ARABIA AND ITS INHABITANTS.--LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF MOHAMMED.
The Arabian peninsula, called by the natives JESIRA-AL-ARAB, by the
Persians and Turks ARABISTAN, forms the south-westernmost part of
Asia. It is bounded on the north by Syria and the river Euphrates, on
the east by the Persian Gulf, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on
the west by the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf. Including the north-eastern
desert, it occupies an area ten times the extent of that of Great
Britain and Ireland. The connecting link between Asia and Africa,
to which latter continent it is joined by the Isthmus of Suez, it
presents in its natural features, a faithful copy of its colossal
tropical neighbour, modified, however, by the imprint of a strongly
marked individual character, the result of its peculiar isolated
position. The attempted derivation of the name of the country from
EBER[1], the common progenitor of the Joctanites and Ismaelites--the
two races which are assumed to constitute the great bulk of the
native population of Arabia--is, at the best, but very problematical;
that from the word ARABA, the name of a district of the province
of Tehama, and which signifies a _level desert_, would seem to
rest on a safer and more rational foundation, the far greater part
of the country being indeed a dreary waste, a boundless level of
sand, destitute of rivers, intersected by naked mountains, and
barely relieved here and there by a shady grove or a green sward of
aromatic herbs. The date-palm is often the solitary representative
of vegetable life in these sterile tracts, which are scorched by
a tropical sun, and hardly ever refreshed by a grateful shower.
There are, however, some more favored districts, where the fertile
soil produces dates and other palms, tamarinds, vines, rice, sugar,
figs, tobacco, indigo, cotton, durra,[2] coffee, gum, benzoin,
frankincense, manna, balsam, aloe, myrrh, spices, &c. The high lands
in the south-west, that border on the Indian Ocean, are distinguished
in this respect, above all other parts of Arabia, by a more temperate
air, superior fertility, and comparative abundance of wood and
water. No wonder, then, that the appellation _happy_, bestowed upon
this blessed region by PTOLEMY, should have been generally adopted,
although originating in a mistranslation of the word YEMEN, the
Arabian name of this part of the peninsula, and which does not
signify happy, but is simply meant to designate the land lying, with
respect to the East, to the right of MECCA, just as AL-SHAM (Syria)
means the land to the left of that city. PTOLEMY’S division of the
country into the _sandy_, the _petraie_, and the _happy_ (_Arabia
Deserta_, _Petræa_, and _Felix_), is, however, unknown to the
Arabians themselves, who speak only of high land and low land. The
epithet _stony_, so generally applied by geographers to the petraic
division, is founded in error: PTOLEMY derived the word from PETRA,
the name of the then flourishing capital of the Nabathæans, and not
from the Greek word _petra_, a rock or stone. Ptolemy’s Arabia Petræa
forms now part of the province of HEJAZ, along the coast of the Red
Sea. YEMEN, as we have seen, occupies the south-western coast. On
the south-eastern coast lies the maritime district of OMAN; on the
Persian Gulf, the district of LAHSA: the inland space bears the name
of NEGED, or NAGED.
Arabia is the true native country of the horse, and remains even at
the present time the seat of the purest and noblest races of that
generous animal. Asses, oxen, sheep, goats, and the swift gazelle,
are also indigenous; and so is the _camel_, the “ship of the desert,”
nature’s most precious gift in the sands of Africa and Arabia.
Monkies, pheasants, and pigeons inhabit the fertile districts.
The lion, the panther, the hyena, the jackal, lurk in the desert.
Ostriches, and pelicans are among the birds of Arabia; locusts, that
“plague of the fields,” are among its insects. The coasts abound
in fishes and tortoises; and the pearl-fishery flourishes more
especially in the Persian Gulf.
Among the mineral products may be mentioned iron, copper, lead,
coals, asphaltum; and precious stones, as the agate, the onyx, the
carnelion, &c. Some of the ancient geographers speak also of the soil
of Arabia as being impregnated with gold; and though no mines of that
precious metal are at present known in the peninsula, who can say but
that the treasures of another California lie hidden there?
The inhabitants of Arabia, whose present number may be estimated at
about fifteen millions, are supposed to derive their origin partly
from JOCTAN (in the Arabian language KAHTAN), one of the sons of
EBER; and partly from ISMAEL, the son of Abraham and Hagar. The
Joctanites, as the supposed original inhabitants of the country, have
been called also true Arabians; the Ismaelites, as later immigrants,
_mixed_ Arabians. The ISMAELITES are the BEDOWEENS, or BEDOUINS,
of our time, who to the present day continue to rove through the
interior and the north of Arabia, as they did in the remote times
of Job and Sesostris, depending partly on their flocks, partly
on the transit trade of the caravans, but chiefly on plunder;[3]
which latter is by these wild sons of the desert looked upon in the
light of an honorable profession rather than of a disgraceful and
criminal pursuit. They are a fine race of men, of middle size, but
well proportioned, vigorous, and active; they have regular features;
their complexion is mostly dark, rarely of a lighter tint; their eyes
sparkle with a fire and lustre unknown among us. They are brave,
temperate, generous, and hospitable; enthusiastically addicted to
eloquence and poetry. Rapine and revenge are the only dark spots in
the national character of the Bedoween.
The JOCTANITES are the HADDHESIES, or _settled_ Arabians, who from
the earliest times have been collected into towns and villages, more
especially in the maritime districts of the peninsula, employed in
the labors of agriculture, trade, and commerce. Though the Arabian
house-dwellers cannot be said to possess all the noble qualities of
their brethren of the desert, still the description given above of
the physical and moral character of the latter applies in a great
measure equally to them; they are lively, intelligent, eloquent,
and witty; and, with all their habitual haughty demeanour, more
particularly to strangers, affable and agreeable in their manners and
conversation.
The principal nations of Arabia mentioned by the ancients, are,
besides the SKENITES (_tent-dwellers_, or wandering tribes), the
NABATHÆANS, in Arabia Petræa (Hejaz); the THAMUDITES and MINÆANS
in Hejaz; the SABÆANS and HOMERITES, in Yemen; the HADHRAMITES,
in Hadhramaut on the southern coast; the OMANITES, DACHARENIANS,
and GERRHÆANS, in Oman and Ul-Ahsa, or Lahsa; the SARANIANS, in
Neged; and the SARACENS, an obscure tribe on the borders of Egypt,
and remarkable only from the circumstance that, perhaps from a
fallacious[4] interpretation of the meaning of the word,--viz: as
intended to indicate an Oriental situation--the application of the
name has been gradually extended, first to the inhabitants of the
Arabian peninsula generally, afterwards to all Mohammedans.
The early history of the Arabians is shrouded in obscurity. That the
JOCTANITES were not the true original inhabitants of the country,
but simply later immigrants into it, would appear to result from the
histories of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian empires (however so
little reliance we may feel inclined to place in these mythical and
traditional histories); for we are told that Nimrod was attended by
Arabian tribes--and in the list of the Babylonian kings we find six
Arabian princes; and, again, among the auxiliaries of Ninus we find
Arabs, under a prince named Ariæus. The HYKSOS, or Shepherd Kings,
who are said to have invaded Egypt about 2075 B.C., and to have held
sway in that country during more than 500 years, are also generally
considered to have come from Arabia. The traditional history of
Arabia mentions several kingdoms and dynasties. The two most ancient
of these, dating their origin as far back as 2000 B.C., were, 1, the
HOMERITE kingdom in Yemen, which, after a time, split into the two
states of SABA, or SHEBA, and HADHRAMAUT. About 1572 B.C., these
were re-united into one empire, which about 1075 B.C. was governed by
BALKIS, the daughter of Hodhad, and who by some historians is thought
to have been identical with the Queen of Sheba, the cotemporary of
Solomon; 2, the State in Hejaz, in which the NABATHÆANS held superior
sway.
Protected on all sides by the seas of sand and water which encompass
the peninsula, the Arabian people--or, at all events, the great body
of the nation--had, at all times, escaped the yoke of a foreign
conqueror. King Sesostris, of Egypt, is said to have subjected some
tribes of Hejaz to his rule; but it would appear they speedily
recovered their independence. All the attempts made at different
times, by the rulers of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Persia, to
subjugate the Arabian peninsula, proved either altogether abortive,
or, even where they partially succeeded, the conquest was only
transient. Thus Arabia Petræa was subjugated, for a time, to the
Assyrian sway in the eighth century B.C. by Pul, or Phul, and
Sennacherib; but in the sixth century B.C. we find it in independent
alliance with the Persian kings Cyrus and Cambyses. Alexander the
Great had formed the plan to conquer and colonise the coasts of
Arabia, and to prepare in this way the ultimate subjugation of the
entire peninsula. The genius of the Græco-Macedonian conqueror, the
immense material means of which he could dispose, and the possession
of a powerful fleet (under Nearchus) promised a successful issue
to the intended expedition: the death of Alexander (11th June, 323
B.C.) averted the threatening danger.[5] The attempt which Antigonus
and Demetrius made upon Arabia in 312 B.C. was a failure; and the
trifling conquest achieved in 219 B.C. by Antiochus the Great, of
Syria, was speedily wrested again from him by the natives. At a
later period, the northern tribes of Arabia were engaged for a time,
with varying fortunes, in desultory feuds with the Jews under the
Maccabæans, or Makkabi.[6] The Romans also, that all-grasping nation,
cast their covetous eyes upon the flourishing state of Petræa; but
neither Scaurus nor Gabinius, neither Pompey nor Antony, nor even
Augustus, could prevail against the difficulties of the country,
and the stubborn valor of the roving tribes of the desert. Hunger,
thirst, fatigue, and disease thinned the ranks of the proud legions
more effectually still than the bow, the javelin, and the scymetar
of the Bedoween; and after a last vain attempt under Ælius Gallus,
Imperial Rome reluctantly relinquished for a time the coveted prize.
In 106 A.D., Cornelius Palma, a lieutenant of Trajan, conquered
the cities of Bostra and Petra, and subdued the Nabathæans. Trajan
made, also, some naval inroads, and carried his incursions as far as
Katif. Petra lost from this time its importance and splendor; Bostra
becoming in its stead the principal seat of the commerce of the
Euphrates and the Tigris. After the death of Trajan, the conquered
tribes shook off again the Roman yoke. The Emperor Aurelian broke,
indeed, the power of the Nabathæans in his celebrated campaign
against Zenobia, the great Queen of Palmyra, (272 and 273 A.D.), and
his triumphal car was followed by captive Arabian chiefs; but the
Nabathæan _nation_, disdaining to bend to the Roman yoke, abandoned
their homes, and fled to that great asylum of Arabian freedom, the
desert.
At the commencement of the sixth century, (502 A.D.), the Homerite
kingdom of Yemen[7] was conquered by an Ethiopian prince, the Negus,
or King, of Abyssinia,[8] and remained subject or tributary to the
Christian princes of the latter country to the time of the conquest
of Arabia by Chosroes I. (Nushirvan) of Persia (about 574 A.D.).
