EARLY MANHOOD
'The future comes not from before to meet us, but streams up from
behind over our heads.'--RAHEL LEVIN.
[Sidenote: Mohammed's First Fighting.]
So the years passed on, and Mohammed grew from boyhood to youth, fair
of character and of honourable bearing among his fellow citizens.
Though he shunned the coarser sins and licentious practices of the
city he could no longer as a young Meccan hold aloof from the civil
and social life of his day. When he was about twenty he received
'his baptism of fire,' and fought in his first battle. The Koreish
were at war with a neighbouring tribe. The cause of the war was
insignificant enough, but it is typical of the slight causes of the
blood-feuds of that day.
At certain seasons of the year it was the custom of the tribes to
gather at the larger towns for fairs. Of these the most important
was the sacred Fair of {15} Ukaz, a large market town not far from
Mecca.
[Sidenote: A Blood-feud.]
It was at one of these annual Ukaz fairs that the trouble arose. An
arrogant Koreish poet had been boastfully vaunting the superiority of
his tribe, and was struck by a zealot of the Hawazin tribe. A story
got about that a Hawazin girl had been ill-treated by some Koreish
maidens. A certain man of the Koreish was unable to pay a debt to a
man of the Hawazin tribe. Arab blood boiled hot. The Hawazin
creditor thereupon seated himself in a conspicuous place in the
market with a monkey by his side, and proclaimed to all who passed
by, in the true Eastern language of figure of speech: 'If you will
give me another such ape, I will give you in exchange my claim on...'
naming the debtor, with his full pedigree, back to Kinana, an
ancestor of the Koreish. This he kept vociferating to the intense
annoyance of the Kinana, till one of them drew his sword and cut off
the monkey's head. In an instant the whole Hawazin and Kinana tribes
were embroiled in bloody strife.
The trouble was patched up at the time, {16} but only to burst forth
into a fiercer fury a few years later, when a spiteful murder
supplied more serious cause of offence. Then the fierce fire of
tribal hatred was unquenchable, and the whole country was embroiled
in a war which lasted for four years, with short truces and respites,
and ended at last in the Koreish agreeing to pay blood money in the
shape of hostages for the Hawazins they had slain.
Into some, at least, of the battles of this war, Mohammed, then in
his teens, accompanied his uncle. He seems to have played no
conspicuous or glorious part, and even in later days, when he
referred to it, it was without enthusiasm or pride. Perhaps he
discharged some arrows at the enemy--more likely he acted as
attendant to his uncle, collecting arrows and handing them to him to
shoot. Indeed, neither then nor at any later period of his career
was Mohammed distinguished for his physical courage or martial daring.
[Sidenote: Mohammed's Appearance.]
Let us now introduce ourselves to our hero himself. His face has
taken the set features of manhood, and we may safely apply to him the
picture left by his contemporaries of the man as they knew him, {17}
and as in later years they bowed beneath his influence and power. He
was no Saul in stature, though perhaps above the average height; yet
in his countenance there was much that we are accustomed to expect in
a leader of men. A Napoleonic nose, a head too big for the body,
flowing jet black locks, falling on either side of his face, intense,
gleaming black eyes, slightly bloodshot, an ample beard and moustache
covering a rather sensuous mouth must have given him a striking and
commanding appearance. His skin was slightly fairer than that of
most Arabs, with a faint tinge of blue. Across his ample forehead
ran a prominent vein, of which much is said, and which used to swell
and throb when he was angry. Yet, withal, his face could have its
gentler moods; he could be kindly when he would, and to the end he
was a lover of children.
[Sidenote: His Manner of Life.]
Such was his outward appearance; we have some records, too, of his
manner of life among his fellow-citizens in Mecca--records which show
no trace of the man that was to be; he was respected but
undistinguished. From early manhood they named him Al Amin--'The
Faithful,'--and he seems to have been regarded by {18} his
fellow-citizens as a solid, dependable, brotherly, genuine man.
Passionate and unrestrained, yet a serious, sincere, character,
capable of real amiability, and with a good laugh in him withal.
[Sidenote: Fair of Ukas.]
