The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by

superstition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles of the

prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an orphan, the

reformer of his country: the pious orations of Mahomet in the

Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu Taleb. “Citizens and

pilgrims, listen not to the tempter, hearken not to his impious

novelties. Stand fast in the worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah.”

Yet the son of Abdallah was ever dear to the aged chief: and he

protected the fame and person of his nephew against the assaults

of the Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the preeminence

of the family of Hashem. Their malice was colored with the

pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the crime of impiety was

punished by the Arabian magistrate; 116 and Mahomet was guilty of

deserting and denying the national deities. But so loose was the

policy of Mecca, that the leaders of the Koreish, instead of

accusing a criminal, were compelled to employ the measures of

persuasion or violence. They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in

the style of reproach and menace. “Thy nephew reviles our

religion; he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly;

silence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the

city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against him and

his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy

fellow-citizens.” The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded

the violence of religious faction; the most helpless or timid of

the disciples retired to Aethiopia, and the prophet withdrew

himself to various places of strength in the town and country. As

he was still supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of

Koreish engaged themselves to renounce all intercourse with the

children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry not

to give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity,

till they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the justice of

the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes

of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the

Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the

prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water,

and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of

injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances

of concord till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the

power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his

domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous

Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah,

succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous

votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he

convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to

decide the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke

the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and

popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces

of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword

from each tribe should be buried in his heart, to divide the

guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites.

An angel or a spy revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the

only resource of Mahomet. 117 At the dead of night, accompanied

by his friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the

assassins watched at the door; but they were deceived by the

figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the

green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of

the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant,

exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness,

and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his

companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of

a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they

received from the son and daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of

intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored

every haunt in the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the

entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider’s

web and a pigeon’s nest is supposed to convince them that the

place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only two,” said the

trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet; “it

is God himself.” No sooner was the pursuit abated than the two

fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels: on the

road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the

Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from

their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might

have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet

from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable aera of the Hegira,

118 which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates

the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. 119

116 (return) [ In the time of Job, the crime of impiety was

punished by the Arabian magistrate, (c. 21, v. 26, 27, 28.) I

blush for a respectable prelate (de Poesi Hebraeorum, p. 650,

651, edit. Michaelis; and letter of a late professor in the

university of Oxford, p. 15-53,) who justifies and applauds this

patriarchal inquisition.]

117 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a

particular history of the flight of Mahomet.]

118 (return) [ The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second

caliph, in imitation of the aera of the martyrs of the

Christians, (D’Herbelot, p. 444;) and properly commenced

sixty-eight days before the flight of Mahomet, with the first of

Moharren, or first day of that Arabian year which coincides with

Friday, July 16th, A.D. 622, (Abulfeda, Vit Moham, c. 22, 23, p.

45-50; and Greaves’s edition of Ullug Beg’s Epochae Arabum, &c.,

c. 1, p. 8, 10, &c.) * Note: Chronologists dispute between the

15th and 16th of July. St. Martin inclines to the 8th, ch. xi. p.

70.—M.]

119 (return) [ Mahomet’s life, from his mission to the Hegira,

may be found in Abulfeda (p. 14-45) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p.

134-251, 342-383.) The legend from p. 187-234 is vouched by Al

Jannabi, and disdained by Abulfeda.]

The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle, had

not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy outcasts of

Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name of Yathreb,

before it was sanctified by the throne of the prophet, was

divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites,

whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest

provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a sacerdotal

race, were their humble allies, and without converting the Arabs,

they introduced the taste of science and religion, which

distinguished Medina as the city of the Book. Some of her noblest

citizens, in a pilgrimage to the Canaba, were converted by the

preaching of Mahomet; on their return, they diffused the belief

of God and his prophet, and the new alliance was ratified by

their deputies in two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill

in the suburbs of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two

Awsites united in faith and love, protested, in the name of their

wives, their children, and their absent brethren, that they would

forever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the

Koran. The second was a political association, the first vital

spark of the empire of the Saracens. 120 Seventy-three men and

two women of Medina held a solemn conference with Mahomet, his

kinsman, and his disciples; and pledged themselves to each other

by a mutual oath of fidelity. They promised, in the name of the

city, that if he should be banished, they would receive him as a

confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the last

extremity, like their wives and children. “But if you are

recalled by your country,” they asked with a flattering anxiety,

“will you not abandon your new allies?” “All things,” replied

Mahomet with a smile, “are now common between us; your blood is

as my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each other by

the ties of honor and interest. I am your friend, and the enemy

of your foes.” “But if we are killed in your service, what,”

exclaimed the deputies of Medina, “will be our reward?”

“Paradise,” replied the prophet. “Stretch forth thy hand.” He

stretched it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance

and fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the people, who

unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced in

the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his safety, and

impatiently expected his arrival. After a perilous and rapid

journey along the sea-coast, he halted at Koba, two miles from

the city, and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days

after his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens

advanced to meet him; he was hailed with acclamations of loyalty

and devotion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella

shaded his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply

the deficiency of a standard. His bravest disciples, who had been

scattered by the storm, assembled round his person; and the

equal, though various, merit of the Moslems was distinguished by

the names of Mohagerians and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and

the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy,

Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the

rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found himself

without a peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be

the companion and brother of the noble youth. The expedient was

crowned with success; the holy fraternity was respected in peace

and war, and the two parties vied with each other in a generous

emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was

slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel: a patriot of Medina

arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their

expulsion was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most eagerly

offered to lay at the apostle’s feet the head of his father.

120 (return) [ The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by

Abulfeda (p. 30, 33, 40, 86) and Gagnier, (tom. i. p. 342, &c.,

349, &c., tom. ii. p. 223 &c.)]

From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the exercise of

the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was impious to appeal

from a judge whose decrees were inspired by the divine wisdom. A

small portion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was

acquired by gift or purchase; 121 on that chosen spot he built a

house and a mosch, more venerable in their rude simplicity than

the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of

gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he

prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the

trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself

in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber. 122 After a

reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in arms and in the

field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and their chief repeated

the assurance of protection till the death of the last member, or

the final dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that

the deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the

faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the eagerness

with which they collected his spittle, a hair that dropped on the

ground, the refuse water of his lustrations, as if they

participated in some degree of the prophetic virtue. “I have

seen,” said he, “the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar of Rome,

but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet

among his companions.” The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with

more energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of

courts.

121 (return) [ Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the

wickedness of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the

sons of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio

contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but

the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has shown that they were

deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place,

not an obscure trade, but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate

state of the ground is described by Abulfeda; and his worthy

interpreter has proved, from Al Bochari, the offer of a price;

from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and from Ahmeq Ben Joseph,

the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker On these

grounds the prophet must be honorably acquitted.]

122 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324)

describes the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the

apostle of God; and the portrait of his court is taken from

Abulfeda, (c. 44, p. 85.)]

In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force

of arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to

prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend his

hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and

retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of

subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Mahomet, in

the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been

despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The

choice of an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca

to the rank of a sovereign; and he was invested with the just

prerogative of forming alliances, and of waging offensive or

defensive war. The imperfection of human rights was supplied and

armed by the plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina

assumed, in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary

tone, which proves that his former moderation was the effect of

weakness: 123 the means of persuasion had been tried, the season

of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded to propagate

his religion by the sword, to destroy the monuments of idolatry,

and, without regarding the sanctity of days or months, to pursue

the unbelieving nations of the earth. The same bloody precepts,

so repeatedly inculcated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author

to the Pentateuch and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the

evangelic style may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not

bring peace on the earth, but a sword: his patient and humble

virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of

princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his

disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet might

appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of the

Judges, and the kings of Israel. The military laws of the Hebrews

are still more rigid than those of the Arabian legislator. 124

The Lord of hosts marched in person before the Jews: if a city

resisted their summons, the males, without distinction, were put

to the sword: the seven nations of Canaan were devoted to

destruction; and neither repentance nor conversion, could shield

them from the inevitable doom, that no creature within their

precincts should be left alive. 1241 The fair option of

friendship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies

of Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were

admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his

primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to extend

the religion which they had embraced. The clemency of the prophet

was decided by his interest: yet he seldom trampled on a

prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise, that on the payment of

a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be

indulged in their worship, or at least in their imperfect faith.

In the first months of his reign he practised the lessons of holy

warfare, and displayed his white banner before the gates of

Medina: the martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or

sieges; 125 and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten

years by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite

the professions of a merchant and a robber; and his petty

excursions for the defence or the attack of a caravan insensibly

prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia. The distribution

of the spoil was regulated by a divine law: 126 the whole was

faithfully collected in one common mass: a fifth of the gold and

silver, the prisoners and cattle, the movables and immovables,

was reserved by the prophet for pious and charitable uses; the

remainder was shared in adequate portions by the soldiers who had

obtained the victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the

slain devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of

cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to the

horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs were

allured to the standard of religion and plunder: the apostle

sanctified the license of embracing the female captives as their

wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of wealth and beauty was a

feeble type of the joys of paradise prepared for the valiant

martyrs of the faith. “The sword,” says Mahomet, “is the key of

heaven and of hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of God, a

night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting

or prayer: whosoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at

the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion,

and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be

supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim.” The intrepid souls

of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture of the

invisible world was strongly painted on their imagination; and

the death which they had always despised became an object of hope

and desire. The Koran inculcates, in the most absolute sense, the

tenets of fate and predestination, which would extinguish both

industry and virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his

speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has exalted

the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first companions of

Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless confidence: there is

no danger where there is no chance: they were ordained to perish

in their beds; or they were safe and invulnerable amidst the

darts of the enemy. 127

123 (return) [ The viiith and ixth chapters of the Koran are the

loudest and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodromus, part iv. p.