Still, though Arabia was styled a Persian province, the sway of
the Sassanides over the peninsula was more nominal than real: the
tribes of the desert remained free, and even in Yemen, we find seven
Princes of the Homerites successfully asserting and maintaining the
independence of their mountains.[9]
There is some reason to suppose that the original worship of the
Arabs was that of _one_ God; clouded and tarnished, indeed, by many
superstitious usages, and perhaps even by human sacrifices, yet
free from gross idolatry. But this primitive religion was speedily
supplanted by the adoration of the sun, the moon, and the fixed
stars; a specious superstition which substitutes for the invisible,
all-pervading, universal God, the most glorious of his creations,
and may well find its excuse in the clear sky and boundless naked
plains of Arabia, where the heavenly luminaries shine with a
brighter lustre, displaying to the mind of the untutored son of
the desert the visible image of a Deity. Intimately connected with
this still primitive faith, was the belief in the wonderful powers
and attributes of _meteoric stones_. The most renowned of these,
called Hadjar-el-Aswad, is a square-shaped black stone, kept to the
present day in Mecca in the Temple of the KAABA, and which has from
time immemorial been, and remains still, the sacred object of the
devout pilgrimages and adoration of the Arabs of all tribes. The
Kaaba is a square building, thirty-four feet high, and twenty-seven
broad; built, according to the Mohammedan tradition, by Abraham,
and repeatedly restored, in after ages, by the Amalekites, by the
Jorhamites, by Kassa, of the tribe of Koreish, &c.; and the last
time by Sultan Mustapha, in 1630. Of the original building there
remains thus at present only a small portion of wall, which is
held most sacred. A spacious portico[10] encloses the quadrangle
of the Kaaba. The holy stone, which is about four feet high, and
set in silver, is fixed in the wall, in the southern corner. The
Mohammedan tradition relates that this stone was brought to Abraham
by the Angel Gabriel, whose tears over the sinfulness of man had
changed its original white color to black! Hence Mahomet was induced
to make it the Kebla[11] of prayer, and to enjoin the pilgrimage
of the faithful to it and the Kaaba. Verily, the idolatry of the
ancient Arabs, who worshipped the divine power in the _meteoric
stone_, that had fallen from the skies in a manner miraculous to
their untutored understanding, was more natural, and even far more
rational, than the present worship of the same stone, based upon
this wretched and most absurd legend! The transmigration of souls,
the resurrection of bodies, and the invocation of departed spirits,
formed also part of the religious belief of the ancient Arabs; the
cruel practice of human sacrifices prevailed among them even up to
the time of Mohammed, in the course of time the grossest idolatry
became an important, and, in the end, a preponderating ingredient
in Arabian worship; and the sacred Kaaba was defiled by the gradual
introduction of three hundred and sixty idols of men, eagles, lions,
and antelopes; among which stood most conspicuous the most popular of
them, the statue of Hobal, fashioned of red agate by a Syrian artist,
and holding in his hand seven arrows, without heads or feathers, the
instruments and symbols of profane divination.[12]
But, though each tribe, each family, nay every independent warrior,
might freely create new idols and new rites of his fantastic worship,
yet the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion of Mecca, and
to the superior sanctity of the Kaaba. An annual truce of two, or,
according to some historians, four months, during which the swords
of the Arabs were sheathed, both in foreign and domestic warfare,
protected the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. The great fair held in
connection with this pilgrimage induced those to come whom religious
ardor failed to attract. This annual gathering of distant and hostile
tribes contributed greatly to harmonise and refine the wild sons
of the desert; the exchange of eloquence and poetry usual at these
periods, could only heighten the humanizing and elevating influence
of the custom. The fanaticism of the first Moslems abolished the
fair, inflicting thereby one of the many evils that came in the
train of Mohammed’s gigantic imposture. The rites which are, even in
the present day, accomplished by the devout Moslems, are still the
same they were in the days of the ancient idolators of Arabia. “At a
respectful distance from the temple, they threw off their garments;
seven times they went round the Kaaba, with quick steps, kissing each
time the holy stone with deep reverence;[13] seven times they visited
and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones
into the valley of Mina: and the pilgrimage was completed, as at the
present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of
their hair and nails in the consecrated ground.”[14]
It will be readily understood that the custody of the Kaaba must
at all times have proved a most lucrative affair. No wonder, then,
that the neighbouring tribes should have hotly contended for it.
Originally the ISMAELITES held it for a long time, together with the
dominion over Mecca, which resulted from it as a natural consequence.
The JORHAMITES, a branch of the Joctanites, succeeded at last in
ousting them from it; these again were expelled by the KHUZAITES,
who promoted idolatry to a most formidable extent. In the middle of
the fifth century, an Ismaelitic tribe, that of KOREISH, wrested the
custody of the Kaaba, by fraud or force, from the Khuzaites. The
sacerdotal office was entrusted by the Koreish to COSA, of the family
of the HASHEMITES, and devolved through four lineal descents to
ABDOL MOTALLEB, the grandfather of Mohammed.[15]
The freedom which Arabia enjoyed, promised a safe asylum to the
political and religious exiles and proscripts from the adjacent
kingdoms. The intolerance of the Magian Persians had overturned the
altars of Babylon, and compelled the votaries of Sabianism[16] to
seek a refuge in the desert. The same fate befell the Magians in
their turn, when the sword of Alexander had overthrown the Persian
monarchy. Multitudes of Jews fled into Arabia, to escape the cruel
persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, and greater numbers still
followed during the wars of Titus and Hadrian. To all these were
added, at a later period, numerous sects of Christians, fleeing
from that worst of all persecutions, that of their triumphant
co-religionists, from whom they might chance to differ in some
abstruse point of doctrine, or in some immaterial rite. Among
the persecuted sects, we may mention here more particularly the
Marcionites and the Manichæans, the Jacobites and Nestorians. The
latter two sects had gained many proselytes in Yemen, and succeeded
even in converting the princes of Hira and Gassan to their faith.
The Jews, also, had made numerous and important converts to the
Mosaic belief; and we have already seen how the intolerant zeal of a
bigoted Jewish neophyte, DUNAAN, prince of the Homerites, suddenly
interrupted the enjoyment of that absolute liberty of conscience
which the Arabian _idolaters_ had hitherto granted to all creeds and
all sects, and brought down upon Yemen an Abyssinian invasion to
avenge the wrongs of the persecuted Christians.
It was in this country, and among this people, so strangely and
peculiarly constituted, that arose the apostle of a new faith,
destined to knead the heterogeneous and hostile elements of the
nation into one compact mass, and to hurl this with irresistible
might against the adjacent empires, and even, far beyond the limits
of the latter, against countries and nations formerly scarcely known
by name even to the Arabian merchant.
MAHOMET, or more properly MOHAMMED or MUHAMMED, (i.e. _the very
famous_), the only son of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, on
the 20th April, 571.[17] His father, ABDALLAH, was the best beloved
of the thirteen sons of Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, and chief
of the family of that name; his mother, Amina, sprang from the noble
race of the Zahrites. He had the misfortune to lose in his infancy,
his father and mother, and his grandfather. His sole inheritance
consisted in a house, an old female slave, and five camels. After the
death of his grandfather, he was taken into the house of his uncle,
Abu Taleb, who had succeeded Abdol Motalleb in the sacerdotal office.
Here he was educated to commercial pursuits; and was, at the age of
thirteen, sent with the caravan of his uncle to the fairs of Bosra,
or Bostra,[18] and Damascus, in Syria. In his twentieth year[19] he
fought in the ranks of the Koreish against some hostile tribes, and,
by his valor, gained the appellation EL AMIN, i.e., _the faithful_,
one of the five hundred and more surnames that have gradually been
given to the Prophet of Islam. In his twenty-fifth year, Cadijah,
a rich and noble widow of Mecca (according to some historians, of
Bosra), engaged him as superintendent and manager to carry on the
commercial affairs of her late husband. In this capacity he made a
second journey to the fairs of Bosra and Damascus.[20]
Nature had bestowed upon Mohammed the gift of personal beauty. His
cotemporaries describe him as of commanding figure and majestic
aspect; he had regular and most expressive features, piercing black
eyes, an aquiline nose, and a well-formed mouth, with pearly teeth;
his cheeks were tinged with the ruddy glow of robust health.[21] Art
had imparted to his naturally black, flowing hair and beard a lighter
chestnut hue. His captivating smile, his rich and sonorous voice,
the graceful dignity of his gestures, the apparent frankness and
heartiness of his manner, gained him the favorable attention of those
whom he addressed. He possessed talents of a superior order--his
perception was quick and active, his memory capacious and retentive,
his imagination lively and daring, his judgment clear, rapid, and
decisive, his courage dauntless;--and, whatever may be our opinion
of the sincerity of his convictions, his tenacity of purpose in the
pursuit of the great object of his life, and his patient endurance,
cannot but extort our admiration. His natural eloquence was enhanced
by the use of the purest dialect of Arabia, and adorned by the charm
of a graceful elocution.
Cadijah was a widow for the second time; she was in the fortieth year
of her age--no wonder then, that a man so bountifully endowed by
nature should speedily have gained her affection. She bestowed upon
him her hand and her fortune, and restored him thereby to the station
of his ancestors. Placed, henceforth, above the petty wants and cares
of material subsistence, Mohammed had now full leisure to indulge
his love of poetry and eloquence, and his natural predilection for
contemplation. His marriage brought him into familiar contact with
WARAKA (VERKA) BEN NAUFIL, a cousin of Cadijah. This Waraka, it would
appear, had first exchanged the adoration of the heavenly bodies for
the belief in the two principles of Zoroaster, (Ormuzd and Ahriman).
This creed not satisfying his mind, he had embraced with fervor the
monotheism of the Jews; but, disgusted with the absurdities of the
Talmudists, he had seceded to the profession of the Christian faith,
in which he had even assumed the priestly office. That he must have
been a man of some talent and learning, is evident from the fact
of his having translated the Old and New Testament from the Hebrew
into the Arabic tongue. Now this man is usually mentioned by the
historians of the time as the _pupil_ of Mohammed, and the _second
convert_ to his new doctrine; but there are strong reasons to justify
a belief that he was his _master_ and _teacher_, rather than his
_pupil_ and _convert_.
It has been intimated already, that the history of the life of
Mohammed, up to the time when he proclaimed himself the apostle of
a new faith, is obscure and doubtful. From the scanty data, and the
conjectural and contradictory statements before us, we can only
gather one fact as pretty certain, viz: that the prophet of Islam had
enjoyed some rabbinical and priestly instruction. Now we have seen
that Mohammed was an illiterate barbarian, and not likely, therefore,
to derive from conversation with priests in foreign lands that
knowledge of the maxims, tenets, and traditions of other religious
communities, which is evidenced in the Koran and in the Sonna;[22]
whereas Waraka had actually had a practical training in the divers
beliefs of the Sabians, Magians, Jews, and Christians; and must, to
judge by his translation of the New Testament, have been tolerably
versed in the _letter_, at least, of the doctrine of Christ. From his
repeated, and apparently conscientious, changes of faith, we have,
perhaps, a right to conclude that he was a man sincerely in search of
a religion that might satisfy his mind; nor need we wonder that the
so-called “Christianity” of the seventh century should have failed
to answer his expectations on this head. It would not be too much
to say, indeed, that there existed really no “Christian” church at
that period; the multitudinous contending sects who professed the
_name_ of Christ had almost entirely forgotten his _pure doctrine_,
and, more especially, the divine principle preached by him of
universal charity and good-will to all men. The grossest idolatry
had usurped the place of the simple worship, instituted by Jesus, of
an All-wise, Almighty, and All-beneficent Being, without equal and
without similitude; a new Olympus had been imagined, peopled with a
crowd of martyrs, saints, and angels, in lieu of the ancient gods of
paganism. There were found Christian sects impious enough to invest
the wife of Joseph with the honors and attributes of a goddess;[23]
relics, and carved and painted images, were objects of the most
fervid adoration on the part of those whom the word of Christ
commanded to address their prayer to the Living God alone.
Surely, then, we may trust that it will not be imputed to us as a
violation of the laws of probability, if we venture to assume that
Waraka, finding his religious aspirations disappointed even in the
Christian faith, conceived the idea of founding and propagating
a doctrine of his own,--a species of eclectic extract from all
other religions which he had successively professed; that, void
perhaps of personal ambition, or conscious, rather, that he did not
himself possess the most indispensable attributes and qualities of
a religious and political reformer, he cast his eyes upon Mohammed,
who, with his mind attuned to contemplation and to mystic thought,
promised to prove a docile disciple, and whose personal beauty and
grace seemed made to “persuade ere he ope’d his mouth;” and that he
chose him as his organ, as the medium through which he might give
currency to the coinage of his mind, content if the people would
receive the fruits of his religious experience and ponderings as a
new gospel, and cheerfully consenting to yield up the honors of the
paternity to him who should succeed in rearing the infant religion.
Waraka found in Mohammed a most zealous disciple, who considerably
bettered the instructions which he received. From what we can gather
from the scanty sources of information at our command, we think
we may fix upon the year 606 A.D. as the period at which Mohammed
first became the pupil of Waraka; but it was only five years after,
in 611, that Waraka and himself had fully matured their plan to
institute a new religion. Worthily to prepare himself for the
assumption of the prophetic and apostolic office, Mohammed withdrew
this year (as he had indeed done repeatedly before), several weeks,
during the month of Ramadan, to the cave of Hera, three miles from
Mecca. On the morning of the 24th Ramadan, Mohammed appeared before
his wife, apparently greatly disturbed in mind. He called out to
her to “wrap him up, to affuse him with cold water, as his soul
was greatly troubled.” Having thus prepared her for his purpose,
by exciting at once both her conjugal solicitude and her female
curiosity, he proceeded to break to the amazed matron the great
secret of his divine mission. He told her the angel Gabriel had,
that night, appeared to him with a message from the Most High,
appointing him, Mohammed, the sixth, greatest, and last of His chosen
prophets,[24] to reveal His existence and to preach His law to the
nations of the world. The angel had brought down with him a paper
copy of the uncreated and eternal Koran, enclosed in a volume of
silk and gems, and had proposed to reveal to him successively and
at his (Mohammed’s) own discretion, the chapters and verses of that
everlasting record of the law of God.
