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THE WORUD3 EPGCH-AIAKER5

EDITED BY

THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS

EDITED BY

OLIPHANT SMEATON

Muhammad and

His Power

By P. De Lacy Johnstone, M.A.(Oxon.), M.R.A.S.

PREVIOUS VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES: —

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THE WORLD'S EPOCH-MAKERS

Muhammad and

His Power

P. De Lacy Johnstone, M.A.(Oxon.), M.R.A.S.

(Of H.M.B.C.S, retired)

"The faith which he preached is compounded of an
eternal truth and a necessary fiction : That there is only
one God, and that Mahomet is the Prophet of God."

Gibbon.

Edinburgh. T. & T. Clark
1901

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To
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PREFACE

So much has been written, and so much learning and
study devoted to the history of Muhammad and the
religious and political power which he founded, and
which now, after thirteen centuries, seems — as a religion
— not less firmly established than ever it was, that
one who approaches the subject to-day cannot hope
to do much more than sift and select from the labours
of those who have gone before him. The struggle of
Christianity with the forces of Islam began within
five years of the Flight from Mecca, but the study of
its documents and the history of its rise and progress
(that is, of course, by those who are outside its pale)
has been the growth of the last century and a half.
In our own country the strength and, scarcely less, the
weaknesses of the founder and of the system have
roused the admiration of Gibbon and Carlyle, have
been the object of profound study by such scholars and
administrators as Edward Lane and Sir William Muir,
and have been the goal of travellers like Richard
Burton and Gifford Palgrave, Burkhardt and Carsten
Niebuhr. In this, as in most other domains of know-
ledge, German scholars have done great work: the
names of Sprenger and Weil, Noldeke and Kremer, are
specially to be honoured; while the great work of

viii PREFACE

Caussin de Perceval, and the masterly though short
book of St. Hilaire, are witness to the debt which we
owe in these studies to France also. To one book
I am myself under particular obligation — Hughes's
Dictionary of Islam, a work of great grasp and deep
learning, not only embodying the substance of the most
important work of his predecessors, but also instinct
with that familiarity with his theme which can only
be got by a life spent among Muhammadans, together
with wide study of their literature and modes of
thought. Having thus made a general acknowledgment
of the sources of the present work, it will not be
necessary to burden my pages with particular refer-
ences, and the reader will readily excuse me from
making them. One part of the field of inquiry still lies
imperfectly worked, the relation of Islam to Judaism,
which was made a reproach to Muhammad by his
unbelieving countrymen : it is to be hoped that some
day we shall have exhaustive treatment of the subject,
on the lines already drawn by those brilliant Jewish
scholars, Deutsch and Geiger. The earlier chapters of
the book give a sketch of the land, the people, and the
conditions in which the Prophet arose, for he was an
Arab of the Arabs ; in the latest is shown how his
successors prosecuted his work, and some account is
given of that wonderful Quran which is the Charter
of Islam.

The following short list of books, easily accessible
in our own language, will give the student sound
knowledge of my whole subject, and will guide him to
the best original authorities, if he desire to consult
them : —

Sir W. Muir's Life of Mahomet and Early Caliphate

PREFACE ix

(Smith & Elder); Hughes, Dictionary of Islam
(Allen); Sell's Faith of Islam (Triibner); Lane's
Selections from the Kv.ran (Triibner) and Modern
Egyptians (Murray); Burton's Pilgrimage to Al-
Medina and Meccah (Tylston & Edwards), and
W. G. Palgrave's Centred and Eastern Arabia (Mac-
millan); Koelle's Muhammad and Muhammadanisrn
(Longmans) ; Palmer's Quran (Clarendon Press) and
Sale's Koran, the latter of which is still in many
respects unsurpassed. The Encyclopedia Britannica
articles ARABIA (Palgrave), and MUHAMMAD, etc.
(Xoldeke), are also very valuable.

The portrait of Muhammad, gathered from the
Traditions (p. 148), is taken almost exactly from
Deutsch's Essay on Islam : Mr. Poole had already
used it before me.

The passages from the Quran are taken, by permis-
sion of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, from Pro-
fessor Palmer's version. I am also greatly indebted
to Sir C. J. Lyall for leave to make extracts from his
Ancient Arabian Poetry (pp. 20-24).

ON THE TRANSLITERATION OF

ARABIC WORDS

THERE exists unhappily great diversity among scholars
in the transcribing of Arabic words in Roman charac-
ters, and the difficulties are made greater by differences
of pronunciation (both of vowels and consonants) in
the various countries where Arabic is spoken. I
therefore ask the indulgence of readers for faults and
inconsistencies of spelling : scholars will not be severe,
and I might shelter myself behind the authority and
example of one of our greatest Arabists, Sir R.
Burton, who pronounced all special efforts after scien-
tific accuracy to be "superfluous for the reader who
knows Arabic, and no help to the reader who does
not." My own rough scheme is meant only as a guide
to correct pronunciation.

That vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian is
the general rule, consonants as in English ; long vowels
are marked with a bar, but where the pronunciation
has once been correctly indicated, it may be found that
sometimes such marks have been omitted when a name
recurs.

xii TRANSLITERATION OF ARABIC WORDS

a — the so-called obscure vowel — as u in mud

a „ a father

i „ i bit

I „ ee meet

u ,, oo foot

u „ oo food

e „ ay pay

ai „ ai aisle

au „ ow owl

th hard as in Bought

dh soft as in i&ther

Kh Greek x as in Sc. loch

q represents guttural K
gh is a strong guttural (ghain), not very different from
the French r.

Ain, the peculiar Semitic guttural, I have generally
left unrepresented ; but sometimes, as in the common
name Saad, and in Kaaba, it is represented by the
second vowel. Generally, where two vowels (not
being one of the diphthongs ai, au) come together,
both are to be pronounced.

After much hesitation I have uniformly written the
Prophet's name Muhammad, though most English
readers will probably always follow the traditional
pronunciation Mahomet. In the case of the Khalifa
I have used the familiar Omar instead of the correct
CTmr, the latter being hard to pronounce and the
former particularly familiar as the name also of the
Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Khalifa replaces the
old title Caliph, and is only too well known to
English readers from recent events in the Soudan.
Mecca and Medina are written in the traditional way.

In proper names I have written al (the definite
article), not changing I before dentals, etc., as is done
in pronunciation.

SOME LEADING DATES IN THE
HISTORY

A.D.

570. Attack by Abraha on Mecca repulsed. "Year of the

Elephant." MUHAMMAD born.
595. Marriage to Khadija.

611. Muhammad declares himself the Apostle of God
615-616. First and Second Migration of Converts to Abyssinia.
617. Muslims placed under a ban at Mecca,

620. Death of Khadija and of Abu Talib.

621. First Pledge of Aqaba.

622. The Hijra. Flight of Muhammad to Medina.
624. Battle of Badr.

630. Capture of Mecca.
632. Death of Muhammad.

£•0.7 ••.

I Abu Bakr Khalifa. Subjugation of Arabia. First foreign
634 J conquests.

634. Omar Khalifa,

634. First Recension of the Quran.

634. Victory of Yarmuk.

635. Victory at Qadisiya,
637. Conquest of Jerusalem.

641. Conquest of Egypt.

642. Conquest of Persia.

644. Murder of Omar. Election of Uthnian.

651. Revision of the Quran : text finally settled.

656. Murder of Uthman : election of Ali. Battle of the " Camel."

xiv LEADING DATES IN THE HISTORY

A.D.

657. Battle of Siffin, against Muawiya.

658. All deposed by the Umpires.

661. Murder of Ali. Hasan abdicates : Muawiya sole Khalifa.
680. Husain defeated and slain at Karbala.

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE . vii

CHAPTER I

The Awakening of Arabia — Early Commerce — Mecca and Muham-
mad— His Mission and the Extension of his Power — Physical
Features and Ethnology — The Hijaz — Bedouins ... 1

CHAPTEE II

The Arabs before Islam — Social Condition — Religious Beliefs —
Arab Poetry and Arab Life— Tribal Ties— Hatim Tai— Select
Specimens of pre-Islamic Poetry 13

CHAPTER III

Arabs of the Town — Mecca's Religious Position — Arab Races and
Languages — Dynasties — Tainan, Abyssinia, etc. — Christian In-
fluences : Hira and Ghassau — Medina — Jewish Influences —
Pilgrimage and Months of Truce — Mecca : Quraish and Qusai
— Tribes of Central Arabia — Medina . . . .26

CHAPTER IV

Qusai to Muhammad — Abd al Muttalib — Redemption of Abdallah
— Strength of Idolatry in Mecca — " Muslims before Islam " —
Zai'l the Sceptic — Birth of Muhammad, a Posthumous Child
— Adoption by Abd al Muttalib — His Fosterage and Early
Childhood — Death of his Mother — Legends of his Infancy —
His Youth — Marriage to Khadija ,37

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

PAGE

Muhammad's Public and Private Life — His Character— Early Striv-
ings after Truth — First Revelations — The "Cessation of
Visions " — Muhammad's Early Preaching — Beginnings of Suc-
cess— Ali, Zaid, Abu Bakr converted — Blind Man — Temptation
by Quraish rejected 54

CHAPTER VI

The New Sect Persecuted — Migration to Aby.ssinia — The Debate —
Muhammad's Lapse and Kecovery — The Interdict by Quraish
— Its Removal — Fresh Converts — Death of Khadija and of Abu
Talib — Marriage with Sauda and with Ayesha — Help from
Medina — The First and Second Pledges of Aqaba — The Flight
— The "Night Journey "'to Jerusalem and Heaven ! . . 70

CHAPTER VII

Muhammad reaches Medina — Religious and Political Institutions
— "Refugees" and "Helpers : Bond of Brotherhood — The
Jews — Attacks on Meccan Commerce — Battle of Badr : Its
Critical Importance — Treatment of the Captives — Joy in
Medina — Reprisals against Foes in Medina — Exile of Jews —
Marriage of Fatirna to Ali — Defeat of Muhammad at Uhud —
The Prophet wounded — Khalid — Hamza slain — The Funeral
Hymn — Assassinations— Exile of more Jews . . . .88

CHAPTER VIII

Muhammad's Fair at Badr — Scandalous Marriage with Zainab —
Justified by "Revelation" — Ordinances for Women— The
Prophet's Exemptions — The Scandal raised against Ayesha,
who is cleared by a Revelation — Punishmantof the Slanderers
— Laws for the Prophet's Wives — Medina besieged by the
Quraish — The Ditch — Siege raised — Massacre of the Quraiza
Jewish Tribe— Minor Expeditions — Assassinations . . .105

CHAPTER IX

CONTENTS xvii

PAGE

performed — Defeat at Muta, Zaid slain — Conquest of Mecca :
Muhammad's clemency — Destruction of Idols — Victory of
Hunain— Siege of Ta.if— The Bani Saad— Birth and Death of
Ibrahim — Scandal with Mary the Copt . . . . .119

CHAPTER X

Muhammad now supreme in Arabia — Administrative Steps — Tribute
and Tax-Gatherers — Treaty with Christian Tribes — The " Year
of Deputations1' — Idolaters forbidden to enter Mecca —
Ordinance of Holy \Yar — The Farewell Pilgrimage — Last Ill-
ness and Death of Muhammad ...... 137

CHAPTER XI

General Review of Muhammad and his System — Personal Appear-
ance, Habits, and Character — His Teaching — The Position he
claimed for himself — The Quran — The Future : Paradise and
Hell — Religious and Social Laws— Moral Duties— Islam and
Christianity 148

CHAPTER XII

Sketch of the Early Conquests of Islam — Abu Bakr first Khalifa
— Arabia revolts — False Prophets arise — Rebellion crushed —
Siege of Medina — Reduction of Yaman, Hadramaut, etc. —
Operations of Khalid — Musailima "the Liar" defeated and
slain at Yamama — First Collection of the Quran by Zaid —
First Foreign Conquests — Persia — Hira — Reverses — Death of
Abu Bakr — Succession of Omar — Khalid deposed — Great defeat
of the Arabs by Bahman — Yictory of Muthanna — Conquest of
Persia — Qadisiya — Siege and Capture of Madain — Jalaula —
Founding of Kufa and Basra — Conquest of Syria : Damascus,
Jerusalem — Conquest of Egypt by Amra — Reopening of Canal
to Red Sea — Domestic Administration — "Year of Ashes" —
Code and Pension-List — Hijra Era — Degradation of Morals —
Assassination of Omar : his Character 160

CHAPTER XIII

Election of Uthman— Discontent of Ali — The Khalifa's Weakness
and Unpopularity — His Character and his Difficulties — Seeds
of Schism — Turbulence of Kufa and Basra — Successes in Egypt
— Changes of Governors — Nepotism — Discontent and Con-

xviii CONTENTS

PAOE

spiracy — Open Rebellion — Uthman besieged in his own palace
and assassinated — AH elected — Revolt of Zubair and Talha —
Ayesha — Battle of the "Camel" — Defiance by Muawiya — Kiifa
chosen as Capital — March against Muawiya— Battle of Siffin —
Truce and Arbitration — The Award — Fresh War — Peace with
Muawiya — Loss of Egypt — The Kharijites — Murder of Ali —
Election and Abdication of Hasan — Muawiya sole Khalifa —
Yazid — Hasan — March to Kufa — Karbala — "Martyrs" of
Christianity and Islam 179

CHAPTER XIV

The Quran — Its Composition, Literary Character, and Influence —
Fixes the Arabic Tongue— Not collected by Muhammad — The
Fatiha — The Doctrine of Allah, with Extracts — Man's relation
to God : his Moral and Religious Duties ; Future Life, and Re-
wards and Punishments — The Higher Law of Christ — Creation
and Providence — The Resurrection — Paradise and Hell — Illus-
trative Extracts — Muhammad's Debt to Judaism — His Inferi-
ority— Women in Islam — Slavery .194

CHAPTER XV

Shias and Sunnis, the great Schism — Miracle Play of Hasan and
Husain — Sufis — Darwesh Orders— Wahhabis — Islam in Politics
—Muslims in China — Conclusion ... .216

APPENDICES

A. Women and the Future Life 231

B. Note on the Muhammadan Era 232

C. Original Despatch from Muhammad 233

INDEX . . 235

MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

CHAPTER I

The Awakening of Arabia — Early Commerce — Mecca and
Muhammad — His Mission and the Extension of his Power
— Physical Features and Ethnology — The Hijaz — Bedouins.

AKABIA, which had slept for ages, isolated by differ-
ence of climate and of race, was at last to awake ; her j
warring tribes^gflrp ^-^ km'f. *ngpther Jn rme faith,
aTKT in obedience to one inasterrmind ;. the mists of her
hoary idolatries were to roll away before the sun of a^
new doctrine, and the veil behind which the constituents
of the new nation had been for centuries hid front the
peoples around, was once and for all to be rent asunder, —
The sixth century after Christ was nearing its close ;
Christianity itself was, alas ! torn by bitter strife and
faction ; the mighty empire of Rome, whose seat had
been three centuries before changed from the banks of
Tiber to the shores of the Bosphorus, was sinking into
decrepitude; the rival empire of Persia also had lost
the vigour of earlier times : the world was ripe for the
appearance of a fresh race ; and in the fulness of time
the Prophet of Arabia was born in Mecca, which had

2 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

long been, as history witnesses, a centre of religion and
of commerce, from which radiated ideas and traffic to
every corner of the great peninsula, and to all the lands
whither her merchants travelled. It was but a small
town, nestling in a plain amid arid, volcanic rocks,
some 50 miles from the shores of the Red Sea, from
which the ground rises gradually toward the great table-
land of inner Arabia ; but to it, as to a sanctuary of
great holiness, to worship at the rude temple which
legend traced back to Abraham and Ishmael as its
founders, gathered, year by year in their thousands, the
merchants and poets, travellers and traders, of every
tribe and nation of Arabia. As the rival peoples of
Greece mingled on the plains of Olympus or Corinth,
or the merchants of many lands meet to-day at the
great fair of Nijni-Novgorod, or as pilgrims flock to
Rome from all corners of the habitable earth, — so in
pagan times, in the days of the " Ignorance," did the
wandering desert tribes gather for pleasure, for profit,
and for worship, to the plains around Mecca. They
worshipped the three hundred and sixty idols that
stood round the Kaaba ; they made the mystic seven-
fold circuit of the shrine, and they drank of the holy
well Zemzem; and, above all, they devoutly kissed
the wondrous Black Stone, that holiest part of the Holy
Temple's walls. These bonds of union, purified from
idolatrous taint, were retained and strengthened in the
new religion ; and the most notable duty of Islam, the
annual pilgrimage to Mecca, a sacred obligation laid on
every follower of the Prophet, to be discharged once at
least in his lifetime, if it be in any wise possible, has
its roots deep in the immemorial usages of pagan
Arabia.

GREATNESS OF MUHAMMAD 3

In the year 570 of the Christian era, probably on
the 20th of August, was born to his widowed mother
Amina, Muhammad ("the Praised"), grandson and
ward of the aged Abd al Muttalib, the venerable chief
of Mecca, who rejoiced greatly over his birth; for
Abdallah, the child's father, lately dead, was best-
beloved of his many sons. The fond imagination of
later times wove around the child's birth, and his
parents and ancestry for many generations, tales of
wonder on which we need not linger : a light of glory
had passed from one patriarch to another, marking out
the blessed line in which the last of the Prophets was to
be born ; his mother (as her time drew near) was visited
by wondrous dreams, foreshadowing the matchless
grandeur that awaited her child ; and in distant Persia,
so runs the legend, the throne and city of the great
King-of- Kings were shaken by a mighty earthquake.
The child was indeed born to such a marvellous destiny,
his achievements in the sixty-three years of his allotted
span of life were so great, his influence on all after-
has been so profound and widespread, the personal
devotion of hundreds of millions of men, who have in the
past thirteen centuries looked on him as all but divine,
so intense, that no wonders of legend can surprise us,
and we note them as evidence of the deep veneration
which the highest human power will always command
from men. Yet, as his followers call their religion —
after his own example — not by the Teacher's name, but
Isltim, " self -surrender " (to God Almighty), so do they
reckon their Era, as we shall hereafter see, not from his
birth, but from the turning-point of his life, the Hijra
(" Hegira ") or Might from Mecca to Medina, when at the
age of fifty-two he ceased to be merely the Preacher to a

4 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

gainsaying people, a " Warner " with no commission or
authority to compel, and became, at the head of a small
band of devoted followers, ever-increasing thenceforward,
a temporal Chief as well as a Prophet of righteousness,
able and resolved to force on all the tribes of Arabia belief
in One God and in himself as the chosen Apostle of God.
The expansion of Muhammad's views we shall trace
in his life, together with the development of his
character. Like Buddhism and Christianity, Islam is
a missionary religion, as every living faith must be;
but the ways by which each of the three religions
has extended its dominion have differed widely, and
we are entitled to judge the spirit of each not only
by its methods, but by the commands of the founder
on the matter. Of Buddhism we know too little to
say whether force and authority were used to extend
it, but assuredly the gentle Gautama never sanctioned
such a course, and the four hundred millions of
Buddhists may be claimed as nations subdued by
peaceful means ; in regard to our own Christian faith,
we must sadly admit that it has been too often
advanced by the sword, and by every engine of civil
and temporal compulsion, but this has been done in
direct defiance of the Master's commands, whether
given by Himself or by His disciples ; but the spirit of
Islam is the opposite, and the Prophet, who two years
before his end had forbidden all but his own followers
to approach the hallowed shrines of Mecca, left on his
deathbed the solemn command that only Islam should
be tolerated in the confines of Arabia. Outside the
peninsula the command was less absolute : the choice
was to be offered of Islam or tribute, but submission to
one or the other alternative was required. The Sue-

EXTENT OF ISLAM 5

cessors of the Prophet carried out his commands only
too well, and their fierce and gallant soldiery, before
whose earnest faith were set the joys of Paradise to
every man who fell in battle for the religion, went
forth conquering and to conquer, east and west, and
north and south, till the banners of Islam floated from
the Pillars of Hercules to the shores of the Yellow Sea.
The tide has ebbed in some directions, but in others it
has flowed. The Iberian peninsula has shaken off the
chains of Islam, though it has replaced them by others ;
in Eastern Europe the tide was stayed more than two
hundred years ago by John Sobieski before the walls
of Vienna; but elsewhere the progress of Mahomet-
anism, in one form or another, more simple or more
complex, has been steady and sure. Among the
millions of India its conquests are considerable; in
Africa — though there it is so closely allied to the cruel
and accursed system of slavery — it is making much
headway ; while the maritime provinces of China
form its most eastern bulwark. In his lifetime the
Prophet foretold that his followers would be split up
into no less than seventy-three sects — he credited the
Christian with seventy-two ! — of which one only
would hold the true faith; and the prediction might
be justified by historical evidence; but heresy and
schism seem to do little to weaken the aggressive force
of the religion, and to-day, though politically far less
powerful than of old, one-sixth of the whole human
race own its sway, and are ready to fight or to endure
to face death and to inflict it, with the battle-cry:
" There is no god but the God, and Muhammad is the
Prophet of God!"
It is a commonplace to speak of the influence of

6 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

climate and geographical conditions upon the nature
and thought of the inhabitants of a land, and the
physical character of the Arabian peninsula is so
singular that we may readily believe that it has had
special power to mould the mind and manners of its
peoples. As the dreamy vagueness and philosophic
despair of Buddhism l sprang up in the congenial soil of
the hot, moist valley of the Ganges, so did the fiery,
arid lands of Arabia, diversified with barren, volcanic
ranges of hills, swept by sand-laden whirlwinds, and
offering to its hardy indwellers few and far-separated
oases, give birth to the stern warrior-faith of Islam.
Arabia, divided from the African continent by the
Red Sea and from the rest of Asia by the Persian
Gulf on the east and the Syrian desert on the north,
stretches southward to the Indian Ocean in the shape
of an axe-head, between the parallels of 31° and
13° N. lat., and those of 34° and 60° E. long., of
which at least two-thirds is an uninhabitable desert,
and where the settled states are divided from one
another by great stretches of sand. The Arabian
peninsula extends over an area of nearly a million and
a quarter square miles, about four-fifths of India or
China proper. Yet its population is calculated by
Palgrave (1864) as no more than seven or eight millions,
of whom he reckons about one-seventh only as nomad.
In Muhammad's days it was no doubt greater. The
country that extends along the southern shores of the
Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, facing Persia across
the sea, and for ages forming part of the Persian Empire,

1 Indian Buddhism, the early doctrine. The florid, degenerate forms
that prevail in Burma, in China, in Tibet, and in Mongolia have little
save the name to connect them with the teaching of Gautama.

THE CRADLE-LAND 7

as it enjoys a good climate, and is well -watered, so
it has always been a highly favoured land, a land of
wealth and settled habitation. When one passes away
from the coast-lands, crossing the western barrier of
hills, the great pathless sandy desert stretches in front
of the traveller for 12 or 14 degrees of latitude before
he reaches the barren, broken mountain-chain which
stretches at various distances nearly parallel to the
coast of the Red Sea. The northern part of this
chain is known specially as the Hijaz or Boundary-
land, and there — in a plain among the arid, volcanic
hills — lies Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, and
scene of his earlier preaching, whilst Medina, the
cradle of his kingdom and his last resting-place, lies
about 240 miles due north, and at a distance from
the sea at Yambu much greater than that of Mecca
from its seaport at Jedda. This is the sacred land of
Islam, the blessed country of the "Two Sanctuaries"
(Haramain), whither flock, in long lines, year by year
at the sacred season, converging streams of pilgrims
from the remotest corners of Asia and Africa, to fulfil
the great duty of pilgrimage, laid upon the conscience
of every pious Muslim, to be performed (if health and
circumstances do not absolutely prevent) once in
his lifetime. In this, too, Islam has borrowed from
the kindred nation of Israel, and the followers of
Muhammad traverse the hills that stand round about
Mecca or Medina to gather in the hallowed plains, as the
Israelites of old flocked to Jerusalem at the great
Passover Feast. Then, too, during the sacred months, a
truce of God is proclaimed, though in these degenerate
times the robber tribes of the desert and the fanatical
Wahhabis make little scruple of attacking and plunder-

8 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

ing the pilgrim caravans, whether they come from the
orthodox centres of Stamboul, Cairo, and Bombay, or
from the heretical land of Persia.

The Hijaz, then, the sacred land of Islam, from which
the new religion went forth to conquer first the great
Arabian peninsula, and then a large part of the decay-
ing Roman Empire, and to sweep eastwards in its
triumphant march to the shores of the China Sea, is a
country lying between the mountain-chain that divides
it from the vast central tableland of Arabia and the
Red Sea. It is an irregular parallelogram of about
250 miles in length by 150 in breadth, and the barren,
sandy soil affords but scanty subsistence to its in-
habitants. From of old caravans had held their way
through, southward from Egypt and Palestine, north-
ward from Hadramaut and the shores of the Indian
Ocean, and a very recent traveller, Mr. Bent, followed
with interest the now deserted paths worn by count-
less thousands of camels in the far-off centuries when
transit by sea was rare and timid. Those southern
lands of Arabia seem, though trustworthy record
there is none, to be the home of the earliest races of
the peninsula, pushed down before invaders of a
higher type. To the north stretches a pathless desert
of sand, roughly from 15° to 24° N. lat., and from
45° to 56° E. long. ; to the west and south lies Yaman,
Arabia "the Happy" (more properly "of the right
hand"); further north the more fertile, settled, and
powerful kingdom of Najd, the seat now of Wahhiibi
power, the caput mortuum of puritan Islam, whose dry
tableland, bounded on every side by wide belts of
desert, is the home of the noblest breed of Arab horses.
Beyond the desert belt to the north-west is the Shammar

INFLUENCE OF RACE 9

highland state, then more desert, and then at length
the fertile tracts of Syria and Mesopotamia, scene of
the first foreign conquests of Islam. The above very
brief sketch of the Arabian peninsula and its chief
divisions will explain its isolation, and how it defied
through the ages all attempts to conquer or even to
explore it. Roman poets might tell of its fabled riches,
and Jewish myth might vaunt its marvels, but the
legions of Rome won but few and fleeting victories
on its soil, and retired vanquished, or left their bones
to whiten on its pathless deserts and under its pitiless
sun.

From the land we pass to the people. The evidence
of language shows conclusively that the peninsula
has been peopled, apart from a trifling admixture of
African blood, by a Semitic race, kindred to Hebrews,
Phoenicians, and Assyrians; but the permanence of
language-type is so great as to leave a profound scholar
like Wright in doubt which of the sister-tongues,
Assyrian or Arabic, was the elder. Arabian historians
before Muhammad there were none, and those who came
after joined to the want of critical method minds warped
by theologic bias. The pious Muslim was bound to
trace the origin of the nation back through Ishmael to
Abraham, and then back to our first father Adam, who
himself built the sacred Kaaba (" Cube-house ") after
the model of the heavenly temple which had been
shown him in a vision. Palgrave inclines to think that
the lowest stratum of the Arab peoples came eastward
from Africa, and that the northern invasion was also of
African origin, modified by previous settlement in Asia,
and driven south before the Turanian wave. This,
however, in the face of the evidence from language,

io MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

does not seem a safe view ; the settlement indicated in
Genesis, adopted and enlarged by Arabic tradition, and
systematised in the Quran and the Traditions of the
Prophet, which ascribes the final peopling of North
Arabia to about 2000 B.C., is certainly nearer the truth.
As far back as we have any record, the inhabitants
have been divided into the nomad Bedouins (Bidawi =
man of the desert) and the folk of the town. The
former led, and to this day lead, an unsettled life,
driving their flocks and herds from pasture to pasture
divided into small tribal groups, loosely compacted in
larger clans. Passionate, cunning, and revengeful, they
carry on the blood-feud from generation to generation ;
their much-praised loyalty to their salt may be gauged
by the undoubted fact that frequently they have led
hapless travellers and whole caravans astray in the
desert, there to perish from thirst, that their faithless
guides might serve themselves heirs to their property ;
and the fervour of their religion is shown by their own
saying, quoted by Burton : " We pray not, because we
must drink the water of ablution; we give no alms,
because we ask them (sturdy beggars they are too !) ;
we fast not the Ramazan month, because we starve
throughout the year ; and we do no pilgrimage, because
the world is the House of Allah." Till Muhammad
welded them for a time into a warrior nation they had
owned no common bond of union, and the bands were
soon again relaxed after the work of conquest, even as
the tribes have for the most part thrown off the garb
of his religion and fallen back into their primitive
paganism. Sun-worship is widely prevalent, their
ideas of a future life are crude and vague, and gross
superstition darkens their lives. Their slender wealth

ARAB CHARACTER n

consists in horses for battle or the chase, in herds of
camels, flocks of sheep and goats, and the few black
tents that form their encampments. The tribal govern-
ment is scarcely effective, and "every man does that
which is right in his own eyes," so long as he does not
incur the dread penalty of the blood-feud. Naturally,
each tribe has its own recognised area to wander over,
and encroachment is jealously resisted ; and any tribe
that is wronged in its honour or its possessions can
reckon to the uttermost on support from all those with
which it counts kindred or alliance.

The men of the towns, on the other hand, following
the peaceful ways of commerce, sending out their cara-
vans, and having multiplied relations with foreign lands
and peoples ; delighting in social intercourse, so far as
the jealous seclusion of women is compatible therewith,
— these have attained to a plane of civilisation far above
the desert-rangers. The latter, the " men of the tent,"
heartily despise the townsmen, the " men of the walls,"
levy tribute on them for safe passage of themselves
and their goods, and let slip no chance of pillaging
them when they can do so in safety. The desert Arab,
brave to desperation when necessary, has no wish to
ri^k life or limb when he can avoid it. He feels no
shame in methods of attack or defence that more
civilised nations brand as cowardly or even treacherous,
for usually his object is plunder only, and on the life of
others he sets no high price, though he be very careful
of his own, — and of that of anyone whom he holds to
be under his guard or protection. The old chivalrous
feelings, which in the golden days of the " Ignorance "
bound the host to do all things for the safety, honour,
and welfare of his guest, still hold sway in the desert ;

12 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the tie of " brotherhood," usually formed by the Eastern
means of a present, secures the stranger from wrong,
though it is highly dangerous to presume very far on
the immunity, and those who have travelled among
the tribes strongly advise all who follow their example
not to make any display that might excite the covetous-
ness of their hosts.1 The picture which the evidence
compels one to draw of the social and moral state and
qualities which really prevail in Arabia is not attract-
ive, nor is it that with which our fancy is familiar.
In the next chapter we shall see the more pleasing
image which is presented by the poets and annalists to
whom we are indebted for all we know of Arab ways
and thoughts in the days before Muhammad, — the
"times of Ignorance," as Muslims count all the ages
before his revelation opened the eyes of their mind to
the duties of life and the awful realities of the after-
world

1 This is from Burton's Pilgrimage. Elsewhere he says : " The baser
sort of Badawi is never to be trusted : he is a traitor born. Neither
oath nor kindness can bind him : he unites the cruelty of the cat with
the wildness of the wolf." Palgrave says much the same.

CHAPTER II

The Arabs before Islam — Social Condition — Religious Beliefs —
Arab Poetry and Arab Life— Tribal Ties— Hatim Tai—
Select Specimens of pre-Islamic Poetry.

Ax eloquent scholar in our own day laments that we
can no longer see the true Arab as he was in the
" timA nf thp T fmnrannA^ — " a noble type of man,
tKougnthere be nobler." Muhammad, he adds, in part
destroyed the Arab in creating the Muslim, and
effected thereby a temporary good and a lasting
harm. There is ground for Mr. Poole's lament, but it
is the law of this world that no advance can be made
without the sacrifice of something that we would not
willingly miss, and it is easy to be carried away by
enthusiasm for the past, when its beauties have been
embalmed in deathless poems, while its darker features
have been softened or altogether obliterated by the
merciful fingers of time. With men and with nations
the same principle holds, that we speak " good only of
the dead " ; as the splendid valour and constancy and
skill of Caesar blaze in our histories, and his ruthless
massacres and enslavement of whole nations in Gaul
are forgotten : as in almost our own day the brilliant
strategy and victories of the first Xapoleon have
drawn a veil of glamour over his crooked policy, his
treacheries, his mercilessness, — even so have the poets

14 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

of Arabia thrown a halo of glory round the lives and
deeds of the old heroes of the wild. The picture
drawn by the converts to Islam of the state in which
they and their forefathers had lived, " without God
and without hope in the world," till Muhammad
brought his revelation, is a very dark one, as we shall
see hereafter ; and it is necessary to bear in mind their
witness while we listen to the more pleasing music
of old Arab " criticism of life." New converts would,
in their fervid zeal for the faith they had embraced,
inevitably deepen the shadows in the picture they
drew of the life they had forsaken, but the old poets
would as certainly heighten its beauties and disguise
its loathly characters. The legislation of the new
religion proves an earlier state of morals and manners
terrible in the extreme ; questions recorded in the
Traditions reveal the common practice of wickedness
to which one dare not allude ; the absolute instability
of the marriage tie, the great prevalence of female
infanticide; and the hard measure commonly dealt
out to orphans, are but a few of the darker traits
that marked the life of the older desert polity. For
this last misery Muhammad, himself born j

father's death, and in curly childhood bereaved of a
well-loved mother also, was peculiarly sympathetic and
pitiful ; and no part of his law excites our admiration
more than that in which he preaches justice, kindness,
loving care for those whom fate has bereft of their
natural guardians, and with burning eloquence lays
down the high duty of filial love and obedience.1

1 A tradition tells that he ordered one of his followers to put away
the wife he loved because his father desired it. Again he said, "The
keys of Paradise lie at a mother's feet."

LAND AND LANGUAGE 15

All who have travelled in the desert are agreed in
the matchless charm of its clear, life-giving air. It
casts a spell over body and mind which is vainly
sought elsewhere, and he who has once known the
witchery of the secret of the desert, with its sense of
unfettered freedom amid infinite solitudes, thinks of
it ever after with unspeakable joy and regret. If
such be the feelings of Western travellers, who in
their desert wanderings must miss all the softness
and comfort of their common daily existence, we
shall not wonder at the intensity of life that coursed
in the veins of the children of the wild. Men of
strong passions were they, fiery of temper, ardent in
love and bitter in hate; delighting in war, in the
chase, and the banquet ; not sparing of the wine-cup
at the feast, but of unmatched tolerance of cold and
thirst and hunger when need was. If they did not
" lisp in numbers," the natural harmonies of their
tongue lent grace, dignity, and eloquence to their
utterance; they delighted in every form of poetry
and eloquence, praise of themselves, their kindred,
and their friends, or bitter shafts of blame and satire
against their foes ; and the wonderful instrument
which Muhammad wielded to crush his enemies, to
inspire his followers, to preach the Faith, or to curse
the foes thereof, — in the one great " miracle " of which
he boasted, his Quran, — was forged and perfected
under the black tents of the Bedouins, where its
echoes may still be caught in almost unsullied purity.
The Prophet himself frowned upon poetry and poets,
though he confessed their power, and was glad to
use the weapon of satire against his enemies, — though,
alas ! nearly all the chief poets of his time were

16 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

arrayed against him ; to music also he was strangely
dull, which is the more to be wondered at as his
nervous susceptibility was great, and the powerful,
deep tones of his staunch Bilal — who first called the
Faithful to public prayer, and who held his high office
for twenty long years — was more grateful to the
Prophet's heart than sweetest strains of harp or pipe.1

But when the stern strain of the earlier struggles
and triumphs of the Faith were overpast, when
Muhammad and the grave Companions had gone to
their rest, when pomp and luxury had revived in
the new capitals of Damascus and Baghdad, then was
the old speech and poetry of the desert diligently
sought out and recorded. Learned men strove to
steep themselves in the old fountains of eloquence,
the springs of which were fast drying up, and the
priceless treasures of poetry were gathered — known
to us as the Muallaqdt2 or Seven Odes, the fairest
gems in Arabia's crown of poesy; the Hamdsa or
Heroic Lays, a collection of lyric gems, grave and gay,
trumpet-calls to battle, praise of the mighty dead,
love-songs and dirges and satires — a priceless and
unique mirror of old Arab life ; and the Book of
Songs (Kitdb al Aghdnl}, where music is wedded to
the verse, if haply the old spirit could be recalled,
and the echoes of the old melodies be revived. These
are the chief treasure-houses of old Arab poetry, but
there are also collections of tribal poems and the
works of single authors (as of Imr ul Kais and Labld),

1 Poetic feeling is not seldom divorced from love of music. In our
own time, Mr. Swinburne is said to be strangely dead to music, whilst
Robert Browning was a great lover of it.

2 Not the "Suspended" Poems, as used to be said : they never were
hung up in the Kaaba, nor were they written in letters of gold.

POETRY OF ARABIA 17

which have been the delight of generation after
generation, — monuments more enduring than brass of
the great warrior poets and poetesses that lived and
loved, and fought and sang in the days of the
" Ignorance."

The Arab of the desert then, as we find him in
his poets, was brave., generous, hospitable, and loyal
jrfJlfiarL No sacrifice was too great, nor any danger
too terrible, for him to meet in the cause of his family,
his tribe, or his guest Love for friend, or wife, or
child ; pride in his own valour and exploits, and in the
glory of his clan and its connections ; laments for the
worthy dead, and passionate cries for vengeance, or
savage delight in wreaking it ; strange weird pictures
of dimly-guessed existence beyond the grave, when
the storms and the hopes and the joys and the
troubles of life are past, — all these we find in the
old Arab poetry. There too we find the lover's long-
ings and the bridegroom's gladness, frank, trustful
society of young men and maidens, the complete con-
fidence of the warrior-chief in the wife who bore his
children, who rules his household wisely and nobly, in
whom hi* heart trusts, and who "shall do him good
and not evil all the days of his life." The condition
of women at all events, the true measure of all
civilisation, could scarcely have been higher than it
was among the Arabs of the desert ; how that condi-
tion was lowered, and the character and self-respect
of half the race degraded by Islam, will be told in its
place. Writing, of course, there was little or none, the
literature of the desert was preserved " living on the
lips of men " and graven on the tablets of their hearts ;
the perfect warrior was also a famous poet, and the

1 8 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

name of many a poetess adorns the Arab bead-roll of
glory. The staple of their poetry is, however, largely
a description of the joys of battle, the struggle for
mastery, and the perils of the long, dark journey ings
through the waste; the noble horse and camel, the
keen, flashing sword in the battle, the deadty lance
and arrow ; the swift, sudden storms that sweep over
mountain and plain, driving the goats and wild
antelopes in panic fear to their fastnesses, while the
lightning flashes, and the thunder roars, and the rain-
torrents hurry down the stony watercourses, — these
are the themes of their song. And prefaced to nearly
every one of the longer poems is a wail of lament
over the ashes of a long-deserted encampment, once
the home of a beloved maiden, a tearful note of human
sorrow to attune the heart to softened melancholy.
One type, one theme, is strangely absent from it all, —
the devotional. Praise or prayer is seldom heard,
though wild and terrible oaths are not wanting. The
old Arab was above all things self-centred, self-reliant,
confident that the cunning of his own strong right
hand could conquer fate. His worship did no£ greatly
pervade his life or his thoughts, and the shadowy
terrors with which he peopled the waste, — jinns and
ghuls and ghostly owls that wailed around the graves,
thirsting for the blood of requital, were rather gloomy
phantoms than real terrors. The warrior would take
the arrows of divination, but if the answer squared
not with his desire, he would hurl them back wrath -
fully and scornfully in the face of his idol.

Family or perhaps, rather, tribal pride was one of
the strongest passions among the Arabs. Every man
among them was a skilled genealogist, and no member

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 19

of an inferior clan was admitted to mate with a maiden
of more exalted degree. This it was that, as among the
proud Rajput races in India, prompted the murder of
infant daughters. But, within the limits which family
honour laid down, an Arab maiden was pretty free to
choose her own husband. Very often, however, it was
made a condition of marriage that the husband should
join his wife's clan ; the children followed the mother's
kindred, and the wife was as free to dismiss her
husband for good cause — and such was liberally con-
strued— as the husband to put away his wife. Dis-
missal was commonly signified by no more formality
than turning about the door of the tent. One notable
historical instance is the divorce of the noble Hatim,
whose name is for ever famous for unstinted liberality.
Brave, loyal, generous, it is told of him that, when
almost starving along with his family, he slew his
peerless warhorse to make a feast for the hungry family
of a poor neighbour who appealed to him. Again,
when he had smitten down in battle a mortal foe and
held him at his mercy, he yielded up his own spear and
presented himself defenceless, " because he asked a gift
of me." Even as a boy, when tending his grandfather's
camels, he slew of them one apiece to feast three
wandering poets from Hira, and presented them each
with one hundred in return for poems in praise of
himself and his tribe. It is not easy to condemn the
wife who, for her children's sake, put away such a
wasteful lord, nor does it seem just to condemn her
(as Mr. Poole does) for niggardliness. The story of
Hatim's divorce has its chief value in showing the
complete power which even the married women retained
over themselves. Many recent scholars have pushed

20 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the inference much further, and have maintained that
down even to late pre-Islamic times kindred was
counted in Arabia, as it is to this day in many bar-
barous parts of the world, through the mothers, and not
in the male line. The evidence does not seem to
warrant the conclusion, but the whole subject is worthy
of study ; the retention of the children as part of the
mother's clan is natural enough in a state of society
where power depended on the numbers that could
stand up to " speak with their enemies in the gate,"
where the individual family was merged in the clan ;
and the principle finds its parallel in the pretensions
at the present day of the Church of Rome in mixed
marriages. It may be added that the bond of blood
was peculiarly strong, and a young clansman had by
general tribal law the first claim on the hand of his
cousin, so much so that " daughter of my uncle " was
almost synonymous with " wife."

To the prose of my picture I now add as a pendant,
some few passages chosen from Sir C. J. Lyall's Ancient
Arabian Poetry, than which not many books are more
delightful to a lover of poetry, or more instructive and
stimulating to a scholar.

