STUDY OF THE LIFE OF MUḤAMMAD CONSIDERED AS A PREACHER OF ISLAM.
It is not proposed in this chapter to add another to the already
numerous biographies of Muḥammad, but rather to make a study of his
life in one of its aspects only, viz. that in which the Prophet is
presented to us as a preacher, as the apostle unto men of a new
religion. The life of the founder of Islam and the inaugurator of its
propaganda may naturally be expected to exhibit to us the true
character of the missionary activity of this religion. If the life of
the Prophet serves as the standard of conduct for the ordinary
believer, it must do the same for the Muslim missionary. From the
pattern, therefore, we may hope to learn something of the spirit that
would animate those who sought to copy it, and of the methods they
might be expected to adopt. For the missionary spirit of Islam is no
after-thought in its history; it interpenetrates the religion from its
very commencement, and in the following sketch it is desired to show
how this is so, how Muḥammad the Prophet is the type of the missionary
of Islam. It is therefore beside the purpose to describe his early
history, or the influences under which he grew up to manhood, or to
consider him in the light either of a statesman or a general: it is as
the preacher alone that he will demand our attention.
When, after long internal conflict and disquietude, Muḥammad was at
length convinced of his divine mission, his earliest efforts were
directed towards persuading his own family of the truth of the new
doctrine. The unity of God, the abomination of idolatry, the duty laid
upon man of submission to the will of his Creator,—these were the
simple truths to which he claimed their allegiance. The first convert
was his faithful and loving wife, Khadījah,—she who fifteen years
before had offered her hand in marriage to the poor kinsman that had so
successfully traded with her merchandise as a hired agent,—with the
words, “I love thee, my cousin, for thy kinship with me, for the
respect with which thy people regard thee, for thy honesty, for the
beauty of thy character and for the truthfulness of thy speech.” [16]
She had lifted him out of poverty, and enabled him to live up to the
social position to which he was entitled by right of birth; but this
was as nothing to the fidelity and loving devotion with which she
shared his mental anxieties, and helped him with tenderest sympathy and
encouragement in the hour of his despondency.
Up to her death in A.D. 619 (after a wedded life of five and twenty
years) she was always ready with sympathy, consolation and
encouragement whenever he suffered from the persecution of his enemies
or was tortured by doubts and misgivings. “So Khadījah believed,” says
the biographer of the Prophet, “and attested the truth of that which
came to him from God and aided him in his undertaking. Thus was the
Lord minded to lighten the burden of His Prophet; for whenever he heard
anything that grieved him touching his rejection by the people, he
would return to her and God would comfort him through her, for she
reassured him and lightened his burden and declared her trust in him
and made it easy for him to bear the scorn of men.” [17]
Among the earliest believers were his adopted children Zayd and ʻAlī,
and his bosom friend Abū Bakr, of whom Muḥammad would often say in
after years, “I never invited any to the faith who displayed not
hesitation, perplexity and vacillation—excepting only Abū Bakr; who
when I told him of Islam tarried not, neither was perplexed.” He was a
wealthy merchant, much respected by his fellow citizens for the
integrity of his character and for his intelligence and ability. After
his conversion he expended the greater part of his fortune on the
purchase of Muslim slaves who were persecuted by their masters on
account of their adherence to the teaching of Muḥammad. Through his
influence, to a great extent, five of the earliest converts were added
to the number of believers, Saʻd b. Abī Waqqāṣ, the future conqueror of
the Persians; al-Zubayr b. al-ʻAwwām, a relative both of the Prophet
and his wife; Ṭalḥah, famous as a warrior in after days; a wealthy
merchant ʻAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʻAwf, and ʻUthmān, the third Khalīfah. The
last was early exposed to persecution; his uncle seized and bound him,
saying, “Dost thou prefer a new religion to that of thy fathers? I
swear I will not loose thee until thou givest up this new faith thou
art following after.” To which ʻUthmān replied, “By the Lord, I will
never abandon it!” Whereupon his uncle, seeing the firmness of his
attachment to his faith, released him.
With other additions, particularly from among slaves and poor persons,
the Prophet succeeded in collecting round him a little band of
followers during the first three years of his mission. Encouraged by
the success of these private efforts, Muḥammad determined on more
active measures and began to preach in public. He called his kinsmen
together and invited them to embrace the new faith. “No Arab,” he
urged, “has offered to his nation more precious advantages than those I
bring you. I offer you happiness in this world and in the life to come.
Who among you will aid me in this task?” All were silent. Only ʻAlī,
with boyish enthusiasm, cried out, “Prophet of God, I will aid thee.”
At this the company broke up with derisive laughter.
Undeterred by the ill-success of this preaching, he repeatedly appealed
to them on other occasions, but his message and his warnings received
from them nothing but scoffing and contempt.
More than once the Quraysh tried to induce his uncle Abū Ṭālib, as head
of the clan of the Banū Hāshim, to which Muḥammad belonged, to restrain
him from making such attacks upon their ancestral faith, or otherwise
they threatened to resort to more violent measures. Abū Ṭālib
accordingly appealed to his nephew not to bring disaster on himself and
his family. The Prophet replied: “Were the sun to come down on my right
hand and the moon on my left, and the choice were offered me of
abandoning my mission until God himself should reveal it, or perishing
in the achievement of it, I would not abandon it.” Abū Ṭālib was moved
and exclaimed, “Go and say whatever thou wilt: by God! I will never
give thee up unto thy enemies.”
The Quraysh viewed the progress of the new religion with increasing
dissatisfaction and hatred. They adopted all possible means, threats
and promises, insults and offers of worldly honour and aggrandisement
to induce Muḥammad to abandon the part he had taken up. The violent
abuse with which he was assailed is said to have been the indirect
cause of drawing to his side one important convert in the person of his
uncle, Ḥamzah, whose chivalrous soul was so stung to sudden sympathy by
a tale of insult inflicted on and patiently borne by his nephew, that
he changed at once from a bitter enemy into a staunch adherent. His was
not the only instance of sympathy for the sufferings of the Muslims
being aroused at the sight of the persecutions they had to endure, and
many, no doubt, secretly favoured the new religion who did not declare
themselves until the day of its triumph.
The hostility of the Quraysh to the new faith increased in bitterness
as they watched the increase in the numbers of its adherents. They
realised that the triumph of the new teaching meant the destruction of
the national religion and the national worship, and a loss of wealth
and power to the guardians of the sacred Kaʻbah. Muḥammad himself was
safe under the protection of Abū Ṭālib and the Banū Hāshim, who, though
they had no sympathy for the doctrines their kinsman taught, yet with
the strong clan-feeling peculiar to the Arabs, secured him from any
attempt upon his life, though he was still exposed to continual insult
and annoyance. But the poor who had no protector, and the slaves, had
to endure the cruelest persecution, and were imprisoned and tortured in
order to induce them to recant. It was at this time that Abū Bakr
purchased the freedom of Bilāl, [18] an African slave, who was called
by Muḥammad “the first-fruits of Abyssinia.” He had been cruelly
tortured by being exposed, day after day, to the scorching rays of the
sun, stretched out on his back, with an enormous stone on his stomach;
here he was told he would have to stay until either he died or
renounced Muḥammad and worshipped idols, to which he would reply only,
“There is but one God, there is but one God.” Two persons died under
the tortures they had to undergo. The constancy of a few gave way under
the trial, but persecution served only to re-kindle the zeal of others.
