The prophet's domestic life exerted considerable influence upon his
religion; effects of which are to be seen in the Mohammedan home of
to-day. His numerous marriages afforded experience which led to the
framing of many "divine" laws referring to women. As has already been
hinted, Kadijah, his first wife, exercised considerable influence over
his prophetic career. She evidently had a strong affection for him,
which feeling was heartily reciprocated. She had a personality strong
enough to curb his natural passion, and to preserve her place in spite
of it in his regard. Her encouragement and support when success and
failure were trembling in the balance, urged him to persist in the
development of his ideas. He was faithful to her during their married
life, and to her memory afterwards, and promised her, upon her
deathbed, that she should share his heavenly chamber after his death,
with the Mother of Jesus and the sister of Moses. Within a month of
her death he was betrothed to Ayesha, a child of seven. He did not
actually marry her until she was nine years of age, and during the
interval consoled himself by wedding a widow who had acted as nurse to
one of his daughters. This marriage seems to have been more a matter
of convenience than of affection on his part, and in later days she
was able to keep her position as his wife only by the yielding of
certain of her privileges to other members of the harem.
Seven months after his arrival in Medinah, during the time of poverty,
the marriage with Ayesha was celebrated, the child of nine being
united to the man of fifty-three! a marriage defended on the ground of
political expediency, whereby the devotion of Abu Bakr, the child's
father was strengthened. She seems to have been second only to
Khadijah in the prophet's affections, and exercised a petty tyranny
over him, which was submitted to even when it affected his
revelations. She excited the envy of the other wives because of her
privileges, and in spite of intrigue, was able to hold her own. She
was extremely sarcastic in regard to some of the revelations, and even
went so far on one occasion as to jeer the prophet on his faithfulness
in recording them. This sarcasm was prompted by jealousy, because of
Mohammed's marriage with Zainab, which was so illegal as to cause him
to throw the responsibility on God. Zainab was the wife of the
prophet's adopted son Zaid, who, having discovered his foster-father's
love, thought it wise to divorce her in his favour. The revelation
Mohammed produced seems to have been held over until his critics had
been mollified by some victory--hence the sarcasm!
During the raiding of the Jews, Mohammed was considerably disturbed by
the desire of the wives to accompany him on the expeditions. He eased
the difficulty by arranging that one only should go with him on each
expedition, and should obtain the favour by lot. Ayesha got into
difficulty on one of these expeditions. She dropped a necklace and
remained behind the returning party in order to seek for it. A youth
who, too, had loitered behind, found it, and accompanied her back to
the camp. Her enemies were not slow to take advantage of this incident
to prejudice her before the prophet. He was deeply hurt, and in face
of the surge of public opinion, sent her back to her parents. The
complications arising out of the divorce would probably have alienated
the sympathies of Abu Bakr, her father, so with his usual diplomacy,
Mohammed produced a revelation, in which God declared Ayesha innocent
of any cause for divorce! It was through Ayesha, too, that the prophet
conceived the idea of praying for deliverance from the torment of the
grave, for she casually remarked one day that she had heard a Jewish
woman speaking about torment after death. Through all her life with
the prophet she proved herself to be strong in character, and a
fitting mate for a man of Mohammed's type.
Other wives did not play such an important part in the prophet's life
work. He seems to have exhibited his taste for beauty in all his
selections. Keud was the daughter of a man of considerable wealth and
influence, and, like Zainab, was one of the Abyssinian refugees. In
the expedition against Khaibah, Mohammed's greed was excited by the
sight of some valuable ornaments belonging to one of his vanquished
enemies. He sought to gain possession of them by marrying the daughter
of the owner, Safiyyah, whose husband and brother had both been killed
in the battle that had been fought. She accepted the prophet's offer,
and contented herself for her losses in the squabbles of his harem.
His other wives were Juwairijah, Hafsah, Um Salmah, Um Kabibah,
another of the Abyssinian refugees, and Zainab, widow of his cousin.