First we have two or three snatches of song,
showing the delights of peaceful life, and how the
Arab looked forward to Death, the "abridger of
delights and separator of friends." Both in their
gladder and their sadder strains they match well
with Horace.

" Roast flesh, the glow of fiery wine,
to speed on camel fleet and sure,
As thy soul lists to urge her on

through all the hollow's breadth and length ;

"AERE PEREXNIUS" 21

White women, statue-like, that trail
rich robes of price with golden hem,

Wealth, easy lot, no dread of ill,
to hear the lute's complaining string, —

These are Life's joys. For man is set
the prey of Time, and Time is change.

Life strait or large, great store or nought,
all's one to Time, all men to Death."

And so the poet goes on to name men and races of old
renown whom Time and Death had swept away, in
tones that remind us of the lingering laments of
Horace or Villon.

"CARPE DIEM!"

" Come, friend and fellow, come — for sometimes is Folly sweet !

so come, let us greet our band of drinkers aglow with wine,

And wash from our hearts sour speech of wisdom with cups

abrim,

and cut short the Ills of Life with laughter and jest and
joy!

Yea, when once a moment comes of rest from the whirl, be

quick
and grasp it : for Time's tooth bites and quits not ; and

mischief waits ;

And sure, if a bright hour lifts thy soul to a little peace,
enough in thy path there lies of shadow and grief and
pain."

"EHEU, FUGACES"

"Alas, my soul, for Youth that's gone —
no light thing lost I when he fled !

What time I trailed my skirts in pride
and shook my locks at the tavern's door.

Xay, envy not a man that men

. 'Age has made him ripe and wise':
Though thou love life and live long safe,
long living leaves its print on thee ! "

22 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

" THE PLACE THAT KNEW THEM KNOWS THEM NO MORE."

" Before the door of each, and all a slumber-place is ready set
men wane and dwindle, and the graves in number grow
from day to day :

And ever more and more outworn the traces fade of hearth

and home,

and over yonder for some dead is newly built a house of
clay.

Yea, neighbours are they of the living : near and close their

fellowship ;

but if thy soul would seek their converse, thou must seek
it far away."

From the contemplation of death we rise to thoughts of
the Almighty, All-wise Ruler, who rewards every man
according to his works, a thought anterior to Islam,
and probably borrowed from Jewish or Christian
teaching —

" Yea, the righteous shall keep the way of the righteous,
and to God turn the steps of all that abideth ;

And to God ye return, ye too ; with Him only
rest the issues of things and all that they gather.

All that is in His Book of Knowledge is reckoned,
and before Him revealed lies all that is hidden.

It boots not to hide from God aught evil within your hearts :
it will not be hid — what men would hold back from God,
He knows.

It may be its meed comes late : in the Book is the wrong set

down

for the Beckoning Day : it may be that vengeance is swift
and stern."

Now follows part of the dirge which a brave chief
sang for himself when, before his death, he faced the
foes that had overwhelmed him —

THE ARAB IDEAL 23

" Upbraid me not, ye twain : enough is the shame for me
to be as I am : no gain upbraiding to you or me.

Know ye not that in reproach is little that profits men ?
it was not my wont to blame my brother when I was free.

Mulaika, my wife, knows well that time was when I stood

forth
a lion to lead men on or face those that rushed on me.

Yea, many the slaughtered beast I gave to the gamers, oft
I journeyed alone where none would venture to share my
way;

And ofttimes I slew, to feast my fellows, the beast I rode,
and ofttimes I rent my robe in twain for two singing-girls.

And when 'neath the stress of spears our steeds plunged and

broke and backed,

yea, mine were the fingers deft that turned from our line
their steel.

And hosts like the locusts' swarm have swept upon me alone,
and my hand it was that stemmed and gathered in one
their spears.

Now am I as though I ne'er had mounted a noble steed,
or called to my horsemen — Charge, gain space for our men
to breathe !

Or bought for a wreath of gold the full skin of wine, or cried
to true hearts at play, — Heap high the blaze of our beacon-
fire : "

Next I give a longer piece, already chosen out by
Mr. Poole for the same purpose, to show in what things
the Arab chief set his glory, and on what his heart
and love were fixed —

" A mountain we have where dwells he whom we shelter there,
lofty, before whose height the eye falls back blunted :

Deep-based is its root below ground, while overhead there

soars
its peak to the stars of heaven whereto no man reaches.

24 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

A folk are we who deem it 110 shame to be slain in fight,
though that be the deeming thereof of Salul and Amir ;

Our love of death brings near to us our days of doom,
but their dooms shrink from death and stand far distant.

There dies among us no lord a quiet death in his bed,
and never is blood of us poured forth without vengeance.

Our souls stream forth in a flood from the edge of the
whetted swrfrds :

no otherwise than so does our spirit leave its mansion.
Pure is our stock, unsullied : fair is it kept and bright

by mothers whose bed bears well, and fathers mighty.

To the best of the uplands we wend, and when the season
comes,

we travel adown to the best of fruitful valleys.
Like rain of the heaven are we : there is not in all our line

one blunt of heart, nor among us is counted a niggard.

We say nay when so we will to the words of other men :
but no man to us says nay when we give sentence.

When passes a lord of our line, in his stead there rises straight
a lord to say the say and do the deeds of the noble.

Our beacon is never quenched to the wanderer of the night,
nor has ever a guest blamed us where men meet together.

Our Days are famous among our foemen, of fair report,
branded and blazed with glory like noble horses.

Our swords have swept throughout all lands both east and

west,

and gathered many a notch from the steel of hauberk-
wearers ;

Not used are they when drawn to be laid back in their sheaths
before that the folk they meet are spoiled and scattered.

If thou knowest not, ask men what they think of us and

them :
not alike is he who knows and he who knows not.

The children of Ad-Dagyiin are the shaft of their people's

mill :
around it turns and whirls, while they stand 'midmost "

THE ARAB IDEAL 25

Sir Charles Lyall's volume is, as I have said, a
delightful one. He would do a great service to
scholars and to lovers of poetry if he would give us a
complete translation of the Hamasa, thus doing, in our
own tongue and in the light of fuller knowledge, what
Riickert did more than fifty years ago for Germany.

CHAPTER III

Arabs of the Town — Mecca's Religious Position — Arab Races and
Languages — Dynasties — Yaman, Abyssinia, etc. — Christian
Influences : Hira and Ghassan — Medina — Jewish Influences
— Pilgrimage and Months of Truce — Mecca : Quraish and
Qusai — Tribes of Central Arabia — Medina.

HAVING tried to give some pictures of the life and
character of the desert Arabs, our task is now to
sketch the stages by which Arabia was prepared for
the coming of that great master-mind which was to
revolutionise it and conquer half the known world.
The task is not easy, nor is it altogether attractive.
The warring migrating tribes, whose meetings and
partings, feuds and friendships, make the web of
Arabia's history, are not less perplexing to follow in
their kaleidoscopic changes than the atoms from which
Epicurus fabled that the universe was framed. The
two leading threads through the mazes are found — first,
in the religious position of Mecca, established beyond
dispute from the earliest times of which we have any
record, and continued without interruption to the day
when the reforming exile, thrust out ten years before,
conquered and purified and transformed it to be the
spiritual capital of the new Faith; second, in the
migrations of the great Arab nations, caused partly by
that mysterious impulse which has in all ages driven

RACE AND LANGUAGE 27

the human race to seek new homes and to subdue
lands unknown before, partly to causes which we can
more surely trace.

Arab tradition makes the great southern division of
the race to spring from a legendary head, Kahtan,
whose descendants, originally coming from the north,
flowed down like a great river, and established them-
selves all along the habitable coast-lands, by the Persian
Gulf on the east, Hadrarnaut on the south, and Yanian
on the shores of the Red Sea. Through Arabia flowed
to the west and north the riches of India as well as
her own products, — gold, frankincense, and myrrh;
ivory, ebony, and precious stones. So long as land-
carriage was the surer and safer, so long did the
desert-navies (as we may call them) bear the precious
bales along two main lines, — through Yanian and the
Hijaz to Syria and Egypt, and by the shores of the
Persian Gulf to Mesopotamia and the neighbouring
countries. Kahtan was the great ancestor of the
roaming Arabs, the carriers of the desert, whose
camels bore the precious merchandise; and Himyar
("the dusky"), fabled to be his brother, was pro-
genitor of the settled inhabitants. The great southern
kingdoms, of which Yaman was the chief, were Him-
yaritic: their language1 is the South Arabian, divided
into three great branches, corresponding to the three
southern provinces (Yaman, Hadramaut, and Mahrab),
and surviving now only in a multitude of rock-inscrip-
tions, ranging in date probably between the fourth
and seventh centuries of our era, thus dying with the
advent of Islam and the triumph of its tongue. Cross-
ing over into Africa, we have the Geez and Abyssinian

1 See Wright, Comp. Gram, of Semitic Languages, p. 28 and foil.

28 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

with its cognates. From the fertile land of Yaman
the stream of trade passed northward through the
barren Hijaz, and both Mecca and Medina (which bore
its old name Yathrib till Muhammad fled thither
for refuge) were great emporiums of commerce. The
latter, as we shall see, had long been settled by a
powerful Jewish population, the fortunes of which
acted mightily on the new religion and the new polity
when the time came, while the former was the chief
centre and shrine of the idolatry which Muhammad
was to overthrow.

Yaman was the garden of Arabia, rich and fertile in
itself, though not capable of supporting the large
population which its flourishing through trade had
brought within its bounds. Its capital was Sana ; and
much of its prosperity was due to the great dam of
Marib, where the fertilising waters from the mountain-
torrents were stored. When therefore Roman enter-
prise had to a large extent supplanted the old western
caravan trade by sea-borne traffic up the Red Sea, and
when also the great dam burst, and the stored waters
swept destroying over the lands which they used to
fertilise, then in the second century after Christ the
great Azdite branch of the Kahtanic race surged north
through the Hijaz, and east through Najd, leaving
behind, in successive stages, powerful clans of their
kindred, and founding on the Syrian and Persian
borders the kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira. The
Himyarite kingdom of Yaman, relieved of its surplus
population, recovered its importance ; its annals count
kings of valour and authority, one of whom is even
said to have " carried his conquests to the borders of
China," while another had his son murdered in Yathrib,

YAMAN 29

was then converted to Judaism, and established that
religion in Mecca. In the end of the third century a
Christian king ruled over the country, and in the
next, Christian churches were common ; but the people
generally were partly Jewish and partly pagan, and
the Christian element had probably been introduced
and strengthened from the kingdom of Abyssinia, the
neighbouring state across the Red Sea. In 523 A.D.,
Dhu Nawas was king, a bigoted Jew, who massacred
the Christians of Najran, so drawing upon him the
vengeance of Justin I., the Greek emperor. Abraha
moved against him from Abyssinia with a great host,
and slew him ; Christianity was officially established
in the country, and a cathedral built at Sana. An
attempt was made to replace the pagan worship at
Mecca by Christianity, and the Abyssinian army
advanced against the city. But the host was over-
whelmed, and the commander perished ; and 570, the
Year of the Elephant, so-called from the war-elephants
of the army, was marked by the triumph of paganism
and by the birth of Muhammad, the greatest iconoclast
the world has seen. Christian, and especially African,
rule, however, was hateful to the Himyarites; the
aid of Persia was called in, and, after some seventy
years of changeful fortune, the ancient kingdom of
Yaman became a dependency of that empire (597, the
year when St. Columba introduced Christianity into
the west of Scotland).

The other kingdoms which were founded to the
north of Arabia by the wave of migration from the
south, and which had constant traffic with and in-
fluence over the Hijaz, were Hira and Ghassan. The
former, Hira, was settled by an aggregation of tribes,

30 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

forced north and east by the Azdites from Yam an, —
rearing up a strong kingdom on the ruins of the
Persian Arsacid power. At first the kingdom was
divided between Khudhaites and Azdites, but soon the
former hived off to Syria, and the latter remained sole
owners. Civilisation came to them chiefly from Persia,
and they fell into a state of dependent alliance on that
empire. The early history of Hlra mingles strangely
with that of Rome, in its wars with Zenobia of Palmyra,
after whose fall rose the rival kingdom of Ghassan de-
pendent on Rome (i.e. Constantinople), as Hlra was on
Persia. Christianity was introduced under Numan I.
early in the fifth century, and under his fostering
care became the dominant religion of the state, though
it is not certain that the king himself embraced it.
Under his successors the Christians were persecuted,
with the result of constant quarrels with Constantin-
ople; but in 524 A.D. toleration was secured by the
efforts of Justin I., whose Abyssinian ally (as has been
told) overwhelmed the kingdom of Yaman about the
same time. The power of Yaman had decayed in
Central Arabia about this time, and the country fell
under the power of Hlra, as vassal of Persia. Then
ensued well-nigh a century of struggle with Ghassan, the
ally of Constantinople, with raids and plunder through-
out Syria, till the bands of Hlra, the vanguard of
the Persian hosts, were hurled back by Belisarius
from the walls of Antioch. At length, in 605 A.D., the
dynasty was overthrown by the arms of Persia ; a few
years of anarchy and confusion followed ; the forces of
Persia were routed by an Arab confederacy in the
Valley of Zu Kar in 611 A.D., the very year when
Muhammad had assumed his prophetic mission, — and,

HIRA AND GHASSAN 31

finally, between 628 and 631 A.D., the Central and
Western tribes of Arabia threw off the alien yoke and
cast in their lot with their kinsmen under the national
Prophet-King.

The kingdom of Ghassan was founded under the

shadow of the Roman power in the third century by
an Azdite tribe long settled near Mecca. The two
great Aus and Khazraj clans broke off, struck back
southwards in the fourth century, and settled in
Yathrib (Medina), where they deprived the Jewish
settlers of power. Christianity was introduced about
the time of Constantine, and continued to be the state
religion; the annals of the kingdom are made up of
wars, forays, and revolts ; it was shattered by Persian
invasion in the beginning of the seventh century ; and
after some years of stout resistance to the armies of
Islam, it also fell before them, and was absorbed in the
growing empire.

Yaman, Hira, and Ghassau, and the nomad tribes of
Central Arabia, — these were the powers that acted
upon the Hijaz from without, but it is not easy to
measure the effect they produced. The religious power
of Mecca as the immemorial shrine of pagan Arabia,
the goal of its pilgrimages, the pantheon of its idols,
was far greater ; and the strong Jewish colony settled
at Medina, whose faith combined readily with the
Abraharnic legend and myth of Mecca, was destined
greatly to influence the new religious empire which
Muhammad was to found, — so much so that Deutsch
boldly affirms that " Islam is no more than Judaism
plus belief in Jesus and in Muhammad." Let us now
see what was the history of those two city-states.

The origin of Mecca is lost in antiquity. As far

32 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

back as we have any knowledge it was both great as a
commercial centre, and as a holy place still greater, —
for to it looked the devotion of all the scattered nations
of Arabia. Herodotus (iii. 8) mentions under a Greek
disguise the chief god Allah, and refers to the worship
of the hosts of heaven and of sacred stones; while
Diodorus Siculus, four centuries later, speaks of a
" temple in this country (the eastern coast of the Red
Sea) greatly revered by all the Arabs." Mecca, also
called Becca, — as, in India, Bombay is with the natives
Mumbai, means a " meeting-place." The earliest settle-
ment in the country appears to have been by tribes of
Ishmaelitish descent, together with their kinsmen the
Jurhamites. The chief object of ambition from the
beginning was the control of the Kaaba, the building
of which myth ascribed to Abraham by God's command,
after Hagar and Ishmael had settled in the valley ; the
holy well Zemzem (the " bubbling spring ") had burst
up miraculously to supply the thirsty child's need ;
and Hagar's distracted search for water has been from
time immemorial recalled at the annual sevenfold race
between Safa and Marwa. Authentic history begins
in the first century B.C. with Adnan the Jurhamitc,
back to whom Muhammad traced his lineage, but
beyond whom he declared there was no certainty. At
the great upheaval caused by the Azdite migration
from Yaman, the powerful Khudhaa confederacy
ousted the Maaddites (sons of Adnan) from power,
though these latter retained throughout some of the
chief offices of the sanctuary ; and it was then that the
idols were placed in the Kaaba. In the fifth century,
Qusai, the Quraish chief, from whose lineage in the
fifth generation sprang the prophet Muhammad, headed

QUSAI'S POWER 33

a revolt against the Khudhaa power, and with the aid
of kindred tribes established his own. He gathered
up into his hands the reins of all civil and religious
authority, extended the city limits by cutting down the
grove that hitherto had been held sacred from human
dwellings, and brought together within its bounds
the scattered members of the Quraish tribe. He built
for the transformed and extended city a town-hall, the
centre of civil and social life, with an entrance on to
the Kaaba, whence were sent forth the bannered hosts
for war, where maidens of full age assumed the garb of
womanhood, and where the ceremonies of marriage were
performed. There, too, the elders of the city held high
counsel, all affairs of the public weal were determined,
and from it set forth, and to it returned the half-yearly
caravans on which Mecca mainly depended for its wealth.
To secure the quiet observance of the rites of pil-
grimage, Arab tribal law had enforced peace during
four months of the year, the eleventh, twelfth, first,
and seventh. During these, all feuds were hushed, and
the deadliest foes met in mutual security. But the
religious chief of Mecca had the singular power of
substituting the second month of the year for the first
as a month of truce, the first then becoming common.
It may easily be seen how great was this power (called
Xasa, commutation), and how it might be abused, as
was the similar power of the pontifices of Rome in
regard to their religious calendar. This power, to-
gether with the stalling of the pilgrims for Mount
Arafat and Mina (Ijaza), providing them with food
and water (Rifada and Siqaya), the custody of the
keys of the Kaaba (Hijaba), — all was vested in Qusai.
The ceremonies of the pilgrimage were purely pagan :
3

the pilgrims threw off all clothing to make the mystic

sevenfold circuit of the Kaaba, symbolising perhaps
planetary motion, though strangely (and contrary to
almost universal practice in other religious ceremonies)
the circuit was made against the course of the sun ;
they adored the many idols placed in and around the
Holy House ; and they rapturously kissed the Black
Stone, of meteoric origin, symbol and centre of the
old stone-worship, one of the most widespread forms
of ancient superstition. The divinities most worshipped
were Allah, the supreme god, Allat (perhaps only a
feminine form of the former), who with Al Uzza and
Manat (a sacrificial stone) was fabled to be a daughter
of the Supreme Allah ; Hubal, the rain-god, Wadd or
Heaven, with others in shape of lion, horse, and eagle.
Hosts more there were, the whole number being no
less than 365 in Muhammad's day. Sacred stones are
scattered throughout Arabia, early native historians
say that they were carried from Mecca to represent
the Black Stone, and Palgrave found in Central Arabia
monoliths and stone-circles which reminded him of
Stonehenge and the 'menhirs of Brittany. But, besides
the gods, the tribes believed in Jinns, formed of fire as
mankind from clay, but otherwise of very similar
constitution though greater power; and their know-
ledge of a future life was vague and dim, and not
general. It was not uncommon for a camel to be
tied by the grave of a chief, with the idea, apparently,
that in the future life it would serve to carry the dead
man, as it had done in the world he had left.1

1 Marco Polo in his Travels tells how in his day it was the custom
in Central Asia to slaughter hosts of men and women to swell the state
of a deceased Tartar chief.

DESERT ARABS 35

The varying feuds and fights and fortunes of the
tribes which dwelt in and roamed through Central
Arabia need not be particularly traced. Powerful as
many of them were, the curse of disunion was on
them then, as it is again now that the national feeling
created by Islam has long spent its force. Owning by
turns the supremacy of Yaman or of Hira, some of
them professing Judaism or Christianity for a while,
the most part remained pagan, and when the states on
their borders had sunk into weakness, they resumed
their old unfettered freedom, till the time came to
unite them under the standard of the new Faith. One
influence, however, which almost certainly had greatly
contributed to enlighten Muhammad and to shape his
beliefs, came from Central Arabia. The state of Xajran,
lying between Yamau and Xajd, and settled by the
Harith tribe (of Kahlanite stock), had been Christian-
ised by Syrian missionaries in the fifth century or
earlier, and Qas, one of their bishops and a famous
orator, was heard by the future Prophet, when a youth,
at the great yearly fair of Ukaz.

Medina, according to Arab tradition, was originally
settled by the Amalekites ; but these gave way in very
early times to Jewish invaders, driven from their own
land (probably) by the national disasters wrought by
Nebuchadnezzar, and later conquerors. Prominent
among them were the Nazir, Quraiza, and Qainuqaa
tribes, whom we shall find again under Muhammad's
rule. About 300 A.D. the Aus and Khazraj tribes, of
Azdite stock, struck back south from their kindred in
Ghassan, and at first lived on good terms with the
Jews who had hospitably welcomed them. But when
they grew in numbers and felt their power, they, about

36 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the end of the fifth century, rose against their Jewish
partners in the government, massacred the chiefs, seized
the best of their lands, and reduced the tribes to sub-
jection. The treachery and massacre was avenged by
Abu Karib, a prince (possibly from Yaman), who slew
the leaders, and devastated the cultivated lands, but
had then to retire. Thereafter followed twenty years
of strife between the rival clans; a truce for half a
century; then renewed war, ending after a terrible
battle at Buath in 616 A.D. (where the strength of the
Jews was divided between the contending tribes, and
desert allies joined in the fray), in the triumph of the
Khazraj, whose chief, Abdallah ibn Ubai, was about to
be raised to the kingship of Medina, when the Exile
from Mecca changed the fortunes of the city, so begin-
ning his great secular career.

The foregoing account shows that when Muhammad
appeared there was already spread throughout Arabia
much knowledge of faiths purer than the idolatry of
Mecca in which he was bred. The ebb or flow of Arab
migration and trade had kept up a constant connection
between Mecca and the stronghold of Jewish power in
Medina to the north and Yaman in the south ; the
influence of Christianity also (though sadly abused
and distorted) was pressing in from Abyssinia, from
Najran, from Hira, and from Ghassan, with the shadow
of the once mighty Eastern Roman Empire in the back-
ground ; and the earliest history of Mecca was strangely
bound up with legends of Abraham and Ishmael. But
none of these had had power to move deeply the Arab
soul, and where Judaism and Christianity had both
failed, Muhammad succeeded with a strange mixture
of both, compounded by the alchemy of his own genius.

CHAPTER IV

Qusai to Muhammad — Abel al Muttalib — Kedemption of Abd-
allah— Strength of Idolatry in Mecca — "Muslims before
Islam " — Zaid the Sceptic — Birth of Muhammad, a Post-
humous Child — Adoption by Abd al Muttalib — His Fosterage
and Early Childhood — Death of his Mother — Legends of his
Infancy — His Youth — Marriage to Khadlja.

QUSAI, as we have seen, refounded Mecca, greatly
enlarged its borders, gathered into it the whole Quraish
clan, regulated the city government, and gradually
possessed himself of all authority therein. He kept
this power as long as he lived, and when he died, full of
years and honours, left his whole authority to his eldest
son, Abd al Dar. A younger brother Abd al Manaf,
however, being of stronger character, enjoyed the real
power, and his four sons inherited their father's
authority. But the family of Abd al Dar asserted
themselves, and after much dispute the powers of
government were divided between the kinsmen :
Hashim and his brothers, sons of Abd al Manaf, kept
the right of providing food and drink to the pilgrims,
and that of leadership in war ; whilst the grandsons of
Abd al Dar had the keys of the Kaaba, the presidency
in the town hall, and the right of raising the banner.
Hashim exercised his office with princely liberality,
and his example was followed by the other wealthy

38 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Quraish; the splendour of the annual pilgrimage was
enhanced, and the glory of Mecca exalted. He also,
like an Arab Joseph, saved his people from starvation
in years of sore famine, and earned their lasting grati-
tude. He established a regular system of caravans,
two each year, — one in winter to Yaman and Abyssinia,
and the other in summer northward to Syria ; and he
and his brothers made advantageous treaties with their
foreign neighbours. His prosperous and honoured life
was for a time troubled by the envy of his nephew
Umaiya, for envy is the curse of the Arab mind, who
challenged his supremacy, and being adjudged loser
retired in wrath to Egypt, which strife is marked by
historians as the beginning of that Umaiyad rivalry
with the Hashimites which was in after days to work
such harm in Islam.

In his old age, Hashim, on one of his trading
journeys, met at Medina a noble, capable lady named
Salma, who had been divorced by her husband. He
loved, and married her, and a great f east was made to
her tribe of Khazraj and his Quraish relatives. After
a short stay with her husband in Mecca, Salma returned
to her father's house, where a son was born to her in
497 A.D. Hashim died not long after in Syria, leaving
his dignities to his brother Al Muttalib, who brought his
nephew to Mecca as soon as he could leave his mother.
The lad was noble and goodly to look upon, but the
Meccans, fancying he was a newly-purchased slave,
hailed him as Abd al Muttalib (" slave of Al Muttalib "),
by which name he was ever afterwards known. Not
without strife, which obliged him to call in the armed
help of his mother's kindred, did Abd al Muttalib secure
his patrimonial rights ; and it took years to overcome

ABD AL MUTTALIB 39

the envy of his relatives. At length he triumphed,
and rose to more than his father's dignity and power,
attaining almost to the supremacy enjoyed by Qusfii ;
for he rediscovered and dug again, after centuries of
disuse, the holy well Zemzem, whose abundant waters
have ever since mainly supplied the city of Mecca, and
the myriads of pilgrims that crowd to her sacred
shrines. The god Hubal declared by the arrows of
divination that Abd al Muttalib alone should own and
control the well and the golden treasures found buried
therein, and the grateful chief spent the gold in adorn-
ing and enriching the Holy House.

An interesting legend of sacrifice averted marks
the story. In the struggles of his manhood Abd al
Mutallib was at a disadvantage from having but one
son, who aided him in his quest for the famous well.
So he vowed to his god Hubal that, if he should
be blessed with ten sons, he would sacrifice one of
them to the deity. The ten sons were given him, and
six daughters, and, when the sons were all grown up
to manhood, the father cast lots before the oracle
to choose out the victim. Abdallah, sixth and best
beloved, was taken ; but God had ordered otherwise.
Again, it is said at the instance of one of his daughters,
the father cast the lot, to see if the god would take a
ransom of ten camels for the lad; but the human
victim was still claimed. Similarly, twenty camels
were offered, and rejected ; then thirty, and forty ; nor
was it till one hundred had been staked that the lot
set Abdallah free. The camels of the ransom were
sacrificed, and their flesh divided to the people, save
that Hashim's brothers would not partake of it, and
the father of Muhammad was redeemed. Abd al

40 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Muttalib, like Hashim his uncle, was attacked by
his envious kinsman Harb son of Umayya, and,
like Hashim, was declared victor in the contest. He
strengthened his power by an alliance with the Khudh-
aites of Mecca, the treaty being solemnly laid up in
the Kaaba; and his fame was raised to its height
when, in 570, eight years before his death, the mighty
Abyssinian host under Abraha, advancing to destroy
the Kaaba, perished under a mysterious pestilence
before the gates of the city, with a destruction so com-
plete that but one escaped to tell the woeful tidings,
and he fell dead before his master's throne as soon
as the story was told ! Now, some months ere this,
Abdallah, like his uncle Hashim, had wedded a lady
of Medina, Amma, daughter of Wahbra, who was de-
scended from Zuhra, brother of the great Qusai. His
aged father, with whom he was travelling, married at
the same time Amina's cousin, Halah, by whom he
became the father of Hamza, the " Lion " of Islam.
Abdallah died at Medina on his way home from Syria,
at the early age of twenty-five, and some months later
Amina was comforted over his death by the birth of
her son Muhammad, the mightiest Arab of all times.

It is clear that when Muhammad was born in 570,
there was no decline of paganism or idol-worship at
Mecca. There was no sense of unreality, such as at Rome
made Cicero wonder that two augurs could meet with
grave faces, and which breathes in the poetry of
Horace and Ovid, scarcely less than in Lucretius. The
greatness of Mecca was bound up with the devotion to
the Kaaba; at no time had the temple been more
famous, the yearly pilgrimages more widely popular ;
and the fame of Quraish princes, Qusai, Hashim, Abd

"MUSLIMS BEFORE ISLAM" 41

al Muttalib, and the rest, was based on their service to
the Holy House. There was no breaking up of Mecca's
paganism, to render the work of revolution easy.
Seekers after God and a purer faith there had been,
more numerous perhaps, certainly to us better known,
about this time than in former generations. Of these
four men are specially marked out, and Sprenger exalts
their quest after truth at Muhammad's expense; but
probably no great revolution in human affairs, whether
in the domain of thought or of action, has been effected
without some previous strivings that have come to
nothing, and it is the leader whose work is carried to

success, the man who toils and labours till he reaches
the goal, to whom is justly due the crown of a nation's
or a world's praise. That Muhammad owed something
to the teaching, to the example, or to the encourage-
ment of the four may be admitted, but it is easy to
exaggerate the debt. It is, however, a very interesting
story that of these "Muslims before Islam," derived
from early Muhammaclan history, and runs somewhat
as follows : —

On a certain day, when the men of Quraish were
gathered at a yearly feast to one of their idols, slew
sacrifices, and went about the Sacred House, four men
kept apart, and agreed to open their hearts to one
another. They were Waraqa, cousin of Muhammad's
first wife Khadija ; Ubaid UUah, son of Muhammad's
paternal aunt ; Uthman, son of Al Hawairik ; and
Zaid, of the Adi family. And one of them said to
the others : " By God, ye see that our tribe knows not
the true religion. They have corrupted the faith of
Abraham, and worship a stone, which neither hears nor
sees, and can do neither good nor harm. Friends, seek

42 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

for yourselves, for ye are not in the right path." So
they went forth each his several way, to seek for the
true faith of Abraham, — which faith Muhammad in
after time professed to restore. Waraqa studied the
Christian scriptures, was penetrated by their truth, and
embraced Christianity: he was a learned man, and
copied out a large part of the Gospels. Ubaid Ullah re-
mained a sceptic till he accepted Islam at Muhammad's
preaching in Mecca. He married Umm Habiba, a
daughter of Abu Sufiyan, also a convert, with whom
he went to Abyssinia with the first exile. There he
became a Christian, and would tell his fellow-exiles
that he had found the truth, after which they were
still groping. He died ere he could return, and his
widow afterwards became one of Muhammad's wives.
Uthman went to Constantinople, where he also pro-
fessed Christianity, and was highly honoured by the
Emperor. Thus of the four seekers after God three
found Him in Christ.

The fourth, Zaid, remained a sceptic to the end,
finding no faith to satisfy him. Renouncing his
ancestral beliefs, he forsook the worship of idols,
refused to eat what had been sacrificed to them, or
blood, or that which died of itself, and he condemned
the cruel custom of burying girls alive. In extreme
old age he warned the Quraish that he only among
them held the true faith of Abraham, and he prayed,
saying : " O Lord, if I knew in what form Thou
wouldest be worshipped, so would I worship Thee ;
but I know it not." And again he said that he had
cast away his idols, and the idols of his tribe, to
worship the All-Merciful Lord, that He might forgive
his sins. "Whoso fears God will not be lost. The

ZAID THE SCEPTIC 43

good shall have their abode in the gardens of paradise,
but the wicked shall dwell with the fire. In life they
shall not prosper, and after death they shall be in
torment." " Truly I am Thy servant, O Lord : and to
Thee I submit myself, Whom the earth obeys, and the
fertilising rain-clouds." Zaid was for long prevented
by his cousin Khattab from wandering forth in search
of the truth, but succeeded at length. He wandered
through Mesopotamia and Syria, questioning monks
and Rabbins concerning the faith of Abraham; but
none could tell him of it, save one who bade him go
back to his own land, " for there (said he) has arisen a
Prophet who will restore that ancient faith." So he
turned his steps homeward, but was murdered on the
way ; — and in later times Muhammad refused not to
pray for Zaid, though at another time he told his
followers that he was commanded not to pray for any
but Believers, and was expressly forbidden to pray for
his own mother.

Reference has been already made to the wondrous
tales told in later times by the devotion of his followers,
to enhance the glory of Muhammad ; but the simple
facts do not need any embellishment to heighten our
admiration for the mighty work he did, whatever
judgment we may have to pass on the character and
motives of the man, or on the nature of the revolution
he achieved. The tribe to which he belonged, the
Quraish, had, in the two centuries before his birth,
raised itself to undisputed pre-eminence in Mecca, All
power, civil, religious, and military, so far as the
nature of Arab life permitted, was gathered in their
hands. They had, by the exercise of those virtues
which were most highly esteemed in Arabia, won the

44 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

widest fame ; they had strong family ties and alliance
both with the other chief city of the Hijaz, Medina
(Yathrib), and with the Bedouin tribes of Central
Arabia ; their commerce was regular, gainful, and far-
reaching ; and they had treaties of friendship with
powers beyond the limits of the peninsula. Abd al
Muttalib, the venerable chief of the Quraish, surrounded
by his large family of sons and daughters, and held in
high honour for his past services, ruled in Mecca. The
Abyssinian invasion had failed in circumstances which
lent colour to the belief in supernatural aid, and the
central shrine of Arabian idolatry was secure against
foreign foes.

The chief and his well-beloved son Abdallah had, as
has been told, married at the same time, in the end of
the year 569, two cousins, of a noble house in Medina,
not distantly related to themselves. To the aged Abd
al Muttalib was born Hamza, afterwards so famous in
Islam, and to the newly- widowed Amlna (August 20,
570 A.D.) was given the child Muhammad. Still, after
all these thirteen centuries, the pious pilgrim gazes
reverently on his birthplace in the Shi'b Maulud, the
" Quarter of the Nativity," not half a mile from the
Kaaba. After her marriage with Abdallah, Amlna
had gone to her husband's city, while he had gone
northward with the Syrian caravan. On his return
he sickened and died at Medina, leaving to his widow
and unborn son five camels, a flock of goats, and a
female slave, Umm Aim an or Baraka, who tended the
infant when born. The little property was not small
for an Arab in that age, and in no case would Abd al
Muttalib's grandson have been allowed to want for
anything which Mecca could furnish.

CHILDHOOD AND FOSTERAGE 45

Immediately word had come of the child's birth, the
glad grandfather carried him in his arms to the Holy
House, gave thanks to God, and named him Muhammad,
"the Praised." This and the other common name
Ahmad, which has the same meaning, are both derived
from the Arabic root hamada, " to praise " ; and in his
later years Muhammad, from these names, supported his
claim to be the " prophet " foretold by our Lord Himself
in the Gospels, — periHytos (famous or renowned) in-
Btead of jMMtsHefoe, the Advocate or Comforter.

As was usual in Mecca, Muhammad was not nursed
by his own mother, but given over to a slave woman
of his uncle Abu Lahb, who had lately nursed Hauiza.
Though he was not long in her care, Muhammad ever
after showed the utmost love and gratitude towards
her, honouring and helping her while she lived, and
her daughter (his foster-sister) after, till she also died,
not many years before his own death.

Mecca, however, has always been unhealthy for
children, and it was the general custom of the wealthy
Arabs to send them away with foster-mothers to be
reared in the free, pure air of the desert, amid the
black tents, the horses, and the camels, which are the
immemorial theme of Arab song, and where also the
noble Arabic tongue has ever flourished in stainless
vigour. So, in the autumn after his birth, Muhammad
was given to Hallma, a woman of the Bam Saad. who
had come with others to receive the care of Meccan
infants. She did not take him without reluctance, as
the care of a fatherless child was less likely to be well
rewarded than that of one whose parents were both
living. She proved, however, most faithful to her trust,
the infant was carefully and lovingly tended, and had

46 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

grown to healthy, vigorous childhood when, at the
end of five years, he was finally returned to his mother's
charge. Tradition delights to tell how Halima and
her whole house were favoured by heaven while the
young Prophet dwelt with her. The donkey she rode,
lean and almost foundered when she came into Mecca,
recovered speed and condition on her homeward way ;
it had been a season of drought, and the flocks and
herds of the tribe were lean and athirst, but on Halima's
return the pastures flourished, and the cattle throve ;
and she and hers prospered even beyond their fellows.
The child grew up strong and healthy, generally speak-
ing, and his great physical strength and endurance in
after life prove the soundness of his constitution. Yet
he suffered from some mysterious ailment, and was
subject to occasional fits. These in all Eastern lands
have ever been looked upon as cases of possession, and
in Arabia the sufferer is believed to be possessed by
a Jinn, one of those spirits formed of fire with which
Bedouin fancy has peopled the waste places of the
earth, — and to whom belong —

" Those airy tongues which syllable men's names l
In rocks, in plains, in barren wilderness."

It was, and still is, usual not to wean Arab children
for the long period of two years, and at the end of that
time, Halima seems to have taken her foster-child to
his mother, and to have brought him back to the tents
for a like period more. At the end of the fourth year,
however, both Halima and her husband were alarmed
by a fit which took the child ; so they carried him

1 Again Marco Polo witnesses for us to the many spirits that in his
time haunted the deserts of High Tartary (Yule's Marco Polo).

"CLEAVING OF THE BREAST" 47

back to Mecca, intending to rid themselves of the
charge altogether. But they were induced to resume
it for another year, after which the boy Muhammad
finally returned to his grandfather's house.

The occasion of Muhammad's first fit has been trans-
muted by the devout fancy of his followers into a
miraculous cleansing of his heart from the stain of sin.
It is related that he said to his anxious foster-mother
that two men in shining raiment had thrown him to
the ground, opened his breast, and taken out the heart
and chief organs, yet without any pain; the organs
were then washed in pure water, and from the heart
was taken the black seed of sin, and then all was
replaced. Such is the material form given to the
allegory used by Muhammad in Sura 94 of the Quran,
— " Have we not opened thy breast ? " In this, again,
we see an Arabic version of the Psalmist's prayer, —
" Create in me a clean heart, O Lord ! "

The speech of the Sons of Saad was famous for its
purity, and in later times Muhammad boasted that he
was the " most perfect Arab, sprung from the tribe of
Quraish, and speaking the tongue of the Bani Saad."
His affectionate nature ever acknowledged the ties of
fosterage, and when in a year of drought Halima
visited him iu Mecca after his marriage to the wealthy
Khadija, he presented her to his wife, and that generous
lady sent her away happy with the gift of a noble
riding camel and a flock of forty sheep. Many years
later, her daughter came to him in Medina, and was
treated with the greatest honour and affection ; and
when her tribe had lost many captives to him in an
expedition against Ta,if , they redeemed themselves by
reminding him of his childhood's days among them.

48 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Over and over again in the story of Muhammad's life
we shall find how tender was his nature, how quick his
affections, and shall wonder the more at the few dark
passages where he showed himself without ruth or pity.
The year after his return to Mecca, Muhammad spent
under his mother's care, and at the end of that time she
desired to show him to his kinsfolk in Medina. So
she set forth with the boy and his nurse Umm Aiman,
and stayed in the city for a month, in the house where
her husband had died. That month Muhammad never
forgot, and not many years before his own death he
told his companions the names of his playmates at that
time, and the games at which they played. The memory
of those days was ever sweet to him, deepened by the
tragedy that so soon followed ; for, on their homeward
way to Mecca, sickness fell on Amina, and she died at
Abwa when but half their journey was done, and there
she was buried ; and the faithful Umm Aiman took the
little orphan home, where the aged chief of Mecca
welcomed him. The loss of his mother, the only parent
he had known, was a deep grief to the sensitive child's
heart, and his love and reverence for her never wore out.
More than fifty years later he turned aside to her grave,
as he went on his pilgrimage to Hudaibiya, and he wept
over it ; and his companions wept with him, and asked
the cause of his tears. And he said he wept for tender
memory of his mother, and because the Lord had for-
bidden him to pray for her, inasmuch as she had died in
unbelief. It is a scene full of pathos, the old man
weeping for the mother he had loved and lost in early
childhood, and shutting her out from what he thought
the grace of his intercession because she had not believed
in his prophetic mission.

BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 49

So long as Abd al Muttalib lived, the boy was
tenderly cared for. The old chief delighted in the
child's company, shielded him from all annoyance, and
treated him as the son of his old age. But two years
later he also died, leaving his orphan grandson to the
guardianship of Abu Talib, a worthy successor, to whose
firm and unwavering support through many stormy
years Muhammad owed his very life, threatened as it
was by the hatred of most of the Quraish, when he had
broken with idolatry and claimed to be the Prophet of
Allah. The fresh bereavement was a heavy blow to
Muhammad, but doubtless there mingled with his grief
a proud memory of his grandfather's high character and
great fame, which might well stir him to dreams of ambi-
tion. For the time, however, the fortunes of the family
suffered eclipse. Several of Abd al Muttalib's sons were
dead, his splendid hospitality had greatly diminished
his wealth, and the riches and power of the clan had in
large part passed to the descendants of Abd al Manaf.