Islam (i.e. _devout submission to the Divine Will_) he had been
commanded by the angel to call the new faith which it was to be
henceforward his mission to preach; and which, to use the felicitous
language of Gibbon, is compounded of an eternal truth--viz., that
_there is only one God_--and of a fiction necessary to further the
ambitious designs of the self-appointed missionary of this new
gospel--viz., that _Mohammed is the apostle and prophet of God_.
Cadijah believed readily and implicitly--and no marvel either.
Mohammed, to his honor be it written, had proved a most kind and
attentive husband to the elderly matron who had raised him above the
pressure of want. He had abstained--and till her death continued
to abstain--from availing himself of the right of polygamy. He had
proved his _truth_ to her by unvarying affection. How, then, could
she possibly have doubted his word? To her grateful and loving eyes,
he must have seemed more than a mere mortal; and she may even have
deemed it by no means extraordinary that the Most High should appoint
as his organ and missionary one so pure, so good, so _perfect_, as
her husband appeared in _her_ sight.
Cadijah’s conversion was speedily followed by the avowed declaration
of Waraka in favor of the new doctrine. The ex-priest of Christ
professed to see in Mohammed the _Paraclete_, or Comforter,
promised in the Gospel, and even ventured to support this view upon
etymological grounds of somewhat extraordinary character. The Arabic
word _Mohammed_ is synonymous with the Greek περικλῠτὸς (i.e. _very
famous_), which, by an easy change of letters, may be turned into
παράκλητος!
The next converts to Mohammed’s new faith were, his servant ZEID, who
was positively bribed to it by the promise of freedom; his youthful
cousin ALI BEN ABU TALEB, a boy of eleven, and not likely, therefore,
to entertain any very deep religious conviction either way; and the
wealthy and universally esteemed ABDALLAH BEN OTHMAN-AL-KOREISH,
called afterwards ABU BEKR (i.e. _the father of the maiden_); most
probably from the circumstance that his daughter AYESHA, born 613,
became one of Mohammed’s wives after the death of Cadijah. By the
weight and influence of Abu Bekr, ten of the most respectable
citizens of Mecca were induced to join the creed of Islam, among whom
were Othman, who became afterwards Mohammed’s son-in-law. It had
taken three years to accomplish these fourteen private conversions;
and, guided probably by the advice of Waraka, the prophet had not yet
ventured upon a public profession and propaganda of his creed. In
the beginning of 615, however, Waraka died; and the bolder spirit of
Mohammed, freed from the restraining influence hitherto exercised by
that cautious man, aspired henceforward openly to the dignity of the
apostolic office.
We have already seen that Mohammed had informed Cadijah, and, of
course, also his other disciples, that the chapters of the Koran were
to be communicated to him by the angel Gabriel successively, and at
his own discretion,--a master-stroke of policy evidently designed by
the crafty Waraka to afford full time for the gradual concoction of
the new creed, and worked out afterwards with such admirable skill by
his illustrious pupil; indeed, the ingenuity of this provision may be
said to be surpassed only by that of another saving maxim introduced
into the angelic revelation, viz., that any text of the Koran is
abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage,--which, of course,
at once removed the inconvenience of contradictory texts. Gabriel was
accordingly now made to descend again to Mohammed, and to command him
in the name of the Most High to throw off the reserve which he had
hitherto maintained, and to announce his mission in the open light
of day. In obedience to this pretended command, the prophet of Islam
invited forty members of the race of Hashem to a banquet. He placed
before them, it is said, a lamb and a bowl of milk, and, after the
frugal meal, addressed them as follows:--“Friends and kinsmen, I
offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts--the
treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded
me to call you to His service. Who among you will support my burthen?
Who among you will be my companion and my vizir?” A long silence of
doubt and amazement followed this extraordinary allocution; it was
broken at last by the impetuous Ali, then in the fourteenth year
of his age. “O prophet!” he cried, “I am the man: whosoever rises
against thee, I will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his
legs, rip up his belly. O prophet! I will be thy vizir over them.”
This response on the part of one so young, and the fierce threats
which it contained, excited the merriment of the assembly, which
was increased when Mohammed fervently embraced his young cousin,
and declared most seriously that he accepted his offer. Abu Taleb,
the father of Ali, was ironically exhorted to respect the superior
dignity of his son, and to take care not to provoke his potent wrath.
The prince of Mecca took the matter in a more serious light: he
advised his nephew to relinquish his design, which he characterised
as impious. “Spare your remonstrances,” replied the son of Abdallah;
“were you to place the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left,
you should not divert me from my course.”
Braving the ridicule and the anger of the Hashemites, as well as the
more determined and malignant hostility of the family Ommiyah and
the other branches of the Koreish, Mohammed preached his doctrine
henceforward publicly, with unflinching courage and untiring zeal,
but for a long time with rather indifferent success, at least so far
as his native city was concerned.
Mecca was the sacred city of Arabia,--the seat of the great national
temple. The annual pilgrimage of the devout Arabians to the shrines
of the Kaaba, brought wealth to the coffers of the inhabitants of the
favored city; and it was but natural, therefore, that the tribe of
Koreish, who held the lucrative office of custodians of the sacred
temple, should behold with indignation and dismay the attempt made
by one from among themselves to subvert a religion so profitable to
their interests. No wonder, then, that when Mohammed, some time after
the banquet of the Hashemites, ventured to proclaim his pretended
mission before a general assembly of the Koreish, he was received
with a perfect storm of disapprobation, and ignominiously pelted with
mud and stones.
But the prophet of Islam was not the sort of man to be readily
diverted from his fixed purpose. The indifferent success of his
first public attempt rather increased his zeal than otherwise: in
private converse and in public discourse, he incessantly urged the
belief and worship of a sole Deity. He addressed impassioned orations
to the citizens and pilgrims gathered within the holy precincts of
the Kaaba, and the loudest clamor of his most violent antagonists
did not always succeed in silencing his potent voice; and, indeed,
after a time he had the satisfaction of beholding the gradual but
steady increase of his little congregation of Unitarians. But
the hostility of the Koreish assumed now a more decided and more
dangerous character; and, had it not been for the powerful protection
of Abu Taleb, who, though an uncompromising enemy to the attempted
innovation of his nephew, continued to bestow on the son of Abdallah
the affection of a parent, Mohammed would most probably have fallen
a sacrifice to the rage of his enemies. But even the weight and
influence of the Prince of Mecca could not always fully secure the
safety of the apostle of the new creed, and Mohammed was repeatedly
compelled to withdraw himself to various places of strength in the
town and country. The more timid of his disciples were forced to seek
in Ethiopia an asylum from the violence of religious faction. The
conversion of his uncle HAMZA, gave the new faith, most opportunely,
a powerful support in the family of Hashem; a perhaps still more
important acquisition was made in the person of the fierce and
inflexible OMAR, the PAUL of Islam. On the other hand, the branch of
Ommiyah, and the rest of the tribe of Koreish, resolved to put the
children of Hashem under a species of religious and civil interdict
of the most stringent nature, till they should consent to deliver
the person of Mohammed to the justice of the insulted gods. A decree
was passed to this effect, and was suspended in the Kaaba before the
eyes of the nation; the prophet and his most faithful followers were
besieged, and subjected to the greatest hardships. A hollow truce had
scarcely restored the appearance of concord, when the death of Abu
Taleb (621) left the prophet abandoned to the power of his enemies,
and compelled him to seek a refuge in Tayef, whither he proceeded,
attended by his faithful Zeid. His somewhat incautious attempts to
propagate his creed in that land of grapes excited against him the
indignation of the inhabitants, who pelted him with stones and drove
him back to Mecca, where he was permitted to dwell yet a little
while under the protection of an influential citizen. Three days
after the death of Abu Taleb, an equally severe loss had befallen
Mohammed--that of Cadijah, by which the ties which bound him to his
native city were greatly loosened.
It is in this period that we may place the miraculous night of
Mohammed’s ascension to heaven. Hitherto, Mohammed had been modestly
content to place an intermediary between the Deity and himself.
Probably reflecting, however, that the Jewish creed asserted direct
and personal converse between Jehovah and Adam, Noah, Abraham, and
Moses, and that he, the greatest and last of the prophets, and whose
doctrine was to supersede all others, could not well afford to stand
inferior in this respect to his predecessors, and anxiously desirous,
moreover, to gain over the Jews, whom he wished to believe him the
promised Messiah--he put forth one of the wildest flights of fancy
that ever issued even from an Oriental brain:--A mysterious animal,
the _Borak_ (the cherub of Islam), with human face, the ears of an
elephant, the neck of a camel, the body of a horse, the tail of a
mule, and the hoofs of a bullock, conveyed him at the dead of night
from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem, Gabriel and legions
of angels attended him. From the temple of Jerusalem he was carried
to the rock upon which Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac, and
thence on the wings of Gabriel successively to the seven heavens,
where he exchanged civilities with the patriarchs, the prophets, and
the angels. He saw the heavenly Lotos tree, with the four springs
under it, flowing with water, honey, milk, and wine. Of the three
former he tasted; the last he left untouched, in obedience to his
own precepts.[25] He saw, also, the heavenly tabernacle, pitched in
a straight line above the Kaaba, and hidden by a golden veil. The
angels sang, “There is only one God, and Mohammed is the prophet
of God.” The same resounded from behind the veil, and the voice of
the Lord was heard saying, “My servants speak the words of truth;
Mohammed is indeed the most beloved of my prophets and apostles,
the most pious of my servants, the most perfect of created beings.”
Beyond this part, Mohammed alone was permitted to proceed; he passed
through seventy thousand veils of light and darkness, each of
them a thousand years thick, and with a space of a thousand years
intervening between every two of them. At last he reached the green
barrier of green light with emerald lustre; he passed the veil of
the Divine unity, and approached within two bow-shots of the throne
of the Almighty, where he prostrated himself and adored. The hand
of the Lord touched his shoulder, which made a sensation of cold
come over him that pierced him to the heart. God commanded him now
to impose upon his disciples the daily obligation of fifty prayers;
which Mohammed would appear to have looked upon as an intolerable
burthen, since he pleaded hard for an alleviation of it.[26] By his
supplications he succeeded to reduce it, step by step, at last to
the number of five, viz., one prayer at daybreak, one at noon, one
in the afternoon, one in the evening, and one at the first watch
of the night; but from these five obligatory prayers there was to
be no dispensation of business or pleasure, of time or place. In
this most important conversation, the Lord enjoined or sanctioned,
also, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the bestowal of a certain
percentage of the property or revenue of a believer for the relief
of the indigent and unfortunate, and the thirty days fast during the
month of Ramadan. Then was given to Mohammed, with one drop from the
throne, all wisdom, science, and knowledge of the ages past and the
time to come; and the angelic choirs recited the two articles of
belief, “There is only one God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God.”
Mohammed was then finally dismissed; he again descended to Jerusalem,
remounted the Borak, and returned to Mecca, having thus performed in
the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand years. Verily,
in this precious tale we do not know which to admire most,--whether
the audacity of the impostor who could concoct, or the gross
credulity of the people who could believe it! Indeed, many endeavours
have been made by some of the more rational of the Mohammedan doctors
to deny that the prophet of Islam ever ventured to palm off this
extravagant story upon his followers; and it has been attempted to
make it appear that the narration of it relates to a mere dream or
vision. These apologists overlook, however, the important fact that
this pretended vision was put forward with all the authority of a
divine revelation. Mohammed himself encouraged as much as in him lay
the belief in the actual occurrence of the fact; which, with the
Sonnites, indeed, is an article of faith, the pious AL JANNABI, among
others, declaring that to deny this nocturnal journey of the prophet
is to disbelieve the Koran.
ABU SOPHIAN, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, and the mortal
foe of the line of Hashem, had succeeded to the principality of
the republic of Mecca. This man resolved to bring the long-pending
contest between the Koreish and the self-appointed apostle of the
new creed to a speedy and decisive issue. He convened an assembly of
the Koreishites and their allies, in which the death of Mohammed was
resolved. To baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites, it was agreed
that the guilt of his blood should be divided among the several
tribes. A spy (duly converted afterwards into an angel by the crafty
prophet) revealed the odious plot to Mohammed, who resolved on
flight as the only means of escape from the malice of his enemies.