Year by year would come fresh stimulus to his active mind. With his
fellow-citizens he went regularly to the annual fair at Ukaz,
probably on business as well as pleasure bent. This fair was indeed
one of the few institutions of Arabia which could well be called
'national.' Thither during two sacred months of truce the many
scattered tribes gathered. It was the 'Olympia' of Arabia. The
rivalry was not the rivalry of discus and javelin, but of poetry and
eloquence. Ukaz was, indeed, the press, the stage, the pulpit, the
parliament, and the 'Academie Française' of the Arab people. It was
the focus of all the literature of Arabia. Thither resorted the
poets of these rival clans and tribes, to a literary congress without
formal judges but with unbounded influence. And because it was the
centre of emulation for Arab poets, it was also a kind of annual
review of Bedouin virtues and Arabian religion. For it was in poetry
{19} that the Arab--as indeed man all the world over--expressed his
highest thoughts.
At these fairs a strange assortment of religious opinions would be
found. There would be Christian preachers, probably of many rival
factions, each not only proclaiming his 'gospel' but disclaiming all
the others, Jews and Sabæans, Zoroastrians and Hanîfites, each with
complete systems of religion. The orators of each Arab tribe, too,
vied with one another in acclaiming the superior powers and merits of
their own tribal gods, their own sacred spot or relics, and their
particular superstitious traditions.
[Sidenote: Was there Hope of a United Arabia?]
Though the discords were so great and the causes of friction so
numerous, these discordant notes were sounding a kind of harmony in
the peaceful rivalries of a national fair. For in the long years of
history it was seldom that the peace of the fairs was seriously
broken, or the two months' truce for attending them violated, or the
sacred spots of a tribe desecrated by bloodshed. How was this?
There was no central government, no punitive authority other than
that of the tribe which was in the ascendant at the time, {20} or the
strongest combination of clans allied for the moment by some common
interest. It was not in the government that hope for the future lay.
[Sidenote: The Possibilities of the Arabs.]
[Sidenote: (_a_) Germ of Belief in One Supreme God.]
Was it in religion? At the bottom of all mythologies, at the back of
the rudest superstitions and crudest idolatries the whole world over,
there are fragments of truth. And in Arabia, lying so close to the
countries of God's earliest revelation to mankind, we should expect
yet more than this. Long centuries before, the Book of Job had been
written in Arabia; Moses spent forty years there, leading a Bedouin
life in charge of the flocks of his father-in-law; and Jethro, high
priest of Midian as he was, had prepared burnt-offerings and
sacrifices for the one true God, confessing, 'Now I know that the
LORD is greater than all gods.' The Queen of Sheba journeying from
the South to see the wisdom of Solomon may have taken back with her
fragments of the truth.
The wonder is that these sparks of light had never burst into the
flame of worship of the one true God. Instead they were all but
extinguished; none but a thoughtful {21} man would recognise behind
the gross fetishism, and the thousand petty gods of the Arab tribes,
acknowledgment of the ancient belief in one supreme Deity. Yet there
it was, as history proves. And Mohammed saw it.
[Sidenote: (b) Common Ancestry. (c) Common Tongue.]
There were two other common elements which all Arabia shared: a
common ancestry giving them very marked national characteristics and
a strong Arabian sentiment or patriotism; and a common tongue spoken
(with some variation of dialect) by Bedouin and Hadesi all through
that vast land of desert.[1] These were both assets of great value
in Mohammed's future schemes. Whether as yet he recognized their
possibilities we do not know. Anyhow he was no agitator. After all
who was he? Only his uncle's dependent.
[Sidenote: Mohammed's First Marriage.]
As a rule in the East men marry young, but Mohammed was an exception,
At twenty-five marriage and love came to him rather than were sought
by him, and they were the making of his life. For there is no doubt
that his wife Khadîjah deserves to rank among the great women of
history. During her {22} lifetime her great and strong influence
upon Mohammed kept him from stumbling where afterwards he fell, and
as she was a woman of considerable wealth, marriage very greatly
altered her husband's material and social position.
It happened in this wise. Abu Talib, finding his own family
increasing faster than his ability to provide for them, bethought him
of setting his nephew to earn a livelihood for himself, and addressed
him in these words:
'I am, as thou knowest, a man of small substance, and truly the times
deal hardly with me. Now there is a caravan of thine own tribe about
to start for Syria, and Khadîjah needeth men of our tribe to send
forth with her merchandise. If thou wert to offer thyself she would
readily accept thy services.'
To which Mohammed very respectfully replied: 'Be it so as thou hast
said.'
This sent Abu Talib off to visit Khadîjah.
'We hear that thou hast engaged such an one for two camels, and we
should not be content that my nephew's hire were less than four.' To
this she replied:
'Hadst thou asked this thing for one {23} of a distant or alien
tribe, I would have granted it: how much rather now that thou askest
it for a near relative and friend?'