Of the life of Muhammad for many years after this,
till the date of his marriage, at the age of twenty-five,
with Khadija, scarcely anything is certainly known. He
grew up under the care and protection of his uncle Abu
Talib, surrounded by the atmosphere of the best Arab
life, and steeped (we may not doubt) in the family wor-
ship of idols, with which their rank and importance had
been from the days of Qusai so closely bound up.
Late traditions, manifestly without any foundation in
fact, have adorned (or defaced) a childhood and youth
that were no doubt happy and uneventful with legend-
ary foreshadowings of his future greatness, prophecies
Jewish and Christian, by learned Rabbis and pious her-
mits, of the prophet that was to come last into the world,
4

50 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

to perfect and seal the revelation of God's will and pur-
poses to mankind. Trees bowed in homage, clouds shaded
him miraculously as he journeyed with the caravans, and
stones cried out in thankfulness and praise as he passed.
In the legendary history of his childhood, by an ob-
vious afterthought, Muhammad from his earliest years
is shown constantly and strongly protesting against
every form of idolatry, and this we may be sure is
wholly untrue. He no doubt went with his uncles,
sometimes with one, and sometimes with another, on the
half-yearly trading expeditions (though tradition re-
cords only two such journeys), and his strong, observant,
meditative mind would be fed from all springs of know-
ledge that came in his way. He would learn some-
thing of the true doctrines of both Judaism and Chris-
tianity, and the Quran shows clearly that at some time
or other of his life he gained a wide knowledge of the
extravagance of Talmudic legend, and much also of
apocryphal Christian fable. His family connection
with Medina also, and the constant passage through it
when he went with the Syrian caravan, would give him
special opportunities of learning from the Jews, and of
observing the political and religious rivalries which he
afterwards so skilfully turned to account. Certainly
too he was present at the annual fairs held in the
neighbourhood of Mecca, of which the chief was at
Uqaz, where the poets and orators strove for the praise
of an audience not less critical than those which decreed
the prizes in Athens at the Great Dionysia. There his
fancy was fed with the strange Arab tales, and his heart
fired with the praise of valour, endurance, and high
purpose, and his ear grew familiar with the strongest
and most subtle harmonies of the noble Arab tongue,

EARLY MANHOOD 51

with which he was to witch his world. Yet he himself
was no poet, at least so far as metrical composition is
concerned, and was strong in condemnation of poets and
poetry, though he was always fully alive to their great
power over the Arab mind, and was too wise not to make
use of their services when he could. At Uqaz too he
heard the fervent Christian preaching of Qas, the bishop
of Xajran, and might well have embraced the Christian
faith but for two causes — his stubborn family pride, and
the corruptions of that faith which he saw on every side
of him. Had he embraced Christianity, the world would
have had one religion less, and the calendar of saints
might have held one name more ! l

In truth very little that is certain is recorded of
Muhammad previous to his marriage with Khadija.
He enjoyed a high character among the citizens, and
nothing stands against his name. As a youth he tended
the flocks, an occupation which was congenial to his
mild and reflective character; and he appealed to the
fact that (as he alleged) no prophet had been sent who
had not been a shepherd or a herdsman. Tins was true,
no doubt, of Moses and of David, but not of the greater
number of his forerunners, as he called them. Sprenger
draws, from the fact of his employment as a shepherd,
conclusions unduly harsh as to his lack of energy and
force of character. Against this must be set the fact
that he was one of the leading spirits in the Hilf-id-
F'.i : v.l, a confederation bound together by oath (Hilf ) to
right the wrongs of any, bond or free, who might be
injured while in Meccan territory. The league was
formed among the descendants of Hashim and Muttalib,
with some allied families, and exercised a strong moder-
1 This thought is Sir W. Muir's.

52 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

ating influence. When he was about twenty-five
years of age, Abu Talib arranged that his nephew and
ward, who must have been favourably known for
honesty and skill in trading, should take charge in a
caravan going to Syria of the goods of the wealthy
Khadlja, a lady related to them. She gladly agreed to
give her young kinsman four camels as his hire, double
what she gave to others ; he conducted the venture with
prudence and success, and on his return Khadlja, de-
lighted with the further knowledge she gained of his
character, no less than with his winning presence and
comely person, made advances that ended in their
marriage, — a happy union indeed for Muhammad, who
lived with her in perfect and undivided love till she
died twenty-five years later, in 620 A.D. She had
been already twice married, and had borne two sons
and a daughter to her husbands. At the time of her
marriage to Muhammad she was forty (lunar) years old,
as we should say, thirty-six, and to him also she bore
two sons and four daughters. Both the sons died in
early childhood, but the daughters all grew up to
womanhood, though only one of them — Fatima — sur-
vived her father, being the wife of All, his cousin and
faithful follower, afterwards third Khalifa, from whom
all the numerous Sharlfs and Sayyids trace their
descent. Curiously enough, it seems that Khadlja could
not marry without the consent of her father, who was
averse to the match. So she plied him with wine till
he yielded, and when he awoke to find the marriage ac-
complished, he was too wise to interfere further. Con-
sidering how much he thus owed to the fruit of the
vine, one might think Muhammad's stern laws against
it savoured of ingratitude !

KHADljA 53

The marriage with Khadlja gave Muhammad that
ease of circumstances which lie needed, freedom from
the cares of daily life, the stay and comfort of deep
mutual love, which for twenty-five years never failed
him. His wife retained the management of her wealth
in her own capable hands, so that his mind was not
burdened with the care of it ; whatever he needed was
liberally supplied. He was able, by adopting his young
cousin All, to discharge a part of the debt he owed to
Abu Talib, who had now fallen into straitened cir-
cumstances ; and it was Khadlja who bought and
presented to him Zaid, whom he set free and adopted
as his son, and who was one of the first, boldest, and
most loyal of his followers. In spite of the great
difference in age, Muhammad's love for Khadlja never
wavered ; when she was removed by death, after sharing
with him for years the trials and the reproach of the
early times of his preaching, he mourned her deeply ;
and, in later days, his favourite wife, the sprightly,
clever, winsome Ayesha, said she had never been so
jealous of any woman as " that old, withered, toothless"
Khadlja. But when she petulantly asked if she had
been the only woman worthy of his love, Muhammad
answered gravely and tenderly : " She believed in me
when none else did, she comforted me when sad and
downhearted, and she alone of my wives bore me
children " ; and on another occasion he said, " The best
of women in Paradise are Mary the daughter of Imran
(the Virgin Mary) and Khadlja the daughter of
Khawailid."

CHAPTER V

Muhammad's Public and Private Life — His Character — Early
Strivings after Truth — First Revelations — The " Cessation
of Visions "—Muhammad's Early Preaching — Beginnings of
Success — Ali, Zaid, Abu Bakr converted — Blind Man —
Temptation by Quraish rejected.

Foil ten years Muhammad's life flowed on outwardly
in happy obscurity. If his heart was disquieted over
the idolatry of his people, he felt no call to witness
against it, and at the end of that time he took a chief
part in rebuilding its central fane. The Kaaba was
threatened with destruction by a flood, and the
alarmed Quraish resolved to rebuild it. The work
was divided among the leading families, and went on
in harmony till the holy Black Stone was to be put in
its place. Then strife broke out among the chiefs, each
claiming for himself the high honour of putting the
Stone in position. But as they sat debating the point,
it was determined to accept the decision of the first
who should enter the temple precincts. This was
Muhammad, hailed as "Al Amm," the Trusty, who
directed that four of the chief men should hold the
corners of a sheet, and so lift the Stone to the level
where it was to be built into the wall, and then he
guided it to its resting-place, and the dispute was
happily ended.

FIRST RELIGIOUS DOUBTS 55

But now the time was coming when he was to break
finally with the idolatry in which he had been brought
up, and with which was bound up so much of the
greatness of his family and his tribe. Much given to
solitary musings, a habit which was fed and fostered
by his years of shepherd life, he was wont to pass long
periods in retirement among the hills and ravines in the
neighbourhood of Mecca. Of these one in particular,
a cave on Mount Hira, known in Islam as the Mount
of Light, was a favourite resort. It was a lofty, barren,
conical hill two or three miles north of the city, and
there too Zaid the Sceptic had had liis hermit's abode,
when he also had renounced the idolatry of his fore-
fathers. And when, in his fortieth year (probably),
Muhammad, as his wont was, was spending the month
of Rajab, one of the months of peace, in spiritual
wrestlings, communing with his own heart, and
earnestly seeking for guidance, in the midst of his
"prayers and supplications" (Ar. Tahannoth = Heb.
Tehinnoth, according to Deutsch's brilliant explana-
tion), the light of revelation seemed suddenly to burst
upon him. In the middle of the night, on the " blessed
night Al Qadr " (power, might), a glorious angel roused
him from sleep ; three times the mighty voice sounded
in his ear, and three times the powerful constraining
grasp was laid upon him. Twice he refused the
mission, but the third call broke down every barrier, —
and he took up the message from his Lord, brought by
the angel Gabriel, the same who had brought down
the glad tidings of the Annunciation to the Virgin
Mary. Probably no one will doubt that the whole
story was woven by Muhammad, perhaps only half
consciously, out of fragments dimly remembered of

56 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Jewish and Christian records. The first message ran,
graven as with a pen of iron on the tablet of his heart
(to use his own phrase) —

"Cry (or 'Read') in the name of thy Lord, —
Who created man from clots of blood !
Cry, for thy Lord is most bountiful,
Who has taught the use of the pen,
Taught man what he knew not ! "

Muhammad was terrified at the vision, and returned
to Khadija in great trouble. Then, as ever, she com-
forted him, soothed his fears lest he should be
"possessed," and pointed to his blameless life as
proof that God's purposes with him could only be
good.

On this first vision followed a long period, which
tradition sometimes extends even to seven years, but
which is generally held to have been two, during
which the visions were interrupted. During this
time Muhammad continued his solitary musings and
prayers, seeking for light. Often anguish of mind
made his brain reel, and he sought to take his own
life by casting himself headlong down a precipice.
But ever, as he told the tale, Gabriel stayed him from
the rash act, though the final seal of his mission was
withheld. What really happened in this mysterious
interval must always be matter of conjecture.
Sprenger, who altogether rejects Muhammad's claim
to originality, and has but small belief in his sincerity,
has no doubt that the "revelation" was only a veil
for the resolve to search the Scriptures of the Jews
and Christians, and that the interval was used in
reading, hearing, and being taught in them. Muir

FIRST "REVELATIONS" 57

again collects some of the short, passionate, lyrical out-
bursts which, now preserved in the Quran, he believes
to be prior to the claim to preach, and assigns them
to this time. Neither explanation is free from ob-
jection, nor probably would any other be ; the evidence
rests wholly on Muhammad's own report, and partakes
of the confusion of an agonising mind. We shall
escape a good deal of perplexity by following Muslim
tradition, remembering that the Quraish always de-
clared that Muhammad's teaching was partly derived
from foreign secret prompters, and partly from his
own heated imagination. The question whether he
could or could not read is not of great importance,
and is at this date insoluble. He always called him-
self the "Unlettered Prophet," and appealed to the
perfect harmony and eloquence of his Quran as being
therefore a miracle, sufficient to prove his prophetic
mission. Inability to read would not have been a bar
to acquisition of knowledge, and a retentive memory
(such as was common in Arabia) would secure it.
During this period of mental strain, Muhammad's state
gave his friends much concern; they feared he was
verging on insanity, and he himself at times shared
that fear. In the days of his early preaching, his
fellow-citizens scoffed at him as a poet, a visionary, a
soothsayer, and one possessed; and against these re-
proaches he constantly protests in the Quran, declar-
ing with passion that he is a Prophet sent of God,
inspired and taught by Him alone, and every word of
command, or story, or exhortation has (expressed or
implied) the preface — " Say ! " i.e. in the name of the
Lord. Every word of the Quran, as Muhammad
taught, existed from all eternity, the Word of God,

58 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

engraven on the Preserved Tablet, and is chanted in
heaven by angels and archangels and by the prophets
of olden time.

At the end of the period of "remission," or sus-
pension of messages from on high, Muhammad was
again visited by the angel Gabriel, who gave him
the divine command to preach to his people, assured
him of the truth of his message, and dispelled doubts
and fears of the reality of his commission. Pious fable
tells how his heart was again purified, to make it fit
for the divine message ; but it is left to us to imagine
how gradually there took shape in his mind the
cardinal doctrines of the faith which thenceforward
he preached, the existence of one God only, Almighty,
absolute Kuler over all, whose decrees are fixed from
all eternity, with whom none may intercede save by
His permission, merciful and compassionate, righteous,
yet forgiving ; the certainty of the resurrection and
final judgment of all mankind, when sin shall be
punished and righteousness rewarded; the mission of
Muhammad as the Apostle of God, the acceptance of
whose teaching was the sole and all-sufficient condition
of salvation, and the rejection of it the only unpardon-
able sin. The guilt and folly of idol-worship, the in-
finite importance of the future life, — these were the
two prime elements of Muhammad's early message.

When these central truths had taken full possession
of his mind, when he had persuaded himself that truly
he was called of God to preach the true faith to his
people and to the world, — his doubts all vanished, and
he clothed the circumstances of his call to preach in
the following story. As he wandered in perplexity in
the mountains and rocks about Mount Hlra, where the

THE CALL TO PROPHESY 59

first revelation had come down to him, and despaired
because no more had been vouchsafed, suddenly a
mighty voice from heaven called him. He looked up.
and lo ! Gabriel sat upon a throne between heaven
and earth : and he said, " Verily, O Muhammad, thou
art the Prophet of God, and I am Gabriel." Comforted
and strengthened he went home; but the conflict of
emotions had exhausted him, and he prayed Khadija
to wrap him in a mantle ; and, as he thus lay, the call
came in the words of the 74th Sura (Chapter of the
Quran): "O thou that are covered, rise up and
preach, and extol thy Lord! Make clean thy gar-
ments, and flee all abomination! Grant not favour
to gain increase, and wait for thy Lord ! When the
trumpet shall sound, verily that day is a day of dread,
terrible for them that misbelieve ! " Such was the
message that sent Muhammad forth on his mission,
from which henceforward he never swerved, though
once only for a very brief time he faltered. It is
probable that in the interval between the first and
the second revelation he had sought converts among
the people, had failed, and had fallen into a state of
despondency like that of the prophet Elijah when,
fainting under the persecution of Jezebel, he prayed
that he might die, "for I am not better than my
fathers," " I, even I only am left." There came also,
along with the command to preach, the comfortable
assurance that God was with him — " By the bright
of day, and the darkling night, thy Lord hath not
forsaken thee, neither hath He hated thee! Verily
the life to come is better than that which is now, and
at the last He shall give thee that wherewith thou
shalt be well pleased? Did not He find thee an

60 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

orphan, and care for tliee ; erring, and He guided thee ;
needy, and He enriched thee ? Wherefore oppress not
the orphan, and deny not the beggar, and show forth the
mercies of thy Lord ! " And again he was strengthened
by the memory of past deliverance, and urged thereby
to labour for his Lord (S. 94) : " Have not we enlarged
thy breast ? and removed from thee the load that galled
thy back ? and exalted thy fame ? Verily with diffi-
culty is ease ! verily with difficulty is ease ! And when
thou art at leisure, then toil and thirst after thy
Lord!"

Thus heartened and strengthened, Muhammad
asserted his prophetic claims. He had at first but
small success in his mission, and the citizens for the
most part scoffed at and reviled him. But slowly he
gathered about him a small company of devoted
followers, men and women, freemen and slaves, — and
the best proof of his sterling character and absolute
sincerity at this time is to be found in the fact that his
first converts were those who knew him best, and
whose eyes no weakness of character could escape, nor
cloak of hypocrisy hide his true nature. First and
best was his faithful wTife, Khadlja, whose belief in him
upheld his courage when all was dark, and with her
doubtless his daughters grew up in the faith. Next,
rivals for the honour of first disciple, came his young
cousin Ali, whose fiery zeal and loyal spirit ever stood
the prophet in such good stead, and Zaid, son of Harith,
whom he had set free from servitude and adopted as
his son, and who remained bound to him by cords of
love more firmly than by any forced bondage, — and
who, in later years, made for him the utmost sacrifice a
man can make, that of a cherished wife surrendered to

EARLY CONVERTS 61

his Master's love. Of Ali it is told that he was Muham-
mad's companion when they worshipped Allah secretly
together, and his father, Abu Talib, who had heard of
his nephew's new doctrine, came suddenly upon them.
" What, my nephew," he said, " is this new faith I see
thee follow ? " And he answered, " This, my uncle, is
the religion of God, and of His angels, and of His
prophets; the religion of Abraham. The Lord hath
sent me an apostle to His servants ; and none is so
worthy as thou to be called to assist the Prophet of the
Lord." Abu Talib could not forsake in his old age the
religion of his fathers ; but he promised Muhammad his
fullest protection, and bade his son Ali follow him, " for
he will lead thee into no evil way." But the most im-
portant of the earliest converts was Abu Bakr, son of
Kuhafa, one of the chief men of Mecca — wealthy,
generous, and of very high character. Singularly
truthful, mild, upright, and firm, he is known as Al
Siddiq, " the Truthful," as Muhammad himself was Al
Amin, " the Trusty." His name Abu Bakr * means
'• Father of the Virgin," that is, of Ayesha, the only
wife of Muhammad who had not been previously
married, and who at the time of her father's conversion
was but a child of two or three years old To Abu
Bakr, afterwards Muhammad's first successor, the debt
of Islam is very great, though Sprenger perhaps ex-
aggerates it ; and of him Muhammad said : " I never
invited any to the faith who displayed not hesitation
and perplexity, excepting only Abu Bakr; but he,
v.'hen I offered him Islam, tarried not, nor was per-
plexed." They had long been friends, were of almost

1 The sobriquet has completely displaced the real name, Abd al

62 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

equal age, and lived in the same quarter of the city.
He was short of stature, fair, and of delicate features,
with a high forehead, and keen, deep-set eyes. He
greatly helped the infant faith by the use he made of
his wealth in redeeming from bondage and ill-usage the
many slave converts, among whom most notable was
Bilal, whose mighty voice called the faithful to public
prayer. Uthman, afterwards third Khalifa, came next,
a merchant also like Abu Bakr ; and Abd al Rahman
and Talha. Muhammad cemented the ties of disciple-
ship by those of affinity : to Zaid he gave his nurse,
Umm Aim an, and to Ali and Uthman respectively his
daughters Fatima and Rukaya. All told, however, at
the end of three years of private preaching, the fol-
lowers of the new faith numbered no more than from
thirty to forty. But the people of Mecca, and not least
Muhammad's own near kinsfolk, bitterly opposed his
new doctrine, — and its worst foes were two of his uncles,
Abu Jahl and Abu Lahb (" Fathers of Folly and of
Fire "), the latter of whom is with his wife singled out
for a special chapter of cursing, being the only person,
besides Zaid l and the Prophet 2 himself, who is men-
tioned in the Quran by name. The short chapter is
characteristic of Muhammad's fierce spirit, and may be
quoted entire —

" In the name of God, merciful and gracious !
Abu Laliab's two hands shall perish, and he shall perish !
His wealth shall not avail him, nor that which he hath earned !
He shall broil in a fire that flames,3 and his wife carrying faggots !
— on her neck a cord of palm fibres." (PALMER, S. 111.)

1 In respect of the divorce of his wife, that she might be married to
the Prophet.

2 Muhammad is named in the Quran four times.

3 A pun on his name.

Having now got together a small and devoted band
of followers, Muhammad took a further step in
advance. The doctrines he had so far preached were,
he contended, no new thing ; he was not the preacher
of a new religion, but the restorer and reviver of the

O 7

ancient faith of Abraham, forgotten or overlaid by the
idolatry and superstitions that had grown up and
choked the pure worship to which the great founder
had dedicated the Holy House of Mecca, the Kaaba.
The guardianship of the fane was in the hands of his
kindred, its purification was what he had greatly at
heart, the ties of blood counted for much among the
Arabs, and he thought the time had come when he

* o

might with some hope of success preach more publicly,
but especially appealing to his own kinsfolk, to depart
from idolatry, and to follow the old pure faith which
he proposed. He did not, of course, give any such
reasons as the above for his action. The angel Gabriel
had, he said, brought down a further revelation of
God's will, of His merciful purposes to the Prophet's
kindred, for whose welfare he was so deeply concerned,
— " Arise and warn ! Publish that which hath been
commanded thee, and withdraw from the idol;'
We will take part with thee against the scoffers,
and them who join other gods with God. Invoke thou
no other god with Him, lest thou become of them that

are appointed for punishment. Preach thou to thy
kinsmen, thy near ones ; spread the wings of protection
over them that believe and follow thee, and say: I
bring you a clear message."

In obedience to these commands, Muhammad first
preached openly to the Quraish from the little hill of
Al Safa, the same sacred eminence which is the scene

64 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

to this day of preaching at the annual pilgrimage.
He followed this up by a general invitation to
the family of Abd al Muttalib to an entertainment,
after which he intended to deliver his solemn
message. A first attempt was defeated by Abu
Lahb, his uncle, but on the second he secured
his audience and fulfilled his mission. Thus he
spake : " I know no man in the land of Arabia who
can lay before his kinsfolk a more excellent offer than
that which I now make to you. I offer you the happi-
ness both of this world and of that which is to come.
God Almighty hath commanded me to call mankind
unto Him. Who, therefore, among you will second me
in that work, and thereby become my brother, my vice-
gerent, my Khalifa (' successor ') ? " At once impetuous
Ali, whom we may call the Peter of Islam, sprang to
his feet and exclaimed : " I, O Apostle of God, will be
thy minister (wazlr). I will knock out the teeth, tear
out the eyes, rip up the bellies, and cut off the legs of
all who shall dare to oppose thee." Then Muhammad
embraced him before the assembled guests, and said :
" This is my brother, my deputy, my Khalifa : hear
then, and obey him." Then the whole company broke
into laughter, and told the venerable Abu Talib that he
must now be obedient to his own son !

It is of the feast on this occasion that is told the
story of a miracle of feeding, which may serve as a
specimen of the tales with which later ages embellished
the Prophet's early career, regardless of his own dis-
claimer of miraculous power. Ali, who had been
directed to furnish the meal, had not been able to pro-
vide for more than one guest ; but though forty were
present, all ate, and were filled. The prominent place

INCREASING BOLDNESS 65

given on this occasion to Ali, and especially the naming
of him as " Successor," points to invention by Sliiah
partisans in later times ; but the main fact of the first
public preaching being addressed to a gathering of the
family is in itself likely, and is quite in accordance
with Muhammad's methods.

Notwithstanding this repulse, he must have derived
encouragement from the meeting, for he went on to
more boldness in his preaching. He denounced the
folly of trusting to dumb idols, who could neither hear
nor see, and had no power to help their worshippers,
and he solemnly warned them of the judgment to come.
He appealed to his character among them, and asked if
they would believe him if he had warned them of the
approach of an earthly foe ; and they answered, " Yea,
verily, for we have ever found thee a speaker of truth."
Then he said, "Of a truth Allah hath appointed me
his Apostle to you all ! I swear by Allah that there is
no God besides Him ! Ye will all die as though ye
fell asleep, and ye will be raised again as though ye
awoke. For all your deeds ye must give an account,
and ye shall be punished or rewarded according to
your deserts." But few heeded him, and his uncle,
Abu Lahb, derided him, saying, "Our kinsman is
possessed, care not for him." And thereafter, when he
passed through the streets, they would say, " Lo, the
man who gives news about heaven, and with whom the
angels of God hold converse ! " Yet he went on with
his preaching, and boldly taught that their forefathers,
who had died without a knowledge of his mission, were
condemned to the pains of hell.

Muhammad went on with his teaching, and sought
specially to influence and win over the leaders of the
5

66 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

people. It is to this time that is assigned a pleasing
instance of that humility and real kindliness of nature
which were of such use to him throughout his life. As
one day he was earnestly pressing his mission on some
of the chief men of Mecca, a blind man, Abdallah, son
of Umm Maqtum, came up and importuned him to
recite from the Quran to him. The Prophet turned
impatiently away from him, but soon after repented of
the harshness, and produced against himself the sharp
rebuke embalmed to this day in the sacred Book —

" The Prophet frowned and turned his back, for that there came

to him a blind man !
But what would make thee know whether haply he may be

purified 1 or may be mindful and the reminder profit him 1
But as for him who is wealthy, thou dost attend to him, and

thou dost not care that he is not purified ; but as for him

who cometh to thee earnestly fearing the while, from him

thou turnest away !
Nay, verily ! The Quran is a memorial, and whoso pleaseth

will remember it, —
In honoured pages exalted, purified, in the hands of noble,

righteous scribes 1 1 " (S. 80).

Ever thereafter Muhammad showed the blind man
special respect and honour, greeting him with the
words, " Welcome the man for whose sake my Lord
rebuked me ! " and in the days of his power he twice
made him governor of Medina.

Thus gradually was growing the number of Muham-
mad's adherents, and the fears of the Quraish increased
day by day. They tried again, as they had tried
before, to detach Abu Talib from him, but in vain.
They then plied him with temptation. One day, as he
sat in the enclosure of the Kaaba, one of their number,

1 The angels.

RESISTS TEMPTATION 67

Utba, whose own younger brother had joined the new
faith, sat down beside him, and said —

" O son of niy friend, you are a man eminent both
for your great qualities and for your noble birth.
Although you have thrown the country into turmoil,
created strife among families, outraged our gods, and
taxed our forefathers and wise men with impiety and
error, yet would we deal kindly with you. Listen to
the offers I have to make to you, and consider whether
it would not be well for you to accept them."

Muhammad bade him speak on, and he said —

" Sou of my friend, if it is wealth you seek, we will
join together to give you greater riches than any
Quraishi has possessed. If ambition move you, we will
make you our chief, and do nothing save by your
command. If you are under the power of an evil
spirit, which seems to haunt and dominate you so that
you cannot shake off its yoke, then will we call in
skilful physicians, and give them much gold that they
may cure you."

" Have you said all ? " asked Muhammad ; and then,
hearing that all had been said, he poured forth on his
amazed listener the 41st chapter of the Quran —

" Lo, a revelation from the Merciful and Gracious, a
book whose signs (or verses) are clearly set forth, an
Arabic Quran for the people who know, a herald of
glad tidings and a warning. But most of them turn
aside and hear not, and say, ' Our hearts are veiled
from that to which thou dost call us, and in our ears is
dulness, and between us and thee there is a veil ! Act
thou, we too shall act.' l Say, ' I am but a mortal like
yourselves, I am inspired that your God is one God ;
1 I.e. Go thy way, and we will go ours.

68 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

then go straight to Him, and ask forgiveness of Him ;
and woe to the idolaters, who give not alms, and in the
hereafter disbelieve.' l

" Verily, those who believe and do right, for them is
a hire that is not grudged.

" Say, ' What, do you really misbelieve in Him who
created the earth in two days, and do you make peers
for Him, — who is the Lord of the worlds ? ' '

Then, after warning his hearer by the stories of
ancient Ad and Thamud, destroyed for rejecting the
prophets sent to them, he continued —

" And the day (shall come) when the enemies of
God shall be gathered into the fire, marshalled along ;
until, when they come to it, their hearing and their
eyesight and their skin shall bear witness against
them, and shall say, ' He created you at first and
unto Him shall ye return, but ye thought God knew
not of your doings, and that thought has been your
ruin.'

" Them who misbelieve will We make to taste keen
torment, and the recompense of the enemies of God is
the fire : for them is an eternal abode therein, — a
requital for their gainsaying Our signs.

" But those who say, ' Our Lord is God, and walk
uprightly,' upon them do the angels descend (and say),
' Fear not, nor be grieved, but receive the glad tidings
of paradise promised unto you : and ye shall have
therein what your souls desire.'

" Of His signs are the night and the day, and the sun
and the moon. Worship not the sun, neither the moon ;
but worship God who hath created them, if ye be His
servants. But if they be too big with pride — yet those

1 It is God who speaks.

SERMON TO UTBA 69

who are with thy Lord celebrate His praises by night
and day, and are never weary.

" And this too is a sign : thou seest the earth faint,
and when we send down rain upon it, it stirs and swells ;
verily, He who quickens it will surely quicken the
dead ; verily, He is mighty over all.

" Whoso doeth right it is for his own soul, and whoso
doeth evil it is against it, for thy Lord is not unjust
towards His servants."

Such was the sermon preached to Utba, of which
only an abridgment can be given ; and he went back
awed to those who had sent him, and thereafter
followed Muhammad. For he said he had heard such
tilings as came not to his ears before, not vision nor
poetry, but a clear message from God. Further over-
tures were made, and repulsed ; and then recourse was
had to stronger measures. It does not appear, however,
that Muhammad himself and his chief followers had to
bear more than insult and social ostracism : torture fell
on slaves, and severe hardship on those who had no
powerful protectors in Mecca. And here it was that
the wealth and pitiful nature of Abu Bakr served to
foster the infant Church of Islam, redeeming the slaves
and aiding the destitute.

CHAPTER VI

The New Sect Persecuted — Migration to Abyssinia — The Debate —
Muhammad's Lapse and Recovery — The Interdict by Quraish
— Its Removal — Fresh Converts — Death of Khadija and of
Abu Talib — Marriage with Sauda and with Ayesha — Help
from Medina — The First and Second Pledges of Aqaba — The
Flight — The " Night Journey " to Jerusalem and Heaven !

THE strife between Muhammad and his townsfolk
grew rapidly more bitter. Persecution and violence
were met by defiance and threats ; but, in the fourth
year of his preaching, Muhammad took up his abode in
the house of Arqam, an early convert, and made it a
meeting-place for all converts and inquirers (613 A.D.).
Here the little band grew, and Muhammad's preaching
became more precise, though as yet he was but a
Warner, with a mission to persuade, to promise rewards
and threaten punishments in the future, but with no
authority to compel men to accept his message. His
earliest converts after he went to the house of Arqam
were slaves, and these were by the hostile Meccans
subjected to torture by thirst and exposure in the
burning sands. Some recanted, but only for a time,
and were granted a special dispensation ; but Bilal, the
Abyssinian, endured every extreme without flinching.
In the fifth year of the preaching, Muhammad exhorted
his followers to seek refuge with the Najfishi (or King)

EXILES IN ABYSSINIA 71

of Abyssinia, and thither many of them went, and were
hospitably received : this is the first migration.

Considering the later antagonism between Christian-
ity and the new religion, Islam, founded by Muhammad,
and the harsh measures which he himself and, still
more, his chief lieutenants took with Christian tribes
and princes within a few years of this time, it seems
strange that he should have sent his followers to take

refuge at the court of the Christian King of Abyssinia.
They and he, however, had every reason to be thankful
for the choice, for the}'- found a peaceful retreat with
an honourable host. The fact will appear even more
noteworthy when we remember that the Prophet was
born in that same " year of the Elephant," when the
hosts of Abyssinia advanced to the walls of Mecca.
Muslim tradition has given us a fabulous account of
what took place at the Court of the Najashi ("Negus,"
as we know the title), between the refugees and the
ambassadors from the Quraish, who demanded that
they should be sent back to be dealt with in their own
city. The story is apocryphal, no doubt, but it prob-
ably represents accurately enough the attitude of the
king, and the doctrines at that time preached by the
Reformer.

The two envoys of the Quraish had brought with
them valuable gifts for the king and his courtiers,
and had so won the ear of some of the chiefs. The
king, however, resolved to hear both sides, and held an
audience for the purpose. The envoys claimed to have
the refugees expelled from Abyssinia and made over to
them, 011 the ground that their leader had cast off the
religion of his country, and was preaching another,
" different alike from ours and from that of the King."

72 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

When they were introduced to the presence, the Quraish
envoys prostrated themselves, as the custom of the
country was, but the Muslims did not so, and boldly
said, " By our Prophet's command we prostrate our-
selves only before the One True God." The king
wondered and was awed, and told them of the Quraish
demand. At their request the king asked the envoys
whether they were fugitive slaves, or claimed for debt,
or for murder that lay on their heads, that they should
be given up. But they answered, " Nay, they are free
men and noble, neither are they fugitives for debt nor
for blood ; but we claim them for the following reason :
These people, O King, have abjured the religion of us
and our forefathers; they have insulted, and are insult-
ing, our gods, that they may corrupt the morals of our
young men, — and so our harmony has been turned
into discord. Give them up to us, that the old order
of things may be restored."

Then, at the King's bidding, the Muslims declared
how indeed they had followed the old idolatry till it
pleased Allah to send them His message through His
apostle, a man of noble birth and blameless life, " who
has shown us (they said) by infallible signs, proof of
his mission, and has taught us to cast away idols and
to worship the only true God. He has commanded us to
abstain from all sin, to keep faith, to observe the times
of fasting and of prayer, to love our kinsmen, to pay
tithes, to purify our lives, and to follow after all virtue.
Therefore do our enemies persecute us, and therefore
have we, by our Prophet's command, sought refuge and
protection in the King's country."

And when the King desired them to recite some part
of their Prophet's wondrous message, they recited the

EXILES PROTECTED 73

first part of the chapter of Mary, wherein is told the
story of the birth both of John the Baptist and of
Jesus Christ, down to the account of Mary being fed
with miraculous food. Thereupon the King and his
bishops were affected to tears, and said it was even as
in their gospel ; and the King bade the envoys begone,
for they should in no wise succeed.

Yet they tried again, urging that Muhammad and
his followers blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ. Again
the Muslims were summoned, and asked what they
thought of Jesus, and they answered, "Allah Most
High hath said,1 — He is the servant of God and His
apostle, His word breathed into the Virgin's womb, a
spirit from Him." And the King said, " Even so do we
believe. Blessed be ye, and blessed is your master. I
know him for the Prophet of God, foretold in the
gospel. For no bribe will I give you up. Evt-u as God
gave me my land freely, so will I take no bribe."
Then he returned to the Quraish their gifts, and sent
them away ; but the Muslims abode in his land un-
harmed.

The exiles, however, had not been very long in
Abyssinia when they heard a report that the Prophet
and the Quraish were reconciled, and returned home-
wards on the strength of it : and this indeed had hap-
pened for a short time. The story is a strange one,
and has by many of the chief Muhammadan writers
been suppressed or denied as dishonouring to the Prophet.

Muhammad, oppressed by a sense of failure in his

mission, feeling how his efforts to turn his countrymen

from their idols to the worship of the living and true

God had all been powerless, was one day preaching at

1 See Q. ir. 169-170.

74 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the Kaaba, where were gathered the chiefs of the
Quraish, and recited the lofty claim to inspiration
(Sura 53), — "By the star when it falleth, your companion
erreth not, neither is he misled ! nor speaketh he from
lust ! It is but an inspiration breathed into him ! One
taught him, who is mighty in power and of great under-
standing, appearing in the loftiest sphere.

" Then drew he near and hovered, till he was two bows'
length off or nigher still ! Then he inspired his servant
with what he inspired him ; the heart belies not what it
saw ! What, will ye dispute with him on what he saw ?

" Again, another time, he saw him (Gabriel) by the
Lote-tree which none may pass, near which is the
paradise of rest ! When the Lote-tree covered its
mysteries, his sight turned not aside, nor did it
wander: he saw then the greatest of the signs of
his Lord.

" Have ye considered Al Lat and Al Uzza, and Manat
the third with them ? "

And then he yielded to the temptation of Satan, as
he afterwards said, or to the deceit of his own heart,
and he added —

" These are the high-soaring Cranes,1 and verily their
intercession may be hoped for."

This was just the attitude of the idolaters, who held
them for daughters of God, who would intercede for
their worshippers. So, when the chapter was ended
with the words, " Wherefore bow down before God, and
serve Him ! " the chiefs, gladly accepting the concession,
fell on their faces in adoration. They were satisfied to
admit Muhammud's claim to be the inspired Prophet of
God, if he would grant the divine intercessory powers of
1 Or "swan-necked goddesses" ; the word is not met with elsewhere.

LAPSE AND RECOVERY 75

their goddesses. And so peace was made, the news was
swiftly earned to the exiles, and they returned to their
homes.

But Muhammad was not long in seeing'and repenting
of his error and unfaithfulness. Muslim tradition
makes his recovery almost immediate, averring that he
retracted his error the very next day. That is not
likely, but it was not long delayed. Instinctively he
felt that everything was lost if he admitted partners
with God, or acknowledged that the idols of Mecca
were anything ; and when next he came before his
brethren, he substituted for the words of compromise ail
indignant denial of any power in the idols, — and so it
stands to this day recorded —

" Shall there be male offspring unto you, and female
unto Him ? That were an unfair division ! They are
but names which ye have named, ye and your fathers !
God has sent down no authority for them ! They do
but follow fancy and what their souls lust after ! — And

yet there has come to them guidance from their Lord

How many an angel is in heaven ! their intercession
avails not at all, save after God has given permission."
The truce was at an end, and Muhammad had finally
broken with the idolaters. He had regained his lost

position, and comforted himself and reassured his
f ollowers by ascribing the lapse to a passing temptation
of the devil. But the exiles had returned, and the
persecution began anew.

Muhammad himself was safe under the protection of
his uncle Abu Talib, who tried, indeed, once to persuade
his nephew to abandon his new doctrine, but stood forth
his protector none the less firmly when he refused,
saying, " Though the sun should fight against me on

76 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

my right hand and the moon on my left, yet shall I not
hold back, till the Lord make manifest my cause, or I
perish ! " And when one day Muhammad could not be
found, and there was fear of foul play, Abu Talib
gathered an armed band, prepared to take signal
vengeance if his nephew had been murdered.

The exiles returning from Abyssinia found persecu-
tion hotter than ever, and soon after went back there, —
and were followed at intervals by other converts, up to
a total number of 101 adults, besides children (83 men
and 18 women). Of these about 40 afterwards re-
turned to Mecca, but the rest remained until they
joined Muhammad at Medina many years later. The
Quraish again sent two envoys with rich gifts to the
Najashi, to try to get him to give up the fugitives ; but
after an audience they were sent back with a refusal.
Muslim historians record that, though secretly for fear
of his people, the King even embraced their doctrines —
especially that which degrades the Saviour to the position
of a mere Prophet ; they say also that Muhammad on
that ground offered up prayer for him after his death.

Meanwhile, at Mecca, Hamza, Muhammad's uncle
and his foster - brother, the son of Abd al Muttalib's
old age, afterwards surnamed the Lion of Islam, had
joined the new faith, being roused at the persecution
of his kinsman. An even more important adherent
was Omar, son of Khattab, afterwards second Khalifa,
a man of dauntless courage and resolution, feared
and respected in Mecca, and hitherto a bitter opponent
of the new religion. The story runs that he had set
out to murder Muhammad, but was arrested by the
news that his own sister and brother-in-law were
secret converts; he went to their house, abused and

CONVERSION OF OMAR 77

assaulted them, but was himself converted by reading
the great Chapter "T. H.," the 20th of the Quran,
which his sister gave him to read after he had
purified himself. " For none," said she, " save the pure
may look upon it." He then hastened to Muhammad
at the house of Arqam, and made public profession
of the Faith. The adhesion of these two powerful
citizens was of great moment ; and Muhammad
waxed bold in his preaching; the number of his
followers increased; and the Quraish in alarm placed
the whole sect under interdict, by a formal deed,
registered and laid up in the Kaaba. For three
years it remained hi force, during which time the
persecuted sect were shut up in the Slii'b, or Quarter,
of Hashim, and were reduced to great extremity, —
being able to issue forth only during the sacred
months. At last the compassionate intervention of
some, led by the aged Abu Talib, prevailed, and the
interdict was annulled, it being found that the writing
itself had been destroyed by white ants.

But the year of his release from the ban, the tenth
of his preaching (620 A.D.), brought Muhammad the
heaviest sorrows of his life, for within a few months he
was bereaved of his faithful wife Khadija and of his
lifelong protector Abu Talib. The place of the latter
as a protector was taken for a time by his uncle Abu
Lahb, who soon cast him off again on finding out that he
condemned to hell all their common ancestry. Khadija's
place was filled up by a marriage with Sauda, now a
widow returned from Abyssinia, whose first husband
Sakran had lately died in Mecca, and by a betrothal to
Ayesha, daughter of Abu Bakr, now only six years old,
— the marriage taking place at Medina three years later.

78 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

As all the glowing pictures of sensual delights in
paradise had by this time been "revealed," and as
Khadija was sixty-five years old at her death, it is not
unfair to suggest that Muhammad was now yielding to
passions which had hitherto been repressed, and to
which in his after life he gave free rein, with effects
ruinous to the moral teaching of his religion.

The death of Khadija, closely followed by that of
Abu Tfilib, together with the forced exile of his
followers to Abyssinia and renewed persecution by
his fellow-citizens, compelled Muhammad to look
elsewhere for a field favourable for his mission. He
first sought converts in the neighbouring town of
fertile Ta,if, but was driven away with insult and
pelted with stones, and returned sad at heart to Mecca,
with his one faithful attendant Zaid. In after days
he told in the Quran how Jinns in the valley of
Nakhla had hearkened to the message which men
had rejected. There remained only the hope of success
with strangers, since he had so little honour in his own
country, and to them, but especially to his kinsfolk in
Medina, Muhammad now turned his hopes. The annual
pilgrimage brought opportunity, of which he was quick
to avail himself. Just as Qas of Najran had fired his
own boyish spirit in earlier years, so did he seek to
move those who now came to the Feasts. Medina too
was ripe for his purpose; the mutual rivalry of the
Aus and Khazraj, and that of both with the strong
Jewish element, made the situation favourable for
Muhammad. Neither of the three parties could well
have brooked the supremacy of one of the others, and
a stranger of commanding ability and character might
well aspire to rule the city. Tradition further records

PLEDGE OF AQABA 79

that the Arabs of Medina, " polytheists and idolaters,"
had been threatened by the Jews with the speedy
advent of a Prophet, under whom they should be
smitten even as the children of Ad and Irani had
been. And, says the teller of the tale, " we had grace
from God to listen to His Messenger when he came,
but the Jews (though they knew him) hardened their
hearts : and therefore they were slain/'

During the year 620, Muhammad was in much
anxiety as to what turn matters would take in
Medina, and whether his handful of converts there
would prove faithful. If not, his chances of success
in Arabia would be lost for ever, and he himself forced
to exile beyond its borders. But with the pilgrimage
of 621 A.D., his fears were dispelled by the appearance
of twelve men, ten of Khazraj and two of Aus, whom
he met in a sheltered glen of Mina. They avowed their
faith in Muhammad, and swore : " We will not worship
any but the One God ; we will not steal, neither will
we commit adultery, nor kill our children ; we will not
slander in any wise; and we will not disobey the
Prophet in anything that is right." This is the Pledge
of Women, so called because there was no promise to
fight for the Prophet or the faith. And Muhammad
answered them : " If ye fulfil the pledge, paradise shall
be your reward. He that shall fail in ought thereof,
to God it belongeth to punish him or forgive." The
oath is known also as the First Pledge of Aqaba, the
little terraced mound where it was given. The twelve
returned to Medina ; the doctrine was zealously preached
from house to house with wonderful success, and in the
course of the year Muhammad, at his converts' desire,
sent, to reinforce them, Musab, one of the returned

8o MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

exiles of Abyssinia, who was " mighty in the Quran,"
— probable though not conclusive evidence that much
of the " revelation " had by that time been committed
to writing.