In the night of the 13th September, 622,[27] Mohammed, accompanied
by his friend Abu Bekr, escaped silently from his house, whilst the
assassins, who were watching at the door, were deceived by the figure
of Ali, who, covered with the green vestment of the apostle, reposed
on the bed, securing thus, at the risk of his own life, the safe
retreat of his illustrious and beloved cousin. When the deception
practised upon them was at length revealed, the Koreishites dismissed
the heroic youth unharmed.
Mohammed and the companion of his flight took refuge first in the
cave of Thor, about three miles from Mecca. Three days they remained
concealed there, receiving every evening from the son and daughter of
Abu Bekr a supply of food, and intelligence of the movements of their
enemies. The Koreish explored every hiding-place in the neighbourhood
of the city, with the exception of the cave in which the fugitives
were hidden, and which the pious Moslem doctors would have us believe
was protected from their scrutiny by the providential deceit of a
spider’s web and a pigeon’s nest. When the first rigor of the pursuit
had somewhat abated, the fugitives left the protection of their cave,
and mounted their camels to pursue their flight to YATHREB, called
afterwards MEDINA, or MEDINA AL NABI (i.e. _city of the prophet_).
On the road, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish,
who were, however, diverted from their murderous purpose by the
eloquent appeals of the prophet: indeed it is stated by the Arabian
historians that one of his pursuers passed over to him with seventy
followers, and attended him to Medina.
The city of Yathreb was inhabited chiefly by the tribes of
the CHAREGITES and the AWSITES, and by two colonies of Jews,
of a sacerdotal race, and who had introduced among their Arab
fellow-citizens a taste for science and religion, which had gained
Medina the name of the City of the Book. Now whether it might be
that, owing to this circumstance, the preaching of Mohammed had made
a deeper impression upon the pilgrims and merchants from Medina than
upon his own fellow-citizens in Mecca; or that the Yathrebites,
who were envious of the flourishing commerce of the latter city,
would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the
bigoted zeal of the Koreish to attract to their own city the exiled
disciples of Mohammed, and in fine perhaps that illustrious man
himself--certain it is that at an early period of Mohammed’s mission,
some of the noblest citizens of Medina, in a pilgrimage to the Kaaba,
had been converted by his preaching, and had upon their return home
diffused among their fellow-citizens the belief of God and his
prophet. The Charegites and Awsites had hitherto lived in perpetual
feud, interrupted only by temporary truces, which were broken on the
slightest provocation. By the exhortations of these missionaries, the
two tribes were henceforth united in faith and love. Ten Charegites
and two Awsites were despatched to Mecca, where they held a secret
and nocturnal interview with Mohammed on a hill in the suburbs;
they protested for themselves and in the name of their wives, their
children, and their absent brethren, an inviolable attachment to
the person and doctrine of the prophet. At a later period, shortly
before Mohammed’s forced departure from Mecca, seventy-three men and
two women of Medina came to Mecca, and held a solemn conference with
Mohammed, his kinsmen, and his disciples, on the same spot where
the interview with the first embassy had taken place. They promised
the prophet in the name of their city that should he be compelled
to leave Mecca, they would receive him as their prince, and would
place their lives and fortunes at his service for the defence and
propagation of the new faith preached by him. Mohammed on his part
promised never to abandon his new allies, even though the Koreish
should repent and should recall him; he declared their blood to be
as his blood, their ruin as his ruin, their friends as his friends,
their foes as his foes; should they fall in his service, Paradise
was to be their reward. A solemn league and covenant was made there
and then between the two parties; this was ratified by the people of
Medina, who, with the exception of the Jews, unanimously embraced the
profession of Islam.
It was accordingly to Medina that the exiled prophet directed his
steps. After a rapid though perilous journey along the sea-coast,
he reached Medina sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. He was
received with acclamations of loyalty and devotion; his disciples
who at various times had fled from Mecca, gathered round his person.
To eradicate the seeds of jealousy that might spring up between
the Moslems of his native city, and his new allies of Medina, he
judiciously established a holy brotherhood between his principal
followers, coupling always a MOHAGERIAN, or fugitive of Mecca, with
an ANSAR, or auxiliary of Medina. It so falling out that Ali found
himself without a peer, the prophet declared himself the companion
and brother of the noble youth.
Mohammed assumed now the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office.
He acquired by purchase a small piece of ground, on which he built a
house and a mosque. The loyalty and devotion of his followers, and
the unhesitating compliance and obedience which his decrees met with
on the part of the inhabitants of Medina, convinced him that he was
indeed the absolute prince and ruler of that city. But with this
conviction the range of his ambition widened, he resolved to extend
his creed and his power over all the tribes of Arabia, and even
beyond the limits of his native land. He now threw off the cloak of
toleration in which he had so carefully enfolded himself at Mecca.
_There_ he had asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed
the use of religious violence; _here_, at Medina, he preached a war
of extermination against whomsoever should continue in idolatry.[28]
The commands and precepts, which Gabriel was now made to transmit
to him, breathed a fierce and sanguinary spirit; the creed of Islam
was to be propagated henceforth by the sword, and the unbelieving
nations of the earth were to be pursued without mercy. To excite in
his followers a spirit of martial ardor, he proclaimed the superior
sanctity of the sword. “In the shade of the crossing scymitars
Paradise is prefigured,” says Mohammed; “the sword 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 rubies, and odoriferous
as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings
of angels and cherubim.” Paradise was the glorious reward of the
faithful who fell in battle, and death might thus actually become
an object of hope and desire rather than of dread. Moreover, as the
Koran inculcates also, in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate
and predestination, it would be little use for the devout Moslem to
shirk his military duties through fear of being wounded or killed
in battle, since his preordained fate would be sure to overtake
him, even in his bed. And as Paradise was the portion of the fallen
hero, so wealth and beauty rewarded the warrior who had escaped the
dangers of the fight: the apostle gave his followers the license
of embracing the female captives as their wives or concubines; he
regulated by a law, divine, of course, like all the rest of his
laws and precepts, the distribution of the spoil taken in battle,
or in a conquered place: the whole was faithfully collected in one
common mass, one-fifth of it was reserved for the prophet himself
(doubtless, for pious and charitable uses), the remainder was shared
among the soldiers, the shares of the slain devolving to their widows
and orphans: a horseman received double the share of a foot-soldier.
From the first months of his reign, he prepared for the holy warfare
against Jews, Christians, and idolators. At the beginning of the
year 623, his white banner was displayed before the gates of Medina.
Faithful to the national character, he, the holy prophet of a creed
which the nations of the world were invited to look upon as divine,
went forth at the head of his pious followers, the future denizens
of a Paradise which in his extravagant Oriental fancy he had placed
beyond the seventh heaven, to waylay the peaceful merchant, and to
rob and maim, or murder him, in the name and for the glory of the
Most High.
So he went forth at the head of three hundred and thirteen Moslems,
to intercept the return of the great caravan from Syria to Mecca, a
caravan of a thousand camels, led by Abu Sophian, with only thirty
or forty followers. But the Koreish, alarmed for the safety of their
merchandise and their provisions, hastened to the rescue. One hundred
horse, and eight hundred and fifty foot, advanced from Mecca to about
three stations from Medina. Here, in the fertile and famous vale
of Beder, they met the band of the prophet. The disproportion of
numbers was great; in Mohammed’s ranks were found only two horsemen:
informed by his scouts that the caravan was approaching from the one,
the Koreish from the other side, Mohammed had hesitated whether to
seize upon an easy prey, or to venture on an encounter with vastly
superior forces; but the reflection, that a success gained under
disadvantageous circumstances, would, with an impulsive people like
the Arabs, go far to prove his divine mission, and would embolden his
adherents and discourage his enemies, he resolved to give battle.
With Abu Bekr by his side, he took his station on a kind of throne or
pulpit. The white veil of Ayesha, and two black banners, were borne
before his host. “Courage, my children,” he exclaimed, “close your
ranks; discharge your arrows, and the day is your own.” Perceiving,
however, that the Moslems fainted in their onset, and were hard
pressed by the superior numbers of the Koreish, he betook himself
with a loud voice to pray the succour of Gabriel and a _legion_ of
angels.[29] He then started from his throne, mounted his horse,
and, casting a handful of sand into the air, exclaiming, “Let their
faces be covered with confusion,” dashed against the hostile ranks.
The Arabs were a most superstitious people; their fancy beheld the
angelic warriors, or rather _felt_ their presence; the thunder of
Mohammed’s voice revived the drooping spirits of his followers;
whilst it carried confusion into the ranks of his enemies. The
Koreish turned and fled. Seventy of the bravest were slain, and
seventy captives fell into the hands of the victorious prophet, who
had two of them put to death as a trifling instalment of the debt of
revenge which he meant to exact from his foes and revilers. The other
sixty-eight were restored for a ransom of four thousand drachms of
silver. From the field of Beder, Mohammed started in pursuit of Abu
Sophian’s caravan, which, despite of the swiftness of its flight,
and the skill of its guides, was overtaken and captured. A booty of
100,000 drachms of silver rewarded the pious robbers. But this great
success had well nigh proved fatal to Mohammed and his creed, and
to the city of refuge. The fierce resentment of Abu Sophian and of
the Koreish, brought into the field against Mohammed a body of three
thousand men, among whom were seven hundred armed with cuirasses,
and two hundred on horseback; three thousand camels attended the
march of this host. Abu Sophian advanced to within six miles of the
north of Medina, where he encountered the prophet at the head of
nine hundred and fifty followers, on Mount Ohud, (A.D. 624). The
Koreish advanced in the form of a crescent. The right wing of the
cavalry was led by Kaled, the fiercest and most redoubtable of the
Arab warriors. Mohammed had made his dispositions with considerable
skill; his troops were successful at first, and broke the centre of
the enemy; but their eagerness to seize upon the spoils threw their
ranks into disorder, and speedily deprived them of the advantage
gained. Kaled, with his cavalry, attacked them in the flank and rear;
Mohammed was wounded in the face with a javelin, and two of his teeth
were shattered with a stone; Kaled exclaimed, with a loud voice, that
the lying prophet was slain; and the followers of Islam, who looked
in vain for the appearance of Gabriel and his angelic legion, to
avenge the fall of “The beloved of God,” trembled and fled; still, in
the midst of tumult and dismay, was heard the thunder of Mohammed’s
voice, denouncing the impious tribe of the Koreish, as the murderers
of God’s apostle, and calling down upon them the vengeance of heaven.
Some of the most devoted followers of the prophet gathered bravely
around him, and conveyed him to a place of safety. Seventy of the
bravest defenders of Islam lay dead on the field, among them HAMZA,
one of Mohammed’s uncles. The inhuman females of Mecca, who had
accompanied the expedition, mangled their bodies, and the fierce
HENDA, Abu Sophian’s wife, tasted the entrails of Hamza, with the
relish of a cannibal. But Mohammed was not discouraged: his wounds
had hardly been dressed, when the convenient Gabriel revealed to him
that (for some unexplained cause) the powers of darkness had been
permitted to prevail against him this once, and that Satan himself
had fought in the ranks of the Koreish; he was, however, exhorted to
persevere in his propaganda, and was assured of ultimate success. He
rallied his troops, and even as early as the next day he led them
forth again to battle; on this occasion the fight was, however, only
of a desultory character, no great harm being done on either side.
Still the result of it was, that the Koreish, having experienced the
desperate valor of the Moslems, and more particularly of Ali and
Omar, despaired of carrying Medina with their present forces, and
retired to Mecca. But in the ensuing year (A.D. 625) Abu Sophian,
having formed a league between the Koreish and several tribes of the
desert, led a well-appointed host of ten thousand warriors against
Medina. The number of the Mussulmans, however, had also considerably
increased, and Mohammed’s army of three thousand men, awaited the
attack of their foes, securely encamped before the city, and
protected by a ditch and some field-works, which had been constructed
under the guidance and superintendence of a Persian engineer. A
general engagement being prudently declined by the prophet, the
hostilities were confined to a number of single combats, in which
Ali more especially signalised his formidable strength and prowess.
Twenty days passed away in this desultory warfare, the apostle of God
having, meanwhile, recourse to every artifice that his crafty mind
could devise, to sow disunion in the camp of his enemies. A tempest
of wind, rain, and hail, which overturned the tents of the besiegers,
and which was, of course, duly claimed as a direct interposition of
God in favor of his prophet, put the finishing stroke to the success
of this insidious policy: the Koreish, deserted by their allies, were
compelled to retire, and to relinquish, henceforth, the attempt to
overcome Mohammed by force of arms. This last attack upon Medina is
variously named from the _nations_ which marched under Abu Sophian’s
banner, and from the _ditch_ which protected the Mussulman camp.
