When Mohammed was about thirty-five, the holy Kaba, beaten and broken
by a violent flood, was in sad need of repair. A Grecian ship, that
had been providentially wrecked on the coast of the Red Sea near
by, furnished the materials necessary for its reconstruction. So
great was the reverence emanating from the sacred walls, however,
that the Koreish feared the imposition of heavenly wrath on those
who made bold to tear the building down; but one fellow, braver than
the rest, raised an apologetic prayer to Allah and simultaneously
struck a heavy blow with a pickaxe. All those present, including
the assaulter, then fled and lingered timorously until morning,
when the incredible fact was noted that Allah had not spoken one
way or the other, and so the structure was rapidly demolished.
All went well with the building operations until the time came to
replace the Black Stone in the eastern corner--an honor so great
that each branch of the Koreish contended for it, until bloodshed
was imminent. Finally the eldest patriarch in the city arose and
advanced this ingenious solution: “O Koreish, hearken unto me! My
advice is that the man who chanceth first to enter the court of
the Kaba by yonder gate, he shall be chosen either to decide the
difference amongst you, or himself to place the stone.” Universal
applause followed and everyone waited to learn who should be the
lucky man. Just at this moment the unostentatious yet dignified
form of Mohammed was seen to approach, and all the people shouted
in unison: “Here comes the faithful arbiter; we are content to
abide by his decision.” Mohammed, ever cool and composed in public,
calmly accepted the appointment and immediately devised a supremely
clever diplomatic scheme that would certainly be satisfactory to
all. He removed his cloak and laid it on the ground; then, putting
the awful stone on it, he said: “Now let one from each of your four
divisions come forward, and raise a corner of this mantle.” This
was done and, when the rock was level with the cavity, he himself
thrust it in position. Thus the unpretentious tradesman rose in the
twinkling of an eye to high eminence in the esteem of his townsmen.
Since Mohammed’s mind always took to omens and auguries as a duck
takes to water, it is possible that this occurrence marked the
vague inception of his mission.
At all events, about five years later his neighbors became much
mystified by his behavior. He would retire, for days at a stretch,
to a cave in the foothills of Mount Hira, a conical hill several
miles north of Mecca, whither Khadija too sometimes went with him.
Meanwhile his business languished, and various conjectures were
advanced to account for his odd conduct--was the fellow crazy, or
afflicted with some loathsome disease, or was he perchance engaged
in some such nefarious occupation as counterfeiting? As the months
passed, he still continued to act in the same incomprehensible
manner, and it was noticed that, little by little, certain members
of his immediate family attended him to his refuge, or gathered
with him in some one of their own houses. This sort of thing went
on for several years, until it was noised abroad that the quondam
merchant and camel-driver was confidently claiming the honor of
having made the epochal discovery which he phrased thus: “_La ilaha
illa Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah_”--which, freely interpreted,
means: “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is His Prophet.”
This brief, twofold credo demands considerable attention. The
first postulate was not entirely new, for Allah had hitherto been
a well-behaved deity Who was highly regarded by many Arabs; yet,
after all, He had been but one of many idols. By what process of
thought had Mohammed come to exalt Allah not merely above all Arabian
gods, but above the gods of all time? and furthermore, why was he
so certain of his own intimate association with Allah?
Various explanations were offered by his simple-minded followers.
According to one account, as Mohammed was wandering near the cave,
“an angel from the sky cried to him, ‘O Mohammed, I am Gabriel!’
He was terrified, for as often as he raised his head, there was
the apparition of the angel. He hurried home to tell his wife. ‘O
Khadija,’ he said, ‘I have never abhorred anything as I do these
idols and soothsayers; and now verily I fear lest I should become
a soothsayer myself.’ ‘Never,’ replied his faithful wife, ‘the
Lord will never suffer it thus to be.’” So she made haste to get
the opinion of her own relative, the aged visionary Waraka, who,
after listening attentively to her tale, cried aloud: “By the Lord
he speaketh truth! Doubtless it is the beginning of prophecy, and
there shall come upon him the _Great Namus_, like as it came upon
Moses.” According to another story that is even more edifying,
Khadija discreetly tested the genuineness of the angelic guest by
making Mohammed sit first on her right knee, and then on her left;
and the spirit did not object to either procedure. But when she took
Mohammed in her lap and started to remove some of her garments,
the virtuous apparition departed in great haste, and the crafty
Khadija then exultantly cried: “Rejoice ... for by the Lord! it is
an angel, and no devil.”