During the year 621-622 A.D., as Muir well remarks,
the revelations grow in firmness, and breathe a defiant
and aggressive spirit. Muhammad felt that his time
of power was approaching, that the days of unequal
struggle against the powers of Mecca were nearly at
an end, and he poured out warning, threats, and scorn.
His faith was justified; for when the pilgrimage
season again came round, he met the converts of
Medina once more at Aqaba, not now twelve men only,
but seventy-five, — who pledged their faith to him in
the presence of his uncle Abbas, who (though himself
still an idolater) adjured them not to draw his nephew
away from the safeguard of his own kindred unless
prepared to defend him to the death. Then in the
stillness of night, in low, hurried conference for fear
of their watchful foes, hands of fealty were grasped,
and the men of Medina swore to defend the Prophet as
they would their own wives and children. He blessed
their resolution, chose from among them twelve to be
his special men of trust, " by the inspiration of God,
through his angel Gabriel," and agreed shortly to
follow them to make his home in Medina. Thus, on
the night of 31st March to 1st April, 622 A.D., when
was taken the Second Pledge of Aqaba, Muhammad
crossed his Rubicon, and prepared to follow his mighty
career in Medina. Silently, as they had come, his
followers stole away to rejoin the main body of
pilgrims, the inquiries of the suspicious Quraish
were skilfully baffled, and the divine command to

FLIGHT FROM MECCA Si

emigrate went forth. The men of Medina got back
to their homes, and the Faithful from Mecca gradually
followed them, till of the men there remained behind
only Ali, Abu Bakr, and the Prophet himself.

The Quraish were puzzled and alarmed, and at last
they resolved in common council to assassinate the
Prophet, one murderer being chosen from each tribe,
that so his own kinsmen might be compelled to accept
the bloodwit. This proposal is said to have been made
by a strange sheikh, really Satan in human form,
and (naturally) Muhammad was warned of the plot
by the angel Gabriel. Abu Bakr had brought two
fine riding-camels for himself and the Prophet, and
had brought them into perfect condition ; and one
evening they started on their momentous journey,
gallant Ali staying behind, wrapped in Muhammad's
well-known mantle, and lying on his bed in Abu
Talib's house to deceive the Quraish. The stratagem
succeeded, and the intending murderers went away
baffled. Muhammad and Abu Bakr left Mecca on the
evening of Monday, 21st June 622, and for some days
lay concealed in the cave of Tora. Food and intelli-
gence was brought them secretly from Mecca, while
Quraish scouts scoured the country to take them, and
earn the price offered for their capture. But the
seekers were foiled. Tradition loved to tell how doves
(henceforward safe from every true Muslim) built their
nests, and spiders wove their webs before the cave ; how
a tree miraculously sprang up at its mouth ; and how,
when an eager, well-armed pursuer did overtake the
fugitives, his camel sank deep into the sand until he
swore not to betray them. It is even told that Gabriel
appeared as a man, and lied to a band of Quraish to
6

82 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

save the Prophet. But one fine trait is probably
historical, that when even Abu Bakr trembled at the
peril to " them two left alone," Muhammad cheered
him with the assurance that the Almighty was with
them, "the third." As soon as the danger was past,
the two fugitives made their way by stages, as rapid
as was consistent with safety, to Medina. They
reached the village of Qubfi, in its neighbourhood, in
about ten days, were there heartily welcomed, and
entered the city itself probably on Monday, 28th June
622. This was the Hijra (" Hegira "), the Flight, and
henceforward Muhammad the Prophet of Allah be-
came a temporal prince also, commissioned to add
force to persuasion in extending Islam. For nearly
eleven years he ruled with a sway most absolute over
an ever-increasing nation, and at his death he left his
empire vigorous and firmly established to the capable
fostering hands of Abu Bakr.

The last days in Mecca are marked by a wonderful
vision of the night, transformed by tradition ascribed
to Muhammad himself into an actual miraculous jour-
ney from Mecca to " the further temple " at Jerusalem,
and an ascent through the circles of heaven and the
companies of adoring prophets and angels into the
immediate presence of God Almighty, far beyond where
even Gabriel could ascend. There he received from
God Himself the command for the five daily prayers
incumbent on every Muslim, there he saw the
" wonders of his Lord," and a vision of the destinies
of men. The Christian will at once be reminded of St.
Paul's mysterious rapture, and the tale of the gradual
lightening of the burden of daily prayers from fifty to
five will recall Abraham pleading for Sodom : but ho

THE "NIGHT JOURNEY" 83

will wonder and grieve at the blasphemy which places
his Lord only in the second heaven, far beneath
Abraham, Moses, and others. Muslim doctors are
divided as to whether this journey was material, or
only spiritual, the reference to it in the Quran itself is
brief and obscure (Chap. xvii. 1) ; but the great mass
of the " faithful " believe every word of the marvellous
story in its most literal sense.

The words of the Quran which refer to the
wonderful journey, be it in the spirit only or in the
body, are these : " Celebrated be the praises of Him
who took His servant a journey by night from the
Sacred Mosque (the Kaaba at Mecca) to the Remote
,ue (the Temple at Jerusalem), the precinct of
which We have blessed, to show him of our signs !
verily, He both hears and looks." l The event accord-
ingly is known as either the Night Journey (Isra), or
the Ascension (Miraj), the latter referring to the suc-
cessive stages by which the Prophet mounts through
the seven heavens to pass into the immediate presence
of God, far beyond the limit to which even Gabriel was
allowed to soar. The account of the journey comes
from the Prophet's own lips, by a chain of faithful
witnesses, and its truth was expressly vouched for by
trusty Abu Bakr. It is one, the greatest, of the three
miraculous events in the Prophet's life, — the others being
the " splitting of the moon in twain/' said to have been
vouchsafed as a sign to the unbelievers of Mecca, and
the legion of angel auxiliaries that came to help the
little Muslim host at the battle of Badr.

As he slept at night in the house of Umm Hani,
sister of Ali, he was roused by Gabriel, with whom
1 Palmer.

84 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the Archangel Michael. Again, as once before in his
childhood, they opened his breast, washed his heart in
water from the holy well Zemzem, and filled it with
Faith and Wisdom. They then mounted him on a
mysterious animal that with lightning speed trans-
ported him to the rock at Jerusalem on which the
Temple stood, and where to this day is shown the ring
to which he fastened it, and the mark of his blessed
foot as he alighted. But as he passed on his wonderful
way, the angel pointed out Medina as his future abode,
and bade him pray as he went by ; he also resisted,
through divine aid, the allurements of the world (pre-
sented in the shape of a beautiful woman), and of
Jewish and Christian doctrine, figured in the guise
of a bowl of wine and a cup of water. On arrival at
the temple rock, he was reverently welcomed by a
throng of angels and prophets ; and as it was the time
of midnight prayer, he led the devotions of the august
assembly. They hailed him as " First, and last, and
assembler ! " — first, as Gabriel interpreted, to be raised
after death from paradise to heaven, first to be per-
mitted to intercede with God for mankind ; last of the
prophets sent by God to men ; and leader on the
Judgment-day of those who shall find mercy ! Then
began the ascent through the circles of heaven to the
threshold of which he was borne on the wings of the
Archangel.

At the portal of the first heaven the angel knocked,
and a voice from within inquired who sought
admittance. Gabriel answered, " It is I, Gabriel,"
But again the voice asked, " Is there any with thee ? "
and he said, " Muhammad." Again came the question,
" Hath he been called (to the office of prophet) ? " and

THE HEAVENLY VISION 85

he answered, " Yes." Then was the gate opened, and
they entered ; and Adam greeted Muhammad with the
words, " Welcome, pious son and pious Prophet ! "
Then Muhammad beheld, and saw two doors, the one
on Adam's right hand, and the other on his left. As
oft as he looked towards the first he laughed with
delight, and there issued therefrom a sweet savour ; but
as often as he turned to the other he wept, and from it
came evil odours ; and the Prophet marvelled, and
asked of Gabriel what this should mean ; and it was
told him that the one door led to Paradise, and the
other to Hell, and that the Father of mankind rejoiced
over those who were saved, and wept over those of his
children who were lost. Then they soared upward to
the second heaven, to which they entered after the
same questions and answers as at the first ; and there
were two young men, John the Baptist and Jesus ; and
they greeted Muhammad, " Welcome, pious brother and
pious Prophet ! " Thence they passed to the third
heaven, to receive the same welcome from Joseph,
" whose beauty excelled that of all other creatures as
far as the light of the full moon surpasses that of the
stars " ; then to the fourth, where Enoch greeted them ;
and the fifth, where Aaron welcomed them with the
same words. In the sixth heaven, Moses welcomed
him as his brother and a Prophet ; but he wept as he
soared above him, — not for envy of Muhammad's glory
surpassing his own, but to think that so few of his
own nation were appointed to Paradise. From the
heaven of Moses, the Archangel led Muhammad up to
the seventh, where he showed him Abraham, " his
Father," who bade him, " Welcome, pious son and pious
Prophet ! " In this seventh heaven the Prophet beheld

86 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the wondrous Tree, the abode of Gabriel, round which
fly countless myriads of angels ; from its foot spring
the two rivers of Paradise, and the two groat rivers of
earth — Euphrates and the Nile ; and " the light of God
overspreads the whole Tree." There too was the
heavenly Kaaba, the original of the Meccan, and
round it went, in adoring circuit, radiant armies of
angels ; so vast indeed is their number that the same
worshipping host never returns after once making the
mystic round !

Beyond the seventh heaven Gabriel could only go
with the Prophet, and that by special permission, as far
as the first of the seventy veils of dazzling light (each five
hundred years' journey from the next !) that shut in the
Throne of God. As the Prophet passed each successive
stage, the gracious Voice bade him " Come nearer ! " till
at last he entered the immediate presence of God.
There he was endowed with perfect wisdom and know-
ledge, cheered with the promise that all who received
his message should be taken into Paradise, and com-
manded to lay on his faithful followers the duty of
praying fifty times in the day. The Prophet returned
from God's Presence-Chamber to the lower heavens, and
told Moses of the duty laid upon him. But by the old
Lawgiver's advice he time after time ventured back to
plead with his Lord, till the burden of the daily
prayers was reduced to five — the perpetual ordinance
of Islam.

Then with lightning speed the Prophet was returned

to his chamber at Mecca, and, for all the wondrous

things he had seen, yet was the bed still warm when he

lay down again.1 And in the morning lie went to the

1 Scoffers of Akbar's court made merry over this !

THE HEAVENLY VISION 87

Kaaba, and told the wondrous tale to a sceptical
audience ; and they plied him with questions as to the
temple at Jerusalem, where by ordinary journey he
never had been, and he returned true and convincing
answers, " for the angel Gabriel held up before my eyes,
as I spoke, a true model of the Holy Place.'1

This whole wonderful story deserves a place in
every account of Muhammad, and has received it in
most. It has been told in all the earliest Lives of the
Prophet, and is embalmed in all collections of Traditions

veritable record from his own lips. Pious fane}7
has no doubt embellished it, and many marvellous
details have here been omitted ; but all commentators
attach the story to the words already quoted from the
Quran, and the mystical journey is as instructive for
our view of Muhammad's character and teaching,
whether it be meant as an allegory or to be taken as
literally true. All the elements, no doubt, might be
traced to rabbinical or apocryphal Christian sources,
we may safely take it that the sublime glories of

s " speaking face to face with God " on Mount
Sinai, and of the Mount of Transfiguration, were
present to Muhammad's mind; but it is to his own
immense self-importance that we must charge the
strange ordering of God's messengers and prophets,
and his degrading of the Saviour of men — another
mark of the Antichrist. Yet throughout there is
poverty of imagination ; all that is great and sublime
is borrowed ; and it is but a poor or perverted mind
which would compare the story with the grandeurs and
mysteries of the Apocalypse !

CHAPTER VII

Muhammad reaches Medina — Religious and Political Institutions
—"Refugees" and "Helpers": Bond of Brotherhood— The
Jews — Attacks on Meccan Commerce — Battle of Badr : Its
Critical Importance — Treatment of the Captives — Joy in
Medina — Reprisals against Foes in Medina — Exile of Jews —
Marriage of Fatima to Ali — Defeat of Muhammad at Uhud —
The Prophet wounded — Khalid — Hamza slain — The Funeral
Hymn — Assassinations — Exile of more Jews.

THE first news of Muhammad's coming to Medina was
given to his anxious disciples by a Jewish watcher,
who proclaimed the glad news on the evening of
Monday, 28th June 622 A.D. (eight days after the
exiles had left Mecca) ; for the Jews, said Muhammad
afterwards, "knew him better than their own
children." The news quickly spread, his adherents
hurried forth to welcome him and Abu Bakr, and
for a night or two he rested in Quba, and then entered
Yathrib (as it then was), — Medina, " the City," as it
has ever since been. In his entry he did not disdain
a little display quite in accordance with Arab modes
of thought ; for when his followers would have stopped
his camel, the famous Al Qaswa, and made it kneel,
Muhammad checked them, and when the camel of her
own accord stopped, all accepted the choice as matter
of divine guidance, and possible jealousies were avoided.
This was Friday, 2nd July, and on his march from

FIRST STEPS TO POWER 89

Quba, Muhammad held his first public service and
preaching amid one hundred converts, and Friday was
fixed as the day of public prayer for all Islam. Where
the camel stopped was an open space, and that ground
Muhammad purchased at its full value from two
orphan lads : there he established his house, and hard
by he built later the sacred Mosque of Medina ; and
there his body was ten years later laid to its final
rest.

Muhammad's power was spiritual first and temporal
afterwards ; he was the founder of a new religion before
he became the head of a new earthly empire, — and
accordingly he gave his care to the Church before the
State ; but political soon followed religious institutions.
The Mosque was founded, the five daily prayers ap-
pointed, and Friday chosen for the weekly religious
assembly, when all the faithful came together to follow
the Prophet in prayer and to hear from his lips the
words of exhortation. A special call to prayer was
instituted, — that by the human voice, instead of by
Jewish trumpet or Christian bell. The happy inspira-
tion was due to Omar, and the weird music of the
Muazzin's voice from myriads of minarets still floats in
the air in all the countries of Islam, with unwearied
call repeating : " God is most great ! I witness that
there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Prophet
of God ! Come to praj-er ! come to salvation ! God is
most great! There is no god but God"; with the
addition, at dawn, — " Prayer is better than sleep ! "
and for emphasis each phrase is twice or thrice re-
peated. These were the pillars of religious practice,
to which were added later the month's fast in
Ramadhan, and the solemn feasts, the Qillak

90 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

(direction to which the face should be turned when
praying), and the Greater and Lesser Pilgrimage.
But Muhammad, an Arab in every fibre of his being,
knew well the strength and the weakness of his
people's character, and set himself without delay to
make use of both to build up and secure his power
on the political side as well.

Envy is the curse of the Arab, and tribal jealousies
had hitherto been fatal to Arab power. Muhammad,
following an old custom, established " brotherhood " of
the closest kind between his followers from Mecca
and the converts of Medina, one of each being made
"brothers," a tie which was to supersede those of
kindred, each even inheriting from the other, — which
arrangement was not abrogated till after the battle
of Badr two years later. This measure had the double
result of preventing jealousy between " Refugees "
(from Mecca) and "Helpers" (Ansar) of Medina, but
also of effacing that between Muslims of the rival
tribes Aus and Khazraj, very lately at deadly feud.
With the Jews, too, Muhammad made a treaty of
close alliance, offensive and defensive. Each party
was to keep its own religion without interference
from the other, they were to have equal rights, and
to fight to the uttermost for one another: it was
added, " No believer shall be put to death for slaying
an infidel, nor shall any infidel be upheld against a
believer." All discordant elements were thus for the
time united, and the Prophet's power grew apace. He
now turned his thoughts to offensive operations against
Mecca that had rejected him, and began welding his
forces together for the great struggle which he had
perhaps long meditated. That the strife was begun by

FIRST HOSTILITIES 91

him is ck-ar, for Mecca, relieved by his departure, took
no hostile steps, and allowed his family and those of
his followers to leave without molestation. It is easy
to understand how Hamza and Omar, Ali, Zaid, and
others, fiery Arabs all of them, would fall in with
plans of revenge, and how gladly they would hail the
prospect of at once punishing their former -oppressors
and enriching themse

The commerce of Mecca depended on the half-yearly
caravans, of which the more important was that to
Syria, passing along the Red Sea shore northward at
no great distance from Medina. Before the end of the
year of the Flight, a small party was sent out under
Hamza to cut off the caravan on its way north, but the
expedition failed. A second and a third band was sent
out, and to the leader of each Muhammad gave a white
standard : the Prophet himself led two equally abortive
forays, to Abwa and Bairat respectively; but it was
not till November 623 A.D. that the first blood was
shed by Muslims in battle, when a small force under
Abdallah broke, at Nakhla, the truce of the sacred
month Rajab, rather than let their prey escape.
When the sacrilegious act was reported to Muhammad,
he, after some hesitation, declared the sanction of
heaven for the deed: "it is a less evil to break the
sacred truce than to expel God's Prophet"; and
Paradise was promised to such as should die fighting
for the Faith. Thus, in the end of 623 A.D., was
promulgated the law of Jihad or Holy War, hence-
forward such a prominent feature of the new religion.

The sword once unsheathed was not long to remain
idle. The Syrian caravan had passed northward un-
harmed in the autumn, under the wary guidance of

92 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Abu Sufiyan, but its return brought about the critical
battle of Badr, — which is to Muslim history all and
more than all that Hastings means in the history of
England. The caravan was returning, and as usual
every Meccan who could afford it had some share in
the venture. Muhammad himself led out his forces to
cut it off. The little army consisted of 300 men, it
started from Medina on Sunday, 12th Ramadhan,
8th January 624 A.D., and marched to Badr, two days
out from Medina. Hitherto the men of Medina were
pledged only to defend Muhammad, but now with one
voice they vowed to aid him no less in attack, and the
fusion of his followers was complete. Abu Sufiyan,
having news of the attack intended, sent to Mecca an
urgent appeal for help ; and the citizens marched out,
nearly a thousand strong, to his aid. But by skilful
leading the caravan escaped its pursuers, and the
relieving army hesitated whether to march on against
Muhammad or to return. Strong appeals were made
on both sides ; great reluctance was shown to embitter
the quarrel ; but the voices of those prevailed whose
kindred had already fallen, and the army set forward.

On Muhammad's side there was no feeling of com-
punction or regret. He knew the fiery courage of his
followers, he counted perhaps on divided counsels
among his foes, and he made ready with stern confi-
dence for the struggle, himself setting the battle in
order. On this, as on all occasions, he showed great
qualities as a commander. He had the first of these
in the magic power he exercised over his troops, their
absolute and unquestioning faith in and devotion to
him. The field of battle is a plain, with steep hills on
the north and east, and contained several wells of

BATTLE OF BADR 93

water. Acting on friendly advice, Muhammad seized
the most advanced of these, which was also the best,
and destroyed the others. This was a great advantage,
and the Quraish suffered much loss in their attempts
to get water. Night fell, and the Prophet's army
enjoyed quiet rest, while he was cheered in his sleep
by visions of success ; but the enemy were dismayed by
portents and prophecies of evil. When morning broke
the forces of Islam were arrayed for battle, with its
three white standards displayed, and their foes ad-
vanced to the attack. But the latter, marching from
the west, were dazzled by the rising sun, and moved
heavily over sand that had been sodden by rain. The
great superiority in numbers, however, made the
position critical, and Muhammad retired to strengthen
himself with fervent prayer, pleading with God to
fight with him against the idolaters, and not to suffer
His truth to be overborne; and stout Abu Bakr
strengthened his heart with assurance that his prayer
would be heard.

The Quraish attacked, — but the general engagement
was preceded by several single combats. Hamza, Ali,
and Ubaida, especially distinguished themselves, and
carried the omen of victory for their side. Muhammad
probably did only his part as commander, though there
is no ground for charging him (as Sprenger does) with
personal cowardice ; while the spirit he infused into
his men is witnessed by the fiery valour of Umair, a
lad of sixteen, who flung away some dates he was
eating, crying out, " these keep me back from Paradise,"
cast himself into the foemen's ranks, and died bravely
fighting.

It was a stormy winter day, and Muhammad trans-

94 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

formed the fierce blasts that swept across the valley
into a legion of angels under Gabriel and Michael,
fighting for the believers, — as the " great Twin
Brethren " had fought for Rome at Lake Regillus !
Stories were told of how they had even made prisoners
for the Muslims. The battle raged fiercely, but at last
the fiery valour of the Muslims prevailed ; as the foe
wavered, Muhammad stooped, threw a handful of
pebbles towards them, and cried, " Confusion seize their
faces ! " They turned to flee, defeat was turned to rout ;
the Quraish cast away their arms, and abandoned their
camp and baggage ; and Muhammad had won his first
great victory. Of his men only fourteen had fallen, of
whom eight were Refugees ; the Quraish lost forty-nine
killed, and a like number wounded. Among the slain
were many of the chief men of Mecca, and Muhammad
showed fierce exultation when there was brought to
him the head of his bitter foe, his uncle, Abu Jahl.

Some few of the prisoners were slain in cold blood,
but the majority were held to ransom. Each man was
allowed to retain the spoil of any he had himself slain ;
but the general booty was divided on the principle that
one-fifth should be at the Prophet's disposal for per-
sonal and public purposes, and the remainder divided
among the troops, — all sharing equally, whether they
had fought in the front of battle or had stayed to
guard the camp. In this matter also Jewish precedent
was followed. The enemy's dead were buried in a
trench on the field, and as they were cast into the
common grave, Muhammad addressed the chief by
name : " Have ye now found the promise of your Lord
to come true? Woe to you, who rejected me, your
Prophet ! Verily, my Lord's promise to me hath been

RESULTS OF THE VICTORY 95

made good ! " And he told his wondering followers
that truly the dead heard his words.

Then he returned to Medina ; poured into mourning
hearts the balm of comfortable words ; yet on the way
he gratified private revenge by ordering two of his
captives, Xadhr and Uqba, to be put to death. The
fierce spirit of Islam is shown by the reply of the
captor to an appeal for mercy, " Islam has severed all
bonds " ; and Muhammad himself answered Uqba, who
pleaded for his little daughter, "Hell-fire will care
for her!"

The Quraish went back in mourning to Mecca, but
their fierce spirit for long refused to wail for the dead
that had fallen, or to seek to ransom the captives.
The women were specially bitter, and stirred the men
to revenge, — which was taken amply in the following
year at Uhud ; but the moral effect of the victory at
Badr was never effaced, and from it dates Mohammad's
triumphant career. The captives that were spare* 1
were well and generously treated ; those who could
not pay a money-ransom were allowed to redeem
themselves by teaching boys of Medina to write ;
several embraced Islam, and the well-judged clemency
greatly advanced the cause of the new Faith. But
this mercy was mainly due to the mild counsels of
Abu Bakr, for Muhammad had published the " revela-
tion " (Q. viii. 70), " It is not for the Prophet to take
prisoners, or to accept ransom : it is at his choice to
slay them if he will."

The news of the great victory was carried by Zaid
to Medina, and the very children triumphed over the
death of Abu Jahl. To Muhammad, however, the joy
of victory was dimmed by the news which met him

96 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

on his return, of the death, during his absence, of his
daughter Rukaya, wife of Uthman.

Freed by the defeat of the Meccan army from foreign
attack, Muhammad set himself to remove from his
path stumbling-blocks in Medina. Chief among these
were the strong Jewish tribes, who formed (as they
have ever done) a nationality apart. The causes of
strife lay on the surface; each party was bitterly
disappointed with the other ; Muhammad had hoped
to be accepted by the Jews as the great Prophet, the
Messiah foretold in their law, — and the Jews hoped,
from his declared aim to " restore the religion of

Abraham," that he would join their faith and serve
their ambition. Neither would yield : the Jews would
own no prophet that came not of Abraham's seed, and
Muhammad would not subordinate his claims to any.
He proceeded therefore to open war.

The first victim was a woman, a poetess, Asma,
daughter of Marwan. She was an idolater, and had
roused Muhammad's hatred by verses attacking him
and denouncing her people's folly for trusting him. A
blind man, Umair, with Muhammad's knowledge,
stabbed her to death at night with every circumstance
of savagery, and the Prophet blessed him for the
service at public prayer next day. The next victim
was an aged Jew proselyte, also guilty of writing
poetry against Muhammad : he too was foully mur-
dered,— and terror spread among the " Disaffected."

These two murders were followed by a regular attack
on one of the three Jewish tribes, the Qainuqaa. It
was alleged against the Jews generally that they
strove covertly to sow dissension among the Muslims,
but the special pretext for the attack was insult in

FIRST RUPTURE WITH THE JEWS 97

their bazar (they were goldsmiths) to a Muslim girl, in
revenge for which a Jew was slain, and his murderer
in retaliation. By treaty Muhammad was bound to
judicial inquiry; but instead he went forth with a
strong following to the Jewish settlement, angrily sum-
moned them to submit to him as their Prophet, and, on
their refusal, raised the great white banner, and laid
siege to them. After fifteen days of close investment,
no help from any quarter appearing, they surrendered
at discretion, and were led forth bound for execution.
The strong remonstrance of Abdallah, son of Ubai, the
Khazraj chief, whom Muhammad dared not refuse,
prevailed to save them from death. They were piti-
lessly driven into exile, and found their way with
much hardship to a new home among their kinsfolk in
Syria ; their lands and wealth fell to the conqueror ;
and another instance was given that " Islam had broken
all ties."

The following months were only disturbed by minor
expeditions by and against the Quraish. Abu Sufiyan
made a successful foray, and Zaid retaliated by cutting
off and plundering at Karada, in Najd, a rich Meccan
caravan. But before the third year after the Flight
closed, Muhammad once more stained his fame by a
peculiarly treacherous murder, again of a Jew and a
poet, Ashraf, son of Kab, — whose death he compassed
by means of his own foster-brother. The murderer
fiercely retorted, when challenged by his own brother,
that he would slay him if the Prophet bade him ;
and, says the story, the brother and all his house
embraced Islam !

The year closed with the Prophet taking a third
wife, Haf sa, daughter of Omar, and giving in marriage
7

98 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

to All his daughter Fatima, from which union descends
the numerous stock of the Sayyids, the nobility of
Islam. None was more worthy than Ali, brave, gener-
ous, devoted; yet in his character was a strain of
weakness and indecision that was to prove disastrous
to himself, and fatal also to his sons, Hasan and Husain,
the martyred Imams, objects of the idolatrous venera-
tion of the great Schism. By his own marriage to
Hafsa, Muhammad allied himself as closely to Omar as
he already was to Abu Bakr ; there continued rivalry
between the two wives, but Ayesha's position was
never seriously in danger but once.

In the following year (A.H. 3), just a twelvemonth
after the victory of Badr, Muhammad met with a severe
defeat at Uhud. The Quraish had ever since their
disaster at Badr been making ready to avenge it. The
profits of the escaped caravan had been by unanimous
vote of the citizens devoted to equipping a new army,
and in the beginning of 625 A.D. a large force of
Meccans and their allies (3000 men, of whom 700 were
mail-clad warriors) set out for Medina. Muhammad's
uncle, Abbas, contrived to send him timely warning of
the threatened attack, and every possible effort was
made to meet it. The chief women of Mecca, fiercer
even than the men, went with the troops, and Hind,
wife of Abu Sufiyan, is infamous in Muslim history
for her savage thirst for vengeance against Hamza.
The invaders encamped, after ten days' march, in the
rich plain of Uhud, five miles from Medina, from which
they were separated by some rocky ridges, and ravaged
the country round, destroying crops and fruit-trees,
with the object of drawing the enemy into the open
and overwhelming them.

BATTLE OF UHUD 99

The public assembly was convened in the Masque,
and an informal council of war held. Muhammad
advised, and Abdallah ibn Ubai agreed, that the women
and children should be brought from the villages
within the city walls, and the enemy left to exhaust
themselves without risking a battle. But the rasher
counsels of more fiery spirits prevailed; Muhammad
yielded, delivered a stirring address to his followers,
gave the sacred banners, and himself led forth the
host. As he advanced he saw Abdallah's Jewish allies
coming up, and ordered them back, " for ye shall not
seek help of idolaters against idolaters." In view of
subsequent events this story may well be an invention.

The battle was fought on Saturday, llth January,
and the odds against Muhammad, already very great,
were much increased by the desertion of Abdallah with
his 300 men, — leaving only 700 to face four times their
number. Though the enemy was full in sight, the
usual morning prayer was offered, and then the
Prophet again showed his skill as a general. He drew
up his little army with their rear protected by the
steep rocks of Uhud, and guarded a gap by which he
might be outflanked with a picked body of archers, —
to whom he gave positive orders to hold the position
whatever the course of the main engagement ; he then
awaited the attack. The first to fall was Talha, who
bore the Quraish standard, slain by Ali ; Muhammad
cried aloud, " Great is the Lord ! '' l and the whole army
took up the shout of triumph. Uthman caught the
standard from his dying brother's hand, while women
clashed their timbrels and sang songs of encourage-
ment, but he too fell beneath the sword of Hamza :
1 Alldku Atbar, the Takbir.

ioo MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

nor did the deadly fight for the standard cease till the
whole family of Talha, two brothers and three sons,
were laid low.

Then the battle became general. Ali, Hamza, Dujana,
— armed with a sword by Muhammad himself, —
Zubair, and others, conspicuous by ostrich plume or gay
feather, did mighty deeds of valour ; the archer-band
kept the Meccan horse at bay ; and it seemed as if the
smaller force might even win the fight. But the advan-
tage was too eagerly pressed, a party fell to plundering
ere the victory was secure, the flanking body of archers
joined in the premature pillage, Khalid, the great
Meccan general (afterwards a tower of strength to
Islam), swooped down with his cavalry on Muhammad's
left and rear, and the army of the Prophet was put to
rout. Then fell Musab, who bore his standard ; gallant
Hamza was thrust through with a javelin ; and
Muhammad himself was badly wounded in the face.
He tried in vain to stem the flight, and owed his life
to the valour and devotion of a handful of his followers.
Stunned and wounded he was hurried to a place of
safety, where the remnant of his army gathered round
him. The rumour that he was slain spread dismay
among his followers, and his foes triumphed. For-
tunately the false report caused the pursuit to slacken,
while the field was searched for the Prophet's body;
meanwhile the wound was dressed, and Muhammad
solemnly cursed his sacrilegious foes. A boastful
challenge by Abu Sufiyan, answered by Omar, showed
that Muhammad, Abu Bakr, and he still lived ; the
Quraish chief's shout of triumph was met by a fervent
cry of confidence in God ; and the Meccan army with-
drew, making a tryst for a second battle at Badr a

DEFEAT OF MUHAMMAD 101

year later. Seventy-four of Muhammad's men lay
dead upon the field, among them gallant Hamza, whose
dead body Hind, wife of Abu Sufiyan, savagely muti-
lated, and the brave standard-bearer, Musab ; but the
enemy had lost twenty only.

Medina was a city of mourning when the news came.
The women hurried forth to tend the wounded and to
weep for the dead ; the malcontents spoke hard things
of Muhammad, and the faith of his followers was sorely
tried by the defeat. But he rose against the tide of
reproach, pronounced blessings over the martyrs who
had died for their faith, and chiefly over Hamza, " the
Lion of God and the Lion of His Apostle," now in bliss
in the highest Paradise. He encouraged his followers at
the weekly prayer with some of the finest and most
impassioned utterances to be found in the Quran : —

" We will surely cast terror into the hearts of the
infidels, for presumptuously joining others with God !
Their resting-place shall be the fire, — a woeful abode
for transgressors !

" And some of you chose the present life, and some
the life to come ; and He caused you to flee before your
foes, that He might prove you !

" Think not at all that they are dead, who were slain
in the way of the Lord. Nay, they live in the presence
of their Lord, rejoicing in His bounty, and for those
who shall follow in their steps. No terror afllicts
them, neither are they grieved"

And in reference to his own reported death, he
uttered the solemn words, forgotten (it would seem),
when he was taken from his people, till Abu Bakr
recalled them : —

"Muhammad is no more than an apostle, as other

102 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

apostles that have gone before him. What ! if he
should die or be killed, must ye needs turn back upon
your heels ? He that turneth back in no wise injureth
God ; but God will reward the thankful."

With such words did Muhammad cheer and bind up
the hearts of his followers, as they hung upon his lips,
while he spoke leaning on the palm-tree pillar in the
great Mosque. Their faith in him was absolute, and
the spirit of martyrdom was theirs, wherewith to crush
down every doubt and fear, to triumph even in seeming
defeat. But, as Muhammad had shown himself a bold
and skilful commander in the field, so now as soon as the
first outburst of grief was past, he gathered a handful of
troops and hung on the rear of his victorious foes. He
even captured and put to death two of those who
fought against him, one of whom had already once
been his prisoner, and whom he sentenced with the
stern words, "Verily thou shall not say, I deceived
the Prophet twice." It was after the battle of Uhud
that Muhammad promulgated the important law under
which a widow and daughter succeed, in the absence of
male issue, to the family inheritance, a brother taking
' only a small share instead of (as formerly) the whole.
The Christian reader will recall the decree of Moses in
the case of the daughters of Zelophehad.

The victory of Uhud, though the Meccans did not
follow it up, encouraged other foes. Within a few
months Muhammad defeated the Bani Asad, a powerful
tribe in Najd, from whom he took rich booty, and fore-
stalled the attack by the Bani Lahyan by procuring
the assassination of their chief. The assassin was not
only sent out by Muhammad, but was specially blessed
by him when he returned with his victim's head. Such

JEWISH TRIBE EXILED 103

acts provoked retaliation, and not long after six Mus-
lims were overpowered while on a peaceful mission,
and two of them cruelly put to death. They died
bravely, but not without bitterly cursing their mur-
derers, and tradition tells that the curse was fulfilled
to the letter. In the same year (A.H. 4) a much larger
party, forty or seventy men, were treacherously mur-
dered by another tribe of Najd, the Baiii Amir : and in
retaliation, two of the tribe, returning from Medina
under a safe conduct, were murdered, — and for them
Muhammad honourably paid the bloodwit. But for
his own, foully slain, he bitterly cursed the treacherous
clans and all their kindred, and brought as from the
dead themselves a message : " Say to our people that
we have met our Lord. He with us is well pleased, and
we with Him."

But the tale of bloodshed was not complete. The
Baui Amir were confederate with the Jewish tribe of
Nazlr, and to them the Prophet applied for help in the
blood-money. But ere a reply could be given he
abruptly departed, and sent his command that they
should go into exile. Abdallah ibn U!>ai tried in vain
to heal the quarrel, and then the Jews, hoping for help
from him, determined on resistance ; but after a siege
which lasted three weeks, they were forced to surrender,
when Muhammad, contrary to the usages of Arab war-
fare, had destroyed their date-trees and ravaged their
lands. They then, like their brethren the Qainuqaa,
went forth into exile, and the spoil fell to their con-
queror. Thus had two of the great Jewish tribes been
driven into exile ; the third, the Bani Quraiza, which
had shrunk from their help, was reserved for a worse
fate, nor was it long before that fate overtook them.

104 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Again Muhammad raised an exulting psean in his
revelation, and forged, under the sanction of his Lord,
new weapons of attack, and new threatenings for his
foes.

The breach with the Jews was now complete, and
Muhammad could no longer, as before, trust a Jew
secretary. He therefore chose one of his own followers
for the office, Zaid, son of Thabit, and this choice was
momentous, for it is to this Zaid that we owe the
collection of the Quran, the ultimate basis of almost
all our knowledge of Muhammad, and of which we are
"as sure that it is the word of the Prophet, as his
followers are that it is the word of God."

CHAPTER VIII

Muhammad's Fair at Badr — Scandalous Marriage with Zainab —
Justified by " Revelation :} — Ordinances for Women — The
Prophet's Exemptions — The Scandal raised against Ayesha,
who is cleared by a Revelation — Punishment of the Slanderers
— Laws for the Prophet's Wives — Medina besieged by the
Quraish — The Ditch — Siege raised — Massacre of the Quraiza
Jewish Tribe — Minor Expeditions — Assassinations.

THE second battle of Badr, to which the Quraish had
defied Muhammad after Uhud, did not take place.
There was distress and scarcity in Mecca, and the
Meccans were unable to set a large force in the field.
They therefore bribed some desert Arabs to carry to
Medina false tidings to terrify the people. But Mu-
hanimad was not deceived ; he set out at the head of
1500 men, held for eight days a large fair at Badr, and
returned with honour and profit to Medina; and he
published in the Quran (iii. 173 seq.) a song of en-
couragement and triumph. No further attack was
made from Mecca till the siege a full year later, and
meanwhile Muhammad exercised his troops in various
minor expeditions, inuring them to war and hardship,
fostering their appetite for spoil, opening their eyes to
wider vistas of conquest in his cause, and spreading
through ever-widening areas the terror of his name.
On one of these minor expeditions he instituted the

105

106 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

" Service of Danger," by which part of the army was
kept constantly under arms, lest they should be sur-
prised while engaged in their religious duties : even so
Ezra had provided at the rebuilding of Jerusalem more
than a thousand years earlier.

While Muhammad enjoyed rest from his foes without,
and his power within Medina was growing more and
more absolute and unquestioned, he further increased
the number of his wives, and promulgated, as by divine
authority, those ordinances on marriage, seclusion of
women, and divorce, together with those exemptions
personal to himself, which are among the darkest blots
on his religion and his own character. Within a year
he added to the three wives he already had three more
— Zainab, widow of Ubaida, slain at Badr, called, from
her great charity, "the mother of the poor"; Umm
Salma, whose husband died of wounds received at
Uhucl; and Zainab, wife of Zaid, who divorced her
that she might become Muhammad's wife. This Zaid
was Muhammad's f reedman and adopted son, one of his
earliest and most attached followers, and his wife should
have been as a daughter to the prophet : in Arab
eyes (as in Hindu eyes to-day) she was his daughter-in-
law, and to marry her was incest. Yet Muhammad,
a man now of fifty-seven, saw her accidentally in
undress when he went to her husband's house; the
wife's vanity was flattered by his undisguised admira-
tion ; and the husband, learning what had happened,
set her free to follow her fancy. It is right to say that
the Prophet dissuaded Zaid, but his opposition cannot
have been strong ; he seized the opportunity to marry
the divorced woman, and produced a divine commission
for the act, wherein it was declared that adoption

LAWS FOR MUSLIM WOMEN 107

created no real relationship, and that the conduct of
all concerned was highly pleasing to the Lord ! Zaid
has in consequence the singular honour of being the
only man blessed by name in the Quran, as Abu
Lahb has of being cursed therein ; and Zainab claimed
a special glory as having been given by God to the
Prophet, whereas his other wives he had chosen for
himself. It was at this time, perhaps taught by his
own experience, that he issued (always as God's
spokesman) stringent regulations for the privacy of
his wives. Xo longer was the open hospitality of the
desert Arabs to be practised. Strangers were to come
very seldom to the Prophet's home : it must be re-
membered that he had no separate house of his own.
He passed his days in rotation at the houses of his
wives : visitors were to stay but a short time, and to
have their wants supplied from the household separated
by a curtain. All women were to be carefully veiled
before any but their nearest relatives, the Prophet's
privacy was specially guarded, and his absolute power
and discretion affirmed, and the darkest threats uttered
against any infidels who dared insult Muslim women.
Amongst the peculiar privileges enjoyed by the Prophet
was that of sharing his time as he pleased among his
wives, whilst other Muslims were bound to divide theirs
equally : and his wives were condemned after his death,
this also by revelation, to perpetual widowhood. We
shall see later some very striking uses of the inter-
vention of the friendly Archangel Gabriel in the matter
of " revelations," even in matters of intimate private
concern. It is always to be remembered that Mu-
hammad taught that the Quran in its entirety existed
from the earliest age of eternity, being the first created

1 08 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

thing, or at least only second to the "Light of
Muhammad " ; that it lay recorded at the throne of God
on the Preserved Tablet, until the time came for it to
be revealed ; that it was then sent down to the lowest
heaven by the hand of Gabriel, and was by him there-
after given piecemeal to the Prophet by successive
instalments. The consequences, and the advantages, of
this system are obvious !

In this same year 626, in December, Muhammad led
a successful expedition against the Bani Mustaliq, who
were in league with his foes of Mecca. He took with
him Ayesha and Umm Salma. The attack was com-
pletely successful, and very large booty was taken.
But two very unfortunate events marred the campaign.
A quarrel broke out between the refugees and the
rnen of Medina, which nearly led to serious blood-
shed, and Abdullah ibn Ubai uttered ominous threats.
Muhammad averted the danger by breaking up his
camp, and so diverting the thoughts of the army.
The second matter which marred Muhammad's joy in
his return to Medina was of a different and more serious
nature. He had added to the number of his wives
Juwairiya, the beautiful widow of the slain chief of
the Bani Mustaliq, after himself paying to her captor
the large ransom required; but on the homeward
march, already disturbed by the quarrelsome spirit of
the men of Medina and the threats of Abdallah,
occurred a second unfortunate incident, which for a
time threatened altogether to shipwreck his domestic
peace.

It was Muhammad's custom to take with him on
his various expeditions from Medina one or more of his
wives, chosen either by rotation or by lot. On that

SCANDAL AGAINST AYESHA 109

from which he had just returned his companions had
been Umm Sahna and Ayesha, the latter still very
young as age is counted in the west, but blooming into
womanhood in the sunnier regions of Arabia. She had
now been seven years married to the Prophet, and was
his favourite wife, as her father Abu Bakr was his
dearest friend, as well as his wisest and most trusted
counsellor. When death removed from his side the
faithful Khadija, not very long before Muhammad
quitted Mecca, he supplied her place, as we have already
seen, by marrying the widowed Sauda and Ayesha,
who was still a child. The latter choice can only have
been made from a desire to knit more closely the bonds
by which he was already tied to his old friend, since,
for some years to come, Ayesha, sprightly and winning
though she was, could be no companion for him. In
fact, the choice of a child for his wife was scandalous
in the eyes even of his own followers, and still more in
those of his countrymen generally. The marriage was
not consummated for three years, and even then the
child-wife had not yet cast away her dolls, and the
Prophet helped her to play with them !

