While Mohammed’s life glided from youth into manhood without many
remarkable changes, certain events occurred that indelibly fixed
the channels of his future. The death of Abd Al-Muttalib had left
the ancient house of Hashim without a strong leader, and so it
happened that another branch of the Koreish came into power--a
circumstance that marked the beginning of the deadly struggle between
the Prophet and many of his kin that attended his whole career.
For some years, it is true, this hostility was latent. During a
decade--from Mohammed’s tenth to his twentieth year--all the Koreish
were banded together against the hostile tribe of the Beni Hawazin
in the Sacrilegious War: a struggle that grew out of a violation
of the taboo on fighting during the sacred months. When Mohammed
was nearly twenty, he accompanied his uncles during one of the many
frays that marked this civil strife; but his activities seem to have
been confined to picking up the arrows of the enemy and turning
them over for the use of his uncles. Many years later he remarked:
“I remember being present with my uncles in the Sacrilegious War;
I discharged arrows at the enemy, and I do not regret it.” But the
Prophet of divinity was always very human, and it seems almost
certain that the enormous prestige of his station induced him
occasionally to indulge in a verbal license pardonable in prophets
if not in lesser men. With a wisdom that has characterized certain
other heroes of divinity, Mohammed wisely confined his originality
and his daring strictly to his mental activities, and fought only
when self-preservation necessitated it.
The war finally ended in an unsatisfactory truce: neither side
had won, and no dominant personality had yet emerged from the
Koreish. Factionalism soon grew to be so rife that the descendants
of Hashim, and families of germane origin, formed a confederacy to
punish wrongdoing and secure justice among the different branches
of the Koreish. Mohammed himself was an interested spectator of the
initial ceremonies of this brotherhood. “I would not exchange for
the choicest camel in all Arabia,” he exclaimed on a later day,
“the remembrance of being present at the oath which we took in the
house of Abdallah when the Beni Hashim, Zuhra ibn Kilab, and Teim
ibn Murra swore that they would stand by the oppressed.” Thus, by
slow degrees, the breach widened between Mohammed and the majority
of the Koreish.
His early manhood was spent in caring for flocks, in attending
caravan expeditions, and in certain avocations which, all things
considered, indicated that he was more estimable than the common run
of youthful Arabs. As a shepherd of sheep and goats on the hills
around Mecca, he both conferred benefit upon his penurious uncle,
Abu Talib, and engaged in an occupation that, as he was careful to
point out on a future occasion, was particularly appropriate for
his rank. After commenting on the similarity between himself and
Moses, David, Jesus, and other seers, he concluded thus: “Verily
there hath been no prophet raised up, who performed not the work
of a shepherd.” He often accompanied caravans, traveling possibly
as far as Egypt and the Dead Sea. In addition to the money thus
earned, he picked up a mass of miscellaneous information that he
used both to his advantage and disadvantage in the Koran; for its
pages reek with foreign phrases, now beautiful and now outrageously
grotesque, which even his most intimate friends failed to comprehend.
All writers, including strangely enough those of the Christian
faith, coincide in stating that his early manhood was marked by an
excess of modesty and a minimum of vice rare, not merely in young
Arabs, but in the young men of any nation. It has been maintained,
with a cogency no less admirable than indemonstrable, that his
virtue was miraculously kept immaculate. Mohammed himself, with
forgivable modesty, appears to have believed this. “I was engaged
one night feeding the flocks in company with a lad of Koreish,”
he once narrated, “and I said to him, ‘If thou wilt look after my
flock, I will go into Mecca and divert myself there, even as youths
are wont by night to divert themselves.’” But the sequel, though
divinely ordained, was rather tame. As he neared the outskirts of
the city, a marriage feast attracted so much of his time that he
fell safely asleep. Another evening, as he approached the city bent
upon a similar enterprise, strains of celestially somnolent music
made him fall into a second scatheless slumber. “After this I sought
no more after vice,” he affirmed; but he thought it wise to add
the cryptic phrase, “even until I had attained unto the prophetic
office.”