ʻAbd Allāh b. Masʻūd made bold to recite a passage of the Qurʼān within
the precincts of the Kaʻbah itself,—an act of daring that none of the
followers of Muḥammad had ventured upon before. The assembled Quraysh
attacked him and smote him on the face, but it was some time before
they compelled him to desist. He returned to his companions, prepared
to bear witness to his faith in a similar manner on the next day, but
they dissuaded him, saying, “This is enough for thee, since thou hast
made them listen to what they hated to hear.”
The virulence of the opposition of the Quraysh is probably the reason
why in the fourth year of his mission Muḥammad took up his residence in
the house of al-Arqam, one of the early converts. It was in a central
situation, much frequented by pilgrims and strangers, and here
peaceably and without interruption he was able to preach the doctrines
of Islam to all enquirers that came to him. Muḥammad’s stay in this
house marks an important epoch in the propagation of Islam in Mecca,
and many Muslims dated their conversion from the days when the Prophet
preached in the house of al-Arqam.
As Muḥammad was unable to relieve his persecuted followers, he advised
them to take refuge in Abyssinia, and in the fifth year of his mission
(A.D. 615), eleven men and four women crossed over to Abyssinia, where
they received a kind welcome from the Christian king of the country.
Among them was a certain Muṣʻab b. ʻUmayr whose history is interesting
as of one who had to endure that most bitter trial of the new
convert—the hatred of those he loves and who once loved him. He had
been led to embrace Islam through the teaching he had listened to in
the house of al-Arqam, but he was afraid to let the fact of his
conversion become known, because his tribe and his mother, who bore an
especial love to him, were bitterly opposed to the new religion; and
indeed, when they discovered the fact, seized and imprisoned him. But
he succeeded in effecting his escape to Abyssinia.
The hatred of the Quraysh is said to have pursued the fugitives even to
Abyssinia, and an embassy was sent to demand their extradition from the
king of that country. But when he heard their story from the Muslims,
he refused to withdraw from them his protection. In answer to his
enquiries as to their religion, they said: “O King, we were plunged in
the darkness of ignorance, worshipping idols, and eating carrion; we
practised abominations, severed the ties of kinship and maltreated our
neighbours; the strong among us devoured the weak; and so we remained
until God sent us an apostle, from among ourselves, whose lineage we
knew as well as his truth, his trustworthiness and the purity of his
life. He called upon us to worship the One God and abandon the stones
and idols that our fathers had worshipped in His stead. He bade us be
truthful in speech, faithful to our promises, compassionate and kind to
our parents and neighbours, and to desist from crime and bloodshed. He
forbade to do evil, to lie, to rob the orphan or defame women. He
enjoined on us the worship of God alone, with prayer, almsgiving and
fasting. And we believed in him and followed the teachings that he
brought us from God. But our countrymen rose up against us and
persecuted us to make us renounce our faith, and return to the worship
of idols and the abominations of our former life. So when they cruelly
entreated us, reducing us to bitter straits and came between us and the
practice of our religion, we took refuge in your country; putting our
trust in your justice, we hope that you will deliver us from the
oppression of our enemies.” Their prayer was heard and the embassy of
the Quraysh returned discomfited. [19] Meanwhile, in Mecca, a fresh
attempt was made to induce the Prophet to abandon his work of preaching
by promises of wealth and honour, but in vain.
While the result of the embassy to Abyssinia was being looked for in
Mecca with the greatest expectancy, there occurred the conversion of a
man, who before had been one of the most bitter enemies of Muḥammad,
and had opposed him with the utmost persistence and fanaticism—a man
whom the Muslims had every reason then to look on as their most
terrible and virulent enemy, though afterwards he shines as one of the
noblest figures in the early history of Islam, viz. ʻUmar b.
al-Khaṭṭāb. One day, in a fit of rage against the Prophet, he set out,
sword in hand, to slay him. On the way, one of his relatives met him
and asked him where he was going. “I am looking for Muḥammad,” he
answered, “to kill the renegade who has brought discord among the
Quraysh, called them fools, reviled their religion and defamed their
gods.” “Why dost thou not rather punish those of thy own family, and
set them right?” “And who are these of my own family?” answered ʻUmar.
“Thy brother-in-law Saʻīd and thy sister Fāṭimah, who have become
Muslims and followers of Muḥammad.” ʻUmar at once rushed off to the
house of his sister, and found her with her husband and Khabbāb,
another of the followers of Muḥammad, who was teaching them to recite a
chapter of the Qurʼān. ʻUmar burst into the room: “What was that sound
I heard?” “It was nothing,” they replied. “Nay, but I heard you, and I
have learned that you have become followers of Muḥammad.” Whereupon he
rushed upon Saʻīd and struck him. Fāṭimah threw herself between them,
to protect her husband, crying, “Yes, we are Muslims; we believe in God
and His Prophet: slay us if you will.” In the struggle his sister was
wounded, and when ʻUmar saw the blood on her face, he was softened and
asked to see the paper they had been reading: after some hesitation she
handed it to him. It contained the 20th Sūrah of the Qurʼān. When ʻUmar
read it, he exclaimed, “How beautiful, how sublime it is!” As he read
on, conviction suddenly overpowered him and he cried, “Lead me to
Muḥammad that I may tell him of my conversion.” [20]
The conversion of ʻUmar is a turning-point in the history of Islam: the
Muslims were now able to take up a bolder attitude. Muḥammad left the
house of al-Arqam and the believers publicly performed their devotions
together round the Kaʻbah. The situation might thus be expected to give
the aristocracy of Mecca just cause for apprehension. For they had no
longer to deal with a band of oppressed and despised outcasts,
struggling for a weak and miserable existence. It was rather a powerful
faction, adding daily to its strength by the accession of influential
citizens and endangering the stability of the existing government by an
alliance with a powerful foreign prince.
The Quraysh resolved accordingly to make a determined effort to check
the further growth of the new movement in their city. They put the Banū
Hāshim, who through ties of kindred protected the Prophet, under a ban,
in accordance with which the Quraysh agreed that they would not marry
their women, nor give their own in marriage to them; they would sell
nothing to them, nor buy aught from them—that dealings with them of
every kind should cease. For three years the Banū Hāshim are said to
have been confined to one quarter of the city, except during the sacred
months, in which all war ceased throughout Arabia and a truce was made
in order that pilgrims might visit the sacred Kaʻbah, the centre of the
national religion.
Muḥammad used to take advantage of such times of pilgrimage to preach
to the various tribes that flocked to Mecca and the adjacent fairs. But
with no success, for his uncle Abū Lahab used to dog his footsteps,
crying with a loud voice, “He is an impostor who wants to draw you away
from the faith of your fathers to the false doctrines that he brings,
wherefore separate yourselves from him and hear him not.” They would
taunt him with the words: “Thine own people and kindred should know
thee best: wherefore do they not believe and follow thee?” But at
length the privations endured by Muḥammad and his kinsmen enlisted the
sympathy of a numerous section of the Quraysh and the ban was
withdrawn.
In the same year the loss of Khadījah, the faithful wife who for
twenty-five years had been his counsellor and support, plunged Muḥammad
into the utmost grief and despondency; and a little later the death of
Abū Ṭālib deprived him of his constant and most powerful protector and
exposed him afresh to insult and contumely.
Scorned and rejected by his own townsmen, to whom he had delivered his
message with so little success for ten years, he resolved to see if
there were not others who might be more ready to listen, among whom the
seeds of faith might find a more receptive and fruitful soil. With this
hope he set out for Ṭāʼif, a city about seventy miles from Mecca.