Now, however, she had for long been recognised as
queen of his affections, a position that only Hafsa,
daughter of Omar, sometimes challenged, but in vain.
Ayesha was still very young, and too slight for her
weight to be greatly felt in the covered litter which
was swung on the camel which carried her. Now, on
the day when Muhammad and his force marched into
Medina, Ayesha's litter was found to be empty, and she
herself was missing; but a few hours later one of
Muhammad's adherents, Safwan, who had shared in
the Flight, came into the city leading his camel, with

no MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Ayesha seated thereon closely veiled, as the recent
ordinance required the Prophet's wives to be. The
explanation she gave of the matter was natural enough,
and there seems no reason for not accepting it, especi-
ally when her position and the circumstances are
considered. She had everything to lose and nothing to
gain by an intrigue, and there is no other occasion of
suspicion against her during all her long life. She said
that, having gone from her tent a short distance, she
had dropped a necklace which she valued. Missing it,
she again left her tent to search for it, and while she
was gone the litter was slung up on the camel, the
absence of her light weight not being noticed, and the
march was resumed. When she returned, not finding
her camel, she sat down on the ground, expecting them
to return for her. Meanwhile Safwan came up, having
also been detained. He was astonished to find Ayesha,
made his camel kneel, and turned away his head while
she mounted. He then made all haste after the army,
but could not overtake it, and so it happened that
Ayesha entered the city, and went into her house in
full view of a scandal-loving public.

Muhammad, whose conscience perhaps told him that
his recent marriage with Juwairiya, daughter of the
the slain Mustaliq chief, and a little earlier with
Zainab after her divorce by Zaid, had given special
cause of jealousy to Ayesha, was much disquieted by
the reports that came to his ears. His manner changed,
and his coldness so affected Ayesha that she fell ill,
and with her husband's consent went home to her
parents. The breach was welcomed by the enemies of
both parties, and the scandal was spread by Abdallah
ibn Ubai on the one hand, and by the poet Hassan, by

THE RECONCILIATION in

Mista, a relative of Abu Bakr, and Hamna, sister of
Zainab. But at the end of a month Muhammad could
bear the estrangement no longer, and rebuked the
slanderers of both Ayesha and Saf wan publicly from
the Mosque pulpit. It was an unwarrantable invasion
of his privacy to discuss the affairs of his family at all,
and there was nothing against either of the slandered
persons. However, he took counsel with Usama (son of
Baraka, the Prophet's nurse, and of Zaid), and with Ali,
and examined Ayesha's maid. Usama declared the
whole story slanderous, the maid could say nothing
against her mistress, but Ali — who perhaps thought
only that " Caesar's wife must be beyond suspicion " —
seems to have taken a harsher view. At all events
Ayesha believed he did so, and this was probably the
cause of the hatred she ever afterwards bore him, such
that she rode with Muawiya's army when he and Ali
fought for the Khalifate. Ali, she says, urged the
Prophet to put her away, saying, " There is no lack of
women from whom thou mayest replace her!"1

Thereupon Muhammad went straight to Abu Bakr's
house and himself questioned Ayesha, whom he found
plunged in grief. Her mother had sought in vain to
comfort her, telling her that a favourite wife could not
escape the envious calumnies of her rivals, and her
father also was powerless to help her. But when
Muhammad sat down beside her, and adjured her by
God to confess and repent if what men laid to her
charge was true, after a short silence, in the hope that

1 After the battle of the Camel, however, Ali's chivalrous conduct
touched her heart, and she said, "There befell between Ali and me
only that which commonly befalls between a wife and her husband's
kindred " (see p. 187).

H2 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

her parents would answer for her, she passionately
denied the charge. "I am helpless; I am guiltless,
God knows. Yet none believeth my denial. Patience
becometh me, God is my helper ! " Muhammad's doubts
vanished, but he perhaps knew that others would require
stronger assurance. He affected to fall into a pro-
phetic trance, and his hosts covered him up. After a
little while he seemed to awake, wiped heavy drops of
sweat from his brow, and cried, " Rejoice, Ayesha !
Verily the Lord hath revealed thine innocence." And
Ayesha answered, " Praise be to God ! "

Then Muhammad went to the people, and declared
to them the new revelation. They were sharply
chidden for taking up and carrying the slander, which
God Himself declared to be groundless. The law was
laid down that fornication should be punished publicly
with a hundred stripes ; and to establish a charge of
adultery against a married woman four witnesses were
required, failing which the accusers were to be punished
with fourscore stripes. A husband might establish a
charge of adultery against his wife by a fourfold oath,
with an imprecation of God's wrath upon himself if he
lied ; and it was open to the wife by similar oath to
clear herself ; but the husband's absolute right to
divorce her was not affected. The Chapter warned the
slanderers to repent, and to shun such calumny in
future; and Abu Bakr was exhorted to continue his
bounty to the offending Mista, his relative. The curse
of God was solemnly pronounced on false accusers, —
and then the earthly penalty of stripes was inflicted
on all who had slandered Ayesha in this matter, ex-
cepting only Abdallah, against whom evidently
Muhammad did not dare to proceed. With this

LAW OF ADULTERY AND SLANDER 113

punishment the Prophet was satisfied, and in particu-
lar he extended marked favour to the poet Hassan, who
showed his gratitude in eloquent praises of Ayesha,
with whom he was thenceforward closely bound.

The interest and importance of the story lies for us
not in the question of Ayesha's guilt or innocence,
though there seems small ground of suspicion against
her, but in the light shed on Muhammad's character.
He gave weight to the charge against her, and came to
believe she was innocent. He punished her accusers
severely, alleging the commands of God, and he imposed
on his injured wife and on her father — his old friend
Abu Bakr — with a simulated revelation. But he also
took advantage of the incident to lay special further
restrictions, in the name of God, on his own wives
above those of other men (Sura 33). He wrote: —

" O Prophet ! say to thy wives, ' If ye desire the life
of this world and its adornments, come, I will give you
them to enjoy, and will send you away richly endowed !
But if ye desire God and His apostle and the life to
come, verily God hath prepared for those of you who
do well a mighty reward.

" O wives of the Prophet ! whosoever of you commits
open sin, doubled shall be her torment twice, — and that
is easy unto God !

" But she among you who cleaveth fast to God and
His apostle and doeth righteousness, to her will we
give her reward twice told, and for her have we pre-
pare i a noble provision.

" O ye wives of the Prophet ! ye are not like unto
other women. If ye fear God be not too complaisant
in speech, lest he in whose heart is a disease desire
you ; but speak well-ordered speech.

H4 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

" Abide ye within your houses, and set not off your-
selves as in past days of Ignorance ; but be ye stead-
fast in prayer, and give alms, and obey God and His
apostle. Verily the Lord desires only to put away
abomination from you, ye that are of His house, and
thoroughly to purify you !

"And remember what is recited in your houses of
the signs of God and wisdom ; verily God is subtle and
all-knowing."

Then Ayesha resumed her ascendency over the
Prophet's heart, only the more powerful for the tem-
porary breach ; and the Prophet fenced his household
round with an impenetrable veil of ceremony and
decorum. The name of God was used, and His power
usurped, to guard the virtue of Muhammad's wives,
and the divine sanction was annexed to the new
ordinances for the enslavement of women to man's
caprice !

Muhammad was now called to meet a formidable
attack from without. The Quraish, enraged at the insult
flung in their teeth by the fair held at Badr, had
gathered a great host from Mecca and the allied desert
tribes, and advanced on Medina in such strength as to
compel the citizens to withdraw within their walls.
This time Muhammad's wise plans were heartily sup-
ported by all ; by the advice of a Persian prisoner,
Salman, a great trench was dug to complete the de-
fences of the city; the Prophet himself laboured
among the rest; pick, and shovel, and basket were
plied with unflagging zeal, while he blessed, en-
couraged, and shared the toil; and in six days the
ditch was ready, whilst a battery of stones was laid
to hand against assault. It was in fact the agger

MEDINA BESIEGED 115

and rallum with which every Roman camp was pro-
tected.

The enemy, 10,000 strong, ravaged the country
round, and advanced against the city, only to be baffled
by the new defence. They then endeavoured to gain
over to their side the only remaining Jewish tribe, the
Quraiza, who occupied a walled village in the outskirts
of the city. "Whether the Jews did agree to join them
or not is doubtful. The evidence is entirely that of
their enemies, they had strong grounds for hostility to
Muhammad, and he and his followers had (in the light
of after events) every reason to blacken them : in any
case they took no overt part in the attack. Muhammad's
small army of 3000 men camped within the ditch, two
strong bodies patrolled the streets night and day, and
the vigilance of the defenders repulsed every minor
attack. Two determined general assaults were made
on successive days ; but the garrison, though sorely
bestead, beat them both off. The valour of AH
especially, and the galling hail of the archers, aided
by the wide and deep ditch, kept back even the fiery
and skilful attacks of Khalid. But the city was in
terrible straits, and the courage of the Muslims almost
failed. Muhammad tried first to detach the Bedouin
allies from his enemies, but could not bribe high
enough, — and the siege went on for a fortnight. At
the end of that time he succeeded in sowin^ distrust

among the confederates, who were already straitened
from want of supplies; again the elements came to
Muhammad's aid, and a great storm burst over the
besieging army ; Abu Sufiyan broke up his camp, and
the siege was at an end.

Muhammad had no thought of pursuit, but he

n6 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

resolved by an act of terrible punishment to destroy
the last remnants of opposition at home. He had not
yet cleansed himself from the dust of battle, when he
ordered Bilal to gather the host to the great Mosque ;
the banner of Islam was placed in Ali's hands, and the
whole army — 3000 strong — was led forth against the
fortress of the Quraiza, which was invested. Ill-provided
against a siege, the unhappy Jews soon asked for terms,
but no terms would be granted. A friend warned them
to expect no mercy, and at last, after a despairing defence
of fifteen days, they surrendered at discretion, it being
agreed that their sentence should be pronounced by
Saad, of the Bani Aus, with whom they had been
formerly in alliance. Again was shown the awful
truth that " Islam had broken all old ties." His tribes-
men interceded in vain with Saad for the 2000
hapless Jews, men, women, and children ; brought with
difficulty from the bed on which he lay from a wound
gotten in the siege, he surveyed the trembling crowd
with unpitying eye, and passed the doom : " The men
to the slaughter, the remnant to slave-market, and the
spoil to the army." The Prophet approved : Saad, he
said, had pronounced the judgment of God in the
seventh heaven ; trenches were dug as common graves ;
and on the morrow the men of the tribe, to the number
of 700, were butchered in cold blood under Muhammad's
own eyes. He himself took the " royal fifth " of the
captives and the spoil, the women and children were
sold into slavery, and the booty divided ; and a beauti-
ful Jewess, Rihana, was forced to be the Prophet's
concubine, as she refused to forsake her religion and
become his wife.

No words can fittingly condemn the bloody cruelty

MASSACRE OF THE JEWS 117

of this massacre ; every reader will judge of it for him-
self ; yet not a word of pity for the victims, or blame
for the actors, comes from a Muslim historian. For us
the last touches of horror are added by the fact that
Muhammad declared he had been called to the assault
by Gabriel himself, and that when Saad soon after died
of his wound, he prayed over him and blessed his
memory, and declared that the heavenly host helped to
carry the bier. Thus was the Prophet's power at last
established absolutely in Medina: the time had now
come when he would prepare the way for that conquest
of Mecca, of which he had long dreamed.

The following year was spent in minor forays or
expeditions, led either by Muhammad himself or by some
trusted lieutenant : some were punitive, but others un-
provoked attacks for purposes of plunder. In one of
the former, led by Zaid, an aged woman, Umm Kirfa,
was put to death in a cruel and barbarous manner, but
no censure was passed on the horrid deed. A rich
Meccan caravan was cut off and plundered at Al Is, as
it passed north to Syria along the Red Sea shore ; and
among the captives was Muhammad's own son-in-law,
Abul Aas, nephew of Khadija and husband of Zainab.
Husband and wife were deeply attached, but Abul Aas
had not embraced Islam, and Zainab had stayed behind
with him in Mecca. He had already been taken
prisoner at Badr, and set free by Muhammad for love
of Khadlja's memory, but on condition that Zainab
should be sent to Medina. This was done, but she
suffered grave mischief as she set out, for which after-
wards bloody vengeance was taken. On this occasion,
too, the captors let Abul Aas free and restored his
property for Muhammad's sake ; he joined the new

i IS MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

faith, and settled in Medina. Another expedition is
notable as the first communication with the Roman
Empire. An envoy to Syria, who had been favourably
received, was returning to Muhammad, when he was
attacked and robbed ; and Zaid inflicted severe punish-
ment on the marauders. This was followed by an
expedition against Dumat al Jandal (now Jauf ),1 where
the Christian tribes were offered the choice of Islam or
tribute ; some chose one and some the other alternative,
— and this -marks a further step in Muhammad's pro-
gress to empire. There remain to be noticed in this
period the treacherous murder of Abdul Haqlq, a
Jewish chief, at Khaibar, for having taken part in the
siege of Medina, and on suspicion of further hostile
designs. His successor in the chiefship, together with
thirty followers, was also foully murdered, while
their murderers were actually taking them under safe-
conduct to treat with Muhammad at Medina. All these
treacherous assassinations were solemnly approved by
the Prophet; nay, he himself actually sent a well-
known bravo to murder his old enemy Abu Sufiyan in
Mecca, though it is alleged (without much proof) that
this was in retaliation for a similar attack from Abu
Sufiyan : the attempt on Muhammad's life is said to
have been defeated through a revelation from on high,
but his own emissary was recognised as a notorious
murderer, and in his escape murdered two (or three)
defenceless tribesmen ; the former became a good
Muslim, and the latter was welcomed home by the
Prophet.

1 The first stage of Palgrave's adventurous journey iu 1863.

CHAPTER IX

A Pilgrimage to Mecca attempted — Failure — Treaty with
Quraish — Muhammad summons Rome, Persia, etc. to
embrace Islam — Return of Exiles from Abyssinia — Jews of
Khaibar conquered — Sana married — Attempt to Poison
Muhammad — Pilgrimage performed — Defeat at Muta, Zaid
slain — Conquest of Mecca, Muhammad's clemency — Destruc-
tion of Idols — Victory of Hunain — Siege of Ta,if — The Bani
Saad — Birth and Death of Ibrahim — Scandal with Mary the
Copt.

Now, after six full years of exile, Muhammad and his
followers from Mecca longed with a great longing after
their native city, and to take their part once more in
pilgrimage and its hallowed rites ; and in a dream he
saw that the desire of their hearts had been granted
them. The month was one of peace — Zu'l Qada —
in which the Lesser Pilgrimage could fitly be per-
formed, so (in February 628), after inviting, but without
much success, the neighbouring tribes to join with him,
Muhammad set forth at the head of 1500 men. Elated
with the promise of success, the great army marched
trustfully forward ; seventy camels were devoted for
the sacrifice. As they approached the sacred territory,
all assumed the ihrdm, the pilgrim's garb, and shouted,
Labbaik ! Labbaik ! Here are we, O Lord ! " They
marched with no weapons save sheathed swords, and had
no thought of fighting. But the Meccans were resolved

119

120 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

to oppose them. A large army was gathered, and the
Medina road blocked, the leaders being Khalid and
Ikrima, and the troops wearing leopard skins, to show
they would .conquer or die.

On hearing this news Muhammad turned aside to
Hudaibiya, on the border of Meccan territory, and there
encamped. At first he was minded to fight in order to
accomplish his purpose, but after messengers had passed
to and fro, and he found the Quraish absolutely re-
solved not to permit the pilgrimage, he yielded. In the
negotiations which followed, he showed great skill ; the
envoys of the Quraish were one and all impressed by
the state he held and the devotion of his followers, and
the impression then made was of no small use after-
wards. The Quraish absolutely refused to allow the
pilgrimage to be carried out that year, but were willing
it should be performed the next. So a regular treaty
was drawn up, and Muhammad was thereby recognised
as a power in Arabia of equal standing with the state
of Mecca. Some dispute arose as to the preamble, but
the Prophet yielded on all unessential points, and the
treaty was duly ratified, the original remaining with
him, and a copy being given to the Quraish. It was
agreed that — (1) war should cease for ten years;
(2) tribes and individuals should be free to ally them-
selves with either party; (3) minors going from the
Quraish to Muhammad, without consent of their
guardians, should be sent back ; but (4) followers of
Muhammad returning to the Quraish should not be sent
back ; (5) Muhammad and his followers should not
enter Mecca this year, but might do so unarmed for
three days next year, and perform the pilgrimage.
The abortive pilgrimage on which they had started was

so far fulfilled that the victims were slain and the
pilgrims shaved their heads, and the Prophet and his
followers went back to Medina.

The success gained was great, and on the way back
Muhammad was " inspired " to celebrate his " evident
victory " from the Lord (Sura 48). His followers, who
had expected to fulfil the pilgrimage unhindered, and who
were inclined to murmur, were satisfied and encouraged ;

* o *

severe rebuke was dealt to the tribes who had refused
to march with them, and they were debarred from
sharing future adventures ; while special blessings were
pronounced on " the men of the Tree," who had pledged
themselves to vengeance, when it was feared that
Muhammad's envoy — Uthman — had been treacher-
ously murdered in Mecca. The fruits of the treaty also
soon showed themselves in the adhesion of scattered
converts from Mecca, some of whom were surrendered
under it, and some not ; and the whole of the Khuzaa
tribe embraced Islam. Moreover, Muhammad now felt
so sure of himself and his power, that he resolved to
summon all neighbouring potentates to accept his
mission, — Rome, Persia, Abyssinia, Syria, Egypt, and
Yamama; and to authenticate the credentials of his
envoys, he caused a silver seal to be made, graven
with the words, " Muhammad the Apostle of God." l

The despatch to the Roman Emperor (Heraclius)
reached him in the floodtide of success against Persia,
and no reply was vouchsafed ; nor was the vassal
chief of Ghassan allowed to reply. The Persian king
tore the summons scornfully in pieces, but he himself
was soon after slain, and his governor of Yaman ac-
knowledged the Prophet's claims. In Egypt the envoy
1 See Appendix.

122 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

was received with honour, though the governor cour-
teously declined to acknowledge Muhammad's claims ;
but he sent him the present of two beautiful sisters as
slaves, and a valuable white mule. The mule was taken
for the Prophet's own riding, and the fairer of the two
sisters, Mary the Copt, was placed in his harem, the
other — Shirin — being bestowed on the poet Hassan,
quite lately slanderer of Ayesha, but now her staunch
friend. A similar courteous reply came from the Prince
of Abyssinia, who also gave Umm Habiba, widow of one
of the Meccan exiles, to Muhammad to wife, and sent
back with honour all the exiles who had not already
joined him in Medina. The last messenger was met
with a singular claim to share the power, a claim which
was promptly rejected ; and the daring pretender was
heartily cursed, and died in the following year !

The return of the exiles remaining in Abyssinia, how-
ever, had been preceded by the final accomplishment of
Muhammad's vengeance against the Jews. To reward
his followers after the unfulfilled pilgrimage, he had
promised them success and rich spoil ; and accordingly,
in August 628, he set out from Medina at the head of
1600 men; he made three forced marches of great
length, and fell unexpectedly on the rich Jewish settle-
ment of Khaibar. Taken by surprise, the little forts
that studded the fertile valley fell one by one ; a rally
was made before Qamus,and the attack was led by daunt-
less Ali ; prodigies of valour were performed, the des-
perate courage of the Jews served them nothing, Qfnnus
was surrendered, and Kinana, the chief, gave himself up
along with his cousin. Muhammad, having found
occasion against them for concealing some of their
treasure, had them cruelly tortured and then beheaded ;

KHAIBAR TAKEN 123

arid again he celebrated his triumph by taking as his
wife Safia the beautiful widow of hapless and gallant
Kinana. Sana submitted to her new lot, it is said,
gladly ; but Zainab, another woman of the tribe, who
had lost husband and father and uncle in the fighting,
took terrible vengeance. She dressed a kid for the
. steeped it in deadly poison, and set it before the
Prophet and his friends. One died, and Muhammad
himself was violently ill, and attributed his last sickness
(three years later) to the effects of the poison.1 The
murderess was put to death. The remaining strongholds
of Khaibar surrendered, and the immense booty en-
riched every man of the army. Half the lands of
Khaibar also were portioned out among them, the other
half being assigned as a sort of crown domain to
Muhammad ; stringent laws were laid down against
embezzlement of booty ; and some ceremonial ordinances
regarding unclean meats were promulgated. Then with
an army enriched, and a new wife for himself, the
Prophet returned to Medina, welcomed back the
exiles from Abyssinia, and celebrated fresh nuptials
with Umin Hablba, his ninth wife !

After a quiet half year in Medina, broken only by
some minor expeditions, the time came round when by
treaty the pilgrimage might be performed,and three days
might be spent in Mecca. In February 629, Mohammad
started, with a following now grown to 2000 men, un-
armed save with sheathed swords, and with sixty
camels for the sacrifice; the Quraish, to avoid all
chance of conflict, withdrew to the neighbouring hills,

1 One of the extravagant late-invented tales to exalt the Prophet is,
that the poisoned kid's flesh cried out from the dish, warning him not
to touch it !

124 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

and looked curiously on, while the mighty cavalcade
swept into the vacant city. It was a solemn occasion, and
the hearts of the exiles thrilled with emotion, as they
followed their beloved leader to perform the hallowed
rites from which they had so long been debarred.
" Labbaik ! Labbaik ! " they cried ; the Prophet touched
with his staff the thrice-holy Black Stone, which many
years before he had guided to its place in the temple
wall ; seven times he rode round the Holy House, and
seven times his followers compassed it — three times at
racing speed, and four at more sober pace ; l and he
stilled the shout of defiance they began, and bade them
instead cry aloud : " There is no God but the Lord
alone ! It is He that hath holden His servant and exalted
his army ! Alone hath He discomfited the confederate
hosts ! " Then they made the passage seven times be-
tween Safa and Marwa, slaughtered the victims, and
shaved their heads ; and at length the pilgrimage was
accomplished.

The next clay Muhammad passed the forenoon in
prayer at the Kaaba, and at noon loud-voiced Bilal
summoned the host to public prayer in the sacred pre-
cincts, and the Prophet led their devotions. During
the three days of his stay, he entered no house in Mecca,
but abode in a tent ; there he received such of the citizens
as came to him, and his courteous and winning ways
had their effect. At the suggestion of his uncle Abbas,
whose widowed sister-in-law she was, he arranged to
marry Maimuna, and the marriage was celebrated at

1 This is still the custom, as Burton found. Tradition says Muham-
mad directed it to be so, that the Quraish might see how little the
climate of Medina had relaxed the Muslims' strength ! Each time the
pilgrim passes the Black Stone he kisses it, if possible, but, if not, he
touches it with his hand, which he then kisses.

PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA 125

the first stage on the retreat from Mecca, as the Quraish
roughly insisted that the three days stay should not be
exceeded. Maimuna was at this time fifty-one, and this
marriage was Muhammad's last. It had important
political consequences, for Maimuna was aunt to the
mighty warrior Khalid, who shortly after embraced
Islam, and was followed by Amru, a poet and man of
counsel, famous in after days as the conqueror of Egypt,
and by Uthman, custodian of the Kaaba. Thus was
the Prophet's cause advanced in Mecca, while the power
of the Quraish correspondingly declined.

In the year that followed, the fortunes of Muhammad
were chequered. He inflicted punishment on various
tribes, in one case sending forth his commander with
instructions " not to let a soul escape," which order wa>
obeyed to the letter. But the great event of the year
was the disastrous battle of Miita, when the small Arab
army of 3000 men met the legions of Heraclius. They
had been sent, under Zaid's command, to avenge the
murder of an envoy, and were dismissed by Muhammad
from the " Mount of Farewell " with the blessing : " The

Lord shield you from every evil, and bring you back in
peace laden with spoil ! " Zaid, who had thought to
meet only a desert tribe of the Syrian border, came
upon the whole Imperial army strongly posted at the
southern extremity of the Dead Sea.

A halt was called and a council of war held, but the
bolder counsel prevailed ; the army again went forward,
and awaited attack. The Roman army, Arab horse on
either flank, swept on and enveloped the little host;
Zaid, with the Prophet's white banner in one hand,
fought bravely in the foremost ranks and fell. Jafar
and Abdallah, appointed to command in succession after

126 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

him, emulated his bravery and likewise fell ; after which
Khalid, raised by general voice to the command, col-
lected the scattered remnant of the routed army, and
by skilful leading brought them back to Medina. Some
of the people murmured at the retreat, but Muhammud
welcomed the brave, though beaten, troops and their
leaders, and cheered them with words of hope ; but
deeply he mourned for his devoted friend Zaid and the
others who had fallen, and comforted and relieved their
sorrowing families.

The disaster of Muta was soon avenged by Amru,
who marched rapidly with 300, reinforced later to
500, men to the Syrian border. The Roman forces
retired before him, the frontier tribes gave in their
submission, and the power of Muhammad was greatly
extended and confirmed. The terror of his arms was
much helped by his courteous reception of all who
came in, and his fame for power and clemency spread
through Arabia.

The following year, 630, crowned Muhammad with
the conquest of Mecca. A ground of quarrel was
furnished by an attack by allies of the Quraish on
the Khuzaa, who had joined Muhammad. To him
they at once appealed, and he seized the oppor-
tunity : " If I help you not as strongly as though
the cause were mine own, never more may the Lord
help me in my need ! " he exclaimed. The news was
carried to Mecca, and the Meccans in terror sent Abu
Sufiyan to heal the breach ; but he returned without
success.

Muhammad gathered his hosts for attack, but
masked his object. A woman was sent secretly to
warn the Quraish, but was captured and brought

CONQUEST OF MECCA 127

back, and on the 1st January 630, 10 Ramadhan,
A.II. 8, the great host set forward for the conquest of
the Holy City. The desert allies were called up and
swelled the army with warriors, till at the head of
well-nigh 10,000 men Muhammad pushed on by forced
marches, encamping, ere more than a week was past,
at the last stage before Mecca : while, as a first-fruit
of his success, his uncle Abbas came out and enrolled
himself amongst his followers. So swift and secret
had been the advance that the Quraish were in ignor-
ance of their danger, and Abu Sufiyan, sent forth to
reconnoitre, was astounded by the blaze of countless
camp-fires on the heights surrounding Mecca. Abbas
met him, and led him to the Prophet's tent, but he was
not admitted to an audience until the morrow. It was
then too late to make terms ; a short, stormy interview
ended by his embracing Islam ; and then he was sent
back to the city, with the promise that none who sought
refuge with him, or at the Kaaba, or that stayed in
their own houses, should be harmed. The chief went
back, and as he passed through the warlike host, he
clearly saw that the Prophet's day of triumph had
dawned.

As the conqueror's terms were proclaimed, the
affrighted citizens fled in all directions to seek
asylum ; the army marched on the unresisting city ;
the various divisions advanced by their appointed
roads; every possible precaution was taken to avoid
bloodshed, — and only one skirmish took place, between
Khalid's force and a desperate band of Meccaus. Other-
wise the advance was unopposed; and Muhammad,
preceded by the Refugees, passed into the valley, not
far from the tombs of Khadija and Abu Talib, and

128 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

pitched his tent just outside the city on the north,
the great white standard being reared beside it.
Soon he again came forth, mounted Al Qaswa, and
rode to the Kaaba. There he first touched the Black
Stone with his staff, and then commanded that the
temple should be cleansed from its idols. They fell
one by one at his word, and last of all the great image
of Hubal, chief tutelary deity of Mecca; as that
crashed to the ground, he said, "Truth is come, and
falsehood is vanished away ; for verily lying is but for
a moment ! " Then he worshipped at the Station of
Abraham, and commanded the door of the Temple to be
opened to him ; next, standing on the threshold, he exer-
cised the first acts of authority by returning the keys
to Uthman as hereditary guardian, and confirming to
his uncle Abbas the right of supplying the pilgrims
with water. The inside of the Temple also was cleansed
from all idolatrous taint, and then the Prophet gave
vent to the deep love he bore to his native city:
"Thou art the choicest portion of the earth to me,
and the most lovable : had I not been cast forth, never
should I have forsaken thee." The citizens were won
by his words, and then he turned to them of Medina
and said, " God forbid that I should leave you ; where
ye live will I live too, and there will I die ! "

Muhammad now showed himself as generous in
victory as he had been resolute to have submission.
He proclaimed a general amnesty, from which only ten
or twelve persons were excluded, and of them only
four were actually put to death. Even Abdallah, the
renegade secretary, with Hind, the ferocious wife of
Abu Sufiyan, Ikrima, and Safwan were forgiven on
professing Islam.

BATTLE OF HUNAIN 129

Thus was Mecca conquered almost without blood-
shed : the citizens turned heartily to their new master
and his religion ; and the great shrine and idols of the
surrounding tribes were destroyed almost without
opposition. Only Khalid shed innocent blood, and
Muhammad made amends for it, though he could not
dismiss his able but savage lieutenant.

Muhammad's repose was soon rudely broken. The
great and warlike tribe of Hawazin, whose wide terri-
tories lay towards the north-east of Mecca, moved by
fear or jealousy of his power, mustered their forces to
attack him ; and just four weeks after he had left
Medina, he marched against them at the head of
12,000 men, of whom 2000 were Meccans. The two
armies met at the valley of Hunain, but Malik, the
Hawazin leader, had seized the narrow entrance
to it and laid an ambush; so confident was he of
victory that, against the advice of his old coun-
sellor Duraid, he brought with him the women
and children, the flocks and the herds of the clan.
Khalid led the Muslim advance, but his troops fell
into the ambush; they were thrown back, and the
whole army began to flee in wild confusion. By the
utmost personal exertion, the most passionate appeals,
Muhammad rallied his forces; they turned again
fiercely to the attack, and desperately stormed the
heights : at the critical moment the Prophet, as before
at Badr. cast a handful of gravel against the foe,
crying, " Euin seize them ! " and again, " I swear by
the Lord of the Kaaba ! God hath cast fear into their
hearts." The enemy wavered, broke, and fled in head-
long rout; and though Malik with the rearguard
covered the flight, his camp, with women, children,
9

130 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

cattle, and stores, fell into the hands of the Muslims.
The pursuit was pressed, and the rout completed, but
not without severe loss to the victors. But though the
army was dispersed, a large part of it had fallen back
into Ta,if , a fortified town, to which Muhammad at once
laid regular siege. It was vigorously carried on, and
engines of war brought up, but in vain ; even the fruit-
trees, for which the town has always been famous, were
destroyed; but the garrison held out, and the siege
was raised.

The booty, stored during the siege, was now divided,
and this was done with such wise liberality as to win
over many of Muhammad's powerful foes ; the men of
Medina, murmuring over the favour shown to Meccans,
were again won over by appeal to their devotion ; even
Malik, the Hawazin chief, was converted to Islam by
the wise generosity shown him. Most touching of all,
however, is the story of how the captives were set
free. The Bani Saad, among whom Muhammad had
been fostered, were a branch of the Hawazin, and one
of the prisoners was his own foster-sister. She made
good her claim, was kindly treated, and sent back with
rich gifts to her people; the ties of fosterage were then
pressed by the people generally, and liberally allowed ;
and in the end all the prisoners were set free by their
captors, Muhammad himself paying their ransom where
any was demanded. He then again performed the
Lesser Pilgrimage and returned to Medina, leaving,
as his deputy in Mecca, Attab, a young and wise
Quraishite, and Mu,az to instruct the citizens in the
Quran and the duties of religion.

On his return to Medina, the Prophet was bereaved
of his daughter Zainab; Ruqaya he had lost when

BIRTH OF IBRAHIM 131

Badr was fought, and now Fatima only was left.
But great joy followed, for Mary, the Coptic girl sent
him from Egypt, bore him a son, whom he named
Ibrahim. Naturally the tenderness of his love for the
child was unbounded, and overflowed to the mother.
He showed her special favour, to the neglect even of
Ayesha and Hafsa, and these two naturally resented
it. Was it to be endured that the daughters of
his two most powerful supporters, both in the prime
of womanhood, both sprung from the bluest blood
of the Quraish, should be set aside for an Abyssinian
slave-girl ?

Muhammad had owed to Mary the Copt the greatest
happiness of his later years, in the birth of Ibrahim,
the child of his old age, and the early loss of the little
one was the deepest grief he could suffer. Not one of
his many wives, since he lost Khadija, had borne him
a child, and of his children by her only one daughter
now survived — Fatima, wife of Ali, in whose two sons,
Hasan and Husain, now lay the sole hope of the con-
tinuance of his race. It is easy, therefore, to understand
how his heart had been bound up in the boy, and how
greatly he loved the mother. And so it befell that he
was involved in the last and perhaps the worst scandal
of his life, through the jealousy which is inseparable
from the practice of polygamy. The story is most
unpleasant to tell, but it is generally accepted and told
without a word of censure by the chief commentators
on the Quran, and by most of the Prophet's biographers,
and their attitude towards it is typical of their general
position in regard to him. Possessing, as they hold,
every virtue in the highest degree, his every action is
praiseworthy; everything done in his service or for

132 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

his sake is to be commended, and no breath of censure
is to blow upon his life.

When Mary had come, together with her sister
Shlrin, to Muhammad, he had not married her, and
it seems doubtful whether she had embraced Islam,
though one tradition says that he chose her for himself
rather than her sister because she was the first to
pronounce the confession of faith. He gave her also a
separate dwelling, a little house in a garden, and there
he used to visit her. As we have seen, he had, when
he came to Medina, built no separate house for himself,
but his wives had each her own, the whole forming a
row of little dwellings facing the Mosque ; and he used
to spend a day with each in rotation, taking with him
the few things necessary for his personal comfort. He
had been by " revelation " freed from the obligation to
divide his time strictly among his wives, but he had
not availed himself of the privilege. One day, how-
ever, when it was Hafsa's turn, she went to spend the
day with her parents, and he passed the time in
Hafsa's own apartment with Mary. Hafsa returned
unexpectedly, and found the door locked, so that she
could not gain admittance till Muhammad came out.
She then went in, found Mary, and threatened to make
the scandal and insult to herself public. To appease
her righteous indignation Muhammad swore that he
would not again see Mary, but he solemnly bound
Hafsa to keep the matter secret. Hafsa, however,
who was very intimate with Ayesha, could not refrain
from revealing the matter to her, and she appears to
have betrayed her knowledge to Muhammad.

He was very angry that the matter should have got
abroad, declared himself at once free from his oath, and

SCANDAL ABOUT MARY 133

proceeded to punish all his wives, by forsaking their
society altogether and spending a whole month in
the company of Mary. At the end of that time,
however, the situation became intolerable; Abu Bakr
and Omar were beyond measure grieved at the scan-
dal in which their daughters were involved, and
Muhammad determined to end it. As on the former
occasion with Ayesha, so now he pretended that
Gabriel intervened with a message from on high,
bidding him forgive Hafsa on her repentance ; the for-
giveness was naturally extended to all the rest, and
matters resumed their former course in his relations
with his wives.

The offence of Hafsa lay in her betrayal of Muham-
mad's secret, to which Ayesha had become a party by
receiving the confidence, and the two together were
guilty of disobedience to the Prophet, little better than
high treason. Nothing is told us of offence given by
the other wives (of whom there were seven), and we
are driven to think that Muhammad was glad of a
pretext to indulge for a time exclusively his passion
for Mary. He again promulgated a chapter of the
Quran, confirming and extending his own power and
privileges, and setting forth his singular position as
the favourite and confidant of Heaven. Palmer, in liis
note on the Chapter (64), accepts without question the
story of Hafsa's wrong and her betrayal of the secret,
and explains that it " is intended to free him from his
oath respecting Mary, and to reprove his wives for
their conduct"; it runs: —

"O Prophet, wherefore dost thou forbid to thyself
what God has made lawful to thee, seeking to please
thy wives ? but God is forgiving, compassionate !

134 MUHAMMAD AND HIS TOWER

"God has allowed you to expiate your oaths; for
God is your King, and He is all-knowing wise !

" And when the Prophet told as a secret to one of his
wives a recent thing, and when she told thereof and ex-
posed it, he acquainted her of part, and part he kept back.

" But when he informed her of it, she said, ' Who
told thee this?' he said, 'The Wise, the Well-aware
informed me.

"'If ye both turn penitent unto God, — for your
hearts have swerved ! (Well !) — but if ye support one
another against him, — verily, God, He is King ; and
Gabriel and the righteous of the believers, and the
angels after that, will support him.

" ' It may be that his Lord, if he divorce you, will
give him, in exchange, wives better than you, — Muslims,
believers, devout, repentant, prayerful, given to fasting,
— such as have been wedded, and virgins too.' "

The reference to the " part concealed " by the Prophet
in his upbraiding of his peccant wife is obscure, and
one tradition makes it refer to his telling Ayesha and
Hafsa that first Abu Bakr and then Omar should
succeed to his power after his death : the story is un-
likely, and the tradition weak. Probably enough, it was
invented to counterbalance those which alleged that Ali
had been designated as successor. Another tradition
interprets the " promise," from which the Prophet was
absolved, as one to refrain from eating honey, flavoured
with a certain strong-smelling shrub ; but this explana-
tion is very generally rejected, and seems on the face
of it absurd. The " faithful " were by this time quite
used to the interposition of Gabriel and divine revela-
tion in the Prophet's domestic affairs, and their robust
belief was not staggered by this last instance of it.

THE RECONCILIATION 135

Yet it is difficult to find words for the awful blasphemy,
the daring irupiety which would drag into a story of
incontinence and vulgar jealousy the name and the
commands of the Almighty, the God — as Muhammad
taught — of unapproachable and ineffable holiness !
It casts on the self-styled Prophet the deepest and
darkest stain. It may here be noted that the re-
mainder of the chapter, of which the verses relevant
to the affair of Mary have been quoted, consists of
eloquent and awful warnings to repentance, strength-
ened by promises of reward and threats of punishment,
and by illustrations of the blessed and the accursed
women of ancient sacred history or legend, — the wives
of Noah and of Lot, the queen of Pharaoh and the
Virgin Mary !

By the birth of her son Ibrahim, so named doubtless
after the "Father of the Faithful," whose religion
Muhammad professed to restore, Mary was raised
above the ordinary status of a slave. She was no
longer subject to sale by her master (a merciful pro-
vision which even our own generation remembers did
not exist in the Slave States of America), and at his
death would be entitled to her freedom.

But the Prophet was not to be blessed for any length
of time with male offspring. For the first year of his
life Ibrahim throve well, his father visited him daily
at the house of his foster-mother, and loved to have
him on his knees; but the little life soon dwindled
away, and to his unspeakable grief this last son too
was lost to Muhammad. His sorrow seemed even
excessive to his followers, some of whom ventured to
upbraid him; but he heeded them not. He laid the
little body tenderly in the grave with his own hands,

136 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

and blessed the child, saying, " The days of thy nursing
shall be accomplished in paradise." Then he went
home, and comforted the bereaved mother; and the
faithful nurse he dowered with a fair garden of palm-
trees.

CHAPTER X

Muhammad now supreme in Arabia — Administrative Steps —
Tribute and Tax-Gatherers — Treaty with Christian Tribes
— The " Year of Deputations " — Idolaters forbidden to enter
Mecca — Ordinance of Holy "War — The Farewell Pilgrimage —
Last Illness and Death of Muhammad.

MUHAMMAD, Prophet-Prince of Medina and conqueror
of Mecca, was now, by liis victory at Hunain, the chief
power in Arabia. By his skill in weaving into the
new faith the immemorial superstitions of Arabia, the
worship at the Kaaba, and the annual pilgrimage to
Mecca, he had established his spiritual power on a firm
basis ; and in Islam secular authority was inextricably
bound up with it. Obedience to God and to His Pro-
phet was the keystone of the arch, and that obedience
must be absolute and unconditional. We have seen
more than once to what lengths the devotion of his
followers went. All old ties, however sacred, were
severed if they conflicted with the Prophet's commands ;
secret murder, treacherous attack, abuse of hospitality,
— all were praiseworthy if practised in his service.
He had already made laws on most of the great interests
of civil and domestic life, he had secured, by his
generosity, his clemency, and his power, the hearts of
his people, and the finances of his state were firmly
grounded in the principles of the " royal fifth " and the

137

138 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

tithe of the increase, given to sanctify the believer's
wealth.

His first step now was to send out regular collectors
to gather in the tribute. This was, in almost every
case promptly and cheerfully paid, but the tribe of
Tamusa made opposition. They were at once sharply
punished, and many prisoners brought in to Medina.
The tribe sent envoys to make submission, and to
redeem the captives, and succeeded, after professing
Islam. After a contest, thoroughly Arab in spirit, in
eloquence, they confessed themselves vanquished, and
submitted without reserve. Muhammad took occasion,
from the loud freedom of their address, to forbid such
liberties for the future, and to direct that the Prophet
should be addressed only in low, respectful tones, as
became his high office and dignity. His receptions
were held in the great Mosque, and there, in the
presence of the people, he received deputations, gave
judgments, and issued his sovereign commands. The
want of outward state in no way lessened the reality
of his power, and his sway was absolute and daily
extending': from Yaman and Hadramaut and Oman,

from the borders of Syria and Persia, envoys crowded
to own his power and secure his favour. Among in-
dividual converts of note must be named Adi, son of
Hatini, the famous chief of Tai, together with his tribe,
half idolatrous and half Christian, and Kab, son of
Zuhair, the famous poet of Mecca. This ninth year
after the Flight is known in Muslim annals specially as
the " year of deputations."