59-64) has inveighed with more justice than discretion against

the double dealing of the impostor.]

124 (return) [ The xth and xxth chapters of Deuteronomy, with the

practical comments of Joshua, David, &c., are read with more awe

than satisfaction by the pious Christians of the present age. But

the bishops, as well as the rabbis of former times, have beat the

drum-ecclesiastic with pleasure and success. (Sale’s Preliminary

Discourse, p. 142, 143.)]

1241 (return) [ The editor’s opinions on this subject may be read

in the History of the Jews vol. i. p. 137.—M]

125 (return) [ Abulfeda, in Vit. Moham. p. 156. The private

arsenal of the apostle consisted of nine swords, three lances,

seven pikes or half-pikes, a quiver and three bows, seven

cuirasses, three shields, and two helmets, (Gagnier, tom. iii. p.

328-334,) with a large white standard, a black banner, (p. 335,)

twenty horses, (p. 322, &c.) Two of his martial sayings are

recorded by tradition, (Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 88, 334.)]

126 (return) [ The whole subject de jure belli Mohammedanorum is

exhausted in a separate dissertation by the learned Reland,

(Dissertationes Miscellaneae, tom. iii. Dissertat. x. p. 3-53.)]

127 (return) [ The doctrine of absolute predestination, on which

few religions can reproach each other, is sternly exposed in the

Koran, (c. 3, p. 52, 53, c. 4, p. 70, &c., with the notes of

Sale, and c. 17, p. 413, with those of Maracci.) Reland (de

Relig. Moham. p. 61-64) and Sale (Prelim. Discourse, p. 103)

represent the opinions of the doctors, and our modern travellers

the confidence, the fading confidence, of the Turks]

Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight of

Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the vengeance

of an enemy, who could intercept their Syrian trade as it passed

and repassed through the territory of Medina. Abu Sophian

himself, with only thirty or forty followers, conducted a wealthy

caravan of a thousand camels; the fortune or dexterity of his

march escaped the vigilance of Mahomet; but the chief of the

Koreish was informed that the holy robbers were placed in ambush

to await his return. He despatched a messenger to his brethren of

Mecca, and they were roused, by the fear of losing their

merchandise and their provisions, unless they hastened to his

relief with the military force of the city. The sacred band of

Mahomet was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom

seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries; they

mounted by turns a train of seventy camels, (the camels of

Yathreb were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty of his

first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback in the

field. 128 In the fertile and famous vale of Beder, 129 three

stations from Medina, he was informed by his scouts of the

caravan that approached on one side; of the Koreish, one hundred

horse, eight hundred and fifty foot, who advanced on the other.

After a short debate, he sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the

pursuit of glory and revenge, and a slight intrenchment was

formed, to cover his troops, and a stream of fresh water, that

glided through the valley. “O God,” he exclaimed, as the numbers

of the Koreish descended from the hills, “O God, if these are

destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth?—Courage,

my children; close your ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day

is your own.” At these words he placed himself, with Abubeker, on

a throne or pulpit, 130 and instantly demanded the succor of

Gabriel and three thousand angels. His eye was fixed on the field

of battle: the Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that

decisive moment the prophet started from his throne, mounted his

horse, and cast a handful of sand into the air: “Let their faces

be covered with confusion.” Both armies heard the thunder of his

voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors: 131 the Koreish

trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were slain; and seventy

captives adorned the first victory of the faithful. The dead

bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and insulted: two of the

most obnoxious prisoners were punished with death; and the ransom

of the others, four thousand drams of silver, compensated in some

degree the escape of the caravan. But it was in vain that the

camels of Abu Sophian explored a new road through the desert and

along the Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of the

Mussulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty

thousand drams could be set apart for the fifth of the apostle.

The resentment of the public and private loss stimulated Abu

Sophian to collect a body of three thousand men, seven hundred of

whom were armed with cuirasses, and two hundred were mounted on

horseback; three thousand camels attended his march; and his wife

Henda, with fifteen matrons of Mecca, incessantly sounded their

timbrels to animate the troops, and to magnify the greatness of

Hobal, the most popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God

and Mahomet was upheld by nine hundred and fifty believers: the

disproportion of numbers was not more alarming than in the field

of Beder; and their presumption of victory prevailed against the

divine and human sense of the apostle. The second battle was

fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the north of Medina; 132 the

Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent; and the right wing of

cavalry was led by Caled, the fiercest and most successful of the

Arabian warriors. The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on

the declivity of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a

detachment of fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled

and broke the centre of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they

lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted their

station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil, disobeyed

their general, and disordered their ranks. The intrepid Caled,

wheeling his cavalry on their flank and rear, exclaimed, with a

loud voice, that Mahomet was slain. He was indeed wounded in the

face with a javelin: two of his teeth were shattered with a

stone; yet, in the midst of tumult and dismay, he reproached the

infidels with the murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly

hand that stanched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of

safety. Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people; they

fell, said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his

lifeless companion; 133 their bodies were mangled by the inhuman

females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted the entrails

of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might applaud their

superstition, and satiate their fury; but the Mussulmans soon

rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted strength or courage

to undertake the siege of Medina. It was attacked the ensuing

year by an army of ten thousand enemies; and this third

expedition is variously named from the nations, which marched

under the banner of Abu Sophian, from the ditch which was drawn

before the city, and a camp of three thousand Mussulmans. The

prudence of Mahomet declined a general engagement: the valor of

Ali was signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted

twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates. A

tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents: their

private quarrels were fomented by an insidious adversary; and the

Koreish, deserted by their allies, no longer hoped to subvert the

throne, or to check the conquests, of their invincible exile. 134

128 (return) [ Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 9) allows

him seventy or eighty horse; and on two other occasions, prior to

the battle of Ohud, he enlists a body of thirty (p. 10) and of

500 (p. 66) troopers. Yet the Mussulmans, in the field of Ohud,

had no more than two horses, according to the better sense of

Abulfeda, (in Vit. Moham. c. xxxi. p. 65.) In the Stony province,

the camels were numerous; but the horse appears to have been less

numerous than in the Happy or the Desert Arabia.]

129 (return) [ Bedder Houneene, twenty miles from Medina, and

forty from Mecca, is on the high road of the caravan of Egypt;

and the pilgrims annually commemorate the prophet’s victory by

illuminations, rockets, &c. Shaw’s Travels, p. 477.]

130 (return) [ The place to which Mahomet retired during the

action is styled by Gagnier (in Abulfeda, c. 27, p. 58. Vie de

Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 30, 33) Umbraculum, une loge de bois avec

une porte. The same Arabic word is rendered by Reiske (Annales

Moslemici Abulfedae, p. 23) by Solium, Suggestus editior; and the

difference is of the utmost moment for the honor both of the

interpreter and of the hero. I am sorry to observe the pride and

acrimony with which Reiske chastises his fellow-laborer. Saepi

sic vertit, ut integrae paginae nequeant nisi una litura corrigi

Arabice non satis callebat, et carebat judicio critico. J. J.

Reiske, Prodidagmata ad Hagji Chalisae Tabulas, p. 228, ad

calcero Abulfedae Syriae Tabulae; Lipsiae, 1766, in 4to.]

131 (return) [ The loose expressions of the Koran (c. 3, p. 124,

125, c. 8, p. 9) allow the commentators to fluctuate between the

numbers of 1000, 3000, or 9000 angels; and the smallest of these

might suffice for the slaughter of seventy of the Koreish,

(Maracci, Alcoran, tom. ii. p. 131.) Yet the same scholiasts

confess that this angelic band was not visible to any mortal eye,

(Maracci, p. 297.) They refine on the words (c. 8, 16) “not thou,

but God,” &c. (D’Herbelot. Bibliot. Orientale p. 600, 601.)]

132 (return) [ Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 47.]

133 (return) [ In the iiid chapter of the Koran, (p. 50-53) with

Sale’s notes, the prophet alleges some poor excuses for the

defeat of Ohud. * Note: Dr. Weil has added some curious

circumstances, which he gives as on good traditional authority,

on the rescue of Mahomet. The prophet was attacked by Ubeijj Ibn

Challaf, whom he struck on the neck with a mortal wound. This was

the only time, it is added, that Mahomet personally engaged in

battle. (p. 128.)—M. 1845.]

134 (return) [ For the detail of the three Koreish wars, of

Beder, of Ohud, and of the ditch, peruse Abulfeda, (p. 56-61,

64-69, 73-77,) Gagnier (tom. i. p. 23-45, 70-96, 120-139,) with

the proper articles of D’Herbelot, and the abridgments of Elmacin

(Hist. Saracen. p. 6, 7) and Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 102.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VI.

The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer discovers

the early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the Jews; and happy

would it have been for their temporal interest, had they

recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the hope of Israel and the

promised Messiah. Their obstinacy converted his friendship into

implacable hatred, with which he pursued that unfortunate people

to the last moment of his life; and in the double character of an

apostle and a conqueror, his persecution was extended to both

worlds. 135 The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of

the city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, and

summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him in

battle. “Alas!” replied the trembling Jews, “we are ignorant of

the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith and worship of our

fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the necessity of a just

defence?” The unequal conflict was terminated in fifteen days;

and it was with extreme reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the

importunity of his allies, and consented to spare the lives of

the captives. But their riches were confiscated, their arms

became more effectual in the hands of the Mussulmans; and a

wretched colony of seven hundred exiles was driven, with their

wives and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria.

The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in a

friendly interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged their

castle, three miles from Medina; but their resolute defence

obtained an honorable capitulation; and the garrison, sounding

their trumpets and beating their drums, was permitted to depart

with the honors of war. The Jews had excited and joined the war

of the Koreish: no sooner had the nations retired from the ditch,

than Mahomet, without laying aside his armor, marched on the same

day to extirpate the hostile race of the children of Koraidha.

