I
Among the numberless misty matters that befog the career of Mohammed
is the moot question of his parentage. The voice of Allah, speaking
through the lips of his Prophet in the Koran, proclaims that his
best beloved son was an orphan, poor and astray; but, while a proper
modesty may well make one hesitate to question the smallest decree of
such a transcendent authority, one can still scarcely refrain from
noting that most boys who attain a position of unrivaled eminence
in later life are prone to give a suspicious amount of emphasis to
the hardships of their youth. Practically everything that concerns
the life of the Prophet is flecked with more or less obscurity--an
obscurity that has been intensified by both his friends and his
foes. Almost all the Christian commentators have dwelt lovingly upon
the worst elements in the life and teachings of Mohammed, and the
numerous cliques of Arabs who whined or rebelled against his imperial
sway swelled the chorus of malignant defamation; his followers, on
the contrary, have been guilty of the most fanatical panegyrics.
Buffeted and disfigured between these two intensely antagonistic
forces of opinion, the massive figure of Mohammed must forever
remain largely ambiguous and enigmatical. His Boswells were too
Boswellian, and his Froudes were too Froudish. And yet, by steering
a zigzag course between the Scylla of rhapsodical praise and the
Charybdis of envious detraction, it may be possible to arrive at
a relatively detached and peaceful haven where the immeasurable
Arab looms a little less vaguely through the remoteness of thirteen
centuries.
There seems to be little doubt that he was descended from those
lofty Koreish whose opposition, which at first nearly succeeded in
holding his name in perpetual oblivion, eventually caused him to
emerge into the light of deathless fame. For a century and a half,
his forefathers had been rulers among the Koreish. In the middle
of the fifth century, Kosai, his ancestor at the fifth remove, had
won the distinction of being the first man to advance the Koreish
to a position of supremacy over Mecca. At his death his three sons
fought for the honor of succeeding him; but Abd Menaf won out, and
was followed in turn by Hashim--rich, amorous, charitable, glorious
Hashim!--and his son Abd Al-Muttalib, the estimable grandfather of
the Prophet.
When Abd Al-Muttalib came into power early in the sixth century, he
fell at first upon evil days. Certain of the Koreish were unfriendly,
the caravan business had been in a bad way for some time, and the
holy water of Zemzem, no longer used as of yore, had choked up and
was almost forgotten. Abd Al-Muttalib, who well knew the traditions
of its ancient glory, and who found it difficult to get enough
water from lesser Meccan wells for visiting pilgrims, instituted
a laborious search for the venerable stonework which was known to
have surrounded it. Finally his virtuous efforts were rewarded,
and, aided by his son Al-Harith, he began to scoop out the debris
with which it was clogged. As he neared the bottom, he came upon
the two golden gazelles, and the swords and suits of armor, that
had been buried there by a Jurhumite king three centuries before as
a suitable hiding place against the despoliations of his enemies.
The Koreish, hearing of Abd Al-Muttalib’s lucky find, immediately
demanded a share of the booty. It was finally agreed that the dispute
should be settled by the casting of lots: one for Abd Al-Muttalib,
one for the Koreish, and--inasmuch as all parties concerned in the
row were religiously minded--one for the Kaba. Abd Al-Muttalib got
the swords and armor, the Kaba got the gazelles, and the Koreish
got nothing. That very day, indeed, dated their gradual defection
from the faith of their fathers; but Abd Al-Muttalib, in an
excess of grateful devotion, beat the gazelles into plates of gold
with which he decorated the interior door of the Kaba, and, in a
similar excess of caution, added a golden lock and key to the door.
His faith was properly rewarded, for from that day the waters of
Zemzem again flowed without interruption; and so Abd Al-Muttalib
grew in social, financial and religious strength, and became the
father of many pious and powerful sons. And yet--such a wayward and
capricious dame is Clio!--there are those who aver that Mohammed’s
grandfather was not the leading Meccan of his time, and that most
of the stories connected with his name are fabulous inventions of
the Prophet’s hero-worshiping satellites.
Fortunately, all parties seem agreed that Abdallah, the youngest
and most favored son of Abd Al-Muttalib, was the unambiguous sire
of Mohammed. The ways of Allah are not less perplexing than the
ways of God, and it appears probable that, had it not been for
the direct intervention of the whimsical Arabian Deity, Abdallah
would have perished before he had begotten his extraordinary son.
During the early years of Abd Al-Muttalib, when he had but one son
to aid him in his struggles against his political opponents, he
had vowed that, should he ever be favored with ten sons, he would
sacrifice one of them to the Deity. This vow--rash enough for any
young man, and rashest of all, perhaps, for an Arab--was in the
course of time providentially fulfilled; and when lots were cast
by the obedient Abd Al-Muttalib, the fatal die fell upon Abdallah,
his pet boy. The hitherto invincible faith of Abd Al-Muttalib was
tremendously shaken; his weeping daughters--for Allah had been more
than generous--also besought him to cast lots between Abdallah and
ten camels: the conventional substitute for human bloodshed. For
nine successive times the arrow pointed toward Abdallah--could it be
that Allah was inexorable? At each throw ten additional camels had
been added to the previous number until, on the tenth throw, they
amounted to an even hundred. Then at last Allah, who was presumably
far more interested in the birth of Mohammed than in a wilderness of
camels, relented and released his faithful servant from his oath.
Thus a hundred camels perished beneath the sacrificial knife, Abd
Al-Muttalib’s piety was recompensed, Abdallah was saved, and the
miraculous birth of the Prophet was assured.
It came about thus. Toward the end of 569, Abd Al-Muttalib had
betrothed Abdallah to a Meccan maiden named Amina; and at the same
time, even though he was over seventy and Allah had abundantly
granted his youthful plea for potency, he himself had married a
radiantly youthful cousin of Amina’s. Some months later Mecca was
invaded by an army under Abraha, a Christian warrior from Abyssinia,
who brought an elephant in his train--a prodigy that so astounded
the simple Arabs that the year of the invasion was ever after called
“the Elephant.” He had come, he said, merely to destroy the impious
Kaba, and he had no desire to shed any man’s blood; but inasmuch
as the Meccans knew that Christian Abraha’s fervor had already
manifested itself in the plunder of hundreds of camels, they were
rightly sceptical of any promise whatever on his part. Overtures of
peace were unsuccessful, for on no account would the wealthy Koreish
agree to permit the demolition of their most remunerative mercantile
house, and preparations were accordingly made to offer some feeble
resistance to the invader. Then Abd Al-Muttalib bethought himself
of a possible means to thwart the impending peril. Leaning on the
door of the Kaba, he prayed aloud thus: “Defend, O Lord, thine own
house, and suffer not the Cross to triumph over the Kaba!” He then
made haste to join the other refugees, who had betaken themselves to
the neighboring crags to watch whatever might betide. Sharp-eared
Allah, aloof in his own particular Heaven, heard the prayer and
promptly answered it by inflicting a pestilential disease upon the
raiding Christian hosts. Overwhelmed by the disaster, they began a
confused retreat: hundreds of them died by the wayside, and Abraha
himself, covered with a mass of poisonous and putrid ulcers, soon
expired in terrible agony. Thus was the Kaba gloriously saved and
the Cross ignominiously overthrown--an event so prophetical of
coming centuries that its portentous symbolism demanded an incarnate
manifestation. The routed Christian warriors had barely left the
shores of Arabia when Amina gave birth to a son.