At this time rumours of great preparations by the
Roman power against him reached Muhammad at
Medina, and he resolved to strike the first blow. The

TREATIES WITH CHRISTIAN CHIEFS 139

way vras long and desert, and many refused the call to
arms. Some, especially men of Medina, were exempted,
but the desert tribes were straitly commanded to
join the army. Great enthusiasm was shown by the
majority, and the money contributions were most
liberal ; many volunteers too had to be refused, as
they could not be mounted and equipped; and soon
Muhammad took the field at the head of the largest
army he had ever led, — no less (it is said) than 30,000
men, of whom 10,000 were horse. They marched
north through the arid valley of Hajar, but were
forbidden to drink of its wells, lest they should be
partakers in the sins of the old inhabitants, the impious
tribe of Thamud. Thence they passed on to Tabuk,
not far from the Gulf of Ayla, and found the rumours
of invasion false. Accordingly Muhammad detached
Khalid with a strong body of cavalry against the
Christian chief of Duma (Jauf), who was surprised
and brought in to Medina, where Jbe embraced Islam ;
the other Christian chiefs, and especially John, Prince
of Ayla, submitted to the Prophet himself at Tabuk,
and received from him letters of protection and treaties
of alliance, fixing their tribute, and taking them bound
to help all Muslim travellers and traders.

Muhammad then returned from Tabuk to Medina,
and declared the famous ninth Sura, the last in time of
the Quran. Therein he rebuked and denounced those
who had shrunk from sharing the toil, the " Hypo-
crites " of Medina, and the desert Arabs ; but those who
repented were forgiven, and after due chastisement
received back into favour. Then, too, he razed to the
ground a mosque that had been built, with sectarian
views, at Quba; and pronounced God's curse against

140 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the builders. At this time death removed Abdallah ibn
Ubai, the Khazraj chief, who would, but for Muhammad s
coming, have been king in Medina. Him the Prophet
had always treated with respect, though he never felt
sure of his allegiance, and now he prayed over him, and
walked behind the bier. Abdallah's influence, so far
as we know, had always been exercised for good, and
more than once had checked Muhammad in his revenge
against the Jews.

The submission of Ta,if has now to be told. After
the siege was raised, the chief Urwa came in to
Medina and joined Islam, and then, though dissuaded
by Muhammad, he went to preach it to his own people.
They slew him, but were soon reduced by Malik to
such straits that they sent an embassy of submission.
The envoys were well-received ; Muhammad himself
taught them his doctrine ; and at length they were
sent back firm in the faith. It was not without vain
struggles for delay, however, that they yielded to the
destruction of their great idol Lat, and to the " degrada-
tion" of the daily prayers, — which the Prophet de-
clared to be indispensable.

He now resolved finally to clear Mecca from all
taint of idolatry, and for that purpose he sent Abu
Bakr to lead the annual Pilgrimage, and Ali to declare
the Prophet's will at its close. So when the multitudes
were gathered on the plain of Mina, Ali read the
ordinance, forming part of the ninth Sura. The
Prophet proclaimed himself free from all treaty obliga-
tions to idolaters; after four months, Believers wnv
free to make war upon them wheresoever they should
find them ; no more should they take part in pil-
grimage to the Holy House, nor profane it with

THE LAST PILGRIMAGE 141

pagan usages. The same chapter contains Muhammad's
declaration of war against Jews and Christians; he
needed them no more, for his own system, so largely
borrowed from theirs, was now established; and to
them was now left only the choice of submission or the
sword.

During the two years that followed, embassies of
submission came in from every side, and where there
was still opposition to Islam it was crushed. Xajran
yielded to the arms of Khalid, and the recalcitrant
tribes of Yaman to those of Ali. The latter just com-
pleted his work in time to join Muhammad on his
Farewell Pilgrimage to Mecca, in March 632, three
months only before his death.

The city and temple of Mecca had been in the
previous year completely purged of idolatry, and by
Ali's proclamation idolaters were debarred from sharing
in the Pilgrimage. The time was ripe for Muhammad
to lead it solemnly himself, to lay down the complete
ritual to be observed in ages to come, and to take — as
it proved, and as perhaps he expected — solemn leave
of the assembled people, as Moses had done, and Joshua
and Samuel. So when the sacred season again returned,
the month Zu'l Hijj, " first of months," when the Greater
Pilgrimage1 with its fuller rites should be performed,
Muhammad set out, accompanied on this occasion by
all his wives, for the Holy City of Mecca. He started
five days before the month began, having put on the
pilgrim's dress, and brought victims with him — camels
wreathed for the slaughter. A vast multitude followed,

1 Burton says that the term "Greater Pilgrimage" is, in strictness,
confined to cases where the chief day (that of sacrifice) falls on a
Friday.

142 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

and on the tenth day they camped one march from
Mecca. The next morning he entered the city by the
northern gate, and as he rode in he prayed : " O Lord !
increase the dignity and glory, the honour and rever-
ence of Thy House ; and greatly increase the honour
and dignity, piety, goodness, and glory of them who
for Pilgrimage (Greater or Lesser) resort thither ! " All
the great multitude performed the rites of the Lesser
Pilgrimage, but only those who had brought victims
were allowed to share in the further rites of the
Greater: an exception was made for Ali, who had
joined from his successful expedition to Yaman, and to
whom the Prophet gave a share of his own victims.
On the 7th day of the month he preached to the
multitude at the Kaaba ; on the 8th he proceeded to
Mina and prayed ; that night he spent in his tent, and
the next morning passed through Muzdalifa to Mount
Arafat. There he prayed, recited from the Quran
passages on the rites of Pilgrimage, and concluded :
" This day have I l perfected your religion for you, and
fulfilled My mercy upon you, and appointed Islam to
be your religion." Again he spent the night and
prayed in Muzdalifa, and in the morning with many a
loud, " Labbaik ! " he hastened to Mina, and cast the
stones at Aqaba. Thereafter he slew his victims,
shaved his head, and pared his nails ; the pilgrim's
dress was doffed, the flesh of the victims distributed for
feasting ; — and the Great Pilgrimage was at an end.

Three days longer did the Prophet remain at Mina,

and on the second of them he gave a solemn address to

the assembly. He bade them, — " Hearken, for it may

be the last time ! Every Muslim is brother to his

1 Speaking in the name of God.

CLOSING ADMINISTRATION 143

fellow, and life and property sacred as between you, —
sacred as this month, this land, this Pilgrimage ! The
right of inheritance is inalienable ! Treat well your
wives, so they be chaste, — for they are as captives and
prisoners to you ' Your slaves also ye shall use well ! "
He abolished the system of months intercalated, and
restored the reckoning of the year by twelve lunar
months (Q. ix. 37, 38), — a system which has ever since
been the law of Islam.

Then he ended : " Verily, O my people, I have
fulfilled my mission. I have left among you a plain
command, — the Book of God, and manifest ordinances,
the which if ye hold fast ye shall never go astray."
And the people answered, " Yea, verily ! " and he
prayed the Lord to bear witness. Then he returned to
Mecca, performed once more the sevenfold circuit,
and drank of the well Zemzem ; once more he prayed
in the Holy House; and then after three days he
departed to Medina. It need scarcely be said that the
Prophet's Pilgrimage is the model which has ever since
been scrupulously followed.

With the return to Medina began the eleventh year
since the Flight, and Muhammad was now nearly
sixty-three. He had had an arduous life for more
than twenty years, ever since he proclaimed himself
the Apostle of God, and it is no wonder if his iron
frame and constitution were undermined. In April
and May 632 he was busied in issuing despatches,
appointing governors, and arranging the administration
throughout Arabia. The territories of the deceased
Persian governor of Yaman he divided into four prov-
inces. Also there started up to trouble him three
rival pretenders to prophetic power,— Tulaiha in Najd,

144 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Musailima in Yamama, and As wad in the south.
Orders were sent out at once to crush them, but could
not be carried into effect before Muhammad had him-
self passed away. The last warlike expedition which
he planned was a great one against the Roman border,
the special aim of which was to avenge the defeat at
Muta, when Zaid fell ; and the command was given to
Zaid's son, a mere youth, — who was bidden : " Destroy
thy foes utterly: advance speedily and cautiously;
hasten thy march that thy onset may precede tidings
of thee; and tarry not after victory is won." The
camp was formed at Jurf on the 1st Muharram, 27th
May 632, but the army did not start till after the
Prophet was dead. He bound the white banner on its
staff, and gave it to Usaina, saying, " Fight under this
banner in the name of the Lord and for His cause ; so
shalt thou break the unbelievers in pieces ! "

The end was nigh. In the closing days of May,
Muhammad suffered much from fever, headache, and
weakness. With the consent of all his wives, he took
up his abode with Ayesha, his best-beloved, not yet
twenty years old. The details of his last sickness it is
impossible to ascertain, but it lasted — with intervals of
relief — for about ten days. That he felt his life was
wearing to a close is not doubtful. One day from the
Mosque pulpit he told his people : " Verily, the Lord
hath given the choice to one of His servants, whether
to enjoy a long life here, or to go to meet Him ; and he
hath chosen to meet his Lord." No one understood
save Abu Bakr ; but he, with the quick understanding
of deep love, at once replied, " May we and our
children be a sacrifice for thee, O Prophet of God ! "
And again he said to him one day, "Ah, thou that

LAST ILLNESS 145

art dearer to me than father or mother ! alas, grey
hairs are hastening upon thee!" And the Prophet
answered, "The toil of inspiration! the Suras Hud,
and the Striking, and their fellows, have made my hair
white.'' One night he rose softly, dressed, and passed
out to the graveyard, where rested the " martyrs " of
LHmd. For a while he mused; then he blessed and
prayed for them, and thanked God that they had
reached the promised rest. Then as he went home he
told the servant who followed that he himself was soon
to share that rest.

The fever was sore on him, and henceforward — until
the end came — it left him but seldom. Yet he struo-crled

to fulfil his public duties, led the prayers in the
;iie, and made a special effort to subdue the dis-
content of the people at the choice of a commander so
young as Usama. But after this he led his people in
prayer no more again : Abu Bakr was named to take
his place, seeming thus to be marked out as his
successor. Special care, too, he showed to recommend
to kindly usage the men of Medina, who had harboured
and welcomed him in his need-
On the Saturday his sickness greatly increased ; on
the Sunday he seems to have been at times unconscious,
but he asked for ink and paper to record his last direc-
tions,— which for some reason were not brought. Almost
his last act was to bid Ayesha give in alms the little
store of gold he possessed, and his last words to com-
mand that Islam only be allowed in Arabia. On the
Monday he rallied so far as to be able to walk feebly
to the Mosque, while Abu Bakr led the prayer ; but the
effort exhausted him, and he came back to lay his
weary head on Ayesha's loving breast. His strength

146 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

sank rapidly, and with broken words of prayer on his
lips, and calls to God and to Gabriel, amid the fond,
faithful soothing of his young wife, his spirit returned
without a struggle to God who gave it.

Ayesha laid his head softly on the pillow, joined her
fellow-wives, and gave vent to her grief. The news
spread, and reached wise Abu Bakr and fiery Omar, —
who both hastened to the house of death. Omar raised
the cloth from the face, and then vehemently swore
that the Prophet was not dead, " he had but gone like
Moses to meet his Lord, and would return." But Abu
Bakr followed ; and he wept as he gazed on his dead
friend, and blessed him with tender words. Then he
rebuked Omar, and carried conviction to his heart by
quoting the Prophet's own words after the battle of
Uhud, as they stand to this day in the Quran (xxxix.
30, iii. 144) : " Verily, thou too shalt die ! Muhammad
is no more than an Apostle ; verily, the other Apostles
died before him." And he added : " If any man
worshippeth Muhammad, Muhammad indeed is dead;
but whoso worshippeth God, let him know that the
Lord liveth for ever ! "

But public matters claimed their first care. The
leaders of the exile went to the great hall of assembly,
and there, after brief debate, insisting on the Prophet's
oft-repeated word that none could succeed him save a
man of the noble clan of Quraish, Omar, the impetuous,
clinched the matter by striking the hand of fealty in
Abu Bakr's, — and the first Khalifa was elected to rule
the thousands of Islam. Then Abu Bakr took up the
burden and the trust, and bade the people obey so long
as he walked in the Prophet's steps, and slay him if he
departed therefrom.

DEATH AND BURIAL 147

Thereafter they returned to Ayesha's chamber, and,
as Muhammad himself had bidden, they laid him to rest
where he had died ; for that, he had said, was " the
ordinance of God for His Prophets." Simple and
solemn were the rites : they praised him and thanked
God for his mission, and placed him in the grave lying
on the red mantle he had been used to wear. In
the same chamber were afterwards laid in succession
Abu Bakr and Omar;' and thither now resort, in
reverent throngs, Muslims from every land, as to a
place only less holy than the sacred Kaaba itself!

General Review of Muhammad and his System — Personal
Appearance, Habits, and Character — His Teaching — The
Position he claimed for himself — The Quran — The Future :
Paradise and Hell — Religious and Social Laws — Moral
Duties — Islam and Christianity.

IT is nearly thirteen hundred years since the Prophet
of Arabia died, but the religion which he founded still
rules the hearts and lives of nearly one-sixth of the
human race. To outward appearance Islam is one,
though inwardly it is torn into many sects and schools.
The magnetism of its founder's personality has endured
through all generations, and the short symbol of his
faith has lost none of its power. Yet of him we have
no bust, or statue, or portrait, for such things he
abhorred. To bring before us his outward appearance,
as he moved among men, we turn to the description
collected from the Traditions. " The Prophet was of
middle height, spare and strong, with broad shoulders
and wide chest. A massive, highly-developed head was
covered with dark, thick, slightly curled hair, that fell
to his shoulders. The face was ruddy, the long eye-
brows finely arched, divided by a vein which throbbed
visibly in moments of passion. Black, restless eyes
shone out under long, heavy eyelashes ; the nose was
large and aquiline, the teeth well-set and dazzlingly

148

CHARACTER OF MUHAMMAD 149

white, and a full beard framed the face. He had a clear,
smooth skin, bright complexion, and hands soft as a
woman's. His step was quick, elastic, firm, 'as one
who steps down from a high place'; in turning he
turned his whole body ; and his whole gait and pres-
ence were full of dignity. His countenance was mild
and pensive, and he laughed seldom, but his smile was
\vry winning. ' Thou wouldst have said, a sun rising.
I saw him at full moon, and he was brighter and more
beautiful than she.'

" In habits he was very simple, but most careful of
his person, especially his teeth. In eating and drinking,
and in his furniture, he retained his first simplicity ;
arms he valued, and rich clothing he sometimes did not
scorn ; perfumes he loved, and liquor he hated. Of a
highly nervous temperament, he shrank from bodily
pain, and would sob and roar under it. Gifted with
mighty powers of imagination, he had great elevation
of mind, and refined delicacy of feeling. To his
inferiors he was most indulgent, and scarcely ever
rebuked his servant ; to his family he was most affec-
tionate, and he loved all children. He never cursed,
and his strongest expression was, ' What has come to
him ? may his forehead be darkened with mud ! ' He
visited the sick, followed every bier he met, accepted
even a slave's invitation to dinner, mended his own
clothes, waited on himself. Xever was he first to with-
draw his hand from another's, nor to turn away ere the
other had turned. ' His hand was the most generous,
his heart the most courageous, his tongue the most
truthful ; staunchest was he of protectors, and sweetest
in conversation ; and he inspired all men with awe and
reverence.' He was taciturn of habit, yet playful with

150 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

children, but not given to jesting." Such is the picture
drawn by the loving pens of disciples, to whom the
minutest acts were of importance, and whose highest
aim was to follow the Prophet in all things. Palgrave
gives a wise caution when he says that the ideals of
Arab virtue were first conceived, and then attributed
to him. Yet, with every allowance for exaggeration,
the man so painted was of very high and noble type.
The story of his life shows him to have been of daunt-
less courage, great generalship, strong love of country ;
by nature merciful and quick to forgive, there was
neither pity nor ruth in his dealings with the Jews,
when once he had ceased to hope for their submission.
Over and over again he approved assassination, when
it furthered his cause ; however barbarous or treacher-
ous the means, the end justified it in his eyes ; and in
more than one case he not only approved, he instigated
the foul deeds.

That he was sincere in his effort and desire to
reform his countrymen, to raise them from the dark-
ness of their idolatry, to open their eyes to the dread
realities of the after-life, — this we cannot doubt. But
he took the false, fatal step of proclaiming himself the
Apostle of God, specially, continually, exclusively
inspired from on high; to support and justify his
ambitious schemes, his sensual indulgence, his jealousy,
his occasional cruelty and treachery, he feared not to
allege the commands of God; to exalt his personal
authority he used the Holy Name, on the most trivial,
as on the gravest matters ; and at length he practically,
if not expressly, assumed to abrogate all those previous
revelations which in his earlier teaching he acknow-
ledged to be wholly divine. The main outline of his

DEVELOPMENT OF THE DOCTRINE 151

system, with much of its detail, was borrowed from
Judaism, and grafted on to the pagan usages of Mecca,
yet he professed to have got it all by primary revela-
tion. The great downward step was taken when he
fled to Medina, there to set up his secular kingdom, and
when he began the practice of polygamy, after losing
his loving and faithful Khadija.

Before the Flight, Muhammad had only a com-
mission to warn his people, at Medina he became in-
vested with authority to compel submission and to
visit obstinacy with extreme punishment. He was
infallible on all matters of faith and conduct, belief
in " God and Muhammad the Apostle of God " was
absolutely required, "obedience to God and to His
Prophet " essential ; nay, he delayed his answer to the
simplest as to the weightiest questions " till Gabriel
should instruct him " of the will of God in the matter.
The devotion of his followers during his lifetime was
quite boundless, scarcely exceeded by the "worship"
now paid to him, as Lane found it in Egypt seventy
years ago (M. E. p. 259). What the effect and tend-
ency of his personal example would be on followers
who believed that example perfect, any reader of his
life may judge.

Muhammad throughout his life always disclaimed
the power of working miracles, but his followers have
ascribed to him miracles as striking and as varied as
those of God's earlier messengers to men. His only
" mighty work " was, he said, the Quran, sent down to
him from heaven, perfect beyond human power to rival,
an all-sufficient proof and seal of his Apostleship. He
claimed also pre-eminence over all other Prophets,
in that — as he declared — their messages were to par-

152 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

ticular peoples or races, but his was " a mercy to all
mankind."

The foundation of faith and practice for Muslims are
the Quran, the traditions of what the Prophet com-
manded or did apart from the Quran, the consensus of
the doctors of Islam, and analogy or deduction from
recognised principles in the former sources. The
Quran is the highest authority, the very " Word of
God," which the Prophet himself declared to be the
all-sufficient guide for his followers. It was not
collected till some years after his death, by Zaid, his
secretary, under the orders of Abu Bakr, at the
suggestion of Omar, and that collection was revised
(but with little or no change) under the third Khalifa,
Uthman, and became the authorised version, original
copies of which are extant to this day. The sub-
stance of the chapters, and their arrangement, rest on
Muhammad's own directions. By far the greater part
had been set down in writing during his lifetime,
much even in the early period of his preaching at
Mecca ; but the records were dispersed, and gathered
together again, as the old report has it, " from date-
leaves, and tablets of white stone, and from the hearts
of men." The most scrupulous care was exercised, and
the universal assent with which the result was accepted
is a sufficient guarantee of its faithfulness. But the one
hundred and fourteen chapters into which it is divided
are arranged entirely without any reference to time of
revelation or to subject-matter, but the longest chapters
are put first in order. Each chapter begins thus : — " In
the name of God, Merciful and Gracious"; a traditional
heading states whether the Sura (chapter, "course of
masonry") was revealed at Mecca or Medina, and in

THE QURAN 153

modern editions each Chapter is divided into verses
( fiyat, " signs "), the number of which is stated in the
heading. To twenty-nine of the chapters are prefixed
certain letters, in themselves meaningless, as to the sig-
nificance of which the learned are at a loss. Muslim
doctors give them deep mystic meaning, but Xoldeke's
ingenious guess, that they indicate in some way the
sources from which Zaid collected them, is probably
not far from the truth. The same scholar has also
given us the best arrangement that is now possible of
the Quran in its chronological order. The whole book
is no longer than two-thirds of the New Testament,
and apart from the long stories of the patriarchs and
former prophets not much longer than the Four Gospels;
yet it is inexpressibly tedious to read through, and —
making every allowance for what is lost in translation
— it is, with some exceptions, immeasurably below the
level of (e.g.) the Psalms or the Book of Isaiah.

The earlier preaching abounds in splendid ascriptions
of praise and glory to God, extolling His boundless,
unutterable majesty and perfections. The people are
warned of the awful consequences that follow after
death on the deeds done in the body ; the terrors of
the Judgment-day, when all flesh shall be raised again
to stand their trial before God Almighty, are painted
with awful vividness; and the eternal rest and joy
laid up in store for believers, with the endless woes
reserved for those who reject the Prophet's message,
are set forth in bright and alluring, or in dark and
terrifying hues. But the one satisfying condition for
heaven is acceptance of the Prophet's message, and the
one damning, unpardonable sin, that hurls the soul to
eternal torment, is the rejection of it. The only sin

154 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

that God will not forgive is "idolatry," admitting
"partners" to His glory; and as the doctrine is de-
veloped it passes specially into reprobation of the
whole Christian dogma. The delights of Muhammad's
Paradise are just such sensual joys as appealed most
strongly to the Arab mind, — peace and rest under
shady trees, with ever-flowing crystal streams, abund-
ance of all manner of dainty food and costly dress,
wine that should cheer the heart but not cloud the
brain, and, above all, dark-eyed virgin brides (Huris),
" of a rare creation." Faithful women too were to
have their reward in Paradise, but (as Gibbon sneers)
their happiness is left to be imagined. The pains of
hell are similarly described as terrible heat, excruciat-
ing thirst, food and drink of foul and detestable things,
— those miseries which Arabs most dreaded, " that they
may dwell therein for aye," " an evil journey is it" to
" an evil abode."

Very briefly now I shall sketch the outline of the
system of Islam, in its religious, social, and political
working. The five pillars of the Faith are the Creed,
Prayers, Fasting, Almsgiving, and the Pilgrimage.
The foundation-stone (to vary the metaphor) is to
acknowledge, "There is no god but God, and
Muhammad is the Prophet of God." This is the key
to heaven, dying with this on his lips the Muslim
warrior gains the glory of martyrdom, it is the refrain
of all prayer and religious service, and with this the
captive may rescue himself from slavery. And when
the Creed has been accepted, the other duties follow.
First are the five daily prayers at absolutely fixed
times, the first ere the sun rises, and the last shortly
before midnight. The forms of prayer and the postures

RELIGIOUS DUTIES 155

are prescribed, and they consist of a limited liturgy
from the Quran, to be repeated in the Arabic tongue,
with frequent ejaculation of " God is great ! " the
Creed, the opening chapter of the Quran, and other
pious formula?. Prayer must be made looking towards
Mecca, and must be preceded by washing, for which in
the Traditions the most minute rules are laid down,
any breach of which renders the prayer of no effect.
Public prayer is made on Friday in the Mosque, and
the call from a lofty slender minaret is one of the most
attractive formalities of Islam. The crier (Muazzin)
chants the call with loud, well-modulated voice, and the
faithful who hear it make glad response, and gather to
their solemn service. Thus it runs : " God is great !
God is great ! I witness that there is no god but God
(twice)! I witness that Muhammad is the apostle of God
(twice) ! Come to prayer ! Come to prayer ! Come to
salvation ! Come to salvation ! " (at first prayer only).
" Prayer is better than sleep (twice) ! God is great ! God
is great ! There is no god but God 1 " Prayer is led by
an Imam, who faces towards Mecca, and the congrega-
tion follow him exactly. Only men gather in the
Mosque, and Lane (M.E. chap. III.) testifies that in
Egypt " women seldom, pray, even at home." Except
for public prayer, Friday is not distinguished from
the other days of the week. At the midday service a
sermon is also delivered, a homily, of which the chief
part is rigidly prescribed, wholly in Arabic, formal and
sterile, a large part (obligatory) being taken up with
repeated blessings on the Prophet, his family, and the
first four Khalifas. Prayers for the dead are also
highly meritorious, and of particular efficacy is it to
recite or have recited on their behalf the whole of the

156 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Quran (a Zikr). The whole earth, said Muhammad, is
a place of prayer ; but prayers in special places — above
all, in his Mosque at Medina — had an immensely higher
value than elsewhere ; and if any prescribed prayer be
omitted, the same prayer must be said when it is re-
membered.

Next in order comes Fasting. This is commended
at all seasons, but commanded only in the month of
Ramadhan. The fast is during the hours of day, from
sunrise to sunset, and is very rigorous; and as the
lunar year makes the month pass through all the
seasons, it presses in hot climates with great severity
on the poor, and it is they who observe it most strictly.
At the end of the fast comes the great Feast-day (Fitr,
"breaking," in Egypt Bairdm), which is celebrated
with the utmost rejoicing. The other great festival of
Islam is that of Azha, when victims are sacrificed,
borrowed and altered from the Jewish Great Day of
Atonement. It is on this day that the sacrifice is made
in the Greater Pilgrimage.

Almsgiving is highly commended. On the Feast-
day after Ramadhan it is obligatory, but alms are on
that day to be bestowed on the "faithful" only.
Abdul Aziz said, " Prayer carries us half-way to God,
fasting brings us to the door of His palace, and alms
procures us admission."

Pilgrimage to Mecca is a duty incumbent on every
free Muslim of sufficient means and bodily strength
once in his lifetime. The merit of it cannot be ob-
tained by deputy, but it is praiseworthy to send
another on pilgrimage if prevented from going oneself.1
The ceremonies are strictly those performed by tlic
1 For full details, see Burtoii's Pilgrimage.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL 157

Prophet. In modern times, especially in Persia, India,
and Afghanistan, pilgrimages are made to the tombs
of Saints, though such practices were absolutely for-
bidden by the Prophet.

In family and social relations Muhammad commanded
reverence and obedience to parents, and kindness to
wives and slaves. The salutation of "Peace," taken
from the Jews, is to be given to a fellow-Muslim only.
Slander and backbiting are strongly denounced, and
even false evidence is allowed to hide a Muslim's fault.
Wine, usury, games of chance, are absolutely forbidden,
— and not less the making of images or pictures, for
" God will at the Resurrection call on their maker to
put life in them, and when he cannot, will cast him
into hell." Wives may be taken to the number of four
at a time, and may be divorced absolutely at the
husband's pleasure, and slave-mistresses are not limited
in number. The consequences of this licence need not
be dwelt on, — Lane, Burton, Palgrave, and others bear
ample witness to it. The seclusion of women is com-
manded, the husband is expressly allowed to chastise
and confine them ; in many cases their evidence is not
admitted, and when it is two women's evidence is only
worth that of one man ! So long as half the millions
of Islam are thus degraded, social progress is impossible,
yet the degradation rests on the express commands of
the Quran.

In matters political Islam is a system of despotism
at home and of aggression abroad. The Prophet com-
manded absolute submission to the Imam. In no case
was the sword to be raised against him. The rio-hts

of non-Muslim subjects are of the vaguest and most
limited kind, — and a religious war (Jihad) is a sacred

i$8 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

duty whenever there is a chance of success. Hopeless
warfare is not enjoined, and it is to this we owe the
absence of revolt in India. To the general precept
has been due the disastrous wars in the Soudan, the
massacres in Crete, in Bulgaria, in Armenia, and the
frequent troubles in the north-west border of India.
Slavery too is partly a social, and partly a political
institution. It has the express sanction of the Prophet,
though kindness to slaves is enjoined, and it is praise-
worthy to set them free. How the system works in
real life let the slave trade of Africa and the savage
raids of Turkestan declare !

There is another most important sphere of human
life in which the stagnant and fanatical spirit of Islam
has wrought incalculable woe, as has in these last days
in India been brought into awful prominence. The
wise measures of Government to prevent the spread
of the dread scourge of plague, especially in crowded
cities like Lucknow and Bombay, have been hindered,
resisted even to murder of officials, and to a large
extent paralysed; — and the reason is, the inviolable
seclusion of Muslim women, imposed as a religious
duty by Muhammad. We have seen, in former chapters,
how jealousy and selfishness lay at the root of this part
of the law, to which are sacrificed the lives of thousands,
and the happiness of millions throughout the world !

A few words must be said in the end of this chapter
as to the relations of Christianity and Islam. Muham-
mad's knowledge of Christianity was vague. He
imagined that Christians worshipped Christ and the
Virgin together with God the Father. Admitting the
Incarnation, he denied the Divinity of Our Lord, His
Sonship, and the Atonement of His death on the

159

Cross ; indeed, he denied that Jesus had been put to
death by the Jews, adopting the heresy that He had
been snatched away from their hands and carried up
to heaven without dying, and is to come again to
restore Islam before the consummation of all things.
Muhammad also taught that his own message super-
seded that of Christ, as a more perfect and a final
revelation of the will of God. " By their fruits ye
shall know them " : Christianity teaches the Father-
hood of God and the brotherhood of all mankind, it has
taught mercy and compassion and forbearance for all,
and love to all men ; it has raised woman to her proper
place as the equal of man; and it has established
absolute toleration wherever it prevails. Islam is a
restricted brotherhood, intolerant of ah1 outside it,
degrading and enslaving women. The nations of
Christendom, in so far as they follow their Master,
constantly advance and extend the cause of mercy,
righteousness, peace, and civilisation; but Islam, the
more closely it follows the Prophet, the more it stag-
nates and oppresses, as in Turkey, Morocco, and Persia.
Tried by the test of comparison, Islam is a retrogression,
not an advance : and the self-styled Prophet, whether
himself sincere or not, is condemned by his " fruits " as
an impostor : nor will the Christian fail to see that by
St. John's test he is the Antichrist, " which denieth
the Father and the Son ! "

Sketch of the Early Conquests of Islam — Abu Bakr first Khalifa
— Arabia revolts — False Prophets arise — Rebellion crushed
— Siege of Medina — Reduction of Yaman, Hadramaut, etc. —
Operations of Khalid — Musailima "the Liar" defeated and
slain at Yamania — First Collection of the Quran by Zaid —
First Foreign Conquests — Persia — Hira — Reverses — Death of
Abu Bakr — Succession of Omar — Khalid deposed — Great
defeat of the Arabs by Bahman — Victory of Muthanna —
Conquest of Persia — Qadisiya — Siege and Capture of Madain
— Jalaula — Founding of Kiifa and Basra — Conquest of Syria :
Damascus, Jerusalem — Conquest of Egypt by Aniru — Re-
opening of Canal to Red Sea — Domestic Administration —
"Year of Ashes" — Code and Pension-List — Hijra Era —
Degradation of Morals — Assassination of Omar : his Char-
acter.

IT is necessary, in order to see how Muhammad's power
continued, and his spirit lived and worked in his first
followers, to trace very briefly the course of events
under his earliest successors, — Abu Bakr, Omar,
Uthman, and Ali. Of these only the first had a
peaceful end : the others fell, each in his turn, by the
assassin's dagger, a fate that in later ages has overtaken
scores of their successors in all Muslim lands from
Yarkand and Kabul to Constantinople and Morocco.
There is a further reason for this in the fact that the
Quran, which at Muhammad's death was left scattered
like the Sibyl's oracles, was collected and stamped

160

STRIFE IN MEDINA 161

with finality under the earlier Khalifas, and that the
great Schism, which has ever since divided Islam into
two hostile camps, hating one another as bitterly as
both hate Christians, was founded under the fourth.
The task of making a brief outline of the history is
lightened by the fact that original authorities are few
and meagre, and have been thoroughly examined and
used by Weil and Muir in their histories of the period.
31 y own sketch is nothing more than a summary. I
should also caution the reader that, in order to avoid
breaking up the thread of the story, the arrangement
is not always strictly chronological. One domain of
conquest is rounded off before another is taken up.

As has been already told, as soon as Muhammad was
dead, and before he was buried, the chiefs of the
Muslim refugees, with Abu Bakr and Omar at their
head, saw that it was necessary to take immediate
steps to elect as successor a chief whom all parties
would obey. There had always been smouldering
jealousy between the men of Medina and those of
Mecca, The former had never quite got rid of the
feeling that the latter were strangers and interlopers ;
on many occasions Muhammad had shown to his own
townsmen marked favour, the harsh and cruel treat-
ment of the Jews had left rankling memories behind,
and there was a large body still left of those he had
called " Hypocrites," — half-hearted converts, though
these had greatly lost in power since the death of
Abdallah ibn Ubai. So, on a hint from some of their
friends that mischief was afoot, Abu Bakr and Omar
hurried at the head of their followers to the great hall
of Medina, where already a meeting of citizens was
gathered. The case was critical : if a chief were
ii

1 62 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

elected, outside the circle of Muhammad's immediate
friends, it would mean strife and disunion, and per-
haps the ruin of Islam. But the citizens seemed
resolved to choose one of themselves, when Abu Bakr
and Omar appeared, and loudly declared that, honour-
able and famous though the men of Medina were,
Arabia would accept as head and leader none save a
member of the tribe of Quraish. — " Then let there be
one chief for us, and one for you." " Nay," was the
statesmanly answer, " there can be but one head." And
the choice was set between Abu Bakr and Omar, when
the latter solved the doubt. " Stretch forth thy hand,"
he said, and struck his own upon it in pledge of fealty.
The rest at once followed his example, citizens as well
as Refugees, and Abu Bakr was elected first Khalifa,
or successor to the Prophet.1

Abu Bakr was beyond doubt the worthiest and fittest
to succeed his beloved Master. The light of prophecy
had ceased with Muhammad, the new religion was
firmly planted, and the sage, calm, clear spirit of Abu
Bakr was well qualified to deal with the problem of
confirming and extending the infant state. He was a
year or two younger than Muhammad, somewhat short
and spare; his thin face, with high, clear forehead,
sharp, aquiline nose, and deep-set eyes, showed him to
be of the noblest Arab type. His temper was firm but
mild, his faith in his Master absolute and unquestion-
ing ; from earliest days he had shared his dangers and
his counsels, and had spent an ample fortune in his
cause. He had been clearly marked out by Muhammad
as his successor, when he was named to lead the Mosque

1 The title, Commander of the Faithful, familiar in the An'

i, was taken by Omar.

ELECTION OF ABU BAKR 163

services, and he took up the burden of rule resolutely.
In his first address to the people, he said, " O people, I
am now your Chief, though not the most worthy. If
I do well, follow me ; if ill, set me right. Follow after
truth, and cast away falsehood. Even-handed justice
will I mete out to you to the uttermost. Fight stead-
fastly in the cause of the Lord. Obey me as I obey
the Lord and His Prophet ; else, obey me not."

In this spirit he acted throughout: his one end
was to carry out to the letter every purpose of his
Master.

Equally severe to himself and to others in all cases
of strict justice, he refused to Fatima the inheritance
of some lands which she claimed, but of which she
could not prove an absolute destination to her by her
father. There is no ground for believing that Ali at
this time pretended to the succession, but there is no
doubt that he did not cordially support Abu Bakr, and
Fatima's disappointment would intensify his discontent.
She, however, survived but a few months, and it is not
till after the murder of Omar that Ali showed any
open opposition to the Chief of Islam.

When Muhammad was seized by his last illness he
had just organised an expedition for war on the Syrian
frontier, specially to avenge the reverse at Muta and
the death of his faithful Zaid The command had
been given to Zaid's son Usama, a young and untried
man, and the army lay encamped at Jurf, close to
Medina, till after the Prophet's death. Abu Bakr was
urged, but unsuccessfully, either to delay the expedi-
tion, in view of the threatening aspect of affairs nearer
home, or to entrust the command to some better known
leader. But Usama went, fulfilled his mission with

1 64 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

brilliant success, and returned after about two months
to Medina.

Abu Bakr had chosen the bold course, and success
justified him. On all sides the tribes were rising in
revolt when he sent away from Medina his only organ-
ised army. The desert tribes resisted the tax-gatherers
whom Muhammad had sent out, the whole of Central
Arabia was in open rebellion, and there had sprung up
three rival pretenders to the prophetic office — the
"Veiled Prophet" in Yaman, whose career was cut
short by assassination, Musailima in Yamama, and
Tulaiha in the north-east. The Khalifa faced all
his foes without quailing. He refused to negotiate,
strengthened Medina as best he could, gallantly repelled
an assault on it, and routed the attacking force. This
turned the tide in his favour, the chiefs who had
hesitated brought in their tithes and made submission,
and Islam was saved !

Arabia had now to be reconquered for the Faith.
Usama was left in Medina, and Abu Bakr had to carry
out his Master's dying charge, "Throughout Arabia
there shall be no second creed." He himself first
chastised the rebel tribes in battle at Rabaza, con-
fiscated their lands for ever, and then finally returned
to Medina, from which he henceforth directed, without
sharing them, the operations of war and conquest.
The chief " Companions " of the Prophet remained in
Medina with the Khalifa, to share his counsels, and new
men, of whom the chief was Khalid, son of Walld, led
the armies. He was now sent against Tulaiha, being
a brave and skilful leader, who did incalculable service
to Islam, as formerly he had been its most dreaded foe.
His valour and success earned him the name of the

RECONQUEST OF ARABIA 165

Sivord of God, but his fame is marred by a savage
nature and by cruelty which more than once called
down the censure of Muhammad and Abu Bakr, and at
length ruined him when Omar became Khalifa. As
Khfilid advanced, the tribes were overawed and joined
his force, which without much difficulty routed Tulaiha ;
whereupon the revolted tribes gave in their submission.
Abu Bakr followed Muhammad in politic clemency,
and pardoned them freely, though he made a few
terrible examples.

Khalid had now a harder task before him. He first
scattered, not without cruelty and bloodshed, the forces
of Malik, and then passed on his way against Musai-
lima. This man had been in rivalry and collision with
Muhammad himself, with whom he claimed to divide
the Peninsula, as being a Prophet of Allah equally
with him. The claim was scornfully rejected, and
the claimant dubbed "The Liar." He was a man of
considerable ability, and was enthusiastically supported
by the great Hanlfa tribe and their allies. Attacked
by the Prophetess Sajah from Mesopotamia, he dis-
armed her by making her his wife, and then bribed her
to go home again to her own land ! He had defeated
one Muslim army, and now went to meet Khalid. The
foes met at Aqraba, or Yaniama ; a fierce and terrible
battle followed, in which there fell no less than 700
Muslims, among them many of the chief " Companions,"
and a somewhat less number of the enemy; Musai-
lima was slain by the same hand that at Uhud had
laid Haniza low ; and victory remained with Khalid.

It was after this great slaughter that Omar strongly
urged the Khalifa to have the Quran collected and
written down, lest any of the Oracles of God should be

i66 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

lost. The task was committed to Zaid, Muhammad's
secretary, and the first recension made, and committed
to the charge of Hafsa, daughter of Omar and widow
of Muhammad. This continued to be the authorised
standard till the days of Uthman. It was then found
that discrepancies had arisen, mainly of pronunciation,
and not affecting the substance. A new commission
was appointed, consisting of Zaid and three of the
most learned Quraish ; their revision was pronounced
authoritative ; all other copies were called in and
burnt ; four transcripts were made, and placed in four
of the chief cities of Islam ; and the text of the Quran
then settled has remained unchanged and unquestioned
to the present day. Its correctness is sufficiently
vouched by the fact that no rival interest, whether of
Ali or any other, cast doubt upon it, in spite of ample
opportunity. This recension of the Quran, though not
perfected in his own reign, and the complete sub-
jugation of Arabia to Islam, were the great achieve-
ments of Abu Bakr. Yaman, Hadramaut, and the
provinces that border on the Persian Gulf yielded
to the arms of Ikrima and Khalid, and then the armies
of Islam prepared for conquest beyond their own land,
and the Bedouin hordes flocked to its banner, athirst
for plunder and slaughter.

Accordingly, the beginning of foreign conquest also
falls into Abu Bakr's reign. The first attack was
made upon Persia. Khalid and Muthanna advanced to
the Euphrates, and summoned Hurmuz the Persian
governor to embrace Islam, to submit and pay tribute,
or to stand the attack of a people that " loved death as
he loved life." A battle followed, known to Muslim
history as the " Battle of the Chains," from a story

FOREIGN CONQUEST 167

that part of the Persian army was chained together;
Hurmuz himself was slain in single fight by Khalid ;
victory fell to the Arabs, and great and valuable booty
rewarded their valour, and stimulated their passions.
Victory upon victory followed, though each field was
stubbornly contested ; at Allis, south of the Euphrates,
Khalid celebrated his success by an awful massacre;
Hlra accepted tribute and submission, but remained
Christian ; and a regular Arab protectorate was estab-
lished. Thus once more the power of Persia was
broken, though the end was for a few years delayed ;
once more her brave but unwieldy hosts failed before
her fierce foes, as a thousand years earlier they had
failed in the shock of battle at the Grauicus and
Arbela.

Khalid had next to help to victory his less for-
tunate namesake in Central Arabia, and then the com-
bined armies swept up the Mediterranean coast, and
crowned their triumphs with the capture of Hims and
Damascus. The latter did not fall without a desperate
resistance, and a great battle was fought almost under
its walls : the brave garrison was at last forced to
yield ; multitudes of citizens, who had escaped before
the city fell, were pursued and ruthlessly massacred by
Khalid.1

Meanwhile Muthanna, left to govern Hlra with a
small army, had been hard pressed, and was compelled
to seek reinforcements. Abu Bakr prepared to send
them, but before they could start the Khalifa was
dead, and by his appointment Omar reigned in his
stead. Abu Bakr died as he had lived, in simple un-
questioning faith and devotion to his beloved
1 See the awful story as told by Gibbon, chap, li,

168 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

he had well and worthily ruled the infant state of
Islam, and did it the highest service when he cast the
reins of command into the strong hands of Omar.
Simple and austere in his life, the rich spoils of Syria
and Persia had fallen unvalued into his hands ; wisely
generous for all public wants, he spent only what was
strictly necessary on himself, and died poor, though he
had spent an ample fortune for the good of the new
Faith. He died on 24th August 634, after a reign of
little over two years, and had led the Pilgrimage to
Mecca in the spring, following therein exactly the
routine which Muhammad had laid down. His last
illness was the effect of a chill caught while bathing,
and it rapidly took a fatal turn. When he died, he
was laid out and buried as simply as the Prophet
himself, beside the Master he had loved so well, in the
chamber of Ayesha. There, too, the last of the three,
was Omar laid when his time came ; and it is told of
Ayesha that she went thither unveiled so long as only
her husband and her father lay there, but that she
covered her face when Omar, too, was her silent guest.