During the earlier period of his mission, Mohammed had shown
considerable leaning towards the Jews; he had selected Jerusalem for
the _Kebla_ of prayer, and had endeavoured to form most of his tenets
and precepts upon the model of the Mosaic ordinances. Indeed, there
can be no doubt, but that it was for a time the great end and object
of his ambition to be accepted by the Jews as their promised Messiah;
nor can it be denied, that a deep political idea lay at the bottom of
this desire. Had he succeeded in persuading the Jews to believe in
his Messiahship, his apostolic course among the Arabs would have run
much smoother, and many of the so-called Christian sects might have
been readily gained over to his _mixtum compositum_, which might,
indeed, be called a creed of creeds in the literal acceptation of the
words.
But the imposture was too shallow to take with so clear-sighted a
people as the Jews unquestionably were: the pretended Messiah was
repudiated by them with disdain, and the hostility of the Koreish
against the son of Abdallah, was, in some degree, fomented and fanned
by the Jews of Mecca. Hence the implacable and unrelenting hatred
with which Mohammed pursued the unfortunate Israelites to the
last moment of his life. That he changed the kebla of prayer from
Jerusalem to Mecca, and that in his nocturnal journey to Heaven, he
beheld the divine tabernacle in a straight line above the latter
city, instead of Zion, where he undoubtedly originally intended to
behold it,--could, at the most, provoke a smile of contempt and
derision; but the appalling cruelties which he indicted, both upon
individuals and upon entire tribes of the doomed nation, must fill
the mind of the impartial explorer of history with deep indignation
against the man who could _so_ avenge his offended vanity. His
first exploit in this direction, was the expulsion of the KAINOKA
tribe from Medina, where they had hitherto been permitted to dwell
in peace, by the large toleration of the _Idolators_. The prophet
of Islam seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, in which the
Kainoka had taken part, to place before them the alternative of
embracing his religion, or contending with him in battle. A _brave_
challenge this, to the unfortunate Jews, to do battle with him,
and which displayed in the fullest, though certainly not in the
most favorable light, the _magnanimous_ disposition of the son of
Abdallah, that has been so highly extolled by some historians. Still,
even with the fearful odds of number and martial spirit against them,
the feeble and unwarlike Israelites preferred the unequal contest to
apostacy from the faith of their fathers. It was decided in fifteen
days, of course with the total overthrow and capture of the whole
tribe; and, had it not been that the Charegites, mindful of the
friendship which once existed between them and their humble allies,
the Kainoka, warmly interceded on behalf of the wretched captives,
the prophet of God would have slain every one of them. As it was,
they were despoiled of their homes and property; and driven forth,
to the number of seven hundred men, with their wives and children,
to seek a refuge on the confines of Syria, to which quarter the
blessings of the new creed had not yet extended. The NADHIRITES were
the next to feel the weight of his arm. In their case, indeed, some
provocation had been given, as they had conspired to assassinate the
prophet in a friendly interview. Protected by the walls of their
castle (situated about three miles from Medina), they fought with
such boldness and resolution, that Mohammed was fain to grant them an
honorable capitulation.
The war of the nations interrupted for a time Mohammed’s operations
against the Jews; but even on the day that the confederated nations
had abandoned the siege of Medina, he marched against the tribe of
KORAIDHA. A campaign of twenty-five days sufficed to compel their
surrender at discretion. They fondly believed that their old allies
of Medina would, by their intercession, preserve them at least from
the extreme measure of Mohammed’s wrath;--vain hope: fanaticism
had made rapid progress among the Ansars. A venerable elder of
the Charegite tribe, to whose judgment they referred their case,
pronounced the penalty of death against them for their hostility to
Islam. To the number of seven hundred they were led in chains to
the market-place of Medina, where a grave had been dug to receive
them; into this they were forced to descend, and the apostle of God
indulged his vengeful mind with the sight of their slaughter and
burial.... Verily, verily, the blackest and most atrocious of crimes
are committed in the name of God. A few years after the extirpation
of the Koraidha, Mohammed marched, at the head of two hundred horse,
and fourteen hundred foot, against the ancient city of CHAIBAR, the
seat of the Jewish power in Arabia. Chaibar was protected by eight
strong castles, which were successively reduced by the Moslems in
sixteen weeks, not, however, without considerable loss on the part of
the conquerors. After the fall of the castles, the city was forced to
surrender (628). The inhabitants had their lives granted to them, and
permission to dwell in the land, on condition that they should pay
to the prophet, an annual tribute of the one-half of their revenue.
But the chief of Chaibar was subjected to the most cruel tortures,
to force from him a confession of his hidden treasures; and when the
100,000 pieces of gold, which had been concealed, were delivered
up at last, he and several of the most notable of his people were
mercilessly butchered in cold blood. It was in this campaign against
Chaibar that Mohammed bestowed upon Ali, the surname of the “Lion
of God,” gained by the slaughter of 150 Hebrews, who are stated to
have fallen by the irresistible scymitar of Abu Taleb’s illustrious
son.[30]
The Jewess ASMA had offended the dignity of the prophet by some
satirical strictures on his private life; he bribed a miserable blind
Jew, named OMEIR, to assassinate her. This wretched tool murdered
the ill-fated woman in her chamber, and nailed her body to the
floor; having some misgivings of conscience, he accosted the prophet
next morning while at prayer, and asked him whether God might not,
perhaps, punish the crime perpetrated? whereupon the pious apostle
bade him to be of good cheer, as the killing of a Jew, even if not
at all times a meritorious act, was, at least, a matter of perfect
indifference to the Ruler of the Universe! In the same way he deputed
assassins to slay the learned Jew, ESHREF; in the name of God he
sent them on their bloody errand! The venerable ABU AAS was murdered
in his sleep at his bidding: the poor old man had reached his
hundredth year, and might safely have been permitted to die in peace,
but considerations of the kind weighed but little with the son of
Abdallah; an insult to his apostolic dignity could only be washed off
in the blood of the offender. But why sully our pages with the long
list of private and public murders perpetrated by the command, or at
the instigation of, this precious pretender to a divine mission, ...
sufficient has been stated to illustrate the cruel and sanguinary
disposition of the man.
Mohammed had left Mecca most reluctantly, and only when flight alone
could preserve his life from the swords of his then all-powerful
enemies. The thought to revisit as a conqueror, the city and the
holy temple of the Kaaba, was ever present to his mind. When the
Jews, by their disdainful rejection of his advances, had turned his
friendship into implacable hatred, he changed the kebla of prayer
from Jerusalem to Mecca, clearly indicating thereby, that, whatever
might be the merits of Medina, the holy city of the Kaaba stood still
foremost in his affections. As soon as he had firmly established
his empire over Medina, and some powerful tribes of the desert, and
had destroyed or expelled the Jewish tribes of the Kainoka, the
Nadhirites, and the Koraidha,[31] he projected a scheme for the
conquest of Mecca, (towards the end of 627). Conscious that his
power was not yet sufficiently great to prevail by force of arms, he
craftily disguised his expedition against the city of his birth, in
the form of a peaceful and pious pilgrimage. Seventy camels, chosen
and bedecked for sacrifice, preceded the van of his host of 1400
picked men. The captives who fell into his hands, in his advance to
the territory of the sacred city, were dismissed without ransom, to
carry to the Koreish the solemn assurance of his peaceful intentions.
All that the good man wanted, was to be permitted to enter the city,
with his 1400 armed followers, to sacrifice the camels which he
had brought with him for the purpose, and to perform the customary
seven circumambulations round the Kaaba. Of course, had the Koreish
conceded these points, the rest would have been a task of easy
accomplishment. But the Koreish had had opportunities sufficient to
know the crafty tongue and the false heart of the son of Abdallah.
They encountered him, therefore, in the plain, within a day’s journey
of the city, with such numbers and with such resolution, that he was
fain to abandon his purpose for the time, and even to consent to the
conclusion of a ten years’ truce, with the Koreish and their allies.
In the treaty drawn up to that effect,[32] he, the infallible
prophet of God, the favored mortal raised by the Divine will to an
equality with the cherubim and seraphim in the heavenly hierarchy,
the trusted leader who had solemnly promised his believing followers,
a triumphal entry into the stronghold of the most formidable and
most dreaded of the enemies of Islam,--was obliged even to waive
the title of Apostle of God, and to figure as plain Mohammed Abul
Kasem. Still the Koreish granted him, for the ensuing year, the
privilege of entering the city unarmed and as a friend, and of
remaining three days to accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage--a
fatal mistake on their part, and which they might have foreseen one
so crafty as Mohammed would turn to excellent account. For the time
being, however, the authority of the pretended prophet of God was
considerably shaken, and some of the newly converted Bedoween tribes
showed symptoms of disaffection. The successful campaign against
Chaibar revived the faith and courage of his followers, and restored
the wavering loyalty of the wandering tribes.
After the conquest of Chaibar, Mohammed sent six embassies with
letters to the neighbouring princes, calling upon them to embrace
the religion of Islam: the seal of the letter bore the inscription,
“Mohammed, the Apostle of God.” The Greek emperor, HERACLIUS,
returning in triumph from the Persian war, received and entertained
one of these ambassadors with great urbanity at Emesa. KOBAD II.,
of Persia (SIROES)[33] tore the letter, and dismissed the envoy
with ignominy. MOKAWKAS, the Byzantine governor of Memphis, a born
Egyptian, and a Jacobite or Monophysite[34] in religion; and who, in
the disorder of the Persian war, had aspired to independence, and
thereby exposed himself to the resentment of Heraclius, declined,
indeed, the proposal of a new religion, but accompanied his refusal
with flattering compliments and with gifts; among other, two Coptic
damsels, one of whom, Mary, became the favorite concubine of the
prophet, to whom she bore a son, Ibrahim, who died, however, at the
tender age of fifteen months. The King of Abyssinia also returned a
polite answer. But HARIS, governor of Damascus, threatened war upon
the presumptuous Arabian; and AMRU, prince of Gassan, a vassal of the
Byzantine emperor, put the envoy to death, for which outrage Mohammed
sent afterwards an army into Syria, with what results we shall see
hereafter.
According to the stipulations of the treaty of Hodaibeh, Mohammed was
permitted to perform, towards the end of 628, at the head of a body
of pious pilgrims, his three days’ devotion in the Kaaba; the Koreish
retiring, meanwhile, to the hills. After the customary sacrifice,
he evacuated the city on the fourth day; but in this short space of
time, he had succeeded in sowing the seeds of division between the
hostile chiefs, and to gain over to his cause KALED and AMROU, or
AMRU, the future conquerors of Syria and Egypt. The interdiction of
wine, and of dice and lotteries, falls in this period.
It was after the return from this pilgrimage, that he sent an army
of 3000 Moslems against Amru, prince of Gassan, and the Greeks. The
army was led by ZEID, Mohammed’s freedman and one of his earliest
disciples. At Muta, three days’ journey from Jerusalem, they met the
Gassanides and the Greeks: a fierce and bloody battle ensued; Zeid
fell fighting in the foremost ranks; the holy banner, which escaped
from his relaxing grasp, was seized by JAAFAR, the leader appointed
by Mohammed to succeed Zeid, in the event of the decease of the
latter. Jaafar’s right hand was severed from his body by the sword
of a Roman soldier; he shifted the standard to the left hand: this
met the same fate; he embraced the holy banner with the bleeding
stumps, and thus upheld it, till the tide of life ebbed away from
fifty wounds. The vacant place was as worthily filled by ABDALLAH,
the second successor appointed by the prophet in case of accident.
He also fell, transfixed by the lance of a Roman. The battle was
lost, the flower of the Moslem host annihilated, and the ambitions
dreams of empire were dispelled at the very time when they seemed
to promise fairest,--had not KALED, the recent convert of Mecca, at
this critical juncture, rescued the falling standard, and assumed the
command, with the same bravery as his predecessors, but with still
greater prowess, and with greater success. Nine swords were broken
in his hand; and every enemy that dared to approach him, was made to
bite the dust by his invincible arm. Night put an end to the contest:
in the nocturnal council of the camp, Kaled was chosen, or rather
confirmed, leader of the gallant band of warriors, who had survived
the carnage of the day. Death had been fearfully busy in the ranks of
the Moslems; and the Greeks, though awed by the valor of Kaled, had
still an immense superiority of number in their favor. Kaled wisely
resolved, therefore, to save the wreck of his forces by a skilful
retreat. His admirable combinations, and the dread inspired by his
prowess, rescued the host of the faithful believers of Islam from
all but certain destruction; and the well-earned gratitude of the
prophet bestowed upon the hero of Muta, the glorious appellation of
the “Sword of God,” a name destined after to ring many a time and oft
as the knell of doom in the ears of the affrighted Christians.