These enlightening tales, however, deserve to be supplemented by
certain other considerations. Outside of Arabia, Paganism was in
general disrepute. The dissolute and declining Romans were cracking
lewd jokes in the very faces of their gods; the myriad followers
of Confucius, Buddha and Zoroaster were either too remote or too
helpless to matter one way or another; Talmudic Judaism and Oriental
Christianity despised idolatry and worshiped the same Jehovah, even
though they disputed with each other, and indeed among themselves,
concerning the various attributes, amorous pursuits, and lineal
descendants of the Godhead. Now, to one who chose to regard himself
as a prophet, monotheism had distinct advantages over polytheism. For
one thing, it was rather confusing to attempt to obey the behests
of conflicting deities; and for another, the different prophets of
Jehovah in Judaism and Christendom had, so far as Mohammed knew, been
uniformly successful--for he was familiar with the glorious history
of Abraham, Moses and David, and he always held to the perverse
belief that Jesus was not crucified. However deep in the dumps
prophets may have been on occasion, they have invariably believed
one thing: victory for their particular cause will inevitably come.
Neither an unbroken series of worldly failures nor the chastisements
of his God have ever shaken the faith of a first-class prophet in
himself--or, as he would doubtless prefer to say, in his Divinity.
Arabia--broken, unorganized, inglorious, idolistic Arabia--obviously
lacked one Supreme Being whose prerogative was greater than all
other Supreme Beings; and that Being, in turn, needed a messenger
to exploit His supremacy. The messengers who had served Jehovah had
certainly prospered well; but Jehovah Himself appeared to be on the
decline--His Unity was steadily disintegrating into a paradoxical
Trinity. Why, therefore, not give Allah, perhaps the leading icon
in Arabia, an opportunity? Such considerations quite probably never
entered the head of Mohammed with any definiteness; yet his behavior
for the rest of his days seems to indicate that these, or similar
conceptions, were subconsciously egging him on.
Of certain facts, moreover, he was definitely aware. He may have
had little or no formal education, but his memory was retentive
and capacious, and his caravan journeys, together with the scores
of conversations he had held at the yearly fairs, as well as at
Mecca, with many cultivated strangers, had packed his mind with
a mass of highly valuable if heterogeneous matter. In these ways
he had learnt both the strength and the weakness of the Jews and
Christians: their fanatical enthusiasms and despairs; their spasmodic
attempts to proselytize as well as the widespread defections from
their faiths; the loftiness of their moral and political codes--a
loftiness that remained fruitless from their lack of cohesion and
effectual leadership. Since his conception of religion was largely
personal--for he looked upon Moses, Jesus and the rest merely as
capable men who had founded and promulgated religions--and since
Arabia had no preëminent ruler, why should _he_ not seize the reins
of power and carry on the great tradition of prophethood? What a
magnificent opportunity beckoned, and how fortunate that he had
been the first to recognize the call! By keeping only what was
best in the Arabic faith--the Kaba and the Black Stone--and by a
judicious selection of the most feasible ideas that lay imbedded
in Jewish and Christian precepts, he might establish a code that
would supersede all others, and might then dictate to all Arabs
alike. What prophets had done, he would also do--and do better.
Furthermore, he knew something else: he had a wealthy wife and four
intimates who were already prepared to fight for him to the death.
Khadija rated first. From the beginning she had stood faithfully
by his side, and whenever he was low-spirited and his heavenly
visitations were temporarily suspended, she would tenderly comfort
him--for the sad memories of her first marriage had made her
determined that her second husband should succeed in whatever
business he undertook. Her cousin, the learned mystic Waraka,
readily abandoned his firm conviction that Christ was the only
true prophet in favor of his cousin-in-law’s exclusive claim to
the same honor; and it is probable that he, more than any other
person, enlightened Mohammed’s many-sided ignorance of religious
history. Mohammed had early adopted his youthful cousin Ali, son of
Abu Talib, and the attachment between them had come to be mutually
strong. He had also assumed control of Zeid, a Christian slave,
who became so devoted to his master that, when he was offered his
freedom, he replied: “I will not leave thee; thou art in the place
to me of father and of mother.” This pleased Mohammed so much that
he immediately escorted Zeid to the Black Stone and said: “Bear
testimony, all ye that are present. Zeid is my son; I will be his
heir, and he shall be mine.” In his thirty-ninth year Mohammed
had become acquainted with Abu Bekr--commonly called either “the
Sighing” or “the True”--a rich cloth merchant who was middle-aged and
short, and who had deep-set eyes. Shrewd and penetrating in business
concerns, mentally stable, and untroubled by too many disturbing
ideas and emotions, he was just the sort of person Mohammed most
needed: a devoted adherent who would serve as business agent for
the new faith.
But in the beginning these were all. Some of his immediate relatives
did not take him very seriously: Abu Lahab grimaced in his face,
and even the charitable Abu Talib smiled rather derisively at his
curious actions. We are told that Abu Talib, chancing to apprehend
his son Ali and Mohammed contorting themselves according to the
precepts of Islam, thereupon remarked that he would not care to
twist himself so that his middle portion would be higher than
his head--a flippancy that Ali cherished and chuckled over years
after his father’s death. Meanwhile the great bulk of the Koreish
were too contemptuously indifferent to pay any heed to Mohammed’s
strange yarnings, though occasionally, as he passed cliques of them
on the streets, they would lazily point him out as a harmless and
but mildly amusing dunce.