Before an assembly of the chief men of the city, he expounded his
doctrine of the unity of God and of the mission he had received as the
Prophet of God to proclaim this faith; at the same time he besought
their protection against his persecutors in Mecca. The disproportion
between his high claims (which moreover were unintelligible to the
heathen people of Ṭāʼif) and his helpless condition only excited their
ridicule and scorn, and pitilessly stoning him with stones they drove
him from their city.
On his return from Ṭāʼif the prospects of the success of Muḥammad
seemed more hopeless than ever, and the agony of his soul gave itself
utterance in the words that he puts into the mouth of Noah: “O my Lord,
verily I have cried to my people night and day; and my cry only makes
them flee from me the more. And verily, so oft as I cry to them, that
Thou mayest forgive them, they thrust their fingers into their ears and
wrap themselves in their garments, and persist (in their error), and
are disdainfully disdainful.” (lxxi. 5–6.)
It was the Prophet’s habit at the time of the annual pilgrimage to
visit the encampments of the various Arab tribes and discourse with
them upon religion. By some his words were treated with indifference,
by others rejected with scorn. But consolation came to him from an
unexpected quarter. He met a little group of six or seven persons whom
he recognised as coming from Medina, or, as it was then called,
Yathrib. “Of what tribe are you?” said he, addressing them. “We are of
the Khazraj,” they answered. “Friends of the Jews?” “Yes.” “Then will
you not sit down awhile, that I may talk with you?” “Assuredly,”
replied they. Then they sat down with him, and he proclaimed unto them
the true God and preached Islam and recited to them the Qurʼān. Now so
it was, in that God wrought wonderfully for Islam that there were found
in their country Jews, who possessed scriptures and wisdom, while they
themselves were heathen and idolaters. Now the Jews ofttimes suffered
violence at their hands, and when strife was between them had ever said
to them, “Soon will a Prophet arise and his time is at hand; him will
we follow, and with him slay you with the slaughter of ʻĀd and of
Iram.” When now the apostle of God was speaking with these men and
calling on them to believe in God, they said one to another: “Know
surely that this is the Prophet, of whom the Jews have warned us; come
let us now make haste and be the first to join him.” So they embraced
Islam, and said to him, “Our countrymen have long been engaged in a
most bitter and deadly feud with one another; but now perhaps God will
unite them together through thee and thy teaching. Therefore we will
preach to them and make known to them this religion, that we have
received from thee.” So, full of faith, they returned to their own
country. [21]
Such is the traditional account of this event which was the
turning-point of Muḥammad’s mission. He had now met with a people whose
antecedents had in some way prepared their minds for the reception of
his teaching and whose present circumstances, as afterwards appeared,
were favourable to his cause.
The city of Yathrib had been long occupied by Jews whom some national
disaster, possibly the persecution under Hadrian, had driven from their
own country, when a party of wandering emigrants, the two Arab clans of
Khazraj and Aws, arrived at Yathrib and were admitted to a share in the
territory. As their numbers increased they encroached more and more on
the power of the Jewish rulers, and finally, towards the end of the
fifth century, the government of the city passed entirely into their
hands.
Some of the Arabs had embraced the Jewish religion, and many of the
former masters of the city still dwelt there in the service of their
conquerors, so that it contained in Muḥammad’s time a considerable
Jewish population. The people of Yathrib were thus familiar with the
idea of a Messiah who was to come, and were consequently more capable
of understanding the claim of Muḥammad to be accepted as the Prophet of
God, than were the idolatrous Meccans to whom such an idea was entirely
foreign and especially distasteful to the Quraysh, whose supremacy over
the other tribes and whose worldly prosperity arose from the fact that
they were the hereditary guardians of the national collection of idols
kept in the sacred enclosure of the Kaʻbah.
Further, the city of Yathrib was distracted by incessant civil discord
through a long-standing feud between the Banū Khazraj and the Banū Aws.
The citizens lived in uncertainty and suspense, and anything likely to
bind the conflicting parties together by a tie of common interest could
not but prove a boon to the city. Just as the mediæval republics of
Northern Italy chose a stranger to hold the chief post in their cities
in order to maintain some balance of power between the rival factions,
and prevent, if possible, the civil strife which was so ruinous to
commerce and the general welfare, so the Yathribites would not look
upon the arrival of a stranger with suspicion, even though he was
likely to usurp or gain permission to assume the vacant authority.
On the contrary, one of the reasons for the warm welcome which Muḥammad
received in Medina would seem to be that the adoption of Islam appeared
to the more thoughtful of its citizens to be a remedy for the disorders
from which their society was suffering, by its orderly discipline of
life and its bringing the unruly passions of men under the discipline
of laws enunciated by an authority superior to individual caprice. [22]
These facts go far to explain how eight years after the Hijrah Muḥammad
could, at the head of 10,000 followers, enter the city in which he had
laboured for ten years with so meagre a result.
But this is anticipating. Muḥammad had proposed to accompany his new
converts, the Khazrajites, to Yathrib himself, but they dissuaded him
therefrom, until a reconciliation could be effected with the Banū Aws.
“Let us, we pray thee, return unto our people, if haply the Lord will
create peace amongst us; and we will come back again unto thee. Let the
season of pilgrimage in the following year be the appointed time.” So
they returned to their homes, and invited their people to the faith;
and many believed, so that there remained hardly a family in which
mention was not made of the Prophet.
When the time of pilgrimage again came round, a deputation from
Yathrib, ten men of the Banū Khazraj, and two of the Banū Aws, met him
at the appointed spot and pledged him their word to obey his teaching.
This, the first pledge of ʻAqabah, so called from the secret spot at
which they met, ran as follows:—“We will not worship any but the one
God; we will not steal, neither will we commit adultery or kill our
children; we will abstain from calumny and slander; we will obey the
Prophet in every thing that is right.” These twelve men now returned to
Yathrib as missionaries of Islam, and so well prepared was the ground,
and with such zeal did they prosecute their mission, that the new faith
spread rapidly from house to house and from tribe to tribe.
They were accompanied on their return by Muṣʻab b. ʻUmayr; though,
according to another account he was sent by the Prophet upon a written
requisition from Yathrib. This young man had been one of the earliest
converts, and had lately returned from Abyssinia; thus he had had much
experience, and severe training in the school of persecution had not
only sobered his zeal but taught him how to meet persecution and deal
with those who were ready to condemn Islam without waiting to learn the
true contents of its teaching; accordingly Muḥammad could with the
greatest confidence entrust him with the difficult task of directing
and instructing the new converts, cherishing the seeds of religious
zeal and devotion that had already been sown and bringing them to
fruition. Muṣʻab took up his abode in the house of Asʻad b. Zurārah,
and gathered the converts together for prayer and the reading of the
Qurʼān, sometimes here and sometimes in a house belonging to the Banū
Ẓafar, which was situated in a quarter of the town occupied jointly by
this family and that of ʻAbd al-Ashhal.