Mohammed had never ceased to meditate the conquest of Mecca, and his
power was now, indeed, sufficiently great and solid to promise an
easy accomplishment of this, the darling object of his ambition; but
the ten years’ truce seemed an obstacle which it would not be easy to
surmount. Notwithstanding, however, he silently prepared the means
to carry his plans against the city of his birth into execution,
should a favorable opportunity offer. The reverse which his forces
had suffered at Muta, impelled the Koreish to furnish him with
the desired pretext; they attacked one of the tribes confederated
with Mohammed. Ten thousand soldiers were speedily gathered round
the banner of the prophet, and led by him against the offending
city. A rapid and secret march brought them almost within sight of
Mecca, before the Koreish had the least notion of their approach.
Unprepared as they were, it would have been sheer madness to contend
against the overwhelming forces which now encompassed the city of
the Kaaba: they resolved therefore to throw themselves upon the
clemency of their triumphant exile. On the 11th of January, 630,
the haughty chief of the house of Ommiyah presented the keys of the
city; and confessed, under the scymitar of Omar, that the son of
Abdallah was the apostle of the true God. The patriotic attachment
which Mohammed unquestionably bore the city of his birth, and
political considerations of a high order, stayed the avenging hand
of the victorious outcast. Kaled had, indeed, slain twenty-eight of
the inhabitants, ere the potent command of the prophet to spare the
vanquished, could restrain his ruthless arm; but Mohammed blamed
the cruelty of his lieutenant, and, though he proscribed eleven men
and six women, few only were put to death by him. Among these was
ABDOLUSA, who, after having embraced the faith of Islam, had relapsed
into idolatry. ABDALLAH, once the secretary of Mohammed, and who
had been employed by him to note down the fragmentary revelations
imparted by Gabriel, had a narrow escape. The clear-sighted man had
seen through the shallow imposture palmed upon the people by the
pretended apostle; and he had imprudently boasted, that he also might
claim the name and rank of a prophet, considering that he had it in
his power to change, or to suppress, the holy revelations dictated to
him by Mohammed. To escape the vengeance of his offended master, he
had fled to Mecca, where he had, however, still continued to provoke
his resentment by exposing and ridiculing his ignorance. When Mecca
was taken, Abdallah fell prostrate at the feet of Mohammed, and
implored his pardon. Othman, Abdallah’s foster-brother, entreated the
prophet to spare the life of the humble penitent, a request which was
at last most reluctantly granted, Mohammed declaring that he had so
long hesitated, to allow time for some zealous disciple to strike the
kneeling apostate dead at his feet.[35] The poet, HUIRES, paid the
penalty of his satires on the Apostle of God: but SOHEIR more wisely
purchased, not only forgiveness, but a rich reward in the bargain,
by one of the grossest and most extravagant pieces of adulation that
ever proceeded even from an Oriental pen.
The Koreish and the other inhabitants of Mecca, professed the
religion of Islam, and acknowledged the temporal and spiritual
supremacy of the prophet. The 360 idols of the Kaaba were
ignominiously broken; Mohammed assisting with his own hands, in the
work of destruction, nay, even lending his august shoulders for Ali
to mount upon, to accomplish the overthrow of some idols placed a
little above ordinary reach. This meritorious feat was performed on
a Friday; which day was, therefore, henceforward appointed by the
prophet as the holy day of Islam.
But it was by no means the intention of Mohammed to despoil the
city of his birth, of the lucrative trade in religion to which it
had hitherto been mainly indebted for its pre-eminence among the
cities of Arabia. The people of Mecca were agreeably disappointed,
when they beheld the Prophet of God solemnly consecrating again the
purified Kaaba, and performing the customary circumambulations and
sacrifices as of old. They were readily reconciled to the belief in a
sole Deity, since their astute townsman assigned a local habitation
on earth to the idea of the God whom he commanded them and the
nations of the world to worship, and placed this habitation within
the walls of their own city. Even the black stone was not forgotten
by the crafty politician: his reverential touch cleansed it from the
pollution of ages of idolatry, and restored it to the pristine purity
and holiness of Gabriel’s celestial gift to Abraham; and to crown
all, he still heightened the sanctity of the holy city, by enacting
a perpetual law that no unbeliever should ever dare to set his foot
within its sacred precincts.
The conquest of Mecca secured Mohammed the allegiance of many of
the Bedoween tribes, who, troubling themselves but little about
religious opinions and controversies, readily gave their adhesion
to the cause which the gods seemed to prosper. But some of the most
important tribes of Hejaz, and more especially the people of Tayef,
persisted in their idolatry, and a great confederacy was formed
among them to break the power of Mohammed. The prophet resolved to
meet the threatening danger; he collected a host of 12,000 men,
well-armed and well-appointed; the confederates had not one-half the
number to oppose him. But the skilful tactics of the pagans, and the
overweening confidence of the Mussulmans, brought the apostle and
his new faith to the verge of ruin. Having incautiously descended
into the valley of HONAIN, the Moslems were suddenly attacked on all
sides by the archers and slingers of the enemy, who occupied the
heights; the ranks of the faithful were thrown into confusion by
the unexpected and fierce onset of the foe; and the stoutest hearts
among them quailed, when they saw themselves caught as in a net.
The Koreish secretly rejoiced at the impending destruction of their
conquerors, and even prepared to go over to the enemy. All seemed
lost;--despairing of victory, the prophet, seeking a glorious death,
urged his white mule against the wall of spears that encompassed
him: his faithful followers dragged him back, and covered him with
their persons from the thrusts and darts aimed at his breast. Three
of these devoted followers fell dead at his feet;--but the moment of
weak despair was past, and soon the thunder of his voice was heard
again, reanimating the sinking courage of the Moslems, and striking
terror into the hearts of the idolators. The Koreish forgot their
treacherous intentions; the flying Mussulmans returned from all
sides to the holy standard; and the attacks of the enemy were now
everywhere vigorously repulsed. Defeat was changed into victory, and
a merciless slaughter of the conquered and flying pagans, avenged
the temporary disgrace of the followers of Islam. From the field
of Honain, Mohammed marched without delay to Tayef, the centre and
stronghold of the confederacy. He laid siege to that fortress; but
the desperate valor of the inhabitants defeated all his efforts to
effect its reduction; and after twenty days spent before it, he
deemed it the wisest course to rest satisfied for the time with the
victory of Honain, and not to court the chances of an inglorious
defeat. He, therefore, raised the siege, and marched back to Mecca.
In his operations against Tayef, he gave an instance of how cheap he
held his own laws and precepts, where they happened to clash with
his interests: he ordered the extirpation of all the fruit trees in
the fertile lands round the city.
In the division of the rich spoils of the expedition of Honain, he
acted with consummate skill. Instead of excluding the Koreish from
their share, to punish them for their ambiguous conduct during the
campaign, he bestowed double measure upon them; the most disaffected
of them all, Abu Sophian, being presented with no less than three
hundred camels and twenty ounces of silver: no wonder, then, that
that rapacious chief and his followers should have, henceforth,
become sincere adherents to so profitable a creed. The old companions
in arms of the prophet were reconciled to this manifest injustice
in the distribution of the spoil, by artful flatteries and promises
of heavenly rewards: his own share of the plunder (one-fifth) he
assigned to the soldiers.[36]
Although he had failed to reduce Tayef, yet by the extirpation of
the fruit trees he had struck a severe blow against the people of
that city; the fortifications had been considerably injured by the
battering rams and the mining operations, so that there was ample
reason to dread the event of a renewal of the siege. The people
of Tayef resolved, therefore, to sue for peace; their deputies
endeavoured to obtain favorable conditions, and, at least, the
toleration of their ancient worship, though even only for a short
period. Mohammed would not concede them even one day; at last they
simply entreated to be excused from the obligation of prayer to the
God of Islam; in vain: Mohammed was inexorable, and Tayef at length
submitted to the harsh conditions imposed by the prophet. The idols
were broken, their temples demolished, and all the tribes of Hejaz
acknowledged the supreme rule of the son of Abdallah. The ruler
of BAHREIN, the King of OMAN, and the King of the BENI GASSAN, in
Syria, confessed the God of Mohammed, and submitted to the sway of
the prophet. Yemen also, and the rest of the peninsula, was reduced
to obedience by his victorious lieutenants, and the ambassadors who
knelt before the throne of Medina, (631, hence called the year of the
embassies), were, in the words of the Arabian proverb, “as numerous
as the dates that fall from the palm-tree in the season of ripeness.”
Absolute master of the whole of Arabia, the son of Abdallah resolved
to subject Syria also to his sway; he solemnly declared war against
the Empire of the East, and summoned the faithful to the holy
standard. But the prospect of the difficulties and hardships of a
march through the desert, during the intolerable heat of the summer,
and, perhaps also, the recollection of Muta, discouraged the Moslems;
and the most urgent solicitations of the apostle were disregarded,
or met by more or less cogent excuses. Still the great champions of
the faith, Ali, Omar, Othman, Kaled, Amru, Abu Bekr, Abu Obeidah,
Abbas,[37] and many others, attended by trains of devoted followers,
gathered round the prophet, and enabled him thus to take the field,
at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.[38] After
one of the most distressing marches through the desert, the Moslem
host was compelled to halt midway near TABUC, ten days’ journey
from Medina and Damascus. The hardships endured had considerably
cooled the ardor of the faithful, and wisely declining to engage
the disciplined forces of the Eastern empire with his wearied and
dispirited followers, Mohammed contented himself with inviting
the Greek Emperor once more to embrace his religion, and retired
to Arabia; leaving a body of picked men, under the command of the
intrepid Kaled, to prosecute the war. The valor and activity of that
leader secured the submission of the tribes and cities from the
Euphrates to Ailah, at the head of the Red Sea. Mohammed returned to
Medina, where he pronounced a sentence of excommunication for fifty
days against those who had been the most disobedient to his call. He
then prepared for a great pilgrimage to Mecca, which he accomplished
in the early part of 632, attended by 60,000 Moslems.[39] In this,
his last visit to the city of his birth, he gave a great number of
laws and precepts; and, among others, the interdiction of the private
revenge of murder and other injuries.
It has already been stated, that Mohammed’s health had been declining
ever since the campaign of Chaibar, (see page 34, note); yet such
was the strength and vigor of his constitution, that up to the time
of his last and fatal illness, he remained equal to the physical and
mental fatigues of his mission. However, soon after his return from
the last pilgrimage to Mecca, he fell ill of an inflammatory fever,
with occasional fits of delirium, which he endeavoured to combat
by frequent affusions with cold water. When he became conscious of
the fatal nature of his illness, he laid himself out to die, as
an accomplished actor, like Octavianus Augustus. Leaning on his
cousin and son-in-law, Ali,[40] and on his uncle, Abbas, or the son
of the latter, Fadl, he dragged himself to the mosque to perform
the functions of public prayer: from the pulpit he called upon his
subjects freely and boldly to state any grievance that any one of
them might have suffered at his hands, and to prefer any just claims
against his estate. A safe challenge indeed: the victims of his lust
of power and revenge were laid in their graves, and could not appear
against him _there_; nor could _they_ prefer any claim against his
estate, who had been despoiled by him or his lieutenants, in their
predatory expeditions. No wonder then that the immaculate justice and
piety of the Apostle of God, were fully attested by the silence of
the congregation in presence of this challenge,--excepting a paltry
claim of three drachms of silver, which was, of course, at once duly
settled by Mohammed, with a profusion of thanks into the bargain,
that the “creditor” had rather demanded payment in this world, than
waited to accuse him at the judgment-seat of God!
Up to the third day before his death, he continued to perform the
function of public prayer; on that day his strength failed him, and
he deputed Abu Bekr in his place, which was afterwards skilfully
laid hold of by the latter and Ayesha, to found a claim to the
successorship in the sacerdotal and regal office, in favor of Abu
Bekr, to the prejudice of Ali.