Omar's first care was to reinforce Muthanna in Iraq,
but at the same time he deposed Khalid from the chief
command. Muhammad himself and Abu Bakr had
both been alive to the savage and lustful nature of that
great warrior ; several times they had severely rebuked
him, but shrank from punishing him ; and it was left
for the stern justice of Omar to remove him from the
command which his skill and valour had adorned, but
which his callous cruelty had so often stained.

After fealty had been sworn to Omar, a large force
was sent off under Abu Ubaid to help Muthanna, and
that able general hurried back in advance of them to

ABU UBAID DEFEATED 169

his government of Iraq. Before the auxiliary army
could reach him, he had won a brilliant victory. Abu
Ubaid's force met with disaster: a great army was
mbled by the new king of Persia, Rust am, under
the command of Bahman. Many war elephants marched
with the great host, their huge bulk carrying terror to
the Arab soldiery as, long before, those of Pyrrhus had
to the legionaries of Rome ; and the great jewelled
banner of the Persian Empire was unfurled in sign of
the importance of the struggle. Abu Ubaid, fresh
from his two brilliant victories, prudently withdrew his
comparatively small force of 10,000 men to the right
bank of the Euphrates; but he could not resist a
challenge to cross and give battle on the farther side,
where the nature of the ground hampered his move-
ments. A grave disaster followed. Abu Ubaid himself
trampled to death by a mighty elephant he had
attacked, the leaders he had named to take his place
fell one after another, and the whole force was in
danger of annihilation through the breaking down of
the bridge of boats. With great difficulty Muthanna,
who had taken command, restored the bridge, and,
though himself severely wounded, drew off the remnant
to the farther side. Four thousand Muslims had
perished in battle, by drowning, or in flight; two
thousand fled to their homes in Arabia, and the re-
mainder were allowed to withdraw unmolested to Allis,
where Muthanna entrenched himself, as troubles in
Madain, the capital of Persia, compelled Bahman to
return there.

Omar received the news of defeat calmly, and com-
forted the fugitives. Reverse only steeled his purpose,
and nerved him to greater effort. The victory at

170 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Yarmiik had settled the fate of Syria, and every avail-
able man was sent to Muthanna's aid. The reinforce-
ments were no sooner come than that great captain,
warned that a strong Persian army was again advancing
to attack him, again marched to the Euphrates to give
battle at Buwaib, not far from where Kufa was soon to
be built. He allowed Mahran, the Persian general, to
lead his whole army across. Both sides then pre-
pared for battle, and Muthanna heartened his men
with stirring words, and made ready to attack. The
Persians delivered the first blow, and their fierce onset
for a space threw the Muslims into confusion. But the
Arab army rallied desperately, and hurled back their
assailants. The battle raged fiercely; the Persians
were driven back upon the river, and their retreat
being cut off, fought with the courage of despair;
Mahran fell, and at last victory crowned the Arab
arms. It was costly but complete, and the booty won
was enormous. Christian tribes contributed greatly to
the Arab success, and won respect for their religion.
But the jealousy of Jarir, to which Omar paid too
much respect, robbed Muthanna of the prize he had so
nobly earned ; he was superseded in Iraq, which he had
conquered for Islam, and died not long after of the
effects of his wounds. He was succeeded by Saad, son
of Malik, a relative of the Prophet (he was a nephew of
Khadlja) renowned as he who "shed the first blood
in Islam." Rapidly advancing, Saad was met by
Muthanna's brother, who brought tidings of his death
and his last counsel, to await the Persian attack on the
west side of the river, with a safe retreat in case of
defeat to the friendly desert. This advice he followed,
and awaited the reinforcements which were hurrying

BATTLE OF OADlSIYA 171

to his help from all quarters of Arabia and from
Syria.

Rustam came on with a mighty host, under strict
orders from the new King of Persia, Yazdagird, to
engage the Arabs without delay. The situation bristled
with difficulties. The Persian subjects in the invaded
territory threatened to join the enemy if they were not
protected ; on the other hand, the Persian general had
hopes that delay might break up the Arab forces, for
want of supplies. He was, however, compelled to go
forward. By Omar's command envoys were sent to
summon the Persian monarch to choose among the
alternatives — " Islam, tribute, or the sword " ; but they
were sent back with scornful words, and the great
army went to the decisive battle of Qadisiya. At the
head of 120,000 men, with horse and elephants, he
crossed over to engage the enemy, who numbered not
much more than one-fourth of his host. Saad himself
was prevented by illness from mounting a horse, and
this was a discouragement to his men ; but his dis-
positions for the battle were most able, he fired the
Arabs with the Prophet's clarion- words on the triumph
at Baclr, and the signal for attack was the Muslim
battle-cry, " Great is the Lord ! "

The battle raged for four successive days, and the
issue of the first was disheartening to the Muslims.
On the second, prodigies of valour were performed, and
the balance of advantage was slowly won ; the third
was marked by the discomfiture of the elephants, which
by brilliant and daring attacks were forced back on
the Persian hosts, carrying with them confusion and
dismay ; but on the fourth day Rustam himself was
slain, desperate attacks broke the whole Persian line of

172 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

battle, and defeat was soon turned into a rout. The
Muslim loss was counted by thousands, but that of the
enemy exceeded it fourfold. The spoil of every kind
taken was enormous, and the blow to the military
power of Persia was fatal. Rapid messengers carried
the great news by relays to Medina, and the heart of
Omar was made glad with the tidings of victory.

In the following year Saad advanced steadily on
the capital, Madam, past the world-famous ruins of
Babylon, across the plain of Dura, where long before
the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar was set up. The
tribes, as he advanced, went over to his side, and many
months were spent ere he reached the great capital.
The siege was long and stubborn, for the swift Tigris
formed a natural ditch ; but all obstacles were at last
surmounted by the dauntless Arabs, and the capital of
Persia fell. The spoil was rich beyond reckoning or
belief, and the royal gift sent to Medina filled the
public treasury to overflowing, and made the " Com-
panions" and citizens generally rich. The king of
Persia fled with the remnant of his power to the
mountainous country in the west, and the ritual of
Islam was established in the stately halls of his palace.
The conquest of Eastern Persia was completed some
years later, after another terrible battle at Nahawand,
when Persia made her final effort to hurl back the
Arab invasion. Yazdagird sought refuge in obscurity,
and the royal line of Persia flickered out.

The victory of Qadlsiya was followed by another at
Jalaula, and then the conquered provinces were settled
by the wise policy of Omar, the native cultivators being
retained on the land, and the great cities of Kui'a and
Basra (Bussorah) founded for the Arab conquerors, who

KUFA AND BASRA 173

settled there in large numbers. Kufa was founded
near Hlra, the ancient capital of the old Christian
principality, and became, in place of Madain, the seat of
government for Persia: Basra, at the head of the
Persian Gulf, became ere long a great seat of commerce.
Not very willingly did Omar give leave for the build-
ing of cities for the conquering Arabs ; he commanded
that all dwellings should be simple, and he compelled
Saad himself to pull down the gateway he had
built before his palace. Both the new cities were
amply dowered from the tribute of the country around :
they grew rapidly in wealth and importance, and their
rivalries and factions were fatal to the best interests of
Islam.

While Saad had been warring in the east, Abu
Ubaid and Khalid had reduced Syria and Palestine;
after that, Amru conquered the rich land of Egypt,
which became for Arabia — what it had been for the
Roman Empire — the great granary ; and last of all the
conquest of Persia was completed. Thus when Omar
died there had been added to the domain of Islam
Egypt and Syria, Palestine and the whole land of
Persia ; nor was the Muslim power in that vast tract of
country again seriously disturbed till the time of the
Crusades, when, at intervals, for the space of two
centuries, the warriors of Christendom strove, but in
vain, to wrest from infidel hands the cradle of our
faith.

After Damascus had fallen, the Arab forces, ably led
by Abu Ubaid and Khalid, gradually defeated and
wore down in many hard-fought fields the armies of
Heraclius. One stronghold after another yielded to
siege and assault, and at length the Emperor himself

1/4 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

in despair withdrew across the Bosphorus, abandoning
the fair Asiatic provinces of his empire, after well-nigh
seven centuries of Roman rule. From the coast-lands
of Syria Amru turned his arms against the Roman
general, Artabun, won a great and bloody victory at
Ajnadain, and laid siege to Jerusalem, a city scarcely
less holy in Muslim than in Christian or Jewish eyes.
The Patriarch was forced to treat, but stipulated to
deliver up the city only to the Khalifa in person. On
receiving the message, Omar at once set out, travelled
with the utmost speed and simplicity, " mounted on a
red camel," which carried his provision of dates and
water, sharply rebuked the luxury and state of the
commander who came to meet him, and received with
noble clemency the surrender of the Holy City. He
showed much delicacy and consideration, both for
Patriarch and people, laid the foundation of the mosque
which to this day bears his name, and returned with as
little state as he came.

In the following year (638 A.D.) a last great effort
was made to shake off the Arab yoke in Northern
Syria, but it ended only in the more complete subjuga-
tion of the country. But the close of the conquest
brought also the downfall of Khalid, who had had the
chief share in it. Accused of luxury and malversation,
he was summoned by Omar to Medina, and there he
was degraded, stripped of his wealth, and left to die
some years after in penury and neglect. There seems
justice in his bitter complaint that the Khalifa had
used him till he needed him no more, and then punished
him, in reality for offences long since condoned ; but it
may be that fuller knowledge would quite clear Omar
of the stain of ingratitude.

CONQUEST OF EGYPT 175

The third and last great field of conquest in Omar's
reign was Egypt. Lying contiguous on its north-
eastern borders with the peninsula of Sinai, to which
the Prophet himself had led an expedition ; famous in
Arab history and sacred legend ; renowned through all
time for riches, learning, and fertility, — it offered
temptation irresistible to the ambition of Amru, the
great general who had in a few years subdued
Palestine and Syria. Xot without difficulty he got
from his cautious and unaggressive master leave to
attempt the conquest. Church feuds, only more bitter
as they less concerned the essentials of religion, had
made the people ill-disposed to their Byzantine rulers,
while ruthless taxation drove them to despair. The
occasion was favourable to the invaders, especially as
they had so often overcome the best armies of the
Empire. Amru therefore advanced from Palestine by
the easternmost branch of the Nile, in the end of 640
A.D. After several minor victories, in one of which fell
Artabun, his old opponent in Syria, he captured
Memphis, or Misr, and gave terms to the city and its
governor Maqauqas, who in years gone by had sent to
Muhammad Mary the Copt and her sister. He then
moved down to Alexandria, and without much difficulty
reduced that important city and seaport also; then,
returning by Omar's command to Upper Egypt, he
founded the camp-city of Fustat. which soon extended
and grew into imperial Cairo, the chief glory of which
is to this day Amru's splendid mosque. The conqueror
followed his master's wise policy, confirmed the native
cultivators on the land, and reopened the old navigable
canal that connected the Xile with the Red Sea, whereby
former work of ancient Pharaohs was made to serve

1 76 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the needs of Arabia. Again the cautious moderation
of the Khalifa checked the ambition of his lieutenants,
and for long Alexandria was used only for defence, and
not for attack on the Roman Empire. Once established
in Egypt, however, Islam had taken the first step in
that great westerly advance which was not checked
before the great victory of Tours, a hundred years
later, and its dominion still lasts over the whole north
littoral of Africa, where once were some of the most
famous homes of Christianity.

The rule of Omar was not less successful at home
than abroad. As already noticed, the first collection of
the Quran, begun under Abu Bakr, was completed in
his time, and the manuscript committed to the custody
of his daughter Hafsa. Following out what he be-
lieved to be the Prophet's wish, if not his direct
command, he drove from their homes in Arabia, but
not without fitting compensation, all Jewish and
Christian tribes who would not embrace Islam.
Beyond Arabia, however, his dealings with both these
religions were marked by so much mercy and fairness,
that we can have little doubt that his action within
Arabia was dictated by motives of sound policy.
Arabia was to be the stronghold and recruiting-ground
for the armies of Islam, tribal jealousies were hard
enough to deal with, and he felt that it was indispens-
able that the bond of religion should be unbroken.
Muslim tradition attributes to his "Code" a whole
system of severe and degrading tyranny, with just as
little ground as Roman orators referred later legal
doctrines to the Laws of Numa.

In pursuance of his plan to keep the Arabs a race
apart, a warrior people, they were all carefully nuin-

OMAR'S REFORMS 177

bered, registered, and classed. Priority iu the faith,
martial descent, and spiritual eminence alone gave rank
in the brotherhood of Islam, and the various pensions
(which were hereditary) were allowed from the vast
spoils of their rich conquests, — ranging from the large
sums given to the "Mothers of the Faithful"
(Muhammad's widows) to the small allowances of the
rank and file.

The year 639 A.D., the fifth of his reign, is known as
the "Year of Ashes," when for nine months plague
and famine desolated Arabia and the neighbouring
countries. When the trial was past, the Khalifa
journeyed through Syria to settle the administration,
and replaced Abu Ubaid, carried off by the plague, by
Muawiya, the son of Abu Sufiyan, an able, resolute,
unscrupulous man, which choice afterwards caused
the first split in Islam. Omar regularly led the
Pilgrimage to Mecca, and at one of his visits he laid
out the great square round the Kaaba, where now is
the many-colonnaded House of Prayer.1 He also fixed
the Muhammadan era of the Hijra, beginning from
the 1st of Maharram 622 A.D., the year being, by
Muhammad's command at the Farewell Pilgrimage,
reckoned as of twelve lunar months. He was a ruler
of stainless integrity, great courage, and unflinching
resolve, and his justice is proverbial. Zealous, even to
the death, for the laws of his Master, he time after time
removed and degraded his highest officers for trivial
infractions of the law. Khalid, and Saad, and Mughira
felt the lash of his anger ; yet riches and luxury com-
bined with the unnatural restraints of Muhammad's
law to sap the foundations of morality, and it is from
1 For a minute description, see Burton's Pilgrimage.

i;8 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Omar's reign that dates the decadence of Muslim social
life. A multitude of slaves, and a plethora of wealth cast
the conquering race into the lap of luxury ; debarred
from wine, games of chance, and other relaxations
natural to man, with unbounded choice within the
harem, to which their women were confined, the
degradation of both sexes could not fail to advance
with fatal rapidity. Drunkenness and every kind of
debauchery defied even the strong hand of Omar to
restrain them, and he himself fell by the hand of a
murderer, a Persian slave, who stabbed him in the
great Mosque of Medina, as he opened the solemn
service. He died firm in the Faith, leaving behind him
a great name, the fame of a wise ruler, and the empire
of Islam firmly established. The Shias, who abominate
the first three successors of the Prophet, are peculiarly
bitter against the memory of Omar, because (no doubt)
of his unquestioned greatness. Burton also is less than
just to him, and calls him " little better than a self-
righteous formalist," while in his eyes Ali is the " first
man of genius to wear the Prophet's mantle."

CHAPTER XIII

Election of Uthman — Discontent of Ali — The Khalifa's weakness
and unpopularity — His Character and his difficulties — Seeds
of Schism — Turbulence of Kufa and Basra — Successes in
Egypt — Changes of Governors — Nepotism — Discontent and
Conspiracy — Open Rebellion — Uthman besieged in his own
palace and assassinated — Ali elected — Revolt of Zubair and
Talha— Ayesha— Battle of the " Camel "—Defiance by Mua-
wiya— Kufa chosen as Capital — March against Muawiya —
Battle of Siffln — Truce and Arbitration — The Award — Fresh
War — Peace with Muawiya — Loss of Egypt — The Khari-
jites — Murder of Ali — Election and Abdication of Hasan —
Muawiya sole Khalifa — Yazld — Hasan — March to Kufa —
Karbala — "Martyrs" of Christianity and Islam.

ABU BAKR and Omar had each given a daughter in

o o

marriage to the Prophet, and the next two Khalifas
were his sons-in-law. As we have seen, Omar had been
named to the succession by Abu Bakr on his deathbed,
and now the choice was left by him to five electors, of
whom every one (save only his son Abdul Rahman)
aspired to the office. Omar had solemnly warned them
all against ambition and self-seeking, but that did not
prevent jealousy and intrigue: and at length, on the
day limited by him, Uthman was proclaimed successor.
Ali resented the choice, but took the oath of allegiance :
and thenceforward there were two parties in Islam.
The policy, pursued by both former Khalifas and con-
tinued by Uthman, of keeping in Medina, as a sort of

179

i8o MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

standing council, the chief Companions, instead of em-
ploying their energies in war and foreign conquest,
was hazardous, and was now to bear bitter fruit.
Even the strong, self-reliant Omar had more than once
unwisely yielded to popular clamour. Uthman was
naturally weak, yet obstinate, and had never had the
same commanding place and influence with Prophet
and people as the first two Khalifas, though personally
he had been a favourite with Muhammad. Besides, he
was now old, and had to reckon with personal envy
and ambitions which had sprung up with the expan-
sion of Islam. Omar had lost a powerful chief from
his side by insisting on a poor Bedouin's right of
retaliation, while Uthman's first act was to refuse to
execute justice on a murderer. In the light of what
followed, it is strange to find Ali insisting on punish-
ment. The son of Omar, misled by a false report, that
the assassin of his father had just before the murder
been seen in close conference with a Persian slave and
with the Persian prince Harmuzan, slew them both.
There was no evidence against them whatever, and the
murder of the prince, who was a convert to Islam, de-
manded the penalty of death. Uthman, however,
shared the general feeling of horror that father and
son should be cut off as in one day ; so he remitted the
penalty of death, and compelled the relatives to accept
the blood wit. But though this act was in harmony
with the people's will, much else in his life and reign
was far otherwise. In particular he alienated their
sympathies by advancing and favouring his own rela-
tives, yielding at times unreasonably to popular
clamour, yet showing in other matters petulant
obstinacy, — as when he changed and added to some

CHARACTER OF UTHMAN 181

of the ceremonies of the annual Pilgrimage to Mecca,
and would give no reason for his action other than
that such was his pleasure. He changed, and changed
more than once, every one of the able lieutenants of
Islam, save only Muawiya, who was a relative of his
own, and Muawiya proved a firm friend and support
to him so lone* as he lived, and strove to the utmost to

avenge his murder.

The first cause of Uthman's failure as a ruler will
be found in his age. When he succeeded Omar he was
already past seventy, and he came in the stead of a
man nearly twenty years younger, a man of singular
vigour both of mind and body. The problems of
empire had grown with startling rapidity in the ten
vears of Omar's reign, and even he had not been at all

times equal to them ; far less was his successor. Omar
had always been ready to take the field, and had
shrunk from no toil or personal hardship in the
interests of his people, nor would he brook the least
breach of his commands, or of the law of Islam ;
inflexibly just, yet without a trace of cruelty, his
ablest and strongest lieutenants stood in awe of him,
and laid down honours and commands at his bidding.
When he fell, all was changed. The years that had
elapsed since last Medina was threatened, just after
the Prophet's death, had done much to enervate the
citizens, and the Companions of Muhammad, men of
renown for war and counsel in his days, had — through
lono1 inaction — the " native hue of resolution sicklied

o'er." There were besides two special causes of
division in the kingdom, the rivalry of the Quraish
with the rest of the Arabs, and that of the family of
the Prophet (the " sons of Hashim "), now represented

1 82 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

by Ali and his sons, and that of Umaiya, to which
Uthman belonged. At the head of the former party
was Ali, whose skill and bravery had lain inactive
since the Prophet's death, and who had sunk into the
dangerous luxury of the harem ; naturally ambitious,
we cannot doubt that he chafed at his inaction. As
time went on, he was encouraged by the general dis-
content, he could not forget that he had only just
missed the succession ; and he was flattered by the
high claims put forward on his behalf by preachers of
sedition, who urged a divine right of succession in-
herent in the Prophet's family, of which he was the
head. Moreover, among Uthman's bitterest enemies
were sons of his predecessors; and the dangerous
elements in Kiifa and Basra increased the difficulties
of his task; Kufa, in addition, was jealous of the
Syrian province, — so that strife broke out when re-
inforcements had to be sent from the west to complete
the conquest of Persia, delayed both by insurrection
and by Turkomand invasion.

In Egypt the Khalifa won through his lieutenants
brilliant successes, but the displacing of Arnru by
Abu Sarh, his own foster-brother and, at one time,
Muhammad's secretary, was most unpopular. Even
the conquests in North Africa, the reduction of
Cyprus, and a great naval victory over the Byzantines,
did not allay the discontent. In Kufa matters went
from bad to worse. Saad had been replaced in office
immediately after Omar's death; but he ruined himself
by extravagance, and his successor — Wai id, son of
Uqba, one of the prisoners massacred after Badr, had
to be deposed, recalled, and scourged for flagrant
drunkenness. Similarly, at Basra, Uthman unfor-

QURAN REVISED 183

tunately replaced Abu Musa, who had fallen a victim
to faction, by a young cousin of his own ; and this
man increased his master's unpopularity by filling all
offices with his own relatives. Another young kinsman,
Said, was appointed to rule Kufa, a man whose father
had also fallen at Badr fighting against the Prophet.

All these matters combined to rouse hostility against
Uthman, and to their fire fuel was added by his
action in regard to the Quran. The recension, not
long completed under Omar, had suffered corruption as
it was copied and went through the various provinces
of the empire ; moreover, differences of pronunciation
had arisen, and all variations from right reading of the
very "Word of God" was deadly sin. Accordingly,
variants were called in, the true text reconstituted by
a commission of the Quraish on a comparison with the
original in Hafsa's care ; authentic copies were made
of the revised text, and distributed as archetypes ; and
all others were called in and burnt. On this was
founded by the malcontents (especially at Kufa) a
charge of sacrilege against Uthman. It mattered
little that there was no foundation for the charge, it
was equally fatal. Again, he stirred hostility in carry-
ing out at Mecca that enlargement of the Kaaba square
which Omar had begun; and by making of his own
mere will certain changes in that ritual of the Pilgrim-
age which was sanctified by Muhammad's example.
To this was added the loss, trifling in itself, of the
Prophet's signet-ring, which fell from his finger into
a freshly-dug well: and now the accumulated forces
of disloyal faction were ready to overwhelm him.

There arose a Jewish convert who preached the
doctrine of Ali's divine right, and of the "second

1 84 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

coming" of Muhammad himself. The poisonous
leaven worked, and along with it came sedition in
Kufa, to which the Khalifa yielded, with results fatal
to himself. The governor was driven out, and retired
to Medina ; emissaries of rebellion moved and plotted
throughout the empire; hesitating measures of re-
pression only made things worse ; and Uthman shrank
from the stern courses which alone could avail. Ali,
as spokesman of the people, remonstrated, but gave
neither support nor practical advice ; and a despairing
appeal to the people also brought neither help nor
counsel. Even in Medina insult was poured on the
Khalifa as he passed through the streets, and seditious
cries assailed his ears. A commission was sent out to
inquire into causes of discontent and possible remedies,
but was fruitless of good ; the governors of provinces
were summoned to Medina to advise their sovereign,
but only Muawiya gave counsel of weight, — either to
go with him to Egypt or to receive into Medina a com-
manding Egyptian force. But both proposals were
rejected, the faithful viceroy went his way after
solemn warning to Ali and the other chiefs, and the
final catastrophe hurried on.

Conspirators gathered from Egypt, from Kufa, and
from Basra, having among their leaders Muhammad,
son of Abu Bakr and brother of Ayesha. They
marched on Medina, on pretence of visiting the
Prophet's Mosque and tomb, and were at first baffled
in their attempt to enter the city ; but succeeded by
a stratagem. They rudely called on Uthman to abdi-
cate, " for the Lord had cast him off," and on his re-
fusal, rejecting all promises of reform, they threatened
him with death. Strife and tumult reigned in Medina ;

MURDER OF UTHMAN 185

Ali and the other chief men gave no real help; for
many weeks the Khalifa was blockaded, till at length
the final assault was made, and the defences broken
down, before troops sent by Muawiya to the rescue
could reach their goal. Uthnian was murdered as he
sat in an inner chamber reading the Quran, and was
buried hastily with maimed rites, amid a shower of
stones and curses from his murderers. Thus, after a
troubled reign of twelve years, died Uthnian, too
weak to take up Omar's sceptre, too pitiful to use
that sword which alone might have saved him.

Uthniaii was dead, the second prince over Islam to
fall beneath the murderer's dagger. As Omar had been
stabbed at the entering in of the Mosque, so had
Uthman been slain as he read aloud from the Sacred
Book, as tradition tells that the Prophet had foretold
of him ; and it is added, that his blood flowed down
the page to the words (S. ii. 138), " If they rebel, verily
they are in schism, and God will suffice thee against
them." Those who had fought for him to the last now
scattered, and his blood-stained shirt and the severul
fingers of his faithful wife Xaila (wounded in his
defence) were swiftly borne away to Muawiya in
Syria, to cry aloud for vengeance, and by Muawiya's
command were hung up in the great Mosque at
Damascus.

The murderers held sway in Medina ; for a few days
anarch}- reigned : and then Ali was, by their ill-omened
power compelling the citizens, raised to the throne.
He may well have shrunk from the heavy task before
him. He was no longer the fiery dauntless Ali, who
had sprung to his feet to " bear the burden " for the
Prophet, the very Peter of Islam. At the death of

186 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Muhammad he was a man (probably) of about forty,
an able and valiant warrior, and of sound, sober judg-
ment. Thrice passed over in the succession, he was
now quite as old as the Prophet had been when he
died, and had lost his early fire and decision, retaining
only that softness of character which was to prove his
ruin, as it had been Uthman's. His one chance of
mastering the forces now rising against him lay in
quick, stern, unsparing resolve. But his action during
the last years of Uthman, due (we cannot doubt)
largely to the enervating luxury of his large harem,
showed he was not able to cope with his difficulties.

Twelve years before he had insisted that Omar's
own son should be put to death for murder, but now
he took no steps to punish the murderers of Uthman,
traitors and rebels as well. Thus he was untrue to
himself, he put weapons into the hands of his enemies,
and he alienated the support of those who might have
been powerful friends — Muawiya and Ayesha. The
latter had probably never liked AH, she was suspected
of having stirred up enmity against Uthman, but at
the last she had thrown all her influence on his side,
and she was shocked and grieved at his fate, not least
because her own brother Muhammad was a ringleader
in the crime. She heard the news on her way back
from the Pilgrimage to Mecca, and returned thither
vowing vengeance on the murderers. Ere long she
was joined by Zubair and Talha, mighty men of
renown, who had sworn allegiance to Ali, but recanted
on the plea of compulsion.

Ali meanwhile shrank from pursuing the murderers,
but rashly persisted against all faithful counsel in
deposing all the chief lieutenants of the empire.

BATTLE OF THE "CAMEL" 187

Especially did he commit a fatal blunder in attempting
to depose Muawiya, before he was strong enough to
enforce his will. That great viceroy was firmly fixed
in the affections of his subjects, in Syria was settled a
strong, orderly and well-disciplined host of the best
Arab stock, and Abu Sufiyan's son was himself more
than a match for AIL He defied him, and sent him
word that Syria was to a man resolved to avenge
Utliman's murder on him.

Ali's call to arms was but ill answered. His first task
was to meet the rebels who, led by Talha and Zubair
and accompanied by Ayesha, had marched upon Basra,
seized the city, put to death many of the rebels against
Uthman, and were stirring up revolt in Kufa and
elsewhere. To Kiifa he marched, gathering strength by
the way, and being again strongly aided from the city,
led his now large army against Basra. Negotiations
were wrecked by Bedouin treachery, and a fierce and
bloody battle followed, that of the " Camel," so named
from that which Ayesha rode, and from which she
urged on the fight. Ali was the victor, his two chief
opponents fell, and Ayesha, round whose camel the
fiercest fighting had taken place, was made prisoner.
Her Ali treated with most chivalrous courtesy, and
dismissed her safe under escort. She went first to
Mecca, and then finally retired to Medina, where she
lived for more than twenty years longer, dying at the
age of about sixty-six. The traditions of the Prophet
traced back to her are very numerous, and doubtless
shr knew more of him and his thoughts and ways than
did any other.

In January G57 (A.H. 36) Ali entered Kufa, which
was thenceforward his capital. His next encounter

1 88 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

must be with Muawiya, and both leaders prepared for
the contest. Partly by force, partly by fraud, All's
viceroy was ousted from Egypt, and replaced by Amru,
who made close alliance with Muawiya. One more
effort Ali made to avoid hostilities, sending an envoy
to invite Muawiya to swear allegiance ; but, in answer,
again the condition was made that the regicides must
first be punished. This unhappily was beyond Ali's
power, so he gathered a great host of 50,000 men, and
went forth to attack his foe. He followed the course
of the Euphrates upwards, to a point nearly due east
of Antioch, crossed the river at Riqqa, not without a
good deal of opposition, and met the enemy at Siffln.
Muawiya had a force at his command superior in
number, equal in valour and devotion, and far better
disciplined. Negotiation was tried in vain ; Ali could
not take the bold, and only safe, course of denouncing
and punishing the murderers of Uthimln, and there
was no other common ground on which Muawiya and
he could meet. Desultory fighting, with truces in
between, went on from May to July 637 ; in the hottest
hours of the battle, Ali showed all his ancient valour,
and the victory was snatched from him by craft. At
Amru's suggestion, Muawiya caused the Quran to be
raised aloft as a standard ; the battle was stayed ; both
parties, after long conference, agreed to trust the
cause to decision of arbitrators, — Amru for Mutlwiya
and Abu Musa for Ali, that so (if it might be) divisions
might be healed, and peace restored to Islam. The
decision was to be given after six months, at some
neutral spot between Kufa and Damascus, and the
rivals retired each to his own capital. The slaughter
on both sides had been great, mourning reigned

ALI AND MUAWIYA 189

throughout the whole land, an arbitrator beneath his
task had been forced by faction on Ali, who had been
driven to appear as champion of regicides, and the
whole balance of gain lay with his wily foe.

Fresh trouble sprang up for Ali as he marched
homewards. Appeal to the Quran meant for the
Bedouins, whose real revolt was against Quraish
ascendency, freedom and equality among all Muslims.
Twelve thousand of Ali's troops accordingly hived off
from him, declared for pure theocracy, and were only
pacified for a time by Ali declaring for the same
principles.

In February 658 (Ramadhan 37 A.D.) the umpires
met at Duma, half-way between the rival capitals, each
with an escort of 400 men. After brief conference
they agreed to depose both the rivals, and then to
leave a free choice to the people. Abu Musa, Ali's
umpire, pronounced the decision, and then Amru con-
firmed Ali's deposition, but confirmed Muawiya as
Khalifa.

The decision was at once adopted in Syria, and
Muawiya proclaimed ; and in Kufa it was as heartily
denounced ; the rival heads of Islam cursed one another
in solemn services as fervently as did Pope and Anti-
pope in later days ; and the flames of civil war were
kindled afresh.

But before he could attack Muawiya, Ali had to deal
with the theocratic Separatists, who raised, without
delay, the standard of rebellion, and drew off to
Xahrwau, to the north beyond Baghdad. A general
levy was made to march against Syria, but the rebels
had first to be crushed. Ali gained more than one
bloody victory over them, and then led his army

190 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

against Syria. But the fickle, half-hearted troops fell
gradually away, and the march was abandoned ; while,
to add to Ali's losses, Egypt also was gained over to
the enemy, and Muhammad, son of Abu Bakr, was
slain. Broken in spirit, weighed down by trouble and
disloyalty, Ali had once and again to quell Separatist
revolts. Mecca itself was trampled under foot, first by
Muawiya's forces and then by Ali's, and Arabia was
torn with civil war. The internecine strife lasted for a
year or two, and then, in 660 A.D., Ali and Muawiya
made peace. But in the next year some fanatics
banded themselves together to assassinate simultane-
ously Ali, Muawiya, and Amru ; Ali fell, as he entered
the Mosque, beneath a poisoned blade, and died in a
short time, leaving to his sons, Hasan and Husain, a
heritage of trouble. So died the Lion of Islam, the
Prophet's well-loved cousin and son-in-law ; brave,
generous, single-hearted, too simple for his adversaries,
not stern enough for his time.

On the death of Ali, Hasan, his eldest son, was
elected at Kufa to succeed him, for Ali had refused to
nominate a successor ; but he was a mere voluptuary ;
and when Muawiya with a formidable army came to
attack him, he, after a feeble show of resistance,
abdicated, and retired to Medina, with a liberal pen-
sion from the conqueror. There he indulged those
sensual tastes which earned him the name of " The
Divorcer," and after eight years of this ignoble life
was poisoned by one of his wives. The story which
lays the guilt of this crime on Muawiya may be dis-
missed as a calumny. He entered Kufa as a conqueror,
made himself master of the whole Muslim Empire, and
for many years more reigned in peace at Damascus.

HUSAIN AT KARBALA 191

He created much scandal by acknowledging as his
brother Ziyad, who was the offspring of vagrant love
on his father's part, but the act undoubtedly strength-
ened his throne. To provide against a recurrence of
civil war at his death, he chose his son Yazid to suc-
ceed him, and required, during his lifetime, an oath of
allegiance to his nominee. In the conquered provinces
this was obtained without difficulty, but force was
required to impose the condition on the Holy Cities,
and at Mecca the end was only reached by threats of
the sword. At length, in April 680, Muawiya died,
being nearly eighty years old, and Yazid reigned in
his stead.

As Muawiya had warned him, Yazid soon found a
pretender spring up in Husain, second son of Fatima and
Ali. He escaped from Medina to Mecca, to avoid the
oath of allegiance, and was then tempted by urgent pro-
mises and invitations to start for Kufa, in the dangerous
part of pretender. His best friends warned him against
trusting the Kuf ans, but in vain ; so he set out with all
his family and friends, and a small bodyguard of thirty
devoted adherents.

But Yazid was on the alert, and sent an able, unscrup-
ulous governor, Ubaid Allah, son of Ziyad, to master the
rebellious city. Husain's messengers, sent to feel the
public pulse, were seized and put to death ; the Kufans
dared not rise ; and the governor sent a strong troop of
horse to bar Husain's passage, to demand his uncon-
ditional surrender, and to prevent his return to the
Hijaz. The Arab tribes that had been flocking to his
side, seeing now small chance of success, melted away
from him ; he pleaded in vain to be allowed to surrender,
on promise of being sent before Yazid at Damascus ;

192 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

and at length, hemmed in by his foes and cut off from
the river, his only water-supply, Husain and his small
faithful band were attacked and annihilated on the fatal
field of Karbala. One after another, selling their lives
dearly and slaying more than their own number of the
enemy, sons, nephews, brothers, cousins of Husain fell
beneath the swords and the arrows of the Kufan
soldiery; the little camp was ravaged with fire also,
from the burning reeds of the river-bank ; — last of all
fell Husain himself, and the cavalry rode over the
corpses. All the fighting men were slain, and their
heads, seventy in number, carried, — a ghastly load, —
along with the captive women and children, to the feet
of Ubaid Allah, Yazid's savage representative. Mua-
wiya's last charge to his son had been to " deal gently
with Husain, for verily the Prophet's blood courses
through his veins." But the governor roughly turned
the bloody head over with his staff, to the horror of his
own courtiers, and an aged man rebuked him with the
words, " Gently, for it is the Prophet's grandson. By
the Lord ! I have seen these very lips kissed by the
blessed mouth of Muhammad ! "

A sister, two little sons, and two daughters, alone
were left now of the Prophet's descendants. These were
sent first to Damascus, and thence after a time, with all
honour and respect, to the deserted homes in Medina.
The tragedy of Karbala took place on the 10th of
Muharram 61 A.H., and that day has since, through
many centuries, been observed with the deepest grief
and wildest and most enthusiastic devotion by the
followers of the great Shia schism, the universal
creed of Persia and the lands which Persia influenced.
Seventy years later the memory of Karbala hurled the

RIVAL DYNASTIES 193

Umayyads from the throne ; to this day it is for millions
of Muslims a shrine as holy as Mecca or Medina, and
the death-caravan pursues evermore its mournful way
through the deserts of Persia, to lay the faithful dead
to rest in the soil hallowed by Husain's bones. From
the feeble remnant of Ali's family have sprung, in
later centuries, countless thousands of Sayyids, the
aristocracy of birth in Islam.

Thus was for ever extinguished the secular power in
the Prophet's own family; for the Abbasids represented
his uncle. Karbala was fought sixty, and Ali was
murdered forty, years after the Flight. Taking the
commonly received dates of the first Christian century,
the murder of Ali would correspond in time (dating from
our Lord's baptism) with the martyrdom of Peter and
Paul, and the massacre at Karbala with that of St. John.
In the one case the " blood of the martyrs was the seed
of the Church," faithful to her Lord's word, that " His
kingdom was not of this world " ; the Prophet of Arabia,
on the contrary, claimed this world as his kingdom, and
his servants fought for him, and have long prevailed ;
the choice of " Islam, tribute, or the sword," solemnly
pronounced by himself, and offered in his own day by
his lieutenants, has been the rule of his Empire ever
since. The martyrs of Islam are her warriors slain on
the battlefield, fighting the enemies of their Prophet,
generally in aggressive warfare, not those who are
haled before kings and rulers for the Master's sake, and
who shed their blood for faith in His name.

CHAPTER XIV

The Quran — Its Composition, Literary Character, and Influence —
Fixes the Arabic Tongue — Not collected by Muhammad — The
Fatiha — The Doctrine of Allah, with Extracts — Man's relation
to God : his Moral and Religious Duties, Future Life, and
Rewards and Punishments — The Higher Law of Christ —
Creation and Providence — The Resurrection — Paradise and
Hell — Illustrative Extracts — Muhammad's Debt to Judaism —
His Inferiority — Women in Islam — Slavery.

THE paradox has been maintained l that Christianity
would be a force quite as great in the world without the
Old and New Testaments as with them. Not many will
be found to admit this ; but, however it might be with
Christianity, it is quite certain that the existence of
Islam is bound up with the Quran. Were it for nothing
else, the whole fabric of religious observances rests
upon it. The daily prayers, the Friday general service,
all solemn affairs to which the sanction of religion is
attached, the wedding and the burying of the " faithful,"
and the memorial services for the good of their souls, —
all are founded on the Quran, and have no existence
save through it. Apart from this, however, looked
upon merely as literature, the service to his people and
tongue which Muhammad did by composing the Quran

1 Among others, a distinguished Edinburgh Advocate and well-
known adherent of the United Free Church of Scotland, has urged this

view.

194

THE QURAX 195

is altogether beyond estimate. Before him there existed
nothing in Arabic but poetry, fragmentary songs and
ballads, which indeed show the language highly de-
veloped, with all the qualities needed for making a great
literature. But prose was not yet in existence, little
was recorded in writing, and divergent dialects threat-
ened to prevent the formation of a national tongue.
Muhammad gave Arabia the first prose she possessed,
the sacred character of the Quran fixed for ever the type
of language that should prevail, — the cultivated dialect
of the Quraish, and the balanced rhythm of the Pro-
phetic oracles, modified from ancient Arab poetic form,
and comparable with the parallelism of Hebrew poetry,
permeates all later Arabic literature. Without an ex-
tensive and accurate knowledge of the Quran, countless
allusions and phrases are unintelligible ; every good
Muslim has by heart many chapters from its sacred
pages, and repeats not a few in his daily prayers : and
the title Hafiz, highly prized, and known to the West
chiefly as the poetic name of the sweetest mystical
bard of Persia, signifies one who can repeat the
whole Book from end to end. Luther created modern
High German by his translation of the Bible; our
own Authorised Version has given permanency and
high excellence to the English language, forming a
bond imperishable for the Anglo-Saxon race: but
in both Germany and England there existed already
a great and vigorous literature, so that the service
which Muhammad rendered to his people was even
greater.

The peculiar feature of the Semitic group of lan-
guages, the tri-consonantal radicals, whose primary de-
velopment by vowels gives the verb, with its almost

196 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

endless variety of inflection, and the substantive forms
springing from them, induces a similarity of word-
endings which makes it (in Burton's phrase) " almost as
difficult not to rhyme in Arabic as in Italian." From
this comes the peculiar system of Arab rhyme, a whole
long poem having every line ending in the same sound,
and even with a double assonance. One and the same
succession of vocalised syllables, filling up the tri-con-
sonantal skeleton, or amplifying it by (so-called) servile,
or formative, additions, gives the same or similar modifi-
cation of the primary sense of the radical ; and thus
form and sense and sound suggest and harmonise with
one another. Naturally these things were a help to the
memory, just as the metrical form of the oldest Aryan
literature, Vedic and Orphic Hymns, or the Laws of the
Twelve Tables, made it more easy to keep them in mem-
ory. Muhammad heartily abhorred poets and poetry,
and vehemently denied the imputation that he himself
was a poet ; yet his earliest revelations have much of the
spirit, and not a little of the form, of poetry. It is this
which gave power to his message, though his bold
challenge to " produce a chapter like unto them, if they
be not verily the Word of God," depended (as Noldeke
remarks) as much on the substance as on the language
and form. Anyone who had repeated Muhammad's
message would have stood convicted of imitation, and
a copy is ever far below the original. The first
Meccan Suras come hot from the heart, it is they which
(he said) had turned his hair grey ; and later the elo-
quence might, and did, lose its brilliancy and power
without affecting its sway over souls already won. The
various parts were dictated, no doubt on constant re-
petition in forms not identical, and treasured up by

THE FATIHA 197

those who recorded them. The Prophet also, we
are told, would give directions for connecting new
with old, and attaching fresh revelations to the older
that seemed cognate to or connected with them.
It is strange, however, that he gave no more regular
form to the whole body of his oracles, and left this
to be done by his successors. Tradition is of no
great value in determining their order, the most
penetrating " higher criticism " is only partially success-
ful, and we regretfully admit that scarcely anything
quite certain has been done to solve the riddle of the
Quran.