The heads of the latter family at that time were Saʻd b. Muʻādh and
Usayd b. Ḥuḍayr. One day it happened that Muṣʻab was sitting together
with Asʻad in this house of the Banū Ẓafar, engaged in instructing some
new converts, when Saʻd b. Muʻādh, having come to know of their
whereabouts, said to Usayd b. Ḥuḍayr: “Drive out these fellows who have
come into our houses to make fools of the weaklings among us; I would
spare thee the trouble did not the tie of kinship between me and Asʻad
prevent my doing him any harm” (for he himself was the cousin of
Asʻad). Hereupon Usayd took his spear and, bursting in upon Asʻad and
Muṣʻab, “What are you doing?” he cried, “leading weak-minded folk
astray? If you value your lives, begone hence.” “Sit down and listen,”
Muṣʻab answered quietly, “if thou art pleased with what thou hearest,
accept it; if not, then leave it.” Usayd stuck his spear in the ground
and sat down to listen, while Muṣʻab expounded to him the fundamental
doctrines of Islam and read several passages of the Qurʼān. After a
time Usayd, enraptured, cried, “What must I do to enter this religion?”
“Purify thyself with water,” answered Muṣʻab, “and confess that there
is no god but God and that Muḥammad is the apostle of God.” Usayd at
once complied and repeated the profession of faith, adding, “After me
you have still another man to convince” (referring to Saʻd b. Muʻādh).
“If he is persuaded, his example will bring after him all his people. I
will send him to you forthwith.”
With these words he left them, and soon after came Saʻd b. Muʻādh
himself, hot with anger against Asʻad for the patronage he had extended
to the missionaries of Islam. Muṣʻab begged him not to condemn the new
faith unheard, so Saʻd agreed to listen and soon the words of Muṣʻab
touched him and brought conviction to his heart, and he embraced the
faith and became a Muslim. He went back to his people burning with zeal
and said to them, “Sons of ʻAbd al-Ashhal, say, what am I to you?”
“Thou art our lord,” they answered, “thou art the wisest and most
illustrious among us.” “Then I swear,” replied Saʻd, “nevermore to
speak to any of you until you believe in God and Muḥammad, His
apostle.” And from that day, all the descendants of ʻAbd al-Ashhal
embraced Islam. [23]
With such zeal and earnestness was the preaching of the faith pushed
forward that within a year there was not a family among the Arabs of
Medina that had not given some of its members to swell the number of
the faithful, with the exception of one branch of the Banū Aws, which
held aloof under the influence of Abū Qays b. al-Aslat, the poet.
The following year, when the time of the annual pilgrimage again came
round, a band of converts, amounting to seventy-three in number,
accompanied their heathen fellow-countrymen from Yathrib to Mecca. They
were commissioned to invite Muḥammad to take refuge in Yathrib from the
fury of his enemies, and had come to swear allegiance to him as their
prophet and their leader. All the early converts who had before met the
Prophet on the two preceding pilgrimages, returned to Mecca on this
important occasion, and Muṣʻab their teacher accompanied them.
Immediately on his arrival he hurried to the prophet, and told him of
the success that had attended his mission. It is said that his mother,
hearing of his arrival, sent a message to him, saying: “Ah, disobedient
son, wilt thou enter a city in which thy mother dwelleth, and not first
visit her!” “Nay, verily,” he replied, “I will never visit the house of
any one before the Prophet of God.” So, after he had greeted and
conferred with Muḥammad, he went to his mother, who thus accosted him:
“Then I ween thou art still a renegade.” He answered, “I follow the
prophet of the Lord and the true faith of Islam.” “Art thou then well
satisfied with the miserable way thou hast fared in the land of
Abyssinia and now again at Yathrib?” Now he perceived that she was
meditating his imprisonment, and exclaimed, “What! wilt thou force a
man from his religion? If ye seek to confine me, I will assuredly slay
the first person that layeth hands upon me.” His mother said, “Then
depart from my presence,” and she began to weep. Muṣʻab was moved, and
said, “Oh, my mother! I give thee loving counsel. Testify that there is
no God but the Lord and that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger.”
But she replied, “By the sparkling stars! I will never make a fool of
myself by entering into thy religion. I wash my hands of thee and thy
concerns, and cleave steadfastly unto mine own faith.”
In order not to excite suspicion and incur the hostility of the
Quraysh, a secret meeting was arranged at ʻAqabah, the scene of the
former meeting with the converts of the year before. Muḥammad came
accompanied only by his uncle ʻAbbās, who, though he was still an
idolater, had been admitted into the secret. ʻAbbās opened the solemn
conclave, by recommending his nephew as a scion of one of the noblest
families of his clan, which had hitherto afforded the Prophet
protection, although rejecting his teachings; but now that he wished to
take refuge among the people of Yathrib, they should bethink themselves
well before undertaking such a charge, and resolve not to go back from
their promise, if once they undertook the risk. Then Barā b. Maʻrūr,
one of the Banū Khazraj, protesting that they were firm in their
resolve to protect the Prophet of God, besought him to declare fully
what he wished of them.
Muḥammad began by reciting to them some portions of the Qurʼān, and
exhorted them to be true to the faith they had professed in the one God
and the Prophet, His apostle; he then asked them to defend him and his
companions from all assailants just as they would their own wives and
children. Then Barā b. Maʻrūr, taking his hand, cried out, “Yea, by Him
who sent thee as His Prophet, and through thee revealed unto us His
truth, we will protect thee as we would our own bodies, and we swear
allegiance to thee as our leader. We are the sons of battle and men of
mail, which we have inherited as worthy sons of worthy forefathers.” So
they all in turn, taking his hand in theirs, swore allegiance to him.
As soon as the Quraysh gained intelligence of these secret proceedings,
the persecution broke out afresh against the Muslims, and Muḥammad
advised them to flee out of the city. “Depart unto Yathrib; for the
Lord hath verily given you brethren in that city, and a home in which
ye may find refuge.” So quietly, by twos and threes they escaped to
Yathrib, where they were heartily welcomed, their co-religionists in
that city vying with one another for the honour of entertaining them,
and supplying them with such things as they had need of. Within two
months nearly all the Muslims except those who were seized and
imprisoned and those who could not escape from captivity had left
Mecca, to the number of about 150. There is a story told of one of
these Muslims, by name Ṣuhayb, whom Muḥammad called “the first-fruits
of Greece” (he had been a Greek slave, and being set free by his master
had amassed considerable wealth by successful trading); when he was
about to emigrate the Meccans said to him, “Thou camest hither in need
and penury; but thy wealth hath increased with us, until thou hast
reached thy present prosperity; and now thou art departing, not thyself
only, but with all thy property. By the Lord, that shall not be;” and
he said, “If I relinquish my property, will ye leave me free to
depart?” And they agreed thereto; so he parted with all his goods. And
when that was told unto Muḥammad, he said, “Verily, Ṣuhayb hath made a
profitable bargain.”
Muḥammad delayed his own departure (with the intention, no doubt, of
withdrawing attention from his faithful followers) until a determined
plot against his life warned him that further delay might be fatal, and
he made his escape by means of a stratagem.
His first care after his arrival in Yathrib, or Medina as it was called
from this period—Madīnah al-Nabī, the city of the Prophet—was to build
a mosque, to serve both as a place of prayer and of general assembly
for his followers, who had hitherto met for that purpose in the
dwelling-place of one of their number. The worshippers at first used to
turn their faces in the direction of Jerusalem—an arrangement most
probably adopted with the hope of gaining over the Jews. In many other
ways, by constant appeals to their own sacred Scriptures, by according
them perfect freedom of worship and political equality, Muḥammad
endeavoured to conciliate the Jews, but they met his advances with
scorn and derision. When all hopes of amalgamation proved fruitless and
it became clear that the Jews would not accept him as their Prophet,
Muḥammad bade his followers turn their faces in prayer towards the
Kaʻbah in Mecca. (ii. 144.) [24]
This change of direction during prayer has a deeper significance than
might at first sight appear. It was really the beginning of the
National Life of Islam: it established the Kaʻbah at Mecca as a
religious centre for all the Muslim people, just as from time
immemorial it had been a place of pilgrimage for all the tribes of
Arabia. Of similar importance was the incorporation of the ancient Arab
custom of pilgrimage to Mecca into the circle of the religious
ordinances of Islam, a duty that was to be performed by every Muslim at
least once in his lifetime.
