IV

By this time the sinister tokens of physical decay, unavoidably

betrayed by the Prophet, filled everyone with deepest concern. Abu

Bekr observed him one day, stroking his beard and looking intently

at it; then Abu, his eyes filling with sudden tears, broke out:

“Ah, thou, for whom I would sacrifice father and mother, white

hairs are hastening upon thee!” “Yes,” came the slow response, “it

is the travail of inspiration that hath done this. The Suras Hud,

and the Inevitable, and the Striking, with their fellows, these

have made white my hair.” Yet when he actually became ill with

pleurisy, or some sort of fever, he named a definite source for

the malady: the poisoned mutton which Zeinab, the Jewess, had fed

him. “This, verily, is the effect of that which I ate at Kheibar,”

he declared. “The artery in my back feeleth as though it would

just now burst asunder.” If his theory was correct, he doubtless

died--as his worshipers fervently claimed--the honorable death of

a martyr; but it seems probable that his illness had some more

tangible origin. Believing that water could not be contaminated, he

sometimes carelessly drank from a cistern that was used for slops;

as a medicine man who had often attempted to cure his people by

charms, cauterization and cupping, he had submitted himself to these

practices so frequently that his system must have been gradually

weakened; furthermore, Ayesha stated that his health had been poor

for years, and that she had constantly dosed him with a profusion

of odd concoctions which she herself compounded from innumerable

prescriptions recommended by sympathizing friends.

It is not strange, therefore, that, shortly after he had presented

a banner to a Moslem army which he commanded to march toward Syria

on May 27, 632, for the purpose of avenging the defeat at Muta,

he found himself curiously listless and weak. Late one subsequent

night, accompanied only by a servant, he stole out to the cemetery

on the edge of Medina. After a long and melancholy period of

meditation, he thus apostrophized the souls of the dead: “Verily,

both ye and I have received fulfilment of that which our Lord did

promise us. Blessed are ye! for your lot is better than the lot

of those that are left behind. Temptation and trial approach like

portions of a dark night that follow one upon another, each darker

than that preceding it. O Lord! have mercy upon them that lie buried

here!” Next morning, as he passed Ayesha’s chamber, he heard her

calling out, “My head!--O, my head!” Entering, he gently reproved

her thus: “Nay, Ayesha, it is rather I that have need to cry _My

head, my head!_ But wouldst thou not,” he continued, in a feeble

attempt to be humorous, “desire to be taken whilst I am yet alive;

so that I might pray over thee, and wrapping thee, Ayesha, in thy

winding-sheet, myself commit thee to the grave?” Then, in spite

of her pain, she railed at him. “Ah, that, I see, is what thou

wishest for! Truly, I can behold thee, when all was over, returning

straightway hither, and sporting with a new beauty in my chamber

here!” But, perceiving that he was really ailing, she forgot her

own headache and tenderly cared for him.

Multitudes of conflicting stories have been handed down concerning

the happenings of the week that preceded his dissolution; but,

inasmuch as they emanated from three distinct political groups, each

of whom wished to be recognized as the sole source of truth, the

precise occurrences of that fateful period will never be accurately

known. At the beginning of his illness it appears certain that, on

account of his predilection for baths, he commanded his wives to

drench him in cold water on the intriguing theory that, since fever

was caused by sparks of Hell-fire, it could be summarily squelched by

water; but in this case the douche seems to have had the unfortunate

result of sending him into convulsions. It is claimed that, during

an interval of temporary relief, he went forth and addressed his

devotees in the Mosque--a proceeding which, if it was true, was

presumably the reason for his consequent relapse. By Saturday, June

6, his temperature is said to have been so high that Omar, having

placed his hand on the tormented man’s forehead, quickly withdrew

it with the consoling exclamation, “O Prophet, how fierce is the

fever upon thee!” “Yea, verily,” Mohammed gasped, “but I have been

during the night season repeating in praise of the Lord seventy

Suras, and among them the seven long ones”; and a moment later he

added, “Just as this affliction prevaileth now against me, even

so shall my reward hereafter be.” On Sunday he was delirious much

of the time and suffered such excruciating pain that, following a

consultation among his wives, it was decided to administer physic;

so they forced the drug down his throat, but, notwithstanding his

agony, he readily recognized the too familiar noxious taste and

bitterly reproached them. When they admitted their guilt, he cried:

“Out upon you! this is a remedy for pleurisy ... an evil disease

is it which the Lord will not let attack me. Now shall ye all of

you within this chamber partake of the same. Let not one remain

without being physiked, even as ye have physiked me, excepting only

my uncle, Al-Abbas.” The repentant women immediately arose, and

each obediently gave the drug to the other until all had swallowed

some of it; and this strange scene around the Prophet’s deathbed

is one of the small number that are best authenticated.