So the matter was settled, and Mohammed went in charge of the
caravan. His sagacity and shrewdness carried him prosperously
through the undertaking, and when with the caravan he retraced his
steps it was with a balance of barter goods more than usually in his
favour.
[Sidenote: Mohammed's Wooing.]
It is quite a pretty picture, this, of old-time romance, albeit
Khadîjah was fifteen years the senior. She is sitting on the roof
surrounded by her maidens, on the watch for the earliest glimpse of
the caravan, when a single camel is seen approaching, the rider of
which is soon recognized as Mohammed, who has ridden ahead of the
caravan to bear his news as quickly as possible. And so,
travel-stained, yet flushed with his first success, he is conducted
up to the presence of his mistress. 'She was delighted at all she
heard: but there was a charm in the dark and pensive eyes, in the
noble features, and the graceful form of her assiduous agent which
pleased her even {24} more than her good fortune.' And when she had
dismissed him with ample wages she did not forget him. Mohammed,
too, was heart-whole no longer, and became melancholic and broody.
The ways of love are the same all the world over and in all times,
but its etiquettes and customs vary. And in those days things in
Arabia were not as they are with us to-day, nor as they are now in
the East, where, by a strange irony, owing to the very system which
Mohammed inaugurated, women are the mere chattels of men, and know no
such liberty as that which brought him his best fortune in his young
days.
For it was Khadîjah that played the first move in the game of
courtship, and she played it with a woman's adroitness and
discernment. Her sister was her accomplice.
'What is it, O Mohammed, which hindereth thee from marriage?'
'I have nothing in my hands wherewith I might marry,' was his very
sensible reply.
'But if haply that difficulty were removed and thou wert invited to
espouse {25} a beautiful and wealthy lady of noble birth--wouldest
thou not desire to have her?'
'And who might that be?' said Mohammed, warming to her questions.
'It is Khadîjah.'
'But how might I attain unto her?' asked Mohammed.
'Let that be my care,' was the reassuring answer.
That was sufficient for him, and the sister returned to Khadîjah, who
then lost no time in sending an open message to Mohammed appointing a
time when they should meet. Within the year they were married with
Arab ceremony by Khadîjah's aged cousin, Warakah, who blessed the
union in homely Bedouin language, declaring that Mohammed was 'a
camel whose nose would not be struck.'
With Mohammed's marriage to Khadîjah, his opportunity, if he were
looking for one, would seem to have come. Free from his uncle's
patronage, freed, too, from the carping cares of straitened
circumstances, or the necessity of working long hours at some small
task to earn his daily bread, he had passed to a position of {26}
ease and affluence. Henceforth he led no camels or he led his own.
He was free to shape his life as he would, while his wealth and new
position made him one of the leading men of Mecca.
Now, if he had great thoughts, was the time to make them known; now,
if he felt disquieted about the gross idolatry of the people, was his
chance to bear witness against it; now, if he wanted to revolutionize
the old-world life of Mecca, he had his vantage ground from which to
do so. But instead, during those fifteen years, from twenty-five to
forty, so full and strenuous in the life of most men of action,
Mohammed played no conspicuous part,--the years passed by, and on
none did he write his name.
[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the Kaaba.]
Of many incidents recovered by Mohammedan historians in later days
from the scrap-heap of small provincial history, and filled by them
with portent and meaning, one at least is worth recalling. It
reveals a touch of that capacity for manipulating men and
circumstances which contributed so largely to Mohammed's power in
later days.
When he was in his thirty-fifth year, one {27} of those sudden,
sweeping floods to which all mountain districts are liable swept
through Mecca, and struck the Kaaba, tearing a hole in the wall,
damaging the contents, and imperilling the roof. To the
superstitious Meccans it was a portentous omen, and they waited
expectantly for some dread visitation of the wrath of the gods whose
shrine had been thus desecrated. As time passed and no calamity
befell them, and less superstitious, or less reverent thieves took
advantage of its insecure condition to pillage the shrine and plunder
the sacred relics, the leading men of Mecca met in solemn conclave
and decided that the Kaaba must be rebuilt. News reached them of a
Grecian ship wrecked on the Red Sea shores not very far away. The
timbers of the broken ship were bought, and her Greek captain, who
had some reputation as an architect, was requisitioned to direct the
building. The work was entered upon with great trepidation, but when
once the ruined walls had been taken down without any visitation upon
the workmen or the town, the work of rebuilding was eagerly begun,
and the various clans of the Koreish vied with one another for what
{28} they began to think the gods might after all consider zeal of
religion and not sacrilege.