There are many passages in the Qurʼān that appeal to this germ of
national feeling and urge the people of Arabia to realise the privilege
that had been granted them of a divine revelation in their own language
and by the lips of one of their own countrymen.
“Verily We have made it an Arabic Qurʼān that ye may haply
understand. (xliii. 2–3.)
“And thus We have revealed to thee an Arabic Qurʼān, that thou
mayest warn the mother of cities and those around it. (xlii. 5.)
“And if We had made it a Qurʼān in a foreign tongue, they had
surely said, ‘Unless its verses be clearly explained (we will not
receive it).’ (xli. 44.)
“And verily We have set before men in this Qurʼān every kind of
parable that haply they be monished:
“An Arabic Qurʼān, free from tortuous (wording), that haply they
may fear (God). (xxxix. 28–29.)
“Verily from the Lord of all creatures hath this (book) come down,
... in the clear Arabic tongue. (xxvi. 192, 195.)
“And We have only made it (i.e. the Qurʼān) easy, in thine own
tongue, in order that thou mayest announce glad tidings thereby to
the God-fearing, and that thou mayest warn the contentious
thereby.” (xix. 97.)
But the message of Islam was not for Arabia only; the whole world was
to share in it. [25] As there was but one God, so there was to be but
one religion into which all men were to be invited. This claim to be
universal, to hold sway over all men and all nations, found a practical
illustration in the letters which Muḥammad is said to have sent in the
year A.D. 688 (A.H. 6) to the great potentates of that time. An
invitation to embrace Islam was sent in this year to the Emperor
Heraclius, the king of Persia, the governor of Yaman, the governor of
Egypt and the king of Abyssinia. The letter to Heraclius is said to
have been as follows:—“In the name of God, the Merciful, the
Compassionate, Muḥammad, who is the servant of God and His apostle, to
Hiraql the Qayṣar of Rūm. Peace be on whoever has gone on the straight
road. After this I say, Verily I call you to Islam. Embrace Islam, and
God will reward you twofold. If you turn away from the offer of Islam,
then on you be the sins of your people. O people of the Book, come
towards a creed which is fit both for us and for you. It is this—to
worship none but God, and not to associate anything with God, and not
to call others God. Therefore, O ye people of the Book, if ye refuse,
beware. We are Muslims and our religion is Islam.” However absurd this
summons may have seemed to those who then received it, succeeding years
showed that it was dictated by no empty enthusiasm. [26] These letters
only gave a more open and widespread expression to the claim to the
universal acceptance which is repeatedly made for Islam in the Qurʼān.
“Of a truth it (i.e. the Qurʼān) is no other than an admonition to
all created beings, and after a time shall ye surely know its
message. (xxxviii. 87–88.)
“This (book) is no other than an admonition and a clear Qurʼān, to
warn whoever liveth; and that against the unbelievers sentence may
be justly given. (xxxvi. 69–70.)
“We have not sent thee save as a mercy to all created beings. (xxi.
107.)
“Blessed is He who hath sent down al-Furqān upon His servant, that
he may be a warner unto all created beings. (xxv. 1.)
“And We have not sent thee otherwise than to mankind at large, to
announce and to warn. (xxxiv. 27.)
“He it is who hath sent His apostle with guidance and the religion
of truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion,
though the polytheists are averse to it.” (lxi. 9.)
In the hour of his deepest despair, when the people of Mecca
persistently turned a deaf ear to the words of their prophet (xvi. 23,
114, etc.), when the converts he had made were tortured until they
recanted (xvi. 108), and others were forced to flee from the country to
escape the rage of their persecutors (xvi. 43, 111)—then was delivered
the promise, “One day we will raise up a witness out of every nation.”
(xvi. 86.) [27]
This claim upon the acceptance of all mankind which the Prophet makes
in these passages is further prophetically indicated in the words
“first-fruits of Abyssinia,” used by Muḥammad in reference to Bilāl,
and “first-fruits of Greece,” to Ṣuhayb; Salmān, the first Persian
convert, was a Christian slave in Medina, who embraced the new faith in
the first year of the Hijrah. Thus long before any career of conquest
was so much as dreamed of, the Prophet had clearly shown that Islam was
not to be confined to the Arab race. The following account of the
sending out of missionaries to preach Islam to all nations, points to
the same claim to be a universal religion: “The Apostle of God said to
his companions, ‘Come to me all of you early in the morning.’ After the
morning prayer he spent some time in praising and supplicating God, as
was his wont; then he turned to them and sent forth some in one
direction and others in another, and said: ‘Be faithful to God in your
dealings with His servants (i.e. with men), for whosoever is entrusted
with any matter that concerns mankind and is not faithful in his
service of them, to him God shuts the gate of Paradise: go forth and be
not like the messengers of Jesus, the son of Mary, for they went only
to those that lived near and neglected those that dwelt in far
countries.’ Then each of these messengers came to speak the language of
the people to whom he was sent. When this was told to the Prophet he
said, ‘This is the greatest of the duties that they owe to God with
respect to His servants.’” [28]
The proof of the universality of Islam, of its claim on the acceptance
of all men, lay in the fact that it was the religion divinely appointed
for the whole human race and was now revealed to them anew through
Muḥammad, “the seal of the prophets” (xxxiii. 40), as it had been to
former generations by other prophets.
“Men were of one religion only: then they disagreed one with
another and had not a decree (of respite) previously gone forth
from thy Lord, judgment would surely have been given between them
in the matter wherein they disagree. (x. 20.)
“I am no apostle of new doctrines. (xlvi. 8.)
“Mankind was but one people: then God raised up prophets to
announce glad tidings and to warn: and He sent down with them the
Book with the Truth, that it might decide the disputes of men: and
none disagreed save those to whom the book had been given, after
the clear tokens had reached them, through mutual jealousy. And God
guided those who believed into the truth concerning which they had
disagreed, by His will; and God guideth whom He pleaseth into the
straight path. (ii. 209.)
“And We revealed to thee, ‘follow the religion of Abraham, the
sound in faith, for he was not of those who join gods with God.’
(xvi. 124.)
“Say: As for me, my Lord hath guided me into a straight path: a
true faith, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith; for he was
not of those who join gods with God. (vi. 162.)
“Say: Nay, the religion of Abraham, the sound in faith and not one
of those who join gods with God (is our religion). (ii. 129.)
“Say: God speaketh truth. Follow therefore the religion of Abraham,
he being a Ḥanīf and not one of those who join other gods with God.
“Verily the first temple that was set up for men was that which is
in Bakka, blessed and a guidance for all created beings. (iii. 89,
90.)
“And who hath a better religion than he who resigneth himself to
God, who doth what is good and followeth the faith of Abraham, the
sound in faith? (iv. 124.)
“He hath elected you, and hath not laid on you any hardship in
religion, the faith of your father Abraham. He hath named you the
Muslims.” (xx. 77.)