After a resistance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at

discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old allies

of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates

the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to whose judgment

they appealed, pronounced the sentence of their death; seven

hundred Jews were dragged in chains to the market-place of the

city; they descended alive into the grave prepared for their

execution and burial; and the apostle beheld with an inflexible

eye the slaughter of his helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels

were inherited by the Mussulmans: three hundred cuirasses, five

hundred pikes, a thousand lances, composed the most useful

portion of the spoil. Six days’ journey to the north-east of

Medina, the ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of

the Jewish power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the

desert, was covered with plantations and cattle, and protected by

eight castles, some of which were esteemed of impregnable

strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of two hundred horse

and fourteen hundred foot: in the succession of eight regular and

painful sieges they were exposed to danger, and fatigue, and

hunger; and the most undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The

apostle revived their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on

whom he bestowed the surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we may

believe that a Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was cloven to

the chest by his irresistible cimeter; but we cannot praise the

modesty of romance, which represents him as tearing from its

hinges the gate of a fortress and wielding the ponderous buckler

in his left hand. 136 After the reduction of the castles, the

town of Chaibar submitted to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was

tortured, in the presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of

his hidden treasure: the industry of the shepherds and husbandmen

was rewarded with a precarious toleration: they were permitted,

so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve their

patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument and their own.

Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were transported to

Syria; and the caliph alleged the injunction of his dying master;

that one and the true religion should be professed in his native

land of Arabia. 137

135 (return) [ The wars of Mahomet against the Jewish tribes of

Kainoka, the Nadhirites, Koraidha, and Chaibar, are related by

Abulfeda (p. 61, 71, 77, 87, &c.) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p.

61-65, 107-112, 139-148, 268-294.)]

136 (return) [ Abu Rafe, the servant of Mahomet, is said to

affirm that he himself, and seven other men, afterwards tried,

without success, to move the same gate from the ground,

(Abulfeda, p. 90.) Abu Rafe was an eye-witness, but who will be

witness for Abu Rafe?]

137 (return) [ The banishment of the Jews is attested by Elmacin

(Hist. Saracen, p. 9) and the great Al Zabari, (Gagnier, tom. ii.

p. 285.) Yet Niebuhr (Description de l’Arabie, p. 324) believes

that the Jewish religion, and Karaite sect, are still professed

by the tribe of Chaibar; and that, in the plunder of the

caravans, the disciples of Moses are the confederates of those of

Mahomet.]

Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards

Mecca, 138 and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful

motives to revisit, as a conqueror, the city and the temple from

whence he had been driven as an exile. The Caaba was present to

his waking and sleeping fancy: an idle dream was translated into

vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy banner; and a rash

promise of success too hastily dropped from the lips of the

apostle. His march from Medina to Mecca displayed the peaceful

and solemn pomp of a pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and

bedecked for sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory

was respected; and the captives were dismissed without ransom to

proclaim his clemency and devotion. But no sooner did Mahomet

descend into the plain, within a day’s journey of the city, than

he exclaimed, “They have clothed themselves with the skins of

tigers:” the numbers and resolution of the Koreish opposed his

progress; and the roving Arabs of the desert might desert or

betray a leader whom they had followed for the hopes of spoil.

The intrepid fanatic sunk into a cool and cautious politician: he

waived in the treaty his title of apostle of God; concluded with

the Koreish and their allies a truce of ten years; engaged to

restore the fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his religion;

and stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege

of entering the city as a friend, and of remaining three days to

accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage. A cloud of shame and

sorrow hung on the retreat of the Mussulmans, and their

disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a prophet who

had so often appealed to the evidence of success. The faith and

hope of the pilgrims were rekindled by the prospect of Mecca:

their swords were sheathed; 1381 seven times in the footsteps of

the apostle they encompassed the Caaba: the Koreish had retired

to the hills, and Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice,

evacuated the city on the fourth day. The people was edified by

his devotion; the hostile chiefs were awed, or divided, or

seduced; and both Kaled and Amrou, the future conquerors of Syria

and Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking cause of

idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the submission of

the Arabian tribes; ten thousand soldiers were assembled for the

conquest of Mecca; and the idolaters, the weaker party, were

easily convicted of violating the truce. Enthusiasm and

discipline impelled the march, and preserved the secret till the

blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed to the astonished Koreish

the design, the approach, and the irresistible force of the

enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian presented the keys of the city,

admired the variety of arms and ensigns that passed before him in

review; observed that the son of Abdallah had acquired a mighty

kingdom, and confessed, under the cimeter of Omar, that he was

the apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla was

stained with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of Mahomet was

stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured followers were

eager to execute or to prevent the order of a massacre. Instead

of indulging their passions and his own, 139 the victorious exile

forgave the guilt, and united the factions, of Mecca. His troops,

in three divisions, marched into the city: eight-and-twenty of

the inhabitants were slain by the sword of Caled; eleven men and

six women were proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet; but he

blamed the cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the most

obnoxious victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency

or contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his

feet. “What mercy can you expect from the man whom you have

wronged?” “We confide in the generosity of our kinsman.” “And you

shall not confide in vain: begone! you are safe, you are free”

The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the profession of

Islam; and after an exile of seven years, the fugitive missionary

was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country.

140 But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were

ignominiously broken: the house of God was purified and adorned:

as an example to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the

duties of a pilgrim; and a perpetual law was enacted that no

unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of the

holy city. 141

138 (return) [ The successive steps of the reduction of Mecca are

related by Abulfeda (p. 84-87, 97-100, 102-111) and Gagnier,

(tom. ii. p. 202-245, 309-322, tom. iii. p. 1-58,) Elmacin,

(Hist. Saracen. p. 8, 9, 10,) Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 103.)]

1381 (return) [ This peaceful entrance into Mecca took place,

according to the treaty the following year. Weil, p. 202—M.

1845.]

139 (return) [ After the conquest of Mecca, the Mahomet of

Voltaire imagines and perpetuates the most horrid crimes. The

poet confesses, that he is not supported by the truth of history,

and can only allege, que celui qui fait la guerre a sa patrie au

nom de Dieu, est capable de tout, (Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv.

p. 282.) The maxim is neither charitable nor philosophic; and

some reverence is surely due to the fame of heroes and the

religion of nations. I am informed that a Turkish ambassador at

Paris was much scandalized at the representation of this

tragedy.]

140 (return) [ The Mahometan doctors still dispute, whether Mecca

was reduced by force or consent, (Abulfeda, p. 107, et Gagnier ad

locum;) and this verbal controversy is of as much moment as our

own about William the Conqueror.]

141 (return) [ In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of

Arabia, the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea,

Chardin (Voyages en Perse, tom. iv. p. 166) and Reland

(Dissertat. Miscell. tom. iii. p. 61) are more rigid than the

Mussulmans themselves. The Christians are received without

scruple into the ports of Mocha, and even of Gedda; and it is

only the city and precincts of Mecca that are inaccessible to the

profane, (Niebuhr, Description de l’Arabie, p. 308, 309, Voyage

en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248, &c.)]

The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of the

Arabian tribes; 142 who, according to the vicissitudes of

fortune, had obeyed, or disregarded, the eloquence or the arms of

the prophet. Indifference for rites and opinions still marks the

character of the Bedoweens; and they might accept, as loosely as

they hold, the doctrine of the Koran. Yet an obstinate remnant

still adhered to the religion and liberty of their ancestors, and

the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from the idols,

whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the confederates of

Tayef had sworn to defend. 143 Four thousand Pagans advanced with

secrecy and speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and

despised the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended

on the wishes, and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so lately

renounced their gods, and bowed beneath the yoke of their enemy.

The banners of Medina and Mecca were displayed by the prophet; a

crowd of Bedoweens increased the strength or numbers of the army,

and twelve thousand Mussulmans entertained a rash and sinful

presumption of their invincible strength. They descended without

precaution into the valley of Honain: the heights had been

occupied by the archers and slingers of the confederates; their

numbers were oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their

courage was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending

destruction. The prophet, on his white mule, was encompassed by

the enemies: he attempted to rush against their spears in search

of a glorious death: ten of his faithful companions interposed

their weapons and their breasts; three of these fell dead at his

feet: “O my brethren,” he repeatedly cried, with sorrow and

indignation, “I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of

truth! O man, stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy

succor!” His uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled

in the loudness of his voice, made the valley resound with the

recital of the gifts and promises of God: the flying Moslems

returned from all sides to the holy standard; and Mahomet

observed with pleasure that the furnace was again rekindled: his

conduct and example restored the battle, and he animated his

victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the authors

of their shame. From the field of Honain, he marched without

delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to the south-east of

Mecca, a fortress of strength, whose fertile lands produce the

fruits of Syria in the midst of the Arabian desert. A friendly

tribe, instructed (I know not how) in the art of sieges, supplied

him with a train of battering-rams and military engines, with a

body of five hundred artificers. But it was in vain that he

offered freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated his own

laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground was

opened by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by the

troops. After a siege of twenty-days, the prophet sounded a

retreat; but he retreated with a song of devout triumph, and

affected to pray for the repentance and safety of the unbelieving

city. The spoils of this fortunate expedition amounted to six

thousand captives, twenty-four thousand camels, forty thousand

sheep, and four thousand ounces of silver: a tribe who had fought

at Hoinan redeemed their prisoners by the sacrifice of their

idols; but Mahomet compensated the loss, by resigning to the

soldiers his fifth of the plunder, and wished, for their sake,

that he possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in

the province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection of

the Koreish, he endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his own

expression,) and to secure their attachment by a superior measure

of liberality: Abu Sophian alone was presented with three hundred

camels and twenty ounces of silver; and Mecca was sincerely

converted to the profitable religion of the Koran.