By the time Mohammed was twenty-five, Abu Talib, whose waxing family
was constantly restricting his already limited means, decided that
it was high time for his dependent nephew to shift for himself. “I
am, as thou knowest, a man of small substance,” he remarked one
day to Mohammed, “and truly the times deal hardly with me. Now
here is a caravan of thine own tribe about to start for Syria,
and Khadija, daughter of Khuweilid, needeth men of our tribe to
send forth with her merchandise. If thou wert to offer thyself, she
would readily accept thy services.” The double-edged nature of the
conclusion presumably escaped both men; but the complaisant Mohammed
acceded and was soon off on the journey, accompanied by Meisara,
the servant of Khadija. Mohammed had thus far had little business
experience, but he always showed a many-sided talent for barter and
compromise, and he therefore returned with a credit that did him
high honor. As the caravan approached Mecca, Meisara induced him
to carry the good news to Khadija in person. That lady, a wealthy
widow of about forty and the mother of three children, was highly
elated at Mohammed’s story; and, as she listened to the proof of
his business ability and fondly scanned his large, nobly formed
head, his curling, coal-black hair, his dark, piercing eyes, and
his comely form, it naturally occurred to her that this vigorous
and handsome young fellow would make an excellent successor to her
deceased husband. She had turned down the proposals of many vehement
Koreishite suitors; but here was one for whom, if necessary, she
herself was prepared to do the wooing--for Arab ladies rarely
entertained any foolish feminine scruples about such matters.
It was necessary; but she moved with discretion. She sent an envoy,
probably Meisara, to find out why Mohammed was so timid about
matrimony; for most Arabs married at about eighteen and lived in
poverty ever after. “What is it, O Mohammed, that hindereth thee
from marriage?” queried the messenger. “I have nothing in my hands
wherewithal I might marry,” he replied; for he still retained
painful memories of a proposal refused by one of his cousins, on
the sensible grounds that he had not the proper means to support
her. “But if haply that difficulty were removed,” he was asked,
“and thou wert invited to espouse a beautiful and wealthy lady of
noble birth, who would place thee in affluence, wouldst thou not
desire to have her?” “But who might it be?” he quickly inquired.
“It is Khadija.” “But how can I attain unto her?” “Let that be my
care,” he was told, and he immediately responded, “I am ready.”
Khadija was overjoyed at this news; but, according to custom,
she still had to win the consent of her father despite her age
and her manifold attainments. So she prepared a feast and made
him drunk; she then commanded that a cow should be killed, and,
drenching her intoxicated parent in perfumes, she clothed him in
the requisite matrimonial robes. Under such circumstances the old
man unconsciously performed the ceremony, but when he recovered
he looked with amazement on all the numerous signs of a wedding,
and stupidly inquired what it all meant. Upon learning the facts,
and upon being misinformed to the effect that “the nuptial dress
was put upon thee by Mohammed, thy son-in-law,” he staggered up in
high wrath and swore that his daughter, whose hand had been sought
by the most eminent Koreishites, should never be the bride of such
a shiftless ne’er-do-well as Mohammed. Even after the story had
been corrected he still refused to relent, and a tribal war might
have followed had he not shortly calmed down and decided to make
the best of a bad job. During the next fifteen years Mohammed led
a tranquil life. His future was provided for; he had plenty of
leisure to occupy himself as he chose, for Khadija insisted upon
running her own business affairs; and, notwithstanding her seasoned
maturity, there seems to be little reasonable doubt that he became
the father of four daughters and an indeterminate number of sons.
Not wishing to remain entirely idle, however, he acquired a partner
and established a general barter and trade business in Mecca--a fact
that doubtless explains the frequent depiction of Allah as a divine
bookkeeper in the Koran: “God is good at accounts,” and so on. Years
later, in the heyday of his fame at Medina, he still bought goods
wholesale and retailed them at an excellent profit, and he also
employed his stentorian voice as an auctioneer. All his children
turned out to be sickly. His son, or sons, died in infancy, and
his oldest daughter lived less than forty years; hence historians
who possess a flair for matters pertaining to medicine have made
the deduction that perhaps, after all, his youthful zest was not
guarded by Heaven, but was expended in most deplorable channels.
During these years Mohammed and his wife continued to be conventional
idolators who performed nightly rites in honor of various gods and
goddesses--among whom Allah and his female consoler Al-Lat ranked
fairly high--and who gave Pagan names to their children. And so, by
the year 610, Mohammed at forty was nothing more than a respectable
but unknown tradesman who had experienced no extraordinary crisis,
whose few extant sayings were flat and insipid, and whose life
seemed destined to remain as insignificant and unsung as that of
any other Arab.
[Illustration: III]