But to return to Muḥammad in Medina. In order properly to appreciate
his position after the Flight, it is important to remember the peculiar
character of Arab society at that time, as far at least as this part of
the peninsula was concerned. There was an entire absence of any
organised administrative or judicial system such as in modern times we
connect with the idea of a government. Each tribe or clan formed a
separate and absolutely independent body, and this independence
extended itself also to the individual members of the tribe, each of
whom recognised the authority, or leadership of his chief only as being
the exponent of a public opinion which he himself happened to share;
but he was quite at liberty to refuse his conformity to the (even)
unanimous resolve of his fellow clansmen. Further, there was no regular
transmission of the office of chieftain; but he was generally chosen as
being the oldest member of the richest and most powerful family of the
clan, and as being personally most qualified to command respect. If
such a tribe became too numerous, it would split up into several
divisions, each of which continued to enjoy a separate and independent
existence, uniting only on some extraordinary occasion for common
self-defence or some more than usually important warlike expedition. We
can thus understand how Muḥammad could establish himself in Medina at
the head of a large and increasing body of adherents who looked up to
him as their head and leader and acknowledged no other
authority,—without exciting any feeling of insecurity, or any fear of
encroachment on recognised authority, such as would have arisen in a
city of ancient Greece or any similarly organised community. Muḥammad
thus exercised temporal authority over his people just as any other
independent chief might have done, the only difference being that in
the case of the Muslims a religious bond took the place of family and
blood ties.
Islam thus became what, in theory at least, it has always remained—a
political as well as a religious system.
“It was Muḥammad’s desire to found a new religion, and in this he
succeeded; but at the same time he founded a political system of an
entirely new and peculiar character. At first his only wish was to
convert his fellow-countrymen to the belief in the One God—Allāh; but
along with this he brought about the overthrow of the old system of
government in his native city, and in place of the tribal aristocracy
under which the conduct of public affairs was shared in common by the
ruling families, he substituted an absolute theocratic monarchy, with
himself at the head as vicar of God upon earth.
“Even before his death almost all Arabia had submitted to him; Arabia
that had never before obeyed one prince, suddenly exhibits a political
unity and swears allegiance to the will of an absolute ruler. Out of
the numerous tribes, big and small, of a hundred different kinds that
were incessantly at feud with one another, Muḥammad’s word created a
nation. The idea of a common religion under one common head bound the
different tribes together into one political organism which developed
its peculiar characteristics with surprising rapidity. Now only one
great idea could have produced this result, viz. the principle of
national life in heathen Arabia. The clan-system was thus for the first
time, if not entirely crushed—(that would have been impossible)—yet
made subordinate to the feeling of religious unity. The great work
succeeded, and when Muḥammad died there prevailed over by far the
greater part of Arabia a peace of God such as the Arab tribes, with
their love of plunder and revenge, had never known; it was the religion
of Islam that had brought about this reconciliation.” [29]
Even in the case of death, the claims of relationship were set aside
and the bond-brother inherited all the property of his deceased
companion. But after the battle of Badr, when such an artificial bond
was no longer needed to unite his followers, it was abolished; such an
arrangement was only necessary so long as the number of the Muslims was
still small and the corporate life of Islam a novelty; moreover
Muḥammad had lived in Medina for a very short space of time before the
rapid increase in the number of his adherents made so communistic a
social system almost impracticable.
It was only to be expected that the growth of an independent political
body composed of refugees from Mecca, located in a hostile city, should
eventually lead to an outbreak of hostilities; and, as is well known,
every biography of Muḥammad is largely taken up with the account of a
long series of petty encounters and bloody battles between his
followers and the Quraysh of Mecca, ending in his triumphal entry into
that city in A.D. 630, and of his hostile relations with numerous other
tribes, up to the time of his death, A.D. 633.
To give any account of these campaigns is beyond the scope of the
present work, but it is important to show that Muḥammad, when he found
himself at the head of a band of armed followers, was not transformed
at once, as some would have us believe, from a peaceful preacher into a
fanatic, sword in hand, forcing his religion on whomsoever he could.
[30]
It has been frequently asserted by European writers that from the date
of Muḥammad’s migration to Medina, and from the altered circumstances
of his life there, the Prophet appears in an entirely new character. He
is no longer the preacher, the warner, the apostle of God to men, whom
he would persuade of the truth of the religion revealed to him, but now
he appears rather as the unscrupulous bigot, using all means at his
disposal of force and statecraft to assert himself and his opinions.
But it is false to suppose that Muḥammad in Medina laid aside his rôle
of preacher and missionary of Islam, or that when he had a large army
at his command, he ceased to invite unbelievers to accept the faith.
Ibn Saʻd gives a number of letters written by the Prophet from Medina
to chiefs and other members of different Arabian tribes, in addition to
those addressed to potentates living beyond the limits of Arabia,
inviting them to embrace Islam; and in the following pages will be
found instances of his having sent missionaries to preach the faith to
the unconverted members of their tribes, whose very ill-success in some
cases is a sign of the genuinely missionary character of their efforts
and the absence of an appeal to force. A typical example of such an
unsuccessful mission is that sent to preach Islam to the Banū ʻĀmir b.
Ṣaʻṣaʻah in the year A.H. 4. The chief of this tribe, Abū Barā ʻĀmir,
visited Muḥammad in Medina, listened to his teaching, but declined to
become a convert; he seemed, however, to be favourably disposed towards
the new faith and asked the Prophet to send some of his followers to
Najd to preach to the people of that country. The Prophet sent a party
of forty Muslims, most of them young men of Medina, who were skilled in
reciting the Qurʼān, and had been accustomed to meet together at night
for study and prayer. But in spite of the safe conduct given them by
Abū Barā ʻĀmir, they were treacherously murdered and three only of the
party escaped with their lives. [31]
The successes of the Muslim arms, however, attracted every day members
of various tribes, particularly those in the vicinity of Medina, to
swell the ranks of the followers of the Prophet; and “the courteous
treatment which the deputations of these various clans experienced from
the Prophet, his ready attention to their grievances, the wisdom with
which he composed their disputes, and the politic assignments of
territory by which he rewarded an early declaration in favour of Islam,
made his name to be popular and spread his fame as a great and generous
prince throughout the Peninsula.” [32]
It not unfrequently happened that one member of a tribe would come to
the Prophet in Medina and return home as a missionary of Islam to
convert his brethren; we have the following account of such a
conversion in the year 5 (A.H.).
The Banū Saʻd b. Bakr sent one of their number, by name Ḍimām b.
Thaʻlabah as their envoy to the Prophet. He came and made his camel
kneel down at the gate of the mosque and tied up its fore-leg. Then he
went into the mosque, where the Prophet was sitting with his
companions. He went up close to them and said, “Which among you is the
son of ʻAbd al-Muṭṭalib?” “I am,” replied the Prophet. “Art thou
Muḥammad?” “Yes,” was the answer. “Then, if thou wilt not take it
amiss, I would fain ask thee some weighty questions.” “Nay, ask what
thou wilt,” answered the Prophet. “I adjure thee by Allāh, thy God and
the God of those who were before thee and of those who are to come
after thee, hath Allāh sent thee as a prophet unto us?” Muḥammad
answered, “Yea, by Allāh.” He continued, “I adjure thee by Allāh, thy
God and the God of those who were before thee and of those who are to
come after thee, hath He commanded thee to bid us worship Him alone,
and to associate naught else with Him and to abandon these idols that
our fathers worshipped?” Muḥammad answered, “Yea, by Allāh.” Then he
questioned the Prophet concerning all the ordinances of Islam, one
after another, prayer and fasting, pilgrimage, etc., solemnly adjuring
him as before. At the end he said, “Then I bear witness that there is
no God save Allāh and I bear witness that Muḥammad is the Prophet of
Allāh, and I will observe these ordinances and shun what thou hast
forbidden, adding nothing thereto, and taking nothing away.” Then he
turned away and loosened his camel and returned unto his own people,
and when he had gathered them together, the first words he spoke unto
them were: “Vile things are Lāt and ʻUzzā.” They cried out, “Hold!