142 (return) [ Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88.

D’Herbelot, Mohammed.]

143 (return) [ The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c.,

are related by Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.

88-111.) It is Al Jannabi who mentions the engines and engineers

of the tribe of Daws. The fertile spot of Tayef was supposed to

be a piece of the land of Syria detached and dropped in the

general deluge]

The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had borne

the burden were neglected in the season of victory “Alas!”

replied their artful leader, “suffer me to conciliate these

recent enemies, these doubtful proselytes, by the gift of some

perishable goods. To your guard I intrust my life and fortunes.

You are the companions of my exile, of my kingdom, of my

paradise.” He was followed by the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded

the repetition of a siege. “Grant us, O apostle of God! a truce

of three years, with the toleration of our ancient worship.” “Not

a month, not an hour.” “Excuse us at least from the obligation of

prayer.” “Without prayer religion is of no avail.” They submitted

in silence: their temples were demolished, and the same sentence

of destruction was executed on all the idols of Arabia. His

lieutenants, on the shores of the Red Sea, the Ocean, and the

Gulf of Persia, were saluted by the acclamations of a faithful

people; and the ambassadors, who knelt before the throne of

Medina, were as numerous (says the Arabian proverb) as the dates

that fall from the maturity of a palm-tree. The nation submitted

to the God and the sceptre of Mahomet: the opprobrious name of

tribute was abolished: the spontaneous or reluctant oblations of

arms and tithes were applied to the service of religion; and one

hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the last

pilgrimage of the apostle. 144

144 (return) [ The last conquests and pilgrimage of Mahomet are

contained in Abulfeda, (p. 121, 133,) Gagnier, (tom. iii. p.

119-219,) Elmacin, (p. 10, 11,) Abulpharagius, (p. 103.) The ixth

of the Hegira was styled the Year of Embassies, (Gagnier, Not. ad

Abulfed. p. 121.)]

When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he

entertained, at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet, who

invited the princes and nations of the earth to the profession of

Islam. On this foundation the zeal of the Arabians has supposed

the secret conversion of the Christian emperor: the vanity of the

Greeks has feigned a personal visit of the prince of Medina, who

accepted from the royal bounty a rich domain, and a secure

retreat, in the province of Syria. 145 But the friendship of

Heraclius and Mahomet was of short continuance: the new religion

had inflamed rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the

Saracens, and the murder of an envoy afforded a decent pretence

for invading, with three thousand soldiers, the territory of

Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The holy

banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such was the discipline or

enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the noblest chiefs served

without reluctance under the slave of the prophet. On the event

of his decease, Jaafar and Abdallah were successively substituted

to the command; and if the three should perish in the war, the

troops were authorized to elect their general. The three leaders

were slain in the battle of Muta, 146 the first military action,

which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign enemy.

Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks: the death of

Jaafar was heroic and memorable: he lost his right hand: he

shifted the standard to his left: the left was severed from his

body: he embraced the standard with his bleeding stumps, till he

was transfixed to the ground with fifty honorable wounds. 1461

“Advance,” cried Abdallah, who stepped into the vacant place,

“advance with confidence: either victory or paradise is our own.”

The lance of a Roman decided the alternative; but the falling

standard was rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine

swords were broken in his hand; and his valor withstood and

repulsed the superior numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal

council of the camp he was chosen to command: his skilful

evolutions of the ensuing day secured either the victory or the

retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his brethren

and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the Sword of God.

In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with prophetic rapture, the

crowns of the blessed martyrs; but in private he betrayed the

feelings of human nature: he was surprised as he wept over the

daughter of Zeid: “What do I see?” said the astonished votary.

“You see,” replied the apostle, “a friend who is deploring the

loss of his most faithful friend.” After the conquest of Mecca,

the sovereign of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile

preparations of Heraclius; and solemnly proclaimed war against

the Romans, without attempting to disguise the hardships and

dangers of the enterprise. 147 The Moslems were discouraged: they

alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions; the season

of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer: “Hell is much

hotter,” said the indignant prophet. He disdained to compel their

service: but on his return he admonished the most guilty, by an

excommunication of fifty days. Their desertion enhanced the merit

of Abubeker, Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted

their lives and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the

head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful

indeed was the distress of the march: lassitude and thirst were

aggravated by the scorching and pestilential winds of the desert:

ten men rode by turns on one camel; and they were reduced to the

shameful necessity of drinking the water from the belly of that

useful animal. In the mid-way, ten days’ journey from Medina and

Damascus, they reposed near the grove and fountain of Tabuc.

Beyond that place Mahomet declined the prosecution of the war: he

declared himself satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was

more probably daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the

East. But the active and intrepid Caled spread around the terror

of his name; and the prophet received the submission of the

tribes and cities, from the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of

the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet readily granted

the security of their persons, the freedom of their trade, the

property of their goods, and the toleration of their worship. 148

The weakness of their Arabian brethren had restrained them from

opposing his ambition; the disciples of Jesus were endeared to

the enemy of the Jews; and it was the interest of a conqueror to

propose a fair capitulation to the most powerful religion of the

earth.

145 (return) [ Compare the bigoted Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom.

ii. p. 232-255) with the no less bigoted Greeks, Theophanes, (p.

276-227,) Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiv. p. 86,) and Cedrenus, (p.

421.)]

146 (return) [ For the battle of Muta, and its consequences, see

Abulfeda (p 100-102) and Gagnier, (tom. ii. p. 327-343.).]

1461 (return) [ To console the afflicted relatives of his kinsman

Jauffer, he (Mahomet) represented that, in Paradise, in exchange

for the arms which he had lost, he had been furnished with a pair

of wings, resplendent with the blushing glories of the ruby, and

with which he was become the inseparable companion of the

archangal Gabriel, in his volitations through the regions of

eternal bliss. Hence, in the catalogue of the martyrs, he has

been denominated Jauffer teyaur, the winged Jauffer. Price,

Chronological Retrospect of Mohammedan History, vol. i. p. 5.-M.]

147 (return) [ The expedition of Tabuc is recorded by our

ordinary historians Abulfeda (Vit. Moham. p. 123-127) and

Gagnier, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 147-163: ) but we have the

advantage of appealing to the original evidence of the Koran, (c.

9, p. 154, 165,) with Sale’s learned and rational notes.]

148 (return) [ The Diploma securitatis Ailensibus is attested by

Ahmed Ben Joseph, and the author Libri Splendorum, (Gagnier, Not.

ad Abulfe dam, p. 125;) but Abulfeda himself, as well as Elmacin,

(Hist. Saracen. p. 11,) though he owns Mahomet’s regard for the

Christians, (p 13,) only mentions peace and tribute. In the year

1630, Sionita published at Paris the text and version of

Mahomet’s patent in favor of the Christians; which was admitted

and reprobated by the opposite taste of Salmasius and Grotius,

(Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Aa.) Hottinger doubts of its authenticity,

(Hist. Orient. p. 237;) Renaudot urges the consent of the

Mohametans, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 169;) but Mosheim (Hist.

Eccles. p. 244) shows the futility of their opinion and inclines

to believe it spurious. Yet Abulpharagius quotes the impostor’s

treaty with the Nestorian patriarch, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient.

tom. ii. p. 418;) but Abulpharagius was primate of the

Jacobites.]

Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet was

equal to the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his mission. His

epileptic fits, an absurd calumny of the Greeks, would be an

object of pity rather than abhorrence; 149 but he seriously

believed that he was poisoned at Chaibar by the revenge of a

Jewish female. 150 During four years, the health of the prophet

declined; his infirmities increased; but his mortal disease was a

fever of fourteen days, which deprived him by intervals of the

use of reason. As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he

edified his brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence.

“If there be any man,” said the apostle from the pulpit, “whom I

have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of

retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Mussulman? let

him proclaim my thoughts in the face of the congregation. Has any

one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall

compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.” “Yes,”

replied a voice from the crowd, “I am entitled to three drams of

silver.” Mahomet heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and

thanked his creditor for accusing him in this world rather than

at the day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the

approach of death; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men, as

they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed the order of

his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his weeping

friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of peace. Till the

third day before his death, he regularly performed the function

of public prayer: the choice of Abubeker to supply his place,

appeared to mark that ancient and faithful friend as his

successor in the sacerdotal and regal office; but he prudently

declined the risk and envy of a more explicit nomination. At a

moment when his faculties were visibly impaired, he called for

pen and ink to write, or, more properly, to dictate, a divine

book, the sum and accomplishment of all his revelations: a

dispute arose in the chamber, whether he should be allowed to

supersede the authority of the Koran; and the prophet was forced

to reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples. If the

slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his wives

and companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his family, and to

the last moments of his life, the dignity 1501 of an apostle, and

the faith of an enthusiast; described the visits of Gabriel, who

bade an everlasting farewell to the earth, and expressed his

lively confidence, not only of the mercy, but of the favor, of

the Supreme Being. In a familiar discourse he had mentioned his

special prerogative, that the angel of death was not allowed to

take his soul till he had respectfully asked the permission of

the prophet. The request was granted; and Mahomet immediately

fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was reclined on

the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his wives; he fainted

with the violence of pain; recovering his spirits, he raised his

eyes towards the roof of the house, and, with a steady look,

though a faltering voice, uttered the last broken, though

articulate, words: “O God!..... pardon my sins....... Yes, ......

I come,...... among my fellow-citizens on high;” and thus

peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor. An

expedition for the conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful

event; the army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs were

assembled round their dying master. The city, more especially the

house, of the prophet, was a scene of clamorous sorrow of silent

despair: fanaticism alone could suggest a ray of hope and

consolation. “How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor,

our mediator, with God? By God he is not dead: like Moses and

Jesus, he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he

return to his faithful people.” The evidence of sense was

disregarded; and Omar, unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to

strike off the heads of the infidels, who should dare to affirm

that the prophet was no more. The tumult was appeased by the

weight and moderation of Abubeker. “Is it Mahomet,” said he to

Omar and the multitude, “or the God of Mahomet, whom you worship?

