by abstinence and a simple diet, had for years given evidence
of debility and decay, for his health had been seriously impaired by
poison administered by a Jewish captive, whom his magnanimous spirit
refused to punish; and, after a short illness, he expired in the arms
of his favorite wife, Ayesha, upon the eighth of June, 632.