The last wife was Maimunah, who is said to have offered herself to him
when he was considering the invasion of Mecca. A Coptic (Christian)
slave girl, Mary, and Rihanah, a Jewess, were added to the harem, but
went through no form of marriage with him. Mary was sent as a present
from one of the Coptic rulers in answer to the prophet's letter,
urging the claims of Islam; while Rihanah, whose husband was one of
the many who were cruelly slaughtered by decapitation after a victory
over the Jews, was at nightfall, almost immediately after the
massacre, taken to the prophet's tent. It is evident that the prophet
had many opportunities of still further increasing his harem, for many
women offered themselves; while the relatives of handsome widows would
make no arrangements for the re-marriage of the bereaved ones until
they had been offered to the prophet and refused.
It cannot be expected that things could always run smoothly with so
many women possessing rights to his attention, and there is much
evidence to show that Mohammed was often disturbed by the difficulty
of pleasing all. His relations to the feminine sex, as may be
expected, led to a very low estimate of the position of women. Hence
the utter degradation to which they are subjected in Islam. Although
he did not practice it, he sanctioned wife beating. Divorce was made
easy for the men, who could cast off their wives any time they so
desired. Thus it is quite common to-day for women to steal from their
husbands in order to provide for themselves in case of divorce. The
evil of such a system is apparent. It makes the women mere slaves at
the mercy of the caprice of their husbands. The polygamy and
concubinage which is sanctioned in the Koran, has degraded the women
to a degree that may be imagined, and certainly has not, as some
authorities contend, abolished other evils. It is true that he
improved slightly the condition of women in his day, giving them
privileges they had not up to that time enjoyed, and by those who
endeavour to picture him as a hero, his failure to arrive at a true
estimate of the position of women is covered by the statement that it
was impossible for him to grapple with a hopeless problem. It is
encouraging to know that, with the growing influence of Western
Christian civilisation, the condition of women in Moslem lands is
gradually improving, although the village folk still consider us to be
weak in character because we are courteous in our behaviour to them.
In Egypt, Government schools for girls are being organised, and
throughout the whole Moslem world education is spreading. The religion
of Mohammed is so clearly defined that it can never be reformed. The
only hope for the nations that are under its sway is that with the
advance of western civilisation there may be a yielding to the
influence of Christianity. It cannot be possible to enjoy the
blessings of the West while men are tyrannised by a non-progressive
religion of the East.
Just before he died Mohammed organised an expedition against the
Romans, and this in spite of sickness unto death. He had made his last
pilgrimage to Mecca, and had delivered what may be termed his final
charge to his followers. The whole tone of his address seems to have
been influenced by the thought of the proximity of death. He
emphasised the doctrines he had inculcated, showing that the Islamic
brotherhood removed all that tended to social inequality. The rich man
was no better than the poor; the aristocrat who boasted of his
ancestry, no more important in the sight of God than the lowliest
beggar. The only difference that could exist between man and man was a
difference in degree of piety. Property rights he recognised as
regarding believers, and evidently implied that unbelievers possessed
no such rights. He asked respect and humane treatment for women, and
undoubtedly manifested a desire for a better condition of affairs than
he in his lifetime had been able to establish. The subsequent illness
was probably due to the strain and anxiety of this pilgrimage. Ayesha,
the girl wife, tended him. The many stories that have been told of
these last days are not at all reliable, but it is certain that for
five days he was quite helpless and delirious. On the 7th of June, 632
A.D., ten years after the flight from Mecca, he died in the arms of
Ayesha, leaving a work that wrought havoc in the Christian Church for
centuries, and which, inspired by his immortal spirit, still exists in
unyielding enmity against the faith of the meek and lowly Nazarene,
whose native soil, in the providence of God, is owned by Islam's son.
Never again will be heard the clash of steel on steel as Christian
tries to vanquish Moslem. Those days are happily past and gone. Carnal
weapons cannot avail against spiritual forces. The eternal, peaceable
Spirit of Jesus is slowly but surely permeating the gloom of Islam. We
see the resultant disintegration, and hope for that great day when,
led by the broken and contrite spirit of their leader, the hosts of
Islam shall bow before the King of Kings, recognising what, in time,
they were impelled to deny--Unity in Trinity, the at present
unrevealed mystery of Deity.
Britain, the greatest Moslem power of the world, needs to change her
policy in regard to Christian missionary work amongst Moslems, if she
is desirous of promoting the welfare of those benighted people. She
must give freedom to the heralds of the Cross who labour in the lands
of the Crescent. And the prayers of her people must ascend on behalf
of the sons and daughters of Islam who sit in darkness and the shadow
of death.