The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but the apostle was a mortal

like ourselves, and according to his own prediction, he has

experienced the common fate of mortality.” He was piously

interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the same spot on

which he expired: 151 Medina has been sanctified by the death and

burial of Mahomet; and the innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often

turn aside from the way, to bow, in voluntary devotion, 152

before the simple tomb of the prophet. 153

149 (return) [ The epilepsy, or falling-sickness, of Mahomet is

asserted by Theophanes, Zonaras, and the rest of the Greeks; and

is greedily swallowed by the gross bigotry of Hottinger, (Hist.

Orient. p. 10, 11,) Prideaux, (Life of Mahomet, p. 12,) and

Maracci, (tom. ii. Alcoran, p. 762, 763.) The titles (the

wrapped-up, the covered) of two chapters of the Koran, (73, 74)

can hardly be strained to such an interpretation: the silence,

the ignorance of the Mahometan commentators, is more conclusive

than the most peremptory denial; and the charitable side is

espoused by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, tom. i. p. 301,)

Gagnier, (ad Abulfedam, p. 9. Vie de Mahomet, tom. i. p. 118,)

and Sale, (Koran, p. 469-474.) * Note: Dr Weil believes in the

epilepsy, and adduces strong evidence for it; and surely it may

be believed, in perfect charity; and that the prophet’s visions

were connected, as they appear to have been, with these fits. I

have little doubt that he saw and believed these visions, and

visions they were. Weil, p. 43.—M. 1845.]

150 (return) [ This poison (more ignominious since it was offered

as a test of his prophetic knowledge) is frankly confessed by his

zealous votaries, Abulfeda (p. 92) and Al Jannabi, (apud Gagnier,

tom. ii. p. 286-288.)]

1501 (return) [ Major Price, who writes with the authority of one

widely conversant with the original sources of Eastern knowledge,

and in a very candid tone, takes a very different view of the

prophet’s death. “In tracing the circumstances of Mahommed’s

illness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic

firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the

last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed

such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are

in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp;

and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the

sarcastic remark, that in herself, or any of her family, a

similar demeanor would long since have incurred his severe

displeasure. * * * He said that the acuteness and violence of his

sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those honors

with which it had ever pleased the hand of Omnipotence to

distinguish its peculiar favorites.” Price, vol. i. p. 13.—M]

151 (return) [ The Greeks and Latins have invented and propagated

the vulgar and ridiculous story, that Mahomet’s iron tomb is

suspended in the air at Mecca, (Laonicus Chalcondyles, de Rebus

Turcicis, l. iii. p. 66,) by the action of equal and potent

loadstones, (Dictionnaire de Bayle, Mahomet, Rem. Ee. Ff.)

Without any philosophical inquiries, it may suffice, that, 1. The

prophet was not buried at Mecca; and, 2. That his tomb at Medina,

which has been visited by millions, is placed on the ground,

(Reland, de Relig. Moham. l. ii. c. 19, p. 209-211. Gagnier, Vie

de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 263-268.) * Note: According to the

testimony of all the Eastern authors, Mahomet died on Monday the

12th Reby 1st, in the year 11 of the Hegira, which answers in

reality to the 8th June, 632, of J. C. We find in Ockley (Hist.

of Saracens) that it was on Monday the 6th June, 632. This is a

mistake; for the 6th June of that year was a Saturday, not a

Monday; the 8th June, therefore, was a Monday. It is easy to

discover that the lunar year, in this calculation has been

confounded with the solar. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 186.—M.]

152 (return) [ Al Jannabi enumerates (Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.

p. 372-391) the multifarious duties of a pilgrim who visits the

tombs of the prophet and his companions; and the learned casuist

decides, that this act of devotion is nearest in obligation and

merit to a divine precept. The doctors are divided which, of

Mecca or Medina, be the most excellent, (p. 391-394.)]

153 (return) [ The last sickness, death, and burial of Mahomet,

are described by Abulfeda and Gagnier, (Vit. Moham. p. 133-142.

—Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii. p. 220-271.) The most private and

interesting circumstances were originally received from Ayesha,

Ali, the sons of Abbas, &c.; and as they dwelt at Medina, and

survived the prophet many years, they might repeat the pious tale

to a second or third generation of pilgrims.]

At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be

expected, that I should balance his faults and virtues, that I

should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor more

properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been intimately

conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task would still be

difficult, and the success uncertain: at the distance of twelve

centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade through a cloud of

religious incense; and could I truly delineate the portrait of an

hour, the fleeting resemblance would not equally apply to the

solitary of Mount Hera, to the preacher of Mecca, and to the

conqueror of Arabia. The author of a mighty revolution appears to

have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so

soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he

avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of

forty he lived with innocence, and would have died without a

name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial to nature and

reason; and a slight conversation with the Jews and Christians

would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It

was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of

salvation, to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and

error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object,

would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the

warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt

as the inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would expire

in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible

monitor, would be described with the form and attributes of an

angel of God. 154 From enthusiasm to imposture, the step is

perilous and slippery: the daemon of Socrates 155 affords a

memorable instance, how a wise man may deceive himself, how a

good man may deceive others, how the conscience may slumber in a

mixed and middle state between self-illusion and voluntary fraud.

Charity may believe that the original motives of Mahomet were

those of pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is

incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject his

claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might

forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the

enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were

kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like the prophet

of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had

condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the choice of Medina,

transformed the citizen into a prince, the humble preacher into

the leader of armies; but his sword was consecrated by the

example of the saints; and the same God who afflicts a sinful

world with pestilence and earthquakes, might inspire for their

conversion or chastisement the valor of his servants. In the

exercise of political government, he was compelled to abate of

the stern rigor of fanaticism, to comply in some measure with the

prejudices and passions of his followers, and to employ even the

vices of mankind as the instruments of their salvation. The use

of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often

subservient to the propagation of the faith; and Mahomet

commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and idolaters

who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of

such acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually

stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits would be

poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and social

virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a

prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years,

ambition was the ruling passion; and a politician will suspect,

that he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor!) at the

enthusiasm of his youth, and the credulity of his proselytes. 156

A philosopher will observe, that their credulity and his success

would tend more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine

mission, that his interest and religion were inseparably

connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the

persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the

obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any vestige

of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be allowed as an

evidence of his sincerity. In the support of truth, the arts of

fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal; and he would have

started at the foulness of the means, had he not been satisfied

of the importance and justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or

a priest, I can surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity;

and the decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the

mothers should never be separated from their children, may

suspend, or moderate, the censure of the historian. 157

154 (return) [ The Christians, rashly enough, have assigned to

Mahomet a tame pigeon, that seemed to descend from heaven and

whisper in his ear. As this pretended miracle is urged by

Grotius, (de Veritate Religionis Christianae,) his Arabic

translator, the learned Pocock, inquired of him the names of his

authors; and Grotius confessed, that it is unknown to the

Mahometans themselves. Lest it should provoke their indignation

and laughter, the pious lie is suppressed in the Arabic version;

but it has maintained an edifying place in the numerous editions

of the Latin text, (Pocock, Specimen, Hist. Arabum, p. 186, 187.

Reland, de Religion. Moham. l. ii. c. 39, p. 259-262.)]

155 (return) [ (Plato, in Apolog. Socrat. c. 19, p. 121, 122,

edit. Fischer.) The familiar examples, which Socrates urges in

his Dialogue with Theages, (Platon. Opera, tom. i. p. 128, 129,

edit. Hen. Stephan.) are beyond the reach of human foresight; and

the divine inspiration of the philosopher is clearly taught in

the Memorabilia of Xenophon. The ideas of the most rational

Platonists are expressed by Cicero, (de Divinat. i. 54,) and in

the xivth and xvth Dissertations of Maximus of Tyre, (p. 153-172,

edit. Davis.)]

156 (return) [ In some passage of his voluminous writings,

Voltaire compares the prophet, in his old age, to a fakir, “qui

detache la chaine de son cou pour en donner sur les oreilles a

ses confreres.”]

157 (return) [ Gagnier relates, with the same impartial pen, this

humane law of the prophet, and the murders of Caab, and Sophian,

which he prompted and approved, (Vie de Mahomet, tom. ii. p. 69,

97, 208.)]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII.

The good sense of Mahomet 158 despised the pomp of royalty: the

apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he

kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended

with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining

the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or

vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn

occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable

plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse without

a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The

interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was

appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread: he delighted

in the taste of milk and honey; but his ordinary food consisted

of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual

enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not

forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was

increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate

inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion

has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. 159 Their

incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the

Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless

license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or

concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably

determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was

condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex,

was punished with a hundred stripes. 160 Such were the calm and

rational precepts of the legislator: but in his private conduct,

Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of

a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which

he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without reserve,

was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative

excited the envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather

than the envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven

hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon,

we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more

than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who

occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of

the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal

society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting

only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a

virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the

premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years

of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha, gave her a

superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted by the prophet;

and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long revered

as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous

and indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left

behind; and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a

man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but a divine

revelation assured him of her innocence: he chastised her

accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman

should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in

the act of adultery. 161 In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife

of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet

forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his

freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the

beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion

and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the

hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his

benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and

scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the

deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle

for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives,

Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed, in the

embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and

forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of

Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again

descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his

oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and

concubines, without listening to the clamors of his wives. In a

solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to

fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were

satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives,

reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened

them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the

next; a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed

of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second

marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by

the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; 162 he

united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam: and

the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor 163 of the Grecian

Hercules. 164 A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from

his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their

marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of

polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was

never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he

placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister

of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of

his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Ayesha, with the insolence

of a blooming beauty; “has not God given you a better in her

place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest

gratitude, “there never can be a better! She believed in me when

men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and

persecuted by the world.” 165

158 (return) [ For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier,

and the corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom.

iii. p. 285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p.