He then made his last dispositions, enfranchised his slaves,
(seventeen men and eleven women), had alms distributed to the poor of
Medina, and minutely directed the order of his funeral. He expressed
a desire to dictate to his secretary a new divine book, the sum
and accomplishment of all his revelations, and which, according to
Mohammed’s convenient maxim, would have superseded the authority of
the Koran, in all points in which its teachings might happen to clash
with the rules and precepts laid down in the latter. As Mohammed had
preached an eternal and immutable God, and had declared the substance
of the Koran to be uncreated and eternal, the gross absurdity of
attempting a new, revised, and amended edition of it, could not fail
to strike the more rational among his disciples. They, with Omar at
their head, firmly refused, therefore, to consent to the prophet’s
anxiously expressed wish--a curious comment on the sincerity of their
professed conviction of his divine mission, and his communings with
the messenger of heaven, and for which, their _assumed_ belief that
his mental faculties were, at the time, impaired by the effects of
illness, afforded but an indifferent apology. Be this however as it
may, the point was vehemently discussed between them and the more
devout followers of the prophet; and the dispute, which was carried
on in the chamber of the dying man, rose at last to such a pitch,
that Mohammed reluctantly desisting from his desire, was forced to
reprove the indecent vehemence of the disputants on either side.
Even to the last moment of his life, Mohammed consistently carried
out his system of deception. He told his friends about him, that
he had received a last visit of Gabriel, who had now bidden an
everlasting farewell to the earth. In a familiar discourse, he had
once boasted of the peculiar and exclusive prerogative granted
to him, that the angel of death should respectfully solicit his
permission before he was to be allowed to take his soul. When he
felt the near approach of his dissolution, he calmly informed the
Moslem chiefs assembled round him, that the Great Destroyer had
just preferred his request, and that he, Mohammed, had granted the
permission asked! Stretched on a carpet spread upon the floor, and
with his head reclining on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of his
wives, he expired on the 7th day of June, 632.[41] His last words
were: “O God!... pardon my sins.... Yes, ... I come, ... among my
fellow-citizens on high.”
His death dismayed his followers; the more fanatical among them
could not bring themselves to believe in the actual departure of his
spirit from this world. The idea of a trance, or of a resurrection
after a few days’ apparent death, found ready credence with them.
Omar, unsheathing his scymitar, threatened to strike off the heads
of the infidels who should dare to affirm that the prophet was no
more!--a curious comment upon his refusal to allow the dying prophet
to re-write the Koran. At last, Abu Bekr succeeded in making them
listen to reason: “Is it Mohammed,” he said, “or Mohammed’s God whom
you worship? Has not the apostle himself predicted that he should
experience the common fate of mortality?” This calm and rational
address had the desired effect; the death of the prophet was admitted
by all, and his body was piously interred by the hands of Ali, on the
same spot on which he expired, and which is now surrounded by the
great mosque of Medina. The story of the hanging coffin at Mecca is a
vulgar and puerile invention, not worth the trouble of refutation.
I have been led by the superior importance and interest which attach
to the subject, to extend this chapter, perhaps, considerably beyond
the limits compatible with the nature and size of the present work;
still I cannot abstain from adding a short sketch of Mohammed’s
habits of life, and a few brief remarks on the Koran.
In his domestic life and intercourse, Mohammed was most simple
and unassuming. The ruler of Arabia fed usually upon barley bread
and dates; water was his ordinary drink, though he delighted, and
occasionally indulged, in the taste of milk and honey; he never
drank wine. The powerful chieftain who could command the services
of thousands, did not disdain performing the menial offices of the
household: he kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and
mended with his own hands, his shoes and his woollen garment (the
use of silk he rejected as too effeminate); nor was it an uncommon
circumstance to see the Apostle of God barefoot. He slept on the
bare ground, or on a carpet or straw mat spread upon the floor. He
always performed, with the most rigorous strictness, the prayers
and ablutions enjoined by the Koran. With the regal and sacerdotal
office, he had assumed the reserve and austerity that befitted
his high position; yet he would occasionally unbend in the circle
of his friends, when he enchanted all around him by the graceful,
though dignified, affability of his manners, and the charms of his
conversation. He was passionately fond of fairy tales. He delighted
in perfumes and cats, which latter partiality he shared with one of
his cotemporaries, the learned Abu Horaira, who gained for himself
the surname of “the father of a cat.” His hair, beard, and eyebrows,
were the objects of his most anxious care and solicitude; he dyed
them with considerable skill, a glossy light-chesnut color.
He was most passionately addicted to the fair sex: in the indulgence
of his amorous desires, he set his own laws at nought. The Arabians
had enjoyed, from time immemorial, an unbounded licence of polygamy;
the Koran limited the number of legitimate wives or concubines
to _four_, the prophet had _seventeen_ wives; but then, Gabriel
had descended with a special revelation, dispensing the favored
apostle from the laws which he had imposed on the nation. ZEINEB,
the beautiful wife of ZEID, his freedman and adopted son, excited
his desire. The grateful husband consented to a divorce, and the
prophet added her to the number of his wives; but as the filial
relation in which the young woman stood to Mohammed, even though
only by adoption, was likely to produce some scandal, and to
raise some scruples in the minds of the faithful, the complaisant
Gabriel descended with another verse of the Koran, appropriate to
the occasion. Again, in the case of Mary, the Egyptian slave, the
indefatigable angel was at hand to oblige the Apostle of God. Had
Mohammed liked wine, there can be no doubt, but that Gabriel would
have been ready with another verse of the Koran, to dispense the
prophet from the restriction imposed upon all other mortals. A
better proof than the nature of these successive “revelations,” so
entirely subservient to the gratification of his passions, could not
well be adduced, to show that Mohammed was not, as some good-natured
historians would fain believe him to have been, the enthusiastic dupe
of his own illusions, but simply a cool and calculating politician,
who made the institution of a new religious system the basis and
engine of his power and dominion; most probably, sincerely believing
also, that he was really conferring an immense boon upon his people.
His vengeful and sanguinary disposition, has been already fully
exposed in the narration of his life. The impartiality of history
relieves those darker touches in the picture of Mohammed’s character,
by a trait of unaffected humanity. His decree that, in the sale of
captives, mothers should never be separated from their children, may
well, as Gibbon says, moderate the censure of the historian. How
the thousands of hapless negro mothers that have had their children
ruthlessly torn from their arms in _Christian_ America, would bless
the memory of the Arabian legislator, could that humane decree of his
find force and application in the Western Hemisphere!
The KORAN is the sacred book of Islam; the successive “revelations”
imparted to Mohammed, were diligently recorded by his disciples
on palm-leaves, skins, and the shoulder-bones of mutton; and the
fragments, or “pages,” were thrown into a domestic chest, in the
custody of one of Mohammed’s wives. In 634, these fragments were
collected and published by Abu Bekr; the sacred volume was revised
by the Khalif Othman, in 651. It consists of 114 chapters (SURATS,
_i.e._ stages or degrees), of very unequal lengths, and jumbled
together without chronological order, or systematic arrangement.
The chapters are made up of plagiarisms from the Bible, rabbinical
and apocryphal legends, religious and moral precepts, descriptions
of the joys of paradise and the torments of hell, declamations
and rhapsodies. The style is, for the most part, inflated, rarely
poetical, never sublime; yet Mohammed had the cool audacity to
rest the truth of his mission on the incomparable merit of the
Koran, as an intellectual, linguistic, and poetical performance.
He blasphemously asserted, that God alone could have penned, or
dictated, its divine contents; as no human, nor even an angelic
intelligence, could possibly have conceived anything like them!!!
The dogmatic part of the Koran (the IMAN), comprises the two articles
of faith, viz., the belief in one God, and in his prophet Mohammed;
and the four practical duties of Islam, viz., prayer, ablutions,
fasting, and alms-giving: these duties are reduced to the level
of mere mechanical performances, without one atom of spontaneity
about them, and are looked upon by most Mohammedans as irksome
tasks, which must be accomplished, however, to secure the reward
of paradise; the formal permission granted to supply with sand the
scarcity of water, so that the prescribed lustration of the hands,
the face, and the body may be practised even in the arid desert,
shows how little capable the legislator must have been to conceive
and comprehend the true spirit and intention of his own ordinances.
The Koran pronounces--of course: is there a religion that does
not?--sentence of eternal damnation against all unbelievers; it
imagines a gradation of seven inconveniently hot places, of which the
highest and least uncomfortable is, of course, appropriated for the
exclusive use of Mohammedans who have been lacking in piety during
their mortal career; according to the less or greater gravity of
their respective offences, they are condemned to remain denizens of
this the mildest of the seven hells, for periods varying from 900 to
9000 years, after which they are admitted to the joys of paradise.
The place immediately beneath this purgatorial hell is assigned to
the Christians; the hell next to this is allotted to the Jews,
whom the prophet of Islam would indeed gladly have sent down lower,
had he dared to treat monotheists worse than idolators; the Sabians
inhabit the fourth, the Magians the fifth, the gross idolators the
sixth hell; the deepest and hottest hell is destined to receive
hypocrites in religion, and may therefore safely be assumed to be of
larger dimensions and infinitely greater capacity than the other six
together. The paradise of the Koran abounds in groves, fountains,
and rivers; the blessed Moslems who are permitted to enter its gates
will dwell in palaces of marble, eat artificial dainties and luscious
fruits presented in dishes of gold, drink rich wines,[42] dress in
robes of silk, adorned with pearls and diamonds, and have a numerous
retinue of attendants; and above all, each Moslem will enjoy the
society and possession of seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls,
of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite
sensibility--rather a pleasant picture for a sensual people like the
Arabians. To the female sex also the gates of paradise are open;
but the privileges and enjoyments which may await the ladies of the
Mohammedan faith, are not specified in the Koran. Still, we must not
be unjust: above the vulgar joys and sensual pleasures borrowed from
this world, Mohammed places the delights of familiar conversation
with the sages, and he expressly declares that all meaner happiness
will be forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs who shall be
permitted to behold the face of God.
Mohammed’s assertion that the Koran was the production of the
highest intelligence, and comprised within it the knowledge of all
times, has, ever since the establishment of his creed, proved a bar
to the intellectual culture and progress of his people and of the
other nations who were induced or compelled to adopt his faith; his
interdiction to reproduce the human face and form on canvas or in
marble, or any other material, and which with singular poverty of
invention he had devised as the only possible check to idolatry, has
had the natural effect to suppress and extinguish in the Moslem
nations the love of the fine arts. True, when conquest had placed the
wealth of empires at the disposal of the sons of the Desert, many
of Mohammed’s followers could not resist the natural longing after
the treasures and enjoyments of science, art, and literature; and
indeed the republic of letters is vastly indebted to many of them
for their labors and researches in various fields of human lore,
more especially in geography, history, philosophy, medicine, natural
philosophy, chemistry, mathematics, and above all, arithmetic,
algebra, geometry, and astronomy. But then, as A. W. VON SCHLEGEL,
says, “All this was done, as it were, behind the back of the prophet,
and the votaries of art, science, and literature, among the Arabians
must, from a Koranic point of view, be regarded in the light of
free-thinkers.”
The ritual of the faith of Islam, and the interdictions decreed by
the prophet, have been already incidentally touched upon in various
parts of this chapter; we have therefore simply to add here that the
Koran commands every faithful Moslem to visit, at feast once in his
life, the holy city of Mecca, and the Kaaba.
One great redeeming feature of the religion of Islam was that it was
originally destitute of a priesthood, and repudiated monachism; the
_Ulemas_ were simply intended to be the expounders and interpreters
of the law.
On Friday, the appointed day of public worship, when the faithful are
assembled in the mosque, any respectable elder may ascend the pulpit
to begin the prayer and pronounce the sermon: there is no need of a
duly appointed priest. But, unfortunately, the Ulemas and Imams of
the present day act very much in the capacity of an actual clergy:
and there is indeed no great difference between fakirs and dervishes
and Roman Catholic monks.
The Koran contains also the civil and criminal code of the
Mussulmans; the punishments decreed in it for injuries, offences, and
crimes are mostly based upon the principle of retaliation.
Briefly to sum up: though it must be admitted that the religion of
Islam, calmly and dispassionately examined by the light of reason,
contains, by the side of the grossest absurdities, the most palpable
falsehoods, and the veriest rubbish, much also that is true and
of sterling worth; and that it has exercised a certain civilising
influence over the barbarous nations to whom it was first preached,
yet few only will venture to deny that it lacks altogether the
higher and most essential qualities of a universal faith. Even the
basis whereon it rests, the great eternal truth of a sole Deity, is
tarnished and clouded in it by the companionship which it is forced
to bear to a miserable fiction placed by the side of it, and with
equal attributes. There are some few, strange though it may appear,
who almost regret that the victorious career of the Moslems should
have been checked by LEO THE ISAURIAN and by CHARLES MARTEL. What
would have become of Europe--what of civilisation, had the Moslems
conquered? Let the admirers of Islam look at the state of the
Mussulman nations of the present day: the fruit shows the quality of
the tree. It is also a favorite argument with historians and others,
to point to the _numbers_ of believers in Islam, and to the twelve
centuries that the Mohammedan faith has endured, as convincing proofs
of the _truth_ of that creed, or, at all events, of a preponderating
amount of truth in it. If arguments of this kind are to apply, the
Mormon faith also may claim admission among the “received” creeds;
and the names of Joe Smith and Brigham Young may be expected, in
the course of fifty years or so, to figure among the “prophets and
apostles of religion.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Genesis, x. 25. EBER signifies a nomadic shepherd, one
leading a roving pastoral life; it signifies, also, in Hebrew,
_beyond_, _yon-side_, _the other side_: hence the name HEBREW, or
EBREW, has been supposed also to be intended to designate immigrants
into Canaan or Palestine from beyond the Euphrates.