The tribes of the Koreish were divided into four parties, to each of
which one wall was assigned; stones of grey granite from the
neighbouring hills were carried on the citizens' heads; soon the
walls began to assume their old familiar shape, and all went
harmoniously.
When the walls had grown to about four feet high, a new difficulty
arose. They had reached the place where the sacred Black Stone must
be masoned in, in its accustomed place, in the outside of the wall
near the door. Who should have the honour of laying this
heaven-given stone, reverenced from time immemorial by all true
Arabs? It was a puzzling question and a contentious question, too,
where there was no king, nor even a prince with a special genius--as,
of course, all princes have--for laying stones, nor was there any
sacred order of priest or patriarch to whom appeal could be made--not
even a cabinet minister!
It was settled thus. As they stood beside the wall disputing for the
honour, the oldest citizen arose and said:
'O Koreish, hearken unto me! My advice is {29} that the man who
chanceth first to enter the court of the Kaaba by yonder gate, he
shall be chosen either to decide the difference among you, or himself
to place the stone.'
The proposal was readily passed by acclamation, and they waited the
issue. Presently Mohammed was seen approaching, and all unknowing he
entered the chosen door. Calm and self-possessed he rose to the
occasion. Taking off his mantle, he spread it on the ground and
placed the stone thereon.
'Now,' he said, 'let one from each of your four divisions come
forward and raise a corner of this mantle.'
Four chiefs approached, and, holding each a corner, raised the stone
to the proper level, and Mohammed with his own hand guided it to its
place.
The difficulty was solved and the walls were soon completed, and the
roof put on--'of fifteen rafters resting upon six central pillars.'
The Kaaba was complete once more, though it is doubtful whether the
same respect and veneration could ever again be commanded by gods who
had allowed a river to break up their sanctuary, and men to handle
and restore it.
{30}
[Sidenote: New Forces at work in Mecca.]
Beyond the confines of Arabia two mighty Empires were throbbing with
the activities of strenuous life, and the back-waters of quiet Mecca
could not remain undisturbed.
A Meccan caravan expedition penetrated into the heart of Persia with
record success; the spirit of enterprise was awake, and new-world
thoughts came into the old-world city. The growth of a small but
influential religious party called the Hanîfahs, led by the aged
Warakah, Khadîjah's cousin, had struck at the roots of idolatry, and
raised the cry of 'Back to Abraham and his simple worship of the one
true God.' This told of a deepening thought and growing
dissatisfaction with the gross idolatry and superstition which had
hitherto done duty for religion in Mecca.
By these currents Mohammed's outward life was apparently as untouched
as that of any other average citizen. Professor Davidson used to say
that in youth men get their visions, and see the glory of the sun
upon the distant mountains of life's horizon, and the rest of life is
but a following--often through the darkness--towards the light seen
in {31} youth. If it were so with Mohammed he gave little evidence
of all that was passing in his mind. He lived a domestic life with
Khadîjah and a now growing family of children, of whom he was very
fond. Every evening he performed idolatrous rites in his home, and
he named at any rate some of his children after heathen deities. He
filled his place, no doubt, as a wealthy, and therefore leading
citizen of Mecca, but beyond that he was known as a retiring,
thoughtful man, who preferred the seclusion and quiet of home life to
the rush and scramble of the market and the rostrum.
Who would have thought that this man would mightily affect the
destiny and history of the whole human race, that he would be the
founder of an Empire which within a hundred years would hold sway
from Cadiz to Bokhara, would annihilate the Empire of Persia and lay
siege to Byzantium?
Who would have thought that twelve hundred years after, this man's
name, coupled with that of the Almighty, would be invoked in prayer
by just over two hundred millions of mankind, and proclaimed {32}
from ten thousand minarets: '_There is no God but God: Mohammed is
the Apostle of God_'?
How was it? Why was it?
QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER II
1. What is a blood-feud? Illustrate your answer. How far is the
system good which gives rise to blood-feuds?
2. Comment on Mohammed's appearance. In what ways was it an index to
his character?
3. Describe the Fair of Ukaz. What was the use of it?
4. What hope existed of the Arabs becoming a united nation?
5. How did Mohammed's marriage come about? What effect did it have
upon his life?
[1] The area of Arabia about equals that of India.
{33}