290-303;) his marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his

amour with Mary, (p. 303-309;) the false accusation of Ayesha,

(p. 186-199.) The most original evidence of the three last

transactions is contained in the xxivth, xxxiiid, and lxvith

chapters of the Koran, with Sale’s Commentary. Prideaux (Life of

Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci (Prodrom. Alcoran, part iv. p.

49-59) have maliciously exaggerated the frailties of Mahomet.]

159 (return) [ Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem

uterque solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]

160 (return) [ Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has

recapitulated the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious

reader of Selden’s Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish

ordinances.]

161 (return) [ In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that

all presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four

witnesses must have actually seen stylum in pyxide, (Abulfedae

Annales Moslemici, p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]

162 (return) [ Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri

habent, inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim

foeminis satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus

Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See

likewise Observations de Belon, l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto.)

Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287) records his own testimony,

that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor; and Abulfeda

mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the body after his

death, “O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum versus erectus est,”

in Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]

163 (return) [ I borrow the style of a father of the church,

(Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]

164 (return) [ The common and most glorious legend includes, in a

single night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin

daughters of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274.

Pausanias, l. ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.)

But Athenaeus allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p.

556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of

Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of age,

(Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)]

165 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum

Notis Gagnier]

In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion

and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous

posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were

fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of

mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent

embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their infancy. Mary,

his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of

Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his

grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his

enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems,

by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by

the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him four

daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his

disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima,

who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her

cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit

and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to

anticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a

title which describes the commanders of the faithful as the

vicars and successors of the apostle of God. 166

166 (return) [ This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from

the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (under the names of

Aboubecre, Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of Abulfeda,

Abulpharagius, and Elmacin, (under the proper years of the

Hegira,) and especially from Ockley’s History of the Saracens,

(vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249, 363-372, 378-391, and almost

the whole of the second volume.) Yet we should weigh with caution

the traditions of the hostile sects; a stream which becomes still

more muddy as it flows farther from the source. Sir John Chardin

has too faithfully copied the fables and errors of the modern

Persians, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]

The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him

above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the

vacant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own

right, the chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary

prince or guardian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of

prophecy was extinct; but the husband of Fatima might expect the

inheritance and blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes

been patient of a female reign; and the two grandsons of the

prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his

pulpit as the hope of his age, and the chief of the youth of

paradise. The first of the true believers might aspire to march

before them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a

graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never

outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications

of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a

collection of moral and religious sayings; 167 and every

antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was

subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour of his

mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never

forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his

brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second

Moses. The son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for

neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his

right, which would have silenced all competition, and sealed his

succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting hero

confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and perhaps the fear

of opposition, might suspend the resolutions of Mahomet; and the

bed of sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the daughter

of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali. 1671

167 (return) [ Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given

an English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with some

hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is colored

by the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences delineate

a characteristic, though dark, picture of human life.]

1671 (return) [ Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite

account of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the

time when he composed his History. Major Price, writing from

Persian authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing

throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite Version. The

glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He was

destined, and, according to some accounts, designated, for the

caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were fiercely

pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of

Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on

each separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble

example of obedience to the appointed caliph. He is described, in

retirement, on the throne, and in the field of battle, as

transcendently pious, magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost

his empire through his excess of virtue and love for the faithful

his life through his confidence in God, and submission to the

decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy in

Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add, that Major

Price has contented himself with quoting the names of the Persian

works which he follows, without any account of their character,

age, and authority.—M.]

The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the

people; and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on

the choice of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty

spirit of Ali were offensive to an aristocracy of elders,

desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a free and

frequent election: the Koreish could never be reconciled to the

proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the ancient discord of

the tribes was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the

auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits; and the

rash proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have

crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens.

The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar,

who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his

hand, and declared himself the first subject of the mild and

venerable Abubeker. 1672 The urgency of the moment, and the

acquiescence of the people, might excuse this illegal and

precipitate measure; but Omar himself confessed from the pulpit,

that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume to anticipate the

suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would

be worthy of death. 168 After the simple inauguration of

Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of

Arabia: the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and

their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a

sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats

of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the

daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and the decline of

his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he condescended

to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse of

the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely

rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the

Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was

summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit

approbation of his companions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the

firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. “I have no occasion,” said the

modest candidate, “for the place.” “But the place has occasion

for you,” replied Abubeker; who expired with a fervent prayer,

that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the

Mussulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer was

not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and

prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his

rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most

flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of

his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an

assassin: he rejected with equal impartiality the names of his

son and of Ali, refused to load his conscience with the sins of

his successor, and devolved on six of the most respectable

companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the

faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends

169 for submitting his right to the judgment of men, for

recognizing their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six

electors. He might have obtained their suffrage, had he deigned

to promise a strict and servile conformity, not only to the Koran

and tradition, but likewise to the determinations of two seniors.

170 With these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet,

accepted the government; nor was it till after the third caliph,

twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was

invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal

office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive

simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity

of this world. At the hour of prayer, he repaired to the mosch of

Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his

head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead

of a walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the chiefs

of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their

right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.

1672 (return) [ Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St.

Martin, vol. XL, p. 88—M.]

168 (return) [ Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,)

from an Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the

substitution of her father in the place of the apostle. This

fact, so improbable in itself, is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al

Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom quotes the tradition of

Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.

p. 236.)]

169 (return) [ Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah,

the son of Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand

doctor of the Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important

occasions in which Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p. 76,

vers. Reiske;) and concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps fidelium,

absque controversia tu quidem vere fortis es, at inops boni

consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum callens.]

170 (return) [ I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p.

115. Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual

counsellors, but his two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]

The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually

confined to the times and countries in which they have been

agitated. But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of

Ali has been renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still

maintained in the immortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. 171

The former, who are branded with the appellation of Shiites or

sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new article

of faith; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the

vicar, of God. In their private converse, in their public

worship, they bitterly execrate the three usurpers who

intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and

Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the

perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. 172 The

Sonnites, who are supported by the general consent and orthodox

tradition of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at

least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of

Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate

successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and most

humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the

order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity.

173 An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand

unshaken by superstition, will calmly pronounce that their

manners were alike pure and exemplary; that their zeal was

fervent, and probably sincere; and that, in the midst of riches

and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral and

religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar,

the prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained

the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and

declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the weight

of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived; he

trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of the faithful

became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish

bounty was productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The

spirit of discord went forth in the provinces: their deputies

assembled at Medina; and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics

who disclaimed the yoke of subordination and reason, were

confounded among the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of

their wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa,

from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert, they

rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and despatched

a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to execute

justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to

disarm and disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled

by the arts of his enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious

secretary was contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate

his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his predecessors,

the esteem and confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of six

weeks his water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble

gates of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the

more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his

simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the

approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of

the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was pierced

with a multitude of wounds. 1731 A tumultuous anarchy of five

days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would

have provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he

supported the becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites;

declared that he had rather serve than reign; rebuked the

presumption of the strangers; and required the formal, if not the

voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He has never been

accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia

indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The

quarrel between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early

mediation of Ali; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was

insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is

doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere

in his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he

enjoyed the benefit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of

such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate

virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired to the barren

sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in the East

and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt

were the patrimony of the commander of the faithful.

171 (return) [ The schism of the Persians is explained by all our

travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth

volumes of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior

merit, has the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764,

(Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the

ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the

nation, (see his Persian History translated into French by Sir

William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]

172 (return) [ Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a

saint. When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,

“May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!” (Voyages de Chardin,

tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]

173 (return) [ This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a

creed illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and

a Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,

tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was

abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades themselves,

(D’Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among the Turks who

presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de Chardin, tom.

iv. p. 46.)]

1731 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 180.—M.]

Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VIII.

A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the martial

activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long experience of

mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the rashness and

indiscretion of youth. 1732 In the first days of his reign, he

neglected to secure, either by gifts or fetters, the doubtful

allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of the most powerful of the

Arabian chiefs. They escaped from Medina to Mecca, and from

thence to Bassora; erected the standard of revolt; and usurped

the government of Irak, or Assyria, which they had vainly

solicited as the reward of their services. The mask of patriotism

is allowed to cover the most glaring inconsistencies; and the

enemies, perhaps the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance

for his blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha,

the widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her

life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the posterity

of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were scandalized, that the

mother of the faithful should expose in a camp her person and

character; 1733 but the superstitious crowd was confident that

her presence would sanctify the justice, and assure the success,

of their cause. At the head of twenty thousand of his loyal

Arabs, and nine thousand valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph

encountered and defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under

the walls of Bassora. 1734 Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, 1735

were slain in the first battle that stained with civil blood the

arms of the Moslems. 1736 After passing through the ranks to

animate the troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers

of the field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held

the bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded; and

the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with javelins and

darts like the quills of a porcupine. The venerable captive

sustained with firmness the reproaches of the conqueror, and was

speedily dismissed to her proper station at the tomb of Mahomet,

with the respect and tenderness that was still due to the widow

of the apostle. 1737 After this victory, which was styled the Day

of the Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;

against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed the

title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the forces of

Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah. From the passage

of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin 174 extends along the western

bank of the Euphrates. On this spacious and level theatre, the

two competitors waged a desultory war of one hundred and ten

days. In the course of ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of

Ali was estimated at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five,

thousand soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with

the names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder

under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest the

lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor and

humanity. 1741 His troops were strictly enjoined to await the

first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying brethren, and to

respect the bodies of the dead, and the chastity of the female

captives. He generously proposed to save the blood of the Moslems

by a single combat; but his trembling rival declined the

challenge as a sentence of inevitable death. The ranks of the

Syrians were broken by the charge of a hero who was mounted on a

piebald horse, and wielded with irresistible force his ponderous

and two-edged sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the

Allah Acbar, “God is victorious!” and in the tumult of a

nocturnal battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that

tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already meditated

his flight; but the certain victory was snatched from the grasp

of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of his troops. Their

conscience was awed by the solemn appeal to the books of the

Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the foremost lances; and Ali was

compelled to yield to a disgraceful truce and an insidious

compromise. He retreated with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his

party was discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen,

and of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival; and

the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three

chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of Mahomet. In

the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed

of the disorders of the church and state: they soon agreed, that

the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the

viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion.

Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger,

devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action.

Their resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the

person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat;

the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; the

lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a mortal wound from

the hand of the third. He expired in the sixty-third year of his

age, and mercifully recommended to his children, that they would

despatch the murderer by a single stroke. 1742 The sepulchre of

Ali 175 was concealed from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah;

176 but in the fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a

city, arose near the ruins of Cufa. 177 Many thousands of the

Shiites repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God;

and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of

the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than

the pilgrimage of Mecca.

1732 (return) [ Ali had determined to supersede all the

lieutenants in the different provinces. Price, p. 191. Compare,

on the conduct of Telha and Zobeir, p. 193—M.]

1733 (return) [ See the very curious circumstances which took

place before and during her flight. Price, p. 196.—M.]

1734 (return) [ The reluctance of Ali to shed the blood of true

believers is strikingly described by Major Price’s Persian

historians. Price, p. 222.—M.]

1735 (return) [ See (in Price) the singular adventures of Zobeir.

He was murdered after having abandoned the army of the

insurgents. Telha was about to do the same, when his leg was

pierced with an arrow by one of his own party The wound was

mortal. Price, p. 222.—M.]

1736 (return) [ According to Price, two hundred and eighty of the

Benni Beianziel alone lost a right hand in this service, (p.

225.)—M]

1737 (return) [ She was escorted by a guard of females disguised

as soldiers. When she discovered this, Ayesha was as much

gratified by the delicacy of the arrangement, as she had been

offended by the familiar approach of so many men. Price, p.

229.—M.]

174 (return) [ The plain of Siffin is determined by D’Anville

(l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p. 29) to be the Campus Barbaricus of

Procopius.]

1741 (return) [ The Shiite authors have preserved a noble

instance of Ali’s magnanimity. The superior generalship of

Moawiyah had cut off the army of Ali from the Euphrates; his

soldiers were perishing from want of water. Ali sent a message to

his rival to request free access to the river, declaring that

under the same circumstances he would not allow any of the

faithful, though his adversaries, to perish from thirst. After

some debate, Moawiyah determined to avail himself of the

advantage of his situation, and to reject the demand of Ali. The

soldiers of Ali became desperate; forced their way through that

part of the hostile army which commanded the river, and in their

turn entirely cut off the troops of Moawiyah from the water.

Moawiyah was reduced to make the same supplication to Ali. The

generous caliph instantly complied; and both armies, with their

cattle enjoyed free and unmolested access to the river. Price,

vol. i. p. 268, 272—M.]

1742 (return) [ His son Hassan was recognized as caliph in Arabia

and Irak; but voluntarily abdicated the throne, after six or

seven months, in favor of Moawiyah St. Martin, vol. xi. p

375.—M.]

175 (return) [ Abulfeda, a moderate Sonnite, relates the

different opinions concerning the burial of Ali, but adopts the

sepulchre of Cufa, hodie fama numeroque religiose frequentantium

celebratum. This number is reckoned by Niebuhr to amount annually

to 2000 of the dead, and 5000 of the living, (tom. ii. p. 208,

209.)]

176 (return) [ All the tyrants of Persia, from Adhad el Dowlat

(A.D. 977, D’Herbelot, p. 58, 59, 95) to Nadir Shah, (A.D. 1743,

Hist. de Nadir Shah, tom. ii. p. 155,) have enriched the tomb of

Ali with the spoils of the people. The dome is copper, with a

bright and massy gilding, which glitters to the sun at the

distance of many a mile.]

177 (return) [ The city of Meshed Ali, five or six miles from the

ruins of Cufa, and one hundred and twenty to the south of Bagdad,

is of the size and form of the modern Jerusalem. Meshed Hosein,

larger and more populous, is at the distance of thirty miles.]

The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his

children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme heads

of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu Sophian had

been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was tardy and

reluctant; his new faith was fortified by necessity and interest;

he served, he fought, perhaps he believed; and the sins of the

time of ignorance were expiated by the recent merits of the

family of Ommiyah. Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the

cruel Henda, was dignified, in his early youth, with the office

or title of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar

intrusted him with the government of Syria; and he administered

that important province above forty years, either in a

subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of valor

and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity and

moderation: a grateful people was attached to their benefactor;

and the victorious Moslems were enriched with the spoils of

Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of pursuing the assassins of

Othman was the engine and pretence of his ambition. The bloody

shirt of the martyr was exposed in the mosch of Damascus: the

emir deplored the fate of his injured kinsman; and sixty thousand

Syrians were engaged in his service by an oath of fidelity and

revenge. Amrou, the conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the

first who saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous

secret, that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than

in the city of the prophet. 178 The policy of Moawiyah eluded the

valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he negotiated

the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was either above or

below the government of the world, and who retired without a sigh

from the palace of Cufa to an humble cell near the tomb of his

grandfather. The aspiring wishes of the caliph were finally

crowned by the important change of an elective to an hereditary

kingdom. Some murmurs of freedom or fanaticism attested the

reluctance of the Arabs, and four citizens of Medina refused the

oath of fidelity; but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with

vigor and address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute

youth, was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the

successor of the apostle of God.

178 (return) [ I borrow, on this occasion, the strong sense and

expression of Tacitus, (Hist. i. 4: ) Evulgato imperii arcano

posse imperatorem alni quam Romae fieri.]

A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the sons

of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently dropped a

dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless wretch fell

prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and repeated a verse of

the Koran: “Paradise is for those who command their anger: “—“I

am not angry: “—“and for those who pardon offences: “—“I pardon

your offence: “—“and for those who return good for evil: “—”I

give you your liberty and four hundred pieces of silver.” With an

equal measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan,

inherited a remnant of his father’s spirit, and served with honor

against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople. The

primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy character of

grandson of the apostle, had centred in his person, and he was at

liberty to prosecute his claim against Yezid, the tyrant of

Damascus, whose vices he despised, and whose title he had never

deigned to acknowledge. A list was secretly transmitted from Cufa

to Medina, of one hundred and forty thousand Moslems, who

professed their attachment to his cause, and who were eager to

draw their swords so soon as he should appear on the banks of the

Euphrates. Against the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved

to trust his person and family in the hands of a perfidious

people. He traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue

of women and children; but as he approached the confines of Irak

he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country,

and suspected either the defection or ruin of his party. His

fears were just: Obeidollah, the governor of Cufa, had

extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hosein, in

the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of five thousand

horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the

river. He might still have escaped to a fortress in the desert,

that had defied the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in

the fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten

thousand warriors in his defence.

In a conference with the chief of the enemy, he proposed the

option of three honorable conditions: that he should be allowed

to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison

against the Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid.

But the commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and

absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit as a

captive and a criminal to the commander of the faithful, or

expect the consequences of his rebellion. “Do you think,” replied

he, “to terrify me with death?” And, during the short respite of

a night, 1781 he prepared with calm and solemn resignation to

encounter his fate. He checked the lamentations of his sister

Fatima, who deplored the impending ruin of his house. “Our

trust,” said Hosein, “is in God alone. All things, both in heaven

and earth, must perish and return to their Creator. My brother,

my father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman

has an example in the prophet.” He pressed his friends to consult

their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously refused to

desert or survive their beloved master: and their courage was

fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance of paradise. On

the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on horseback, with his

sword in one hand and the Koran in the other: his generous band

of martyrs consisted only of thirty-two horse and forty foot; but

their flanks and rear were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a

deep trench which they had filled with lighted fagots, according

to the practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance,

and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to claim

the partnership of inevitable death. In every close onset, or

single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was invincible; but

the surrounding multitudes galled them from a distance with a

cloud of arrows, and the horses and men were successively slain;

a truce was allowed on both sides for the hour of prayer; and the

battle at length expired by the death of the last companions of

Hosein. Alone, weary, and wounded, he seated himself at the door

of his tent. As he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the

mouth with a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths,

were killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they were

full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the living and

the dead. In a transport of despair his sister issued from the

tent, and adjured the general of the Cufians, that he would not

suffer Hosein to be murdered before his eyes: a tear trickled

down his venerable beard; and the boldest of his soldiers fell

back on every side as the dying hero threw himself among them.

The remorseless Shamer, a name detested by the faithful,

reproached their cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain

with three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they

had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the castle of

Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the mouth with a

cane: “Alas,” exclaimed an aged Mussulman, “on these lips have I

seen the lips of the apostle of God!” In a distant age and

climate, the tragic scene of the death of Hosein will awaken the

sympathy of the coldest reader. 179 1791 On the annual festival

of his martyrdom, in the devout pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his

Persian votaries abandon their souls to the religious frenzy of

sorrow and indignation. 180

1781 (return) [ According to Major Price’s authorities a much

longer time elapsed (p. 198 &c.)—M.]