Ḍimām, take heed of leprosy or madness!” “Fie on you!” he replied. “By
Allāh! they can neither work you weal nor woe, for Allāh has sent a
Prophet and revealed to him a book, whereby he delivers you from your
evil plight; I bear witness that there is no God save Allāh alone and
that Muḥammad is His servant and His Prophet; and I have brought you
tidings of what he enjoins and what he forbids.” The story goes on that
ere nightfall there was not a man or woman in the camp who had not
accepted Islam. [33]
Another such missionary was ʻAmr b. Murrah, belonging to the tribe of
the Banū Juhaynah, who dwelt between Medina and the Red Sea. The date
of his conversion was prior to the Flight, in the same year (A.H. 5),
and he thus describes it: “We had an idol that we worshipped, and I was
the guardian of its shrine. When I heard of the Prophet, I broke it in
pieces and set off to Muḥammad, where I accepted Islam and bore witness
to the truth, and believed on what Muḥammad declared to be allowed and
forbidden. And to this my verses refer: ‘I bear witness that God is
Truth and that I am the first to abandon the gods of stones, and I have
girded up my loins to make my way to you over rough ways and smooth, to
join myself to him who in himself and for his ancestry is the noblest
of men, the apostle of the Lord whose throne is above the clouds.’” He
was sent by Muḥammad to preach Islam to his tribe, and his efforts were
crowned with such success that there was only one man who refused to
listen to his exhortations. [34]
When the truce of Ḥudaybiyyah (A.H. 6) made friendly relations with the
people of Mecca possible, many persons of that city, who had had the
opportunity of listening to the teaching of Muḥammad in the early days
of his mission, and among them some men of great influence, came out to
Medina, to embrace the faith of Islam.
The continual warfare carried on with the people of Mecca had hitherto
kept the tribes to the south of that city almost entirely outside the
influence of the new religion. But this truce now made communications
with southern Arabia possible, and a small band from the tribe of the
Banū Daws came from the mountains that form the northern boundary of
Yaman, and joined themselves to the Prophet in Medina. Even before the
appearance of Muḥammad, there were some members of this tribe who had
had glimmerings of a higher religion than the idolatry prevailing
around them, and argued that the world must have had a creator, though
they knew not who he was; and when Muḥammad came forward as the apostle
of this creator, one of these men, by name Ṭufayl b. ʻAmr, came to
Mecca to learn who the creator was.
Though warned by the Quraysh of the dangerous influence that Muḥammad
might exercise over him if he entered into conversation with him, he
followed the Prophet to his house one day, after watching him at prayer
by the Kaʻbah. Muḥammad expounded to him the doctrines of Islam, and
Ṭufayl left Mecca full of zeal for the new faith. On his return home he
succeeded in converting his father and his wife, but found his
fellow-tribesmen unwilling to abandon their old idolatrous worship.
Disheartened at the ill-success of his mission, he returned to the
Prophet and besought him to call down the curse of God on the Banū
Daws; but Muḥammad encouraged him to persevere in his efforts, saying,
“Return to thy people and summon them to the faith, but deal gently
with them.” At the same time he prayed, “Oh God! guide the Banū Daws in
the right way.” The success of Ṭufayl’s propaganda was such that in the
year A.H. 7 he came to Medina with between seventy and eighty families
of his tribesmen who had been won over to the faith of Islam, and after
the triumphal entry of Muḥammad into Mecca, Ṭufayl set fire to the
block of wood that had hitherto been venerated as the idol of the
tribe. [35]
In A.H. 7, fifteen more tribes submitted to the Prophet, and after the
surrender of Mecca in A.H. 8, the ascendancy of Islam was assured, and
those Arabs who had held aloof, saying, “Let Muḥammad and his
fellow-tribesmen fight it out; if he is victorious, then is he a
genuine prophet,” [36] now hastened to give in their allegiance to the
new religion. Among those who came in after the fall of Mecca were some
of the most bitter persecutors of Muḥammad in the earlier days of his
mission, to whom his noble forbearance and forgiveness now gave a place
in the brotherhood of Islam. The following year witnessed the martyrdom
of ʻUrwah b. Masʻūd, one of the chiefs of the people of Ṭāʼif, which
city the Muslims had unsuccessfully attempted to capture. He had been
absent at that time in Yaman, and returned from his journey shortly
after the raising of the siege. He had met the Prophet two years before
at Ḥudaybiyyah, and had conceived a profound veneration for him, and
now came to Medina to embrace the new faith. In the ardour of his zeal
he offered to go to Ṭāʼif to convert his fellow-countrymen, and in
spite of the efforts of Muḥammad to dissuade him from so dangerous an
undertaking, he returned to his native city, publicly declared that he
had renounced idolatry, and called upon the people to follow his
example. While he was preaching, he was mortally wounded by an arrow,
and died giving thanks to God for having granted him the glory of
martyrdom. A more successful missionary effort was made by another
follower of the Prophet in Yaman—probably a year later—of which we have
the following graphic account: “The apostle of God wrote to al-Ḥārith
and Masrūḥ, and Nuʻaym b. ʻAbd al-Kulāl of Ḥimyar: ‘Peace be upon you
so long as ye believe on God and His apostle. God is one God, there is
no partner with Him. He sent Moses with his signs, and created Jesus
with his words. The Jews say, “Ezra is the Son of God,” and the
Christians say, “God is one of three, and Jesus is the Son of God.”’ He
sent the letter by ʻAyyāsh b. Abī Rabīʻah al-Makhzūmī, and said: ‘When
you reach their city, go not in by night, but wait until the morning;
then carefully perform your ablutions, and pray with two prostrations,
and ask God to bless you with success and a friendly reception, and to
keep you safe from harm. Then take my letter in your right hand, and
deliver it with your right hand into their right hands, and they will
receive it. And recite to them, “The unbelievers among the people of
the Book and the polytheists did not waver,” etc. (Sūrah 98), to the
end of the Sūrah; when you have finished, say, “Muḥammad has believed,
and I am the first to believe.” And you will be able to meet every
objection they bring against you, and every glittering book that they
recite to you will lose its light. And when they speak in a foreign
tongue, say, “Translate it,” and say to them, “God is sufficient for
me; I believe in the Book sent down by Him, and I am commanded to do
justice among you; God is our Lord and your Lord; to us belong our
works, and to you belong your works; there is no strife between us and
you; God will unite us, and unto Him we must return.” If they now
accept Islam, then ask them for their three rods, before which they
gather together to pray, one rod of tamarisk that is spotted white and
yellow, and one knotted like a cane, and one black like ebony. Bring
the rods out and burn them in the market-place.’ So I set out,” tells
ʻAyyāsh, “to do as the Apostle of God had bid me. When I arrived, I
found that all the people had decked themselves out for a festival: I
walked on to see them, and came at last to three enormous curtains hung
in front of three doorways. I lifted the curtain and entered the middle
door, and found people collected in the courtyard of the building. I
introduced myself to them as the messenger of the Apostle of God, and
did as he had bidden me; and they gave heed to my words, and it fell
out as he had said.” [37]
In A.H. 9 a deputation of thirteen men from the Banū Kilāb, a branch of
the Banū ʻĀmir b. Ṣaʻṣaʻah, came to the Prophet and informed him that
one of his followers, Ḍaḥḥāk b. Sufyān, had come to them, reciting the
Qurʼān and teaching the doctrines of Islam, and that his preaching had
won over their tribe to the new faith. [38] Another branch of the same
tribe, the Banū Ruʼās b. Kilāb, was converted by one of its members,
named ʻAmr b. Mālik, who had been to Medina and accepted Islam, and
then returned to his fellow tribes and persuaded them to follow his
example. [39]
In the same year a less successful attempt was made by a new convert,
Wāthilah b. al-Asqaʻ, to induce his clan to accept the faith that he
himself had embraced after an interview with the Prophet. His father
scornfully cast him off, saying, “By God! I will never speak a word to
you again,” and none were found willing to believe the doctrines he
preached with the exception of his sister, who provided him with the
means of returning to the Prophet at Medina. [40] This ninth year of
the Hijrah has been called the year of the deputations, because of the
enormous number of Arab tribes and cities that now sent delegates to
the Prophet, to give in their submission. The introduction into Arab
society of a new principle of social union in the brotherhood of Islam
had already begun to weaken the binding force of the old tribal ideal,
which erected the fabric of society on the basis of blood-relationship.