Certain other tales may be accepted without too much over-scrupulous

demur. As he lay alternately drawing the bed-clothes over his

face and then tossing them off, he would shriek out unconnected

sentences: “The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians!... O Lord, let

not my tomb be ever an object of worship!... Verily the chiefest

among you all for love and devotion to me is Abu Bekr. If I were

to choose a bosom friend it would be he; but Islam hath made a

closer brotherhood amongst us.... O my soul! Why seekest thou

refuge elsewhere than in God alone?... Fetch me hither pen and ink,

that I may make for you a writing which shall hinder you from

going astray for ever.” On Monday he seemed a little better, but

it was only the final flicker of the dying candle. Toward midday,

as Ayesha sat holding his head tenderly on her bosom “between her

lungs and her neck,” she noticed that his wandering eye had fixed

upon a green toothpick; and, after chewing it so that it might be

more pliable, she offered it to the dying man who used it for a

moment with all his old vigor. But he soon began to sink rapidly,

and, as though realizing the imminence of death, he called aloud:

“O Lord, I beseech thee assist me in the agonies of death!” Then,

while he spasmodically blew breath over his burning body, he thrice

repeated, “Gabriel, come close unto me!” It is a regrettable fact

that the interesting question of his final utterance must forever

remain undecided. One authority declares that he expressed a wish

to have concubines treated with consideration; but it is perhaps

more appropriate to accept the story that, as consciousness slowly

departed, he gently breathed: “Lord, grant me pardon; and join me

to the blessed companionship on high. Eternity in Paradise!...

Pardon!... The blessed companionship on high!...”--his head fell

lower, a cold drop of moisture trickled down upon Ayesha’s breast,

and all was over.

Yet no one, not even Ayesha, could believe it for a time. Thinking

that he had only fainted, she called aloud for help; and Omar,

who immediately came in, looked lovingly upon the familiar and

still lifelike features and exclaimed: “The Prophet is not dead;

he hath but swooned away.” But Abu Bekr, who was welcomed into the

sacred adytum with the feminine salutation, “Come, for this day

no permission needeth to be asked,” at once realized the awful

truth, which he cautiously made known by stooping and kissing his

master’s face, and saying: “Sweet wast thou in life, and sweet thou

art in death. Yes, thou _art_ dead! Alas, my friend, my chosen

one!” After kissing the face a second time, he covered it with a

striped cloth and gently withdrew from the room, while Mohammed’s

wives beat their faces, uttered loud and plaintive ululations, “and

there arose a wailing of celestial voices.” The corpse was washed

and laid out, and, in addition to the garment which he wore at the

time of his death, two sheets of costly white linen were wrapped

around it. After some discussion, it was decided on the advice of

Islam’s new leader, Abu Bekr--“I have heard it from the lips of

Mohammed himself,” he announced, “that in whatsoever spot a prophet

dieth, there also should he be buried”--that a deep grave should

be excavated beneath the apartment of Ayesha. During the night

the ominous thud of pickaxes disturbed the troubled dreams of

the Prophet’s widows--“I did not believe that Mohammed was really

dead,” confessed Um Selama, “till I heard the sound of the pickaxes

at the digging of the grave, from the next room”--and next day a

constant stream of weeping Moslems filed by to look for the last

time upon the beloved face that now resembled a sheet of withered

parchment. That evening the body was lowered into the grave, whose

bottom had been covered with the Prophet’s precious red mantle; the

gaping hole was built over with unbaked bricks, plain earth was

then shoveled upon the tomb, and there, in the august simplicity

of his domestic abode, Mohammed’s form has ever since remained.

Meanwhile--since all things are possible with Allah--it may surely

be conjectured that Gabriel had abundantly granted the Prophet’s

dying request, and had borne him, along the familiar route previously

traversed in the midnight journey from Jerusalem, for the second

and last time into the presence of his Maker. And there--may not

one hope?--at the zenith of the Seventh Heaven, in that ravishing

Paradise which so closely resembles an infinitely idealized Arabian

oasis, he abides even unto this day and will continue to dwell

“For ever therein--a fair abode and resting place!”--enjoying the

ineffable entertainments that have been prepared for the Moslem

saints and martyrs who, triumphant over sin and suffering, have been

welcomed to the indepictable felicities of the divine beatitudes;

quaffing deep draughts from those inexhaustible “rivers of wine”

which the Koran promises to those who have manfully abstained from

all earthly elixirs; continually cherished by seventy dark-eyed,

deep-bosomed Houris who, as befits inhabitants of the “Garden of

Delight,” individually reside within the modest seclusion of enormous

hollow pearls; ever and anon chanting, through his black-bearded

lips, the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, and concluding

with the inevitable refrain, “_La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammed rasul

Allah!_”