179 (return) [ I have abridged the interesting narrative of

Ockley, (tom. ii. p. 170-231.) It is long and minute: but the

pathetic, almost always, consists in the detail of little

circumstances.]

1791 (return) [ The account of Hosein’s death, in the Persian

Tarikh Tebry, is much longer; in some circumstances, more

pathetic, than that of Ockley, followed by Gibbon. His family,

after his defenders were all slain, perished in succession before

his eyes. They had been cut off from the water, and suffered all

the agonies of thirst. His eldest son, Ally Akbar, after ten

different assaults on the enemy, in each of which he slew two or

three, complained bitterly of his sufferings from heat and

thirst. “His father arose, and introducing his own tongue within

the parched lips of his favorite child, thus endeavored to

alleviate his sufferings by the only means of which his enemies

had not yet been able to deprive him.” Ally was slain and cut to

pieces in his sight: this wrung from him his first and only cry;

then it was that his sister Zeyneb rushed from the tent. The

rest, including his nephew, fell in succession. Hosein’s horse

was wounded—he fell to the ground. The hour of prayer, between

noon and sunset, had arrived; the Imaun began the religious

duties:—as Hosein prayed, he heard the cries of his infant child

Abdallah, only twelve months old. The child was, at his desire,

placed on his bosom: as he wept over it, it was transfixed by an

arrow. Hosein dragged himself to the Euphrates: as he slaked his

burning thirst, his mouth was pierced by an arrow: he drank his

own blood. Wounded in four-and-thirty places, he still gallantly

resisted. A soldier named Zeraiah gave the fatal wound: his head

was cut off by Ziliousheng. Price, p. 402, 410.—M.]

180 (return) [ Niebuhr the Dane (Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii.

p. 208, &c.) is, perhaps, the only European traveller who has

dared to visit Meshed Ali and Meshed Hosein. The two sepulchres

are in the hands of the Turks, who tolerate and tax the devotion

of the Persian heretics. The festival of the death of Hosein is

amply described by Sir John Chardin, a traveller whom I have

often praised.]

When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains to

the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to extirpate the

enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he had injured beyond

the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid preferred the councils of

mercy; and the mourning family was honorably dismissed to mingle

their tears with their kindred at Medina. The glory of martyrdom

superseded the right of primogeniture; and the twelve imams, 181

or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and

the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without

arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the

veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of the

reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on the banks

of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan, are still

visited by the devotion of their sect. Their names were often the

pretence of sedition and civil war; but these royal saints

despised the pomp of the world: submitted to the will of God and

the injustice of man; and devoted their innocent lives to the

study and practice of religion. The twelfth and last of the

Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide,

surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He

concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of

his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still

lives, and will appear before the day of judgment to overthrow

the tyranny of Dejal, or the Antichrist. 182 In the lapse of two

or three centuries, the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet,

had multiplied to the number of thirty-three thousand: 183 the

race of Ali might be equally prolific: the meanest individual was

above the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent

were supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their

adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire,

allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who

claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the

Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and

Syria; 184 of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia;

185 has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title. Under

their reigns it might be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of

their birth; and one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an

indiscreet question by drawing his cimeter: “This,” said Moez,

“is my pedigree; and these,” casting a handful of gold to his

soldiers,—“and these are my kindred and my children.” In the

various conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or

merchants, or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious

descendants of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of

sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they are

distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from the

treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however debased by

fortune or character, still assert the proud preeminence of their

birth. A family of three hundred persons, the pure and orthodox

branch of the caliph Hassan, is preserved without taint or

suspicion in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and still

retains, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, the custody

of the temple, and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame

and merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the

ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty of the

kings of the earth. 186

181 (return) [ The general article of Imam, in D’Herbelot’s

Bibliotheque, will indicate the succession; and the lives of the

twelve are given under their respective names.]

182 (return) [ The name of Antichrist may seem ridiculous, but

the Mahometans have liberally borrowed the fables of every

religion, (Sale’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 80, 82.) In the royal

stable of Ispahan, two horses were always kept saddled, one for

the Mahadi himself, the other for his lieutenant, Jesus the son

of Mary.]

183 (return) [ In the year of the Hegira 200, (A.D. 815.) See

D’Herbelot, p. 146]

184 (return) [ D’Herbelot, p. 342. The enemies of the Fatimites

disgraced them by a Jewish origin. Yet they accurately deduced

their genealogy from Jaafar, the sixth Imam; and the impartial

Abulfeda allows (Annal. Moslem. p. 230) that they were owned by

many, qui absque controversia genuini sunt Alidarum, homines

propaginum suae gentis exacte callentes. He quotes some lines

from the celebrated Scherif or Rahdi, Egone humilitatem induam in

terris hostium? (I suspect him to be an Edrissite of Sicily,) cum

in Aegypto sit Chalifa de gente Alii, quocum ego communem habeo

patrem et vindicem.]

185 (return) [ The kings of Persia in the last century are

descended from Sheik Sefi, a saint of the xivth century, and

through him, from Moussa Cassem, the son of Hosein, the son of

Ali, (Olearius, p. 957. Chardin, tom. iii. p. 288.) But I cannot

trace the intermediate degrees in any genuine or fabulous

pedigree. If they were truly Fatimites, they might draw their

origin from the princes of Mazanderan, who reigned in the ixth

century, (D’Herbelot, p. 96.)]

186 (return) [ The present state of the family of Mahomet and Ali

is most accurately described by Demetrius Cantemir (Hist. of the

Othmae Empire, p. 94) and Niebuhr, (Description de l’Arabie, p.

9-16, 317 &c.) It is much to be lamented, that the Danish

traveller was unable to purchase the chronicles of Arabia.]

The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his

success has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration. Are

we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should embrace the

doctrine and the passions of an eloquent fanatic? In the heresies

of the church, the same seduction has been tried and repeated

from the time of the apostles to that of the reformers. Does it

seem incredible that a private citizen should grasp the sword and

the sceptre, subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by

his victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of

the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a baser

origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and filled a larger

scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was alike instructed to

preach and to fight; and the union of these opposite qualities,

while it enhanced his merit, contributed to his success: the

operation of force and persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear,

continually acted on each other, till every barrier yielded to

their irresistible power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom

and victory, to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their

darling passions in this world and the other: the restraints

which he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the

prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and the

only objection to his success was his rational creed of the unity

and perfections of God. It is not the propagation, but the

permanency, of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same

pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and

Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries,

by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the

Koran. If the Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could

return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of

the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that

magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience

less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse

the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox

commentators on their own writings and the words of their Master.

But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendor

and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by

the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the

temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to

a level with the senses and imagination of man. “I believe in one

God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,” is the simple and

invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the

Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of

the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue;

and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his

disciples within the bounds of reason and religion. The votaries

of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the memory of their hero, his

wife, and his children; and some of the Persian doctors pretend

that the divine essence was incarnate in the person of the Imams;

but their superstition is universally condemned by the Sonnites;

and their impiety has afforded a seasonable warning against the

worship of saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the

attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been agitated in

the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in those of the

Christians; but among the former they have never engaged the

passions of the people, or disturbed the tranquillity of the

state. The cause of this important difference may be found in the

separation or union of the regal and sacerdotal characters. It

was the interest of the caliphs, the successors of the prophet

and commanders of the faithful, to repress and discourage all

religious innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal

and spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the Moslems;

and the sages of the law are the guides of their conscience and

the oracles of their faith. From the Atlantic to the Ganges, the

Koran is acknowledged as the fundamental code, not only of

theology, but of civil and criminal jurisprudence; and the laws

which regulate the actions and the property of mankind are

guarded by the infallible and immutable sanction of the will of

God. This religious servitude is attended with some practical

disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often misled by

his own prejudices and those of his country; and the institutions

of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to the wealth and

numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On these occasions, the

Cadhi respectfully places on his head the holy volume, and

substitutes a dexterous interpretation more apposite to the

principles of equity, and the manners and policy of the times.

His beneficial or pernicious influence on the public happiness is

the last consideration in the character of Mahomet. The most

bitter or most bigoted of his Christian or Jewish foes will

surely allow that he assumed a false commission to inculcate a

salutary doctrine, less perfect only than their own. He piously

supposed, as the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of

their prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their

founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne of

God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer, and

fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of devotion; and

his rewards and punishments of a future life were painted by the

images most congenial to an ignorant and carnal generation.

Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of dictating a moral and

political system for the use of his countrymen: but he breathed

among the faithful a spirit of charity and friendship;

recommended the practice of the social virtues; and checked, by

his laws and precepts, the thirst of revenge, and the oppression

of widows and orphans. The hostile tribes were united in faith

and obedience, and the valor which had been idly spent in

domestic quarrels was vigorously directed against a foreign

enemy. Had the impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home

and formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession

of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the extent

and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation were

scattered over the East and West, and their blood was mingled

with the blood of their converts and captives. After the reign of

three caliphs, the throne was transported from Medina to the

valley of Damascus and the banks of the Tigris; the holy cities

were violated by impious war; Arabia was ruled by the rod of a

subject, perhaps of a stranger; and the Bedoweens of the desert,

awakening from their dream of dominion, resumed their old and

solitary independence. 187

187 (return) [ The writers of the Modern Universal History (vols.

i. and ii.) have compiled, in 850 folio pages, the life of

Mahomet and the annals of the caliphs. They enjoyed the advantage

of reading, and sometimes correcting, the Arabic text; yet,

notwithstanding their high-sounding boasts, I cannot find, after

the conclusion of my work, that they have afforded me much (if

any) additional information. The dull mass is not quickened by a

spark of philosophy or taste; and the compilers indulge the

criticism of acrimonious bigotry against Boulainvilliers, Sale,

Gagnier, and all who have treated Mahomet with favor, or even

justice.]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.—Part I.