The conversion of an individual and his reception into the new society
was a breach of one of the most fundamental laws of Arab life, and its
frequent occurrence had acted as a powerful solvent on tribal
organisation and had left it weak in the face of a national life so
enthusiastic and firmly-knit as that of the Muslims had become. The
Arab tribes were thus impelled to give in their submission to the
Prophet, not merely as the head of the strongest military force in
Arabia, but as the exponent of a theory of social life that was making
all others weak and ineffective. [41] Muḥammad had succeeded in
introducing into the anarchical society of his time a sentiment of
national unity, a consciousness of rights and duties towards one
another such as the Arabs had not felt before. [42] In this way, Islam
was uniting together clans that hitherto had been continually at feud
with one another, and as this great confederacy grew, it more and more
attracted to itself the weaker among the tribes of Arabia. In the
accounts of the conversion of the Arab tribes, there is continual
mention of the promise of security against their enemies, made to them
by the Prophet on the occasion of their submission. “Woe is me for
Muḥammad!” was the cry of one of the Arab tribes on the news of the
death of the Prophet. “So long as he was alive, I lived in peace and in
safety from my enemies;” and the cry must have found an echo far and
wide throughout Arabia.
How superficial was the adherence of numbers of the Arab tribes to the
faith of Islam may be judged from the widespread apostasy that followed
immediately on the death of the Prophet. Their acceptance of Islam
would seem to have been often dictated more by considerations of
political expediency, and was more frequently a bargain struck under
pressure of violence than the outcome of any enthusiasm or spiritual
awakening. They allowed themselves to be swept into the stream of what
had now become a great national movement, and we miss the fervent zeal
of the early converts in the cool, calculating attitude of those who
came in after the fall of Mecca. But even from among these must have
come many to swell the ranks of the true believers animated with a
genuine zeal for the faith, and ready, as we have seen, to give their
lives in the effort to preach it to their brethren.
“These men were the true moral heirs of the Prophet, the future
apostles of Islam, the faithful trustees of all that Muḥammad had
revealed unto the men of God. Into these men, through their constant
contact with the Prophet and their devotion to him, there had really
entered a new mode of thought and feeling, loftier and more civilised
than any they had known before; they had really changed for the better
from every point of view, and later on as statesmen and generals, in
the most difficult moments of the war of conquest they gave magnificent
and undeniable proof that the ideas and the doctrines of Muḥammad had
been seed cast on fruitful soil, and had produced a body of men of the
very highest worth. They were the depositaries of the sacred text of
the Qurʼān, which they alone knew by heart; they were the jealous
guardians of the memory of every word and bidding of the Prophet, the
trustees of the moral heritage of Muḥammad. These men formed the
venerable stock of Islam from whom one day was to spring the noble band
of the first jurists, theologians and traditionists of Muslim society.”
[43]
But for such men as these, so vast a movement could not have held
together, much less have recovered the shock given it by the death of
the founder. For it must not be forgotten how distinctly Islam was a
new movement in heathen Arabia, and how diametrically opposed were the
ideals of the two societies. [44] For the introduction of Islam into
Arab society did not imply merely the sweeping away of a few barbarous
and inhuman practices, but a complete reversal of the pre-existing
ideals of life.
Herein we have the most conclusive proof of the essentially missionary
character of the teaching of Muḥammad, who thus comes forward as the
exponent of a new scheme of faith and practice. Whatever may have been
the conditions favourable to the formation of a new political
organisation, Muḥammad certainly did not find the society of his day
prepared to receive his religious teaching and waiting only for the
voice that would express in speech the inarticulate yearnings of their
hearts. But it is just this spirit of expectancy that is wanting among
the Arabs—those at least of the Central Arabia towards whom Muḥammad’s
efforts were at first directed. They were by no means ready to receive
the preaching of a new teacher, least of all one who came with the (to
them unintelligible) title of apostle of God.
Again, the equality in Islam of all believers and the common
brotherhood of all Muslims, which suffered no distinctions between Arab
and non-Arab, between free and slave, to exist among the faithful, was
an idea that ran directly counter to the proud clan-feeling of the
Arab, who grounded his claims to personal consideration on the fame of
his ancestors, and in the strength of the same carried on the endless
blood-feuds in which his soul delighted. Indeed, the fundamental
principles in the teaching of Muḥammad were a protest against much that
the Arabs had hitherto most highly valued, and the newly-converted
Muslim was taught to consider as virtues, qualities which hitherto he
had looked down upon with contempt.
To the heathen Arab, friendship and hostility were as a loan which he
sought to repay with interest, and he prided himself on returning evil
for evil, and looked down on any who acted otherwise as a weak
nidering.
He is the perfect man who late and early plotteth still
To do a kindness to his friends and work his foes some ill.
To such men the Prophet said, “Recompense evil with that which is
better” (xxiii. 98); as they desired the forgiveness of God, they were
to pass over and pardon offences (xxiv. 22), and a Paradise, vast as
the heavens and the earth, was prepared for those who mastered their
anger and forgave others. (iii. 128.)
The very institution of prayer was jeered at by the Arabs to whom
Muḥammad first delivered his message, and one of the hardest parts of
his task was to induce in them that pious attitude of mind towards the
Creator, which Islam inculcates equally with Judaism and Christianity,
but which was practically unknown to the heathen Arabs. This
self-sufficiency and this lack of the religious spirit, joined with
their intense pride of race, little fitted them to receive the
teachings of one who maintained that “The most worthy of honour in the
sight of God is he that feareth Him most” (xlix. 13). No more could
they brook the restrictions that Islam sought to lay upon the licence
of their lives; wine, women, and song, were among the things most dear
to the Arab’s heart in the days of the ignorance, and the Prophet was
stern and severe in his injunctions respecting each of them.
Thus, from the very beginning, Islam bears the stamp of a missionary
religion that seeks to win the hearts of men, to convert them and
persuade them to enter the brotherhood of the faithful; and as it was
in the beginning, so has it continued to be up to the present day, as
will be the object of the following pages to show.