By this time Mohammed had come to be regarded as a highly desirable
catch by every widow in Medina, while attractive women came from all
the corners of Arabia to offer themselves to the impressionable man.
His inordinate masculinity prompted the other Moslems to justify
his excess of brides on the judicious ground that his “Excellency
had the power of thirty strong men given him”--a consideration
that was esteemed by certain discriminating traditionalists to be
a proof of what has been characterized as the Prophet’s “divinely
conferred preëminence.” In short, he was every inch a man. His spare,
well-moulded figure was tall and commanding; he walked so fast that
his gait has been compared to that of a man ascending a hill, or of
one “wrenching his foot from a stone,” and this rapid locomotion
made him unconsciously bend his back until in his last years he
became round-shouldered. “That blessed prince’s head was large,” we
are told, “and yet he was not big-headed.” His face was lean and
rosy, his skin was clear and “soft as woman’s,” his slightly Roman
nose was thin and shapely--some people “might regard his nasal bone
as exceedingly long, though in reality it was not so”--his neck,
on the unimpeachable authority of Ali, was “like that of a silver
urn,” and “his blessed mouth was open, but exceedingly graceful.”
The quality and abundance of his ebon hair has been explained in
great detail. Thick and curly masses of it--“not very frizzled
or very dangling but just right”--hung about his ears; his vast
expanse of beard presumably concealed from vulgar eyes an otherwise
conspicuous peculiarity: “from his chest down to the navel there
was drawn a thin line of hair, while the other parts of the chest
and stomach were hairless, although there was hair on his blessed
arms and shoulders and the upper part of his chest.” Even in his
slumbers he retained his appearance of ease and grace, for he “lay
on his right side, putting the palm of his right hand under his
right cheek.” An admirer summed up his manly comeliness in this
poetic outburst: “I saw him at full moon, and he was brighter and
more beautiful than she,” and another charming tradition affirms
that no fly ever alighted on his body. Yet the handsome man was
not flawless. The penetrating eyes, fringed with long and lustrous
lashes, were red-lidded and bloodshot; ugly gaps disfigured his
dazzling white teeth; and on his back was a birthmark which, though
held to be the divine “seal of prophecy” that distinguished him as
the last of the authentic prophets, was probably a large mole.
Encompassed by six wives and two slave concubines, Mohammed soon
discovered that the most energetic efforts were required to provide
for their wishes. They not only made a heavy drain on his purse
and his larder, but upon his patience; for, while he was rapidly
ageing, several of them were just nearing the height of feminine
attractiveness, and many youthful Moslems, envious of the conjugal
liberties which Mohammed so prodigally claimed, were in the habit
of calling at one or another of his houses on matters that had
little to do with religion. The favorite, Ayesha, soon got into
a scrape that turned his suspicions into open jealousy. She had
accompanied him on one of his martial expeditions--a custom of
which his other brides frequently availed themselves by the casting
of lots, Ayesha being the fortunate winner on this occasion--in
a vehicle drawn by a camel and punctiliously veiled from view;
and, after he had victoriously returned to Medina and the cart was
opened, he discovered to his great horror that she was not inside.
When she came up a little later, escorted by young Safwan, she
explained that she had lost her necklace, had gone to search for it,
and upon her return had found that her guides, thinking that she
was inside, had guided the camel and its supposed burden back to
Medina. Shortly afterward, she continued, Safwan had chanced to meet
her, “expressed surprise at finding one of the Prophet’s wives in
this predicament,” and, upon receiving no reply from the virtuous
maiden, had asked her to mount his camel; as she shyly complied, he
had averted his face so that he did not see her ascend the beast,
and not a word had passed between them on the return journey. No
one knows what Mohammed might have done had not scandalous tongues
started to wag; but wag they did, and the poor girl, noticing her
husband’s cold demeanor, promptly fell ill and went to visit her
father. The Prophet meanwhile was much disturbed, for the business
was very complicated. Should he punish the daughter of Abu Bekr,
his most valued and intimate friend, trouble would almost certainly
follow; on the other hand, such fellows as Abdallah ibn Obei and the
poet Hassan could not be permitted to go around making lewd jokes
at his expense. So, visiting Ayesha in the presence of her father
and mother, he said: “Ayesha! thou hearest what men have spoken
of thee. Fear God. If indeed thou art guilty, then repent toward
God, for the Lord accepteth the repentance of His servants.” The
grief-stricken girl burst out weeping and replied: “By the Lord! I
say that I will never repent towards God of that which ye speak of.
I am helpless. If I confess, God knoweth that I am not guilty. If I
deny, no one believeth me.” In this dire predicament, the Prophet
fortunately fell into a profound trance; upon his recovery, he
wiped great beads of sweat from his brow and exclaimed: “Ayesha!
rejoice! Verily, the Lord hath declared thine innocence.” “Embrace
thine husband!” cried Abu’s wife, but Ayesha contented herself with
the ejaculation, “Praise be to the Lord”--in Whom she apparently
recognized a capacity for chivalry that was foreign to her husband.
And one night not long afterward, hoping perhaps to turn the tables
on him, she secretly followed him when he slipped quietly out of
the house on what seemed to be an amorous expedition; but she was
grievously disappointed upon discovering that he was bent upon no
more exciting errand than going to a graveyard to offer up prayers
for the dead.
Thus the affair ended. Mohammed, however, immediately improvised a
law that imposed a severe scourging upon scandal-mongers who failed
to produce four witnesses to substantiate any charge of whoredom--a
penalty that was at once inflicted upon Hassan, another man named
Mistah, and even one of the Prophet’s sisters-in-law; but he dared
not treat Abdallah ibn Obei thus. Hassan, moreover, had already been
badly wounded by the indignant Safwan; and so Mohammed, who really
loved the incorrigibly mischievous versifier, salved his double hurts
by presenting him a costly piece of property and a concubine. The
grateful fellow immediately manufactured new stanzas in praise of
Ayesha’s purity, her pert humor, and her supple figure--a series
of compliments to which she had the bad grace to retort that the
poet himself was disgustingly fat.
Nor did Mohammed stop here; he quickly proceeded to bring about
other equally desirable reforms. The institution of the Veil for
women--a custom, already not unknown, whose origin was probably due
to the common superstitious fear of the horrific “evil eye”--was
now imposed upon his harem; and the Koran also made it clear that
the day of Moslem peeping Toms was over. “O ye believers! Enter not
the apartments of the Prophet, except ye be called to sup with him,
without waiting his convenient time.... And stay not for familiar
converse; for verily that giveth uneasiness to the Prophet. It
shameth him to say this unto you; but verily God is not ashamed of
the Truth. And when ye ask anything of the Prophet’s wives, ask
it of them from behind a curtain; this will be more pure for your
hearts and for their hearts. It is not fitting that ye should give
uneasiness to the Apostle of God, nor that ye should marry his
Wives after him for ever. Verily that would be a grievous thing
in the sight of God.... The Prophet is nearer unto the Believers
than their own souls, and his Wives are their Mothers.” All Moslem
women, furthermore, were commanded to veil themselves, at home or
while walking abroad, from the prying eyes of everyone except a rich
variety of relatives. “And say to the believing women that they
cast down their looks and guard their private parts and display
not their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear
their head-coverings over their bosoms, and not display their
ornaments except to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers
of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or
their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons,
or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the
male servants not having need (of women), or the children who have
not attained knowledge of what is hidden of women ... and turn to
Allah, O Believers! so that you may be successful.”