[2] A species of millet, which compensates to some extent the
scarcity of European grains.
[3] “The Arabian tribes are equally addicted to commerce and rapine,”
as Pliny has it.
[4] True, in the Arabic tongue the meaning of the words, of which the
name _Saracens_ may be compounded, will bear out the signification of
an _Oriental situation_. But the _western_ position of the Saracen
tribe mentioned by Ptolemy, negatives the assumption of the Arabic
origin of the word as applied in this sense. As Gibbon sagaciously
remarks, the appellation being imposed by strangers, its meaning must
be sought, not in the Arabic, but in a foreign language.
[5] It would even appear that the confusion consequent upon the death
of the great Macedonian, and upon the feuds and struggles for empire
among his generals, was taken advantage of by the princes in the
north of Arabia, to extend their dominion beyond the frontier of the
peninsula. From the earliest times the wandering tribes had been in
the habit, more particularly during the scarcity of winter, to extort
the dangerous license of encamping on the skirts of Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Egypt, and had often extended their incursions to the
very heart of Chaldæa, or Babylonia (Irak). They now took formal
possession of a part of the latter country (hence called to the
present day IRAK-ARABI), and established in it a new Arabian state,
the kingdom of HIRA. Tribes from Yemen emigrated to the territory of
Syria, and established the state of GASSAN, in the country north of
Damascus. We must not omit to mention, however, that some historians
place the establishment of the states of Hira and Gassan at a much
later period.
[6] So named from Makkabi, i.e., _the hammer_; the appellation
bestowed upon Judas, the liberator of the Jews from the Syrian yoke.
[7] DUNAAN, prince of the Homerites, had been gained over to the
Mosaic faith by the Jewish exiles who had found an asylum in Yemen.
The new proselyte carried on a most vigorous persecution of the
Christians in his dominions, and more particularly in the city of
Negra, or Nag’ran, (situated between Saana and Mecca). The Christian
king of Abyssinia, who preferred an hereditary claim to the crown of
Yemen, as a descendant of BALKIS, Queen of Sheba, came to the rescue
of his oppressed fellow-believers, and speedily deprived the Jewish
proselyte of crown and life. He allied himself also with the Emperor
Justinian for the overthrow of the Persian power; but he failed
in his subsequent enterprise, and found himself incapable even of
defending his Arabian conquests, which were wrested from him by the
revolt and usurpation of ABRAHAH, once the slave of a Roman merchant
of Adulis. The payment of a slight tribute alone acknowledged the
supremacy of the Ethiopian prince. After a long and prosperous reign,
the power of Abrahah was overthrown before the gates of Mecca, by
Abdul Motalleb, the grandfather of Mohammed; and his children were
finally despoiled by Chosroes Nushirvan, of Persia.
[8] The Axumites, or Abyssinians, were, most probably, originally a
colony of Arabs who had settled in Africa.
[9] The same independence from the yoke of a foreign ruler is still
preserved to the present day by the Arabians. The Sultan of Turkey
exercises but a nominal sovereignty over Hedjaz and Neged; and the
rise and exploits of that formidable sect of religious reformers,
the WAHABYS, during the latter half of the last and in the present
century, indicate sufficiently that it may only require the
appearance of a great man among the Arabs, or the occurrence of some
great event, to unite the wild sons of the desert once more into a
mighty nation that may make its influence felt in the destinies of
the world. Had not Egypt’s great ruler, Mehemet Ali, and his warlike
son Ibrahim, stemmed for a time the progress, and crippled the power
of the Wahabys, who knows but that the champion of Greek orthodoxy
might have found his present ambitious projects opposed by a fiercer
and more formidable antagonist than the effete race of Osman?
[10] Called MEDJID-EL-HARAM, i.e., the holy Mosch.
[11] A visible point of the horizon.
[12] Gibbon.
[13] The constant repetition of this act of pious devotion by so many
myriads of pilgrims has had the effect of rendering the surface of
the stone quite uneven.
[14] Gibbon.
[15] It was in the time when Abdol Motalleb held the sacerdotal
office that Mecca was invested by an army of Africans, under the
command of the Christian usurper of Yemen, Abrahah, the nominal
vassal of the Abyssinian Negus. The valor of the Koreishites, or
perhaps the want of provisions, compelled the investing host to
a disgraceful retreat, and broke the power of the Abyssinians so
effectually that the kingdom of Yemen became soon after an easy prey
to the victorious arms of the great Chosroes of Persia. Had the
_Christian_ Abrahah prevailed, the early feeble efforts of Mohammed
to propagate his new doctrine would certainly have been crushed in
the bud, and the fate of the world would have been changed.
[16] Sabianism, though also based upon the adoration of the heavenly
bodies, must not be confounded with the primitive and simple faith of
the Arabians in the sun, the moon, and the stars; it was of a much
more complex and recondite nature.
[17] Some historians assign the year 569, others 570 (10th November),
as the date of Mahomet’s birth. The date given in the text is,
however, supported by the greater weight of historic authorities.
[18] This Syrian city has been most strangely confounded by
many historians with Bassora, or Basra, on the Shat-el-Arab, in
Irak-Arabi. The latter city was only founded in 636, A.D., by
the Khalif Omar, which makes the mistake the more glaring and
inexplicable.
[19] Some historians make Mohammed at the age of fourteen fight in
defence of the Kaaba, which a hostile tribe threatened to snatch from
the custody of the Koreish. They relate, also, how, at a later period
of his life, when the Kaaba, having been tumbled down by a formidable
torrent of rain, was rebuilding, the honor of fixing the sacred black
stone in the wall devolved upon him; and they endeavour to trace a
kind of causal connection between these incidents in the earlier
life of Mohammed and the religious bias of his later years. But the
_facts_ relied upon here partake too much of the nature of _fiction_,
to make these speculative notions of much moment. Before his marriage
with Cadijah, Mohammed was in a humble and dependent position; and
from the time of his marriage up to when he took upon himself the
apostolic office, he was simply a wealthy but obscure citizen.
[20] Here, again, historians have sent Mohammed on a great many
journeys through Syria, Irak-Arabi, and to the adjoining provinces of
Persia and the Eastern Empire. They make him visit the courts, the
camps, and the temples of the East, and hold converse with princes,
bishops, and priests, more particularly with the Christian monks
Bahira, Sergius, and Nestor. An attentive study of the historic
sources at our command, and a careful examination of the life and
writings of Mohammed, tend to negative altogether the truth of these
pretended journeys and visits, which look very much like fictions got
up by imaginative historians to supply some plausible explanation of
the origin of Mohammed’s pretended mission--an explanation which may
be found much nearer home, as I shall endeavour to show in the text.
Here I will simply add that Mohammed, with all his talent, genius,
and eloquence, was, like the immense majority of his fellow-citizens,
an illiterate barbarian, who had not even been taught to read and
write, and was totally unacquainted with any but his native tongue,
and not likely, therefore, to profit much from converse with other
nations.
[21] The assertion that Mohammed was subject to epileptic fits is
a base invention of the Greeks, who would seem to _impute_ that
morbid affection to the apostle of a novel creed as a stain upon
his moral character deserving the reprobation and abhorrence of
the Christian world. Surely, these malignant bigots might have
reflected that if Mohammed had really been afflicted with that dread
disorder, Christian charity ought to have commanded them to pity his
misfortune, rather than rejoice over it or pretend to regard it in
the light of a sign of Divine wrath.
[22] _Sonna_, custom or rule; the _oral law_ of the Mohammedans,--or,
more correctly speaking, of the four orthodox sects of the
Sonnites--a collection of 7275 traditions of the sayings and doings
of Mohammed, made about 200 years after the Hegira, by Al Bochari,
who selected them from a mass of three hundred thousand reports of a
more doubtful or spurious character.
[23] The so-called MARIANITES are even stated to have attempted the
introduction of a heretical trinity into the church, by substituting
the Virgin for the Holy Ghost.
[24] The five preceding prophets were, in due gradation, Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, and Christus.
[25] The interdiction of wine appeared, however, at a much later
period, (628).
[26] By the advice of Moses, it is somewhat inconsistently asserted
considering that the founder of the Jewish creed, not being
permitted, according to the tradition of the nocturnal journey,
to proceed beyond the seventh heaven (if even so far, his proper
appointed mansion being the sixth heaven) must have been, on the most
moderate calculation, at 140,000,000 years’ distance from the throne
of God.
[27] This flight of the prophet, called the HEJIRA, (i.e.,
_emigration_,) was deemed afterwards of such importance that it was
instituted by Omar, the second Khalif, as the starting-point of the
Mohammedan era, which was, however, made to commence about two months
before, on the first day of that Arabian year, which coincides with
July 16th, 622, A.D.
[28] The conquered Christians were granted the security of their
persons, the freedom of their trade, the property of their goods, and
the toleration of their worship. For the treatment which the Jews met
with at Mohammed’s hands, see the text.
[29] Whether 1000, 3000, or 9000, the commentators of the Koran
cannot agree. Considering that there were only 1000 Koreish in the
field, of whom no more than seventy were slain, it would appear
that Mohammed must either have entertained a most exalted idea of
the valor of his former fellow-citizens, or rather a humble one of
angelic prowess.
[30] It was at the time of the expedition against Chaibar that
Mohammed prohibited the eating of pork, and of the flesh of the ass,
and also the cutting down of fruit-trees, more especially of palms.
“Revere your aunt, the palm-tree,” says the Koran, “for it is made of
the remainder of the clay of which Adam was formed.” Here in Chaibar,
a Jewish female, named Zainab, avenged the cruelties inflicted by
Mohammed upon her nation, by administering a slow poison to the
pretended apostle, whose prophetic knowledge was in this instance
lamentably at fault. To the effects of this poison he himself
attributed the gradual decline of his health from this time, and his
increasing infirmities; and both Abulfeda and Al Jannabi, zealous
votaries of Islam though they are, frankly admit the humiliating
fact. The hatred which he bore to the Jews, did not, however, prevent
his adding to the number of his wives the fair Jewess Shafiya, who,
upon the capitulation of Chaibar, was presented to him as worthy his
acceptance.
[31] The final campaign against Chaibar took place several months
after the first attempt upon Mecca; but for the sake of connection it
has been given in the text a little out of its chronological order.
[32] Known as the treaty of Hodaibeh.
[33] Chosroes II., who is mentioned in most histories as the monarch
who received the envoys of Mohammed, had been murdered by his son
Siroes, on the 28th February, 628, and could not therefore well have
received the ambassador of Mohammed, who started at a later period of
the year.
[34] The sect of the _Monophysites_ asserted one incarnate nature
in Christ; the name of Jacobites, by which they are mostly known,
is derived from Jacobus Baradæus, Bishop of Edessa, who revived the
expiring faction of the Monophysites (about 530).
[35] Some historians dispose of Abdallah on this occasion by the
scymitar of BESCHR, and assign to the Abdallah who in 647 invaded
North Africa, a different origin (some assert the latter to have been
the son of the martyr Jaafar who fell in the battle of Muta).
[36] Mohammed’s vices were of a regal cast; avarice, the beggar’s
vice, yet which so often sullies crowned heads, was not among his
failings.
[37] One of the uncles of the prophet, whose vigorous arm and
immensely powerful voice had done good service to the cause in the
fight of Honain.
[38] Even this number reads very much like Oriental exaggeration, and
may safely be reduced by the half.
[39] Some writers say 90,000, others, 110,000; others, 114,000; some
raise the number even to 130, 140, or 150,000; but then due allowance
must be made for Oriental exaggeration; I think the number given in
the text may be considered to come tolerably near the mark.
[40] Ali was married to Fatima, the only one of Mohammed’s children
who survived the prophet.
[41] Some historians give the 6th, others the 8th, and others the
17th of June, as the last day of Mohammed’s life.
[42] Rather a curious comment on the interdiction of wine in this
world.