Let us now take a few extracts from the Sacred
Volume, beginning with the Fdtiha, "Opening"
Chapter, which stands out of its order at the beginning
of the Quran. To the Muslim it is much what the
Paternoster is to a Roman Catholic: it is used in
prayer several times a day, is held to have very special
virtues, and the Prophet himself is said to have
declared it to be "equal to one-third of the Quran."
Every child learns it next after the Creed, and to all
for whom Arabic is a foreign tongue, as Latin is to the
members of the Church of Rome, the mysterious
efficacy is heightened by its unfamiliar dress, — for
many decisions of the Doctors of Islam have pronounced
it heresy to use in prayer translations of the Quran, the
original Arabic in which it was revealed being alone
pleasing to the ears of Allah. The prayer is used not
only in religious ceremonies, but also to lend binding
force to solemn agreements, at marriages, at funerals,
and the like. Thus runs, in Burton's version which
imitates the cadences of the original, the famous
prayer, which may with advantage and instruction be

198 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

compared with the first Psalm of David and with our
own Lord's Prayer : —

" In the name of God, Merciful and Gracious !
Praise be to Allah, who the (three) worlds made,
The Merciful, the Compassionate.
The King of the Day of Faith.1

Thee (alone) do we worship, and of Thee (alone) do we ask aid.
Guide us to the Path that is straight —
The Path of those for whom Thy Love is great, not those on

whom is Hate, nor they that deviate.
Amen ! 0 Lord of Angels, Jinns, and men ! " 2

This Chapter belongs to the early Meccan period.
The Doctrine of Allah —
The Chapter of Unity (112).

" Say, He is God alone !
God the Eternal !

He begets not, and is not begotten !
Nor is there like unto Him any one ! "

PALMER.

This the Prophet is traditionally said to have pro-
nounced equal to one-third of the whole Quran.

" God, there is no God but He, the living, the self-
subsisting. Slumber takes Him not, nor sleep. His is
what is in the heavens and what is in the earth.
Who is it that intercedes with Him, save by His per-
mission ? He knows what is before them and what
behind them, and they comprehend not aught of His
knowledge, but what He pleases. His throne extends
over the heavens and the earth, and it burdens Him
not to guard them them both, for He is high and great "
(PALMER, ii. 256).

1 Or Fate, Last Judgment (Ar. dm).

2 This line is not part of the Ftitiha proper as it appears in the Qurfm.

THE DOCTRINE OF GOD 199

This is the Throne Terse, esteemed one of the
grandest in the Book. Many repeat it after each of
the five daily prayers, and it is often inscribed in
mosques, etc. To the Jew and the Christian every
phrase is familiar.

" Your God is one God ; there is no God but He, the
Merciful, the Compassionate. Yerily, in the creation
of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of
night and day, and in the ship that runneth in the sea
with that which profits man, and in what water God
sends down from heaven and quickens therewith the
earth after its death, and spreads abroad therein all
kinds of cattle, and in the shifting of the winds, and in
the clouds that are pressed into service betwixt heaven
and earth, — are signs to people who can understand "
(PALMER, ii. 158-159).

" Say, O God, Lord of the kingdom ! Thou givest the
kingdom to whomsoever Thou pleasest, and strippest
the kingdom from whomsoever thou pleasest ; Thou
honourest whom Thou pleasest, and abasest whom
Thou pleasest ; in Thy hand is good. Verily, Thou art
mighty over all. Thou dost turn night to day, and
dost turn day to night, and dost bring forth the living
from the dead, and dost provide for whom Thou
pleasest without taking count."

" Say, If ye hide that which is in your breasts, or if
ye show it, God knows it : He knows what is in the
heavens and what is in the earth, for God is mighty
over all."

" Say, If ye would love God, then follow me
(Muhammad), and God will love you and forgive
you your sins, for God is forgiving and merciful."

"Say, Obey God and the apostle; but if ye turn

200 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

your backs, God loves not misbelievers. When He
decrees a matter, He only says BE, and it is."

" God's is what is in the heavens, and what is in the
earth, and unto God affairs return."

" What ye do of good surely God will not deny, for
God knows those who fear."

" God is your Lord, He is the best of helpers : He is
forgiving and clement. He loveth them that trust in
Him. If God help you, there is none can overcome
you ; but if He cast you off, who is he that can deliver
you ? God is enough for us, a Good Guardian is He."

" God will not require of the soul save what it is able
for. It shall have what it has earned, and it shall owe
what has been earned from it. Lord, catch us not up,
if we forget or go astray; Lord, lay not on us a
burden, as Thou didst upon them that were before us.
Lord, make us not to bear that for which we have not
strength, but forgive us, and pardon us, and have
mercy on us. Thou art our King, help Thou us against
the unbeliever ! "

The foregoing few extracts must suffice for textual
authorities. Allah is Almighty, All-merciful ; yet He
is the Author of evil, no less than of good. Whom He
will He guides aright, and whom He will He leads
astray. His eternal, unchangeable, irrevocable decrees
have been from all eternity inscribed on the Preserved
Tablet. Yet in the beginning Islam was specially a
missionary religion, to be extended over the whole
world, thus sharply distinguishing it from Judaism,
which rather repelled than invited converts. As we
saw, however, in the Vision, Muhammad beheld Adam
weeping over the myriads of his descendants who were
foredoomed to hell; another tradition tells how the

PREDESTINATION 20 1

Prophet represented the Creator as fashioning His
creatures and saying, as He made them, "Those for
Paradise and I care not, and those for Hell and I care
not ! " Lane tells how at the present day in Egypt
devout Muslims make no effort at the conversion of
unbelievers, and justify their position by saying,
'• The number of the elect is fixed from everlasting, and
no human acting can add to that number, or diminish
aught therefrom : why should we tire ourselves with
vain endeavour ? " Muhammad himself was posed
with the contradiction between Predestination and
Freewill by his simple Arab followers in Medina, just
as in our own day Bishop Colenso was put to the
worse by his " simple Zulu." But when they

" Reasoned high

Of Providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, —
Fired fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute —
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost, — "

he cut the discussion short, and declared that such
disputing would bring them to hell ; for " on the Judg-
ment-day the Lord will require such as so dispute to
set the matter clearly forth, and when they fail He will
condemn them to hell-fire."

Of man, in his relation to God, Muhammad teaches
that he is the creature of God's hand, absolutely
dependent on Him for everything. From God man
receives all the blessings with which he is surrounded
in this life, and the promise of happiness hereafter, if
he serve God and obeys Him and His Prophet in this
life. He must pray and fast, give alms and pay tithes,
go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and fight for the faith. If
he die a Muslim in battle, his entry into Paradise is not

202 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

only certain, but immediate : he enters at once into the
enjoyment of shady trees, cool rivers of water, wine
that rejoiceth the heart and doth not cloud the brain
and the company of black-eyed virgins of Paradise
(Huris). This was the promise often made, though at
other times the teaching is — and such is now the
orthodox doctrine — that the dead remain in an inter-
mediate state till the general Resurrection : but believers
have all things well with them, and the wicked are

O '

tormented with the " punishments of the grave," from
which every good Muslim prays the Lord to deliver
him. No Muslim will be condemned to hell-fire for ever,
though sin will be punished for longer or shorter time
after death, and in the end pardoned at Muhammad's
intercession.

The cardinal sins forbidden are: — Idolatry, or
associating aught with God as His equal ; adultery ;
false witness against a brother Muslim. Gaming, the
drinking of wine or any intoxicant, taking of usury,
and divination by arrows, are strictly forbidden : and
the punishment is scourging and infamy. When we
see among Christian nations all over the world the un-
told misery and destruction wrought by drinking and
gambling, we could wish that similar restraints were
recognised among ourselves. Yet ours is the higher
law. The Muslim is forbidden to do certain things,
and commanded to do certain others : commands and
prohibitions are alike definite and precise. The
Christian is bidden, " whether ye eat or drink, or what-
soever ye do, do all to the glory of God " ; " let your
moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at
hand " ; " love thy neighbour as thyself " ; " love worketh
no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilling

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE 203

of the law " ; "be ye perfect, as your Father which is
in heaven is perfect." Such is the leaven of Chris-
tianity, which shall yet leaven the whole lump of
human kind : with us is the Spirit which giveth life,
not the letter which killeth. The brotherhood of
Islam is limited to believers : Muslims are strictly for-
bidden to greet with " Peace " (saldm) the followers of
any other creed, and the one crime which must be
punished by death is apostasy from Islam, as the one
offence which God will not forgive is the rejection of
the Prophet's message. So strongly is the punishment
of death for apostasy held to be the organic law of
Islam, that the utmost efforts of the Christian powers
in 1855 (when Turkey owed everything to their
support) failed to get it abolished. It must be
remembered, in this connection, that Christians are, in
the sight of Muslims, polytheists and idolaters, for their
worship of the Son and the Holy Spirit as Persons of
the Godhead : the commands of Muhammad are strict,
emphatic, and often repeated, to tight to death or sub-
jection against all such, and his own mistake may be
explained by the fact that — first, the form of Chris-
tianity which he himself knew directly exalted the
Virgin Mother to a level with the Father and the Son ;
and second, that any further knowledge he possessed
was derived from Jewish sources. We find also in the
Quran the remarkable statement, " the Jews say that
Ezra is the Son of God."

Muhammad adopts the Bible's story of the creation of
the world and man, his being placed in the garden of
Eden, and banished therefrom for having — at the
temptation of Satan — eaten of forbidden fruit, which
the Arab version makes to have been wheat. The

204 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

tempter is Iblls, who had ranked high in heaven, but
who refused to obey God's command to worship Adam,
as God's representative. Being condemned for his
rebellion to hell-fire, he asked and obtained respite till
the Judgment-day, and then swore to tempt and mis-
lead mankind throughout the ages. Besides mankind
God created the nations of the Jinns, some wicked and
some good, spiritual counterparts of men. Muhammad's
mission was to them also, and many believed : it is an
article of faith to believe in their existence. As the
ages ran, the revelation of God's will to men was made
by a succession of Prophets specially commissioned
with a message, gradually increasing in definiteness,
until the coming of Muhammad. The earlier Prophets,
of whom the first was Adam himself, and the last Jesus
Christ, had a message each to his own nation only ;
but the " seal of the Prophets " was to be a blessing
and mercy to all mankind. The greatest of the former
Prophets were Moses and Jesus Christ, but the " Father
of the faithful " is (as we have seen), for Muhammad as
for St. Paul, Abraham, whose Faith he was sent to
revive. The other chief prophets are mainly Old
Testament worthies, David, Joseph, Jonah, Elijah, and
others ; and those commemorated in Arab legend, Hud,
Salih, Shuaib, whose miraculous stories are told at
much length in the Quran. The burden of every
Prophet's warning is, to serve the one true God, and
Him only, to know the certainty of the resurrection, and
to look forward to a future life of happiness or misery,
according to each man's works. The simple, beautiful
histories of the Bible are amplified and distorted by a
luscious and not very clean fancy, the most notable
case being that of Joseph in Egypt, and it is easy to

THE FINAL JUDGMENT 205

credit the tradition which tells how Muhammad wept
when he found Omar reading the Jewish sacred
stories : and this again lends colour to the story of the
destruction of the Alexandrian libraries by that
Khalifa's command, a story which Gibbon and others
reject, but which De Sacy and Richard Burton
believed. In the Quran again, the births of John the
Baptist and of Jesus Christ are told with many added
details, and much less beauty than in the Gospels ;
our Lord is made Himself to deny His divinity, and
the Crucifixion is branded as a profane fable. In the
Traditions it is foretold that when the end of this
world draws nigh, there shall arise first Dajjal (the
Muhanimadan analogue of Antichrist), who shall
gather to battle the hosts of evil ; then Messiah shall
return from heaven, to which He was caught up from
the rage of the Jews, and restore the kingdom of
Islam; then shall Israfll blow the first blast of his
trumpet, and all things that have life shall die. Death
shall hold universal sway for forty days, then shall
the second blast be sounded, and the dead, small and
great, — animals as well as men, — shall be raised from
their graves, clothed again with their bodies, and mar-
shalled for judgment.

The great Day, ushered in by the most appalling
sights and sounds, is to last for fifty thousand years !
To every man will be given a book containing the
record of his deeds ; the righteous shall receive theirs
in their right hands, and their faces will beam with
joy : but the sinners will receive theirs in the left
hand, chained behind their backs. Every soul will
perforce confess the righteousness of the Judge. The
blessed will be welcomed by the angels into Paradise,

206 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

there to receive " the promise of their Lord," and for
ever to enjoy rest and the reward of their faith and
works, — a happiness selfish and self-centred (to say
the least), not that endless life of higher service to
which the Christian is taught to look forward, in the
immediate presence of the Father. The wicked shall
be turned into Hell, there to abide for ever in torment
ever-renewed, in the " fire whose fuel is men and
stones," — filled full with unbelieving Jinns and men;
and they also shall confess too late that " the promise
of their Lord was true."

Some extracts from the Quran follow, giving
(generally in Palmer's version) the very words of
Muhammad on the subject of man's position in this
world, his duty to God and to his fellows, the final
judgment and his future destiny.

" In the name of God, Merciful and Compassionate !
When the sun is folded up,
And when the stars do fall,
And when the mountains are moved,
And when the she-camels ten months gone with young shall

be neglected,

And when the beasts shall be crowded together,
And when the seas shall surge up,
And when souls shall be paired with bodies,
And when the child who was buried alive shall ask for what

sin she was slain,

And when the pages shall be spread out,
And Avhen the heaven shall be flayed,
And when hell shall be set ablaze,
And when paradise shall be brought nigh,
The soul shall know what it hath produced !" (Ixxxi. 1-11).

" In the name of God, Merciful and Compassionate !
When the heaven is cleft asunder,
And when the stars are scattered,

MAN'S DUTY 207

And when the seas gush together,

Ami when the tombs are turned upside down,

The soul shall know what it hath sent on or kept back ! "

" 0 man ! what hath seduced thee concerning thy
generous Lord, who created thee, and fashioned thee,
and gave thee symmetry, and in what form He pleased
composed thee ?

" Nay, but ye call the judgment a lie ! but over you
are guardians set, — noble, writing down ! they know
what ye do !

" Verily, the righteous are in pleasure, and verily the
wicked are in hell : they shall broil therein upon the
Judgment-day, nor shall they be absent therefrom !

" And what shall make thee know what is the Judg-

ment-day ? Again, what shall make thee know what
is the Judgment-day ? a day when no soul shall control
aught for another; and the bidding on that day be-
longs to God ! " (Ixxxii.).

" God it is who produced for you hearing, and sight,
and intellect, — little do ye give thanks ! And He it is
that created you in the earth, and unto Him shall ye be
gathered. And He it is who gives you life and death ;
and His is the alternation of life and death ; have ye
then no sense ?

" O ye who believe ! bow down and adore, and serve
your Lord, and do well, haply ye may prosper; and
fight strenuously for God, as is His due. He has
elected you, and has not put upon you any hindrance
by your religion, — the faith of your father Abraham.

" Be ye then steadfast in prayer, and give alms, and
hold fast by God: He is your sovereign, and an
excellent sovereign, and an excellent help.

" The servants of the Merciful are those who walk

208 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

upon the earth lowly, and when the ignorant address
them say, ' Peace ! ' and those who pass the night
adoring their Lord and standing ; and those who say,
' 0 our Lord, turn from us the torment of hell ! '

" And those who when they spend are neither wasteful
nor miserly ; and who call not upon another god with
God, and kill not the soul which God has prohibited
save deservedly ; and do not commit fornication ; for
he who does that shall meet with a penalty ; doubled
shall be the torment on the Resurrection-day, and he
shall therein be aye despised.

" Save he who turns again and believes, and does a
righteous work ; for, as to those, God will change their
evil deeds to good, for God is ever forgiving, merciful !

" And those who do not testify falsely ; and when
they pass by vain discourse, pass it by honourably :
and who are not deaf and blind when reminded of the
signs of their Lord !

" Verily God leads astray whom He pleases, and
guides whom He pleases !

" No burdened soul shall bear the burden of another :
he who is pure is pure only for himself, and unto God
the journey is.

" Those who recite the Book of God, and are steadfast
in prayer, and give alms secretly and openly, hope for
the merchandise that perisheth not ; that He may pay
them their hire, and give them increase of His grace : —
verily, He is forgiving, merciful !

" He who misbelieves, his misbelief is for himself, and
God knows the thoughts of men !

" Those who fear their Lord shall be driven to paradise
in troops ; until they come, its doors shall be opened,
and its keeper shall say to them, ' Peace be upon you,

THE COMMANDMENTS 209

ye have done well : so enter in to dwell for aye ! ' And
they shall say, ' Praise be to God, who hath made good
His promise to us ! ... And thou shalt see the angels
circling round the throne, celebrating the praises of
thy Lord ! '

"Put not with God other gods, or thou wilt sit
despised and forsaken.

" Thy Lord hath decreed that ye shall not serve other
than Him ! and show kindness to parents, even to old
age.

"And give his due to thy kinsmen and to the traveller;
and waste not wastefully, for the wasteful were ever
the devil's brothers.

;' Make not thy hand fettered to thy neck, neither
spread it out quite open.

"And slay not your children for fear of poverty:
We will provide for them.

" And draw not near to fornication : verily it is ever
an abomination, and evil is the way thereof.

" And slay not the soul which God has forbidden you,
save for just cause; for he that is slain unjustly, we
have given his next-of-kin authority ; yet let him not
exceed in slaying.

'• And draw not near the orphan's portion, save to
increase it.

" And give full measure when ye measure out, and
weigh with a right balance.

" And walk not proudly on the earth, — verily thou
canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach
the mountains in height."

" The fellows of the right hand, — what right lucky fellows :
And the foremost foremost —
These are they that are brought nigh,
14

210 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

In gardens of pleasure !

A crowd of those of yore,

And a few of those of the latter day !

And gold-weft couches, reclining on them face to face.

Around them shall go eternal youths, with goblets and ewers,
and a cup of flowing wine ; no headache shall they feel
therefrom, nor shall their wits be dimmed !

And fruits such as they deem the best ;

And flesh of fowls as they desire ;

And bright and large-eyed maids like hidden pearls ;

A reward for that which they have done !

They shall hear no folly and no sin ;

Only the speech, ' Peace, Peace ! '

And the fellows of the right — what right lucky fellows !

Amid thornless lote-trees.

And banana-trees with piles of fruit ;

And outspread shade,

And water out-poured ;

And fruit in abundance, neither failing nor forbidden ;

And beds upraised !

Verily, we have created for them a special creation,

And made unto them virgins, darlings of equal age (with their
spouses) for the fellows of the right ! "

These and the like blessings are ever and again
promised throughout the Quran to Believers ; and the
wording of the promise is skilfully and tunefully
varied, but the character of the delights continues
always on the same low plane.

The reward is for men and women alike, as says the
Book :—

" Verily — whether they be men or women — those who
believe, and are devout, and truthful, and patient, and
humble ; who give alms, and fast, and are chaste, and
remember God much, — God has prepared for them
forgiveness and a great reward ! " (xxxiii. 35).

Of the wicked it is said : —

HEAVEN AND HELL 211

'• Xa y, but they call the Hour a lie ; but We have
prepared, for those who call the Hour a lie, a blaze :
when it seizes them from a f ar-off place, they shall hear
its roaring and raging: and when they are thrown
into a corner thereof, fastened together, they shall cry
out to be utterly destroyed.

"And whoso rebels against God and His apostle,
verily for him is the fire of hell to dwell therein for
ever and ever.

" Verily, with Us are heavy fetters and hell-fire, and
food that chokes and grievous woe.

" Verily, those who disbelieve in Our signs, We will
broil them with fire : whenever their skins are well
done, We will change them for other skins, that they
may taste the torment.

" As for him who is given his book in his left hand,
he shall say, ' O, would that I had not received my
book ! I knew not what my account would be. O,
would that death had been an end of me ! my wealth
availed me not ! my authority has perished from me ! '
' Take him and fetter him, then in hell broil him !
then into a chain whose length is seventy cubits force
him ! verily he believed not in the mighty God, nor
was he careful to feed the poor : therefore he has not
here to-day any warm friend, nor any food save foul
ichor, which none save sinners shall eat '. ' !

The Qiiiun : —

" In the name of God, Merciful and Compassionate.

"Verily, we sent it down on the Night of
Power !

" And what shall make thee know what the Ni^ht of

Power is ? — the Night of Power is better than a
thousand months !

212 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

" The angels and the Spirit descend therein, by the
permission of their Lord with every bidding.

" Peace it is until rising of the dawn !

"Verily, it is a revelation from the Lord of
the worlds ; the Faithful Spirit (Gabriel) came
down with it upon thy heart; in plain Arabic lan-
guage, . ; .

" A guidance and glad tidings to the believers, who
are steadfast in prayer, and give alms, and of the here-
after are sure.

" If mankind and Jinns united together to bring the
like of this Quran, they could not bring the like,
though they should back each other up.

" That We might establish thy heart did We send it
down piecemeal."

Muhammad : —

"Say, I am only a mortal like yourselves; I am
inspired that your God is only one God. Then
let him who hopes to meet his Lord do righteous
deeds, and join none in the service of his Lord" (xviii.
110).

" It is a mercy from thy Lord that thou mayest warn
a people to whom no warner has come before thec ;
haply they may take heed " (xxviii. 46).

" Will they say he has forged against God a lie ? But
if God pleased he could set a seal upon thy heart ; but
God will blot out falsehood and verify truth by His
word ; verily he knows the nature of men's breasts "
(xlii. 25).

" Say, 0 ye folk ! verily I am the apostle of God unto
you all, — of Him whose is the kingdom of the heavens
and the earth, there is no God but He ! He quickens
and He kills ! believe then in God and His apostle,

DEBT TO JUDAISM 213

the unlettered Prophet, — who believes in God and in
His words, — then follow Him that haply ye may be
guided "(vii. 188).

" Those who believe and do right and believe in what
is revealed to Muhammad, — and it is the truth from
their Lord, — He will cover for them their offences, and
order their hearts aright " (xlvii. 2).

" Say, I cannot control profit or harm for myself, save
what God will " (vii. 188).

The foregoing extracts amply show how great was
Muhammad's debt, for ideas, language, and imagery,
to the Hebrew Scriptures. Our limits do not permit
extracts from the long stories of the patriarchs, several
of which will be found in Lane's Selections from the
Kv.i'dn. These, which occur each more than once in
the Book, are clearly taken from the Jews, either from
the Old Testament or the Talmud ; the Quraish taunted
Mohammad with the fact, and he defends himself in
the Quran by vehement assertions that all his stories
were given him by direct revelation from God through
Gabriel. All this part of the Book belongs to the
" second Meccan period," and it will be remembered
that one of his warmest supporters was Khadija's
cousin, the aged and learned Jew, Waraqa. It needs,
however, no great discernment to see how inferior is
Muhammad's teaching to the great Hebrew lawgiver's :
" Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord ! " So,
too, the later code compares but ill with the Ten Words,
the " exceeding broad " law.

It has already been said how inferior to the originals
of Moses are the copies by Muhammad. One phrase
he constantly imitates : " When God would create any-
thing, He says only BE, and it is," a manifest echo of

214 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

the account in Genesis of the creation of light. It will
not be out of place to quote, from the story of Noah as
given in the Quran, what Sir W. Jones and other
scholars after him consider the sublimest passage in
the Book. It tells of the destruction of one of the
patriarch's sons, — a warning to those who should reject
the message of the latter-day " preacher of righteous-
ness."

" And the ark floated on with them 'mid waves like
mountains ; and Noah cried to his son that had gone
aside, ' 0 my boy ! ride with us and be not with the
misbelievers.' Said he, ' I will betake me to a moun-
tain that shall save me from the water.' Said he,
' There is none to save this day from the command of
God, except for him on whom He may have mercy.'
And the wave came between them, and he was amongst
the drowned " (xi. 44-6).

Moses and his law and his message are often quoted ;
and when Muhammad got to Medina he had great
hopes that the Jews would accept him as their promised
Messiah ; but he was soon undeceived, and was thence-
forward their bitter and relentless foe. From that time
the Quran tries to do without the Hebrew Scriptures,
and the law of Islam is promulgated, far inferior to
that of Israel. To take but one instance, part of the
plague-spot of the later system: Moses commanded
that, if a woman were divorced and married to a
second husband, her first husband should in no case
afterwards marry her ; but the law of Muhammad is,
that if a husband have put away his wife by triple
divorce, he may take her back again after a //•>'-'
marriage to another, who may divorce her the follow-
ing day. This immoral and degrading practice is very

MARRIAGE AND SLAVERY 215

common.1 Moreover, though some schools forbid them,
temporary marriages are (in Persia especially) part of
the law of Islam : and this was clearly established
by solemn decision of doctors assembled before the
Emperor Akbar.2

The seclusion and degradation of women in Islam
need not be dwelt on. Muhammad allows each man
four wives, and unlimited slave-concubines. The
wives may be divorced at the husband's absolute
pleasure, and the dowry regulations operate as but a
feeble restraint. The evil effects of the system have
been gravely noted by every impartial observer, and it
may be here remarked that Muhammadan writers on
ethics, such as Jalali, advocate monogamy on moral
grounds, as strongly as a Christian writer might.
Slavery again is fully sanctioned in Islam. In his last
sermon at Mecca, when closing the Farewell Pilgrimage,
Muhammad bade his followers treat well " their wives
and their slaves " ; the untold miseries of the present-
day slave-trade in Africa and in Central Asia are the
direct product of Muslim demand, and the mixed blood
throughout Arabia is one of its consequences. Censure
is checked when one reviews the history of slavery in
the Christian Roman Empire and in later Christendom ;
but here again slavery is part of the system of Islam,
whereas in Europe and in America the slowly-working
leaven of Christ's doctrine, that all men are brothers in
Him, has abolished the ownership of man by man,
which is even more hurtful morally to the master than
to the slave.

1 The interim husband is called Mahallil, "one who makes (the wife)
lawful." Burton is alone in preferring the form Mustahill.
- Ain i Akbari, — Blochman's Translation, p. 174.

CHAPTER XV

Shias and Sunnis, the Great Schism — Miracle Play of Hasan
and Husain — Sufis — Darwesh Orders — Wahhabis — Islam in
Politics — Muslims in China — Conclusion.

WITH the death of Ali and the abdication of his eldest
son, it might have seemed that Islam, reunited under
the firm hand of Muawiya, would continue one strong
empire. More than ever did this seem assured when
the principle of hereditary succession was established
in the person of Yazid. The contrary was the result :
the fatal field of Karbala, which seemed to extinguish
for ever all opposition to Yazid, sowed the seeds of the
downfall of his race a few generations later, and laid
the foundation of the great political schism which has
done so much to weaken Islam in all succeeding ages.
The beginning of the troubles goes back to the days
of Uthman, when (as we saw) a Jewish malcontent
preached throughout Islam the doctrine that the head-
ship was inalienably fixed in the Prophet's lineage,
and therefore in Ali's descendants by Fatima.
With the election of Ali, after the murder of his pre-
decessor, the principle triumphed ; but on his deathbed
Ali himself expressly refused to ratify it : its revival
in full vigour dates from the massacre of Husain and
his little band. Ali had himself been harassed by the
revolt of the Kharijites, a sort of " Fifth Monarchy "

216

THE GREAT SCHISM 217

sect in Islam, and it was by the hand of one of their
fanatics that he fell ; and they continued for genera-
tions afterwards to be a thorn in the side of the
Khalifas. But they were never a very large party,
and their high theocratic notions were not calculated
to gather many adherents : so gradually they faded
away.

It was otherwise with the great schism of the Shias,
the partisans of the divine right of Ali, as against the
" orthodox " Sunnites, the followers (as they maintain)
of the sunnat, or practice, of the Prophet. The shib-
boleth of the latter, who form by far the greatest part
of Islam, is the acknowledgment of the title of Abu
Bakr, Omar, and Uthman, as lawful Successors of the
Prophet. That title the Shias utterly deny, they heap
curses on the memories of the " Usurpers," insult their
names, tombs, and memorials, and by a strange and
perverse delusion deify the Prophet's line.

At the present day, Persia is the land of the Shia
schism, orthodox Islam follows the Sunni doctrine.
The adherents of the schism may be reckoned at
perhaps not more than ten or twelve millions, less
than one-tenth of the whole " Faithful " ; but, politically,
the religious division between Persia and Turkey has
been, especially in the century that has just closed, of
vast importance, greatly weakening both as against
the overshadowing power of Russia. The Shia move-
ment in Persia was largely national. The rallying-
point of Ali's name, as against the Syrian dynasty
which Persia both hated and feared, fell in with the
national feeling which recent Muslim conquest had
scarcely weakened. Ali had chosen Kiifa for his
capital, and the fact that its wavering and fickleness

2i 8 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

had led to the final tragedy of his family only strength-
ened Persia's fervid allegiance to his claims.1 In an
earlier chapter we have seen how legend told of the
prophetic light which beamed from generation to
generation on the brows of Muhammad's ancestors ;
with this Shia fancy connected the creation, " in the
beginning," of the "Light of Muhammad," the first
created thing, which existed for long ages — long
enough almost to satisfy a modern geologist ! — before
the heavens and the earth came into being. In some
mysterious fashion the Prophet's immediate descendants
are associated with this pro-existence, and the whole
succession is semi-divine. It is easily understood how
such a doctrine brands as blasphemers, as well as
traitors, all who revolt against it. With the " orthodox "
party the succession is in the Khalifas, appointed
originally by direct vote of the " Faithful " ; the Shias
hold a succession, inalienable from the Prophet's family,
of Imams, limited to twelve, of whom the last, the
Mahdi ( = " leader "), has vanished for a time from the
eyes of men, and is to return again before the end of
the world. Meanwhile, the visible headship of Islam
is in abeyance, and the faithful long for the blessed
day of his reappearance. " Imam " is a spiritual title,
meaning, in ordinary usage, the person who leads the
public prayer, and whose voice and gestures the con-
gregation follows. In the early days of Islam, presiding
at public prayer belonged of right to the political
leader, but the Prophet's command was that the Imfmi
should be he who was best versed in the Quran. The
name has been chosen by the Shias for the religious

1 The whole subject is excellently treated in Sir L. Felly's Introduc-
tion to the Persian Miracle Play.

SHIAS AND SUXXIS 219

and political chief of Islam, according to their doctrine;
it is also the title used by Muhammad himself in the
Traditions, when he is enforcing that passive and
absolute obedience which he claimed as his own right,
and which he declared was due to the Chief of the
Faith. The Shias maintain, naturally, that Muhammad
formally and solemnly proclaimed Ali his successor, and
also that, when on his deathbed he called for a tablet
and pen to write down " a direction which should keep
his people from error," he intended to write down
his nomination of Ali, and that Abu Bakr and Omar
refused what he asked, hypocritically alleging (as they
say) that the Quran was perfect and sufficient guid-
ance. So throughout the centuries Shia and Sunni
have fought, and cursed, and slain, and enslaved one
another. In Persia to this day the saying goes that
" you may curse with impunity anyone and anything
except the holy Imams and the wife of the man you
are addressing " ; in Arabia the Persian pilgrims to
Mecca are plundered and abused as heretics, and they
are said to have been guilty at Medina of the grossest
and filthiest violation of the tombs of the first two
Khalifas.

Once a year comes the great sacred season of the
Shias, in the first ten days of Muharram, on the tenth
of which month occurred the tragedy of Karbala.
During these days is performed, wherever Shias
congregate, but with most pomp and ceremony in
the cities of Persia, the great Miracle Play of the
Martyrdom of Hasan and Husain. The house of
every pious Shia who can afford it holds permanent
shrines, varying in costliness according to his wealth,
of the Holy Martyrs. As soon as the new moon of

220 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

Muharram is seen, the sacred ceremonies begin, though
the preparation is made for a week beforehand.
Shrines of the martyrs are displayed on a stage in
temporary theatres, draped in black to express the
mourning of every true heart ; and dramatic readings
are given night after night to crowded audiences of the
moving tale of Husain and his little band of faithful
followers hurrying through the desert to their doom
before false, fickle Kiifa, whose promises had lured
them to destruction. Gradually the passion of the
hearers is wrought up to frenzy : sobs, and moans, and
floods of tears, witness to their grief, while many even
gash themselves with knives in sympathy with the old,
pathetic story. On the seventh day is commemorated
the wedding of Hasan's son to Husain's daughter,
when the marriage rejoicings throw into heightened
contrast the gloom of general massacre that follows.
On the ensuing nights are told and represented the
moving tale of the final conflict, with every circum-
stance of horror and agony : consuming thirst, un-
availing valour in fight, fruitless entreaties for mercy ;
sword, and flame, and insult to the dead, — all is faith-
fully and minutely depicted. So real are the passions
excited that Yazid's men are pelted and cursed, and it
has even happened that the " murderer of Husain " has
himself been murdered by a frenzied fanatic. With
the tenth day the ceremonies end, the empt}?- shrines
being cast into the water, — and the final prayers are
said. The whole ceremonies are vivid and impressive,
and the annual celebration keeps strongly alive the
great schism of Islam: in Bombay, and elsewhere in
India, it often needs the strong hand of military power
to prevent riot and bloodshed between the rival sects.

SHIA MYSTICISM 221

The tenth of Muharram, it may be noted, is observed
by Sunnis as a great and most excellent day, that
on which the Almighty created Adam and Eve, His
throne, the pen, the Tablet of fate, life and death,
Heaven and Hell.

Into the Miracle Play are introduced scenes in
heaven, Muhammad, and Ali, and Fatima; and the
doctrine of prevailing intercession with the Almighty
is carried to an extreme, teaching which is directly
opposed to that of the Prophet himself.

As the Shia heresy rests on the cult of Ali as semi-
divine, so are traced back to him also the singular
doctrines of Sufiism, which also is the corruption of
Islam by the mysticism of Persia and perhaps also
the pantheism of India. The cardinal doctrine of
Muhammad is that the Creator is absolutely exalted
above the creation, which came into existence by the
word of His power, and that the individual souls of
His creatures will after death be judged by Him and
receive from Him their doom for eternity. The very
opposite of this is the Sufi teaching. It came into
prominence about two centuries after the Flight, and
gave for about one hundred and fifty years a dynasty
to Persia, the memory of which survives in our own
tongue in the word " Sophy " for the king of Persia.
To-day its countless schools of Faqirs or Darweshes
(Arabic and Persian respectively for " Mendicant ") are
spread through the whole domain of Islam, and in
their various orgiastic rites as " howling," " dancing,"
"whirling," and the like, present to the foreigner
the most striking caricature of their religion. Xo
saying of Muhammad was more characteristic than
this : " There is no monkery in Islam," and withdrawal

222 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

from the active duties of civil and social life lie con-
stantly and severely censured. Moreover, it is funda-
mental that every man makes approach for himself to
the Creator : there is no regular established priesthood,
but any Muslim is qualified to lead public devotions.
All this we shall find ignored or reversed in the
mystical system of the Sufis, whose votaries are to be
found in every corner of Islam.

The origin of the name, as of so many religious
terms, is disputed. Some connect it with the Arabic
sdf, " pure," because purity of heart is the first re-
quisite ; others with suf, " wool," because the votary's
dress is of coarse woollen stuff; but more probably the
name is originally the Greek <rop/«, that transcendental
wisdom to which the Gnostics aspired and pretended.
The same passion which drove the early Christians in
thousands to solitude in the deserts of Arabia and
Egypt, which in all ages since has sent others crowding
into monasteries, drove Muslim devotees — hungering
after a more spiritual doctrine than the formal religion
of the Founder, to group themselves in communities
round teachers of special repute for sanctity. To the
head of his community, the Pir ("Ancient") or
Murshid (" Director "), the most absolute obedience
was paid ; the ceremonies of initiation vary, and the
degrees of austerity required are at the absolute dis-
cretion of the head ; the special teaching given is
secret, and the disciples are discouraged or even pro-
hibited from revealing it. But the main doctrine is
the same throughout. The soul of man is in exile,
imprisoned in the body ; it is an emanation from God,
and — by a gloss on Muhammad's doctrine, "To Him
do we return," — the Sufis teach that the ultimate

SUFIISM 223

aim of man is to win reunion with or absorption in the
Divine. To attain to this is his end, and the means
are detachment from the world, its pleasures and its
pains, self-discipline, unwearied meditation on God,
absolute devotion to Him. The pathway to perfection
is the Sufi's pilgrimage ; the soul is one with the
Creator, and when at last that Oneness is realised, the
Union is complete, and the soul finds its perfect bliss,
losing itself and its personal consciousness in Him, a
state which it is not easy to distinguish from the
Buddhist Nirvana. In regard to religion, the Sufis
hold that only in the lowest stage of the quest after
perfection are external observances binding on or
serviceable to the devout soul. As soon as the disciple
is fully penetrated with love to God, he becomes " free
from the law " ; Divine love driving out from his
heart all worldly desires, he reaches the stage of
"seclusion," Zahd] occupying himself then with ex-
clusive meditation on the nature and perfections of
God, he attains to " knowledge " ; " knowledge " carries
him forward to " ecstasy," in which he receives a
revelation of the true nature of Godhead, the stage of
'truth"; from this he advances to the last stage,
" union " with the Divine, — which may be reached
even in this life, though the final consummation,
" absorption," does not take place till the " muddy
vesture of decay " is put off.

Such is the Sufis' mystical journey, and it is easy to
see how dangerous to morality is a system which at
an early stage casts off all the outward restraints of
religion. With a mixture of fatalism, sanctioned by
the words of the Quran, they hold that all men's
actions are really controlled and foreordained, and

224 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

therefore that man is not morally responsible for his
deeds. Nay, the devotee who deems himself to have
attained to " union " has been heard to proclaim him-
self God, and to suffer death for the blasphemy. The
highest expression of these Shia doctrines, the Bible
(so to speak) of the sect, is contained in the mystical
poetry of Persia, — in Jami, Hafiz, Jalal ud din, and
others ; there Wine and Love are the emblems of
spiritual aspirations — and the imagery is carried to
extreme lengths.

The Sufis are divided into many sects and schools,
but we need not pursue the subject. Nor need we
notice other divisions and heresies of Islam that have
during the ages developed ; the eternal problem of
Fate and Free-will, the controversies on the Being and
attributes of God, and the other religious questions
raised or stimulated by contact with other races and
systems of thought. But the strange revival of
orthodox doctrine and practice, the creed of the
Wahhabis, must be briefly noticed, especially as
at one time it bade fair to have important political
results.

It was founded in the early part of the eighteenth
century, and was an attempt to restore Islam to its
earliest purity, freed from the corruptions which had
defaced it from the grand simplicity of its Founder and
his contemporaries. Championed by some able and
ambitious chiefs of Najd, a dynasty was founded
and still rules in Central Arabia, though much shorn
of the power which once it wielded. Burkhardt and
Palgrave specially studied the revival, and the latter
has written on the subject a most charming and learned
book. He found that in the capital of Muslim ortho-

WAHHABI REVIVAL 225

doxy, nearly forty years ago, formalism and bigotry
reigned supreme, but the moral law was reduced to the
avoidance of polytheism and abstinence from wine and
tobacco ! All other crimes and offences were venial :
" Allah is very Pitiful," — but idolatry and " drinking
the shameful," that is smoking, should find forgiveness
neither in this world nor the next. Wahhabi tenets
spread widely among the Mussulmans of India, and
at one time assumed a threatening aspect; but the
danger is now at all events latent. But the horrors
of the great Mutiny, and the constant troubles from
fanatics on the northern and western frontiers of the
peninsula, with the events of recent years from the
pretended Mahdi and his Khalifa in the Soudan,
warn us what terrible forces are still at the call of
Islam.

In India there has been an interchange of evil be-
tween Islam and Hinduism : the former has adopted
much of the spirit of caste and the idolatrous worship
of saints and sacred shrines, and has given in exchange
the ruinous system of the seclusion of women, — so easy
is the infection of evil ! Among the most important
conquests of the Prophet's faith, however, are some of
the fairest and richest provinces of China, and they
may yet play a great part in the history of the Far
East. The attempt, twenty-five years ago, to found a
strong power in Central Asia failed ; Yarkand was
crushed between Russia and China, as between the
upper and nether millstones ; but since that time the
Mussulmans of China, some of the best, most warlike,
and most enterprising material to be found in the
empire, are said to have increased from an estimated
twenty millions to thirty millions; and the shrewd

226 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

German Emperor suggested but the other day to his
"friend and ally" at Constantinople that a Holy
War should be preached among them against the
Manchu tyranny. That such a movement is possible
no one will deny, though it is strange to find the
project championed by a Christian monarch, who
perhaps dreams of reviving in Europe the Holy Roman
Empire !

In the foregoing pages I have attempted briefly to
tell the history of the rise and early conquests of one of
the great religions of the world, and especially to tell
the life-story of its Founder. Sprung from one of the
noblest families of Mecca, the immemorial shrine of
idol- worship for all Arabia, he grew up amidst idol-
atry; but in early manhood he caught the breeze of
revolt from that gross superstition in which he had
been nurtured, and for many years stood forth among
his people to witness for and preach a purer faith, — the
mark of scorn, insult, and persecution. Gradually
his genius, earnestness, and high moral character
gathered round him a little band of followers, men and
women of all ranks, and all alike absolutely devoted to
their leader. When the fit time came, when he was
assured of a welcome and power in Medina, he forsook
his native city; slowly and cautiously, but never
wavering in his ambitious plans, he won his way into
the hearts of men and built up a strong power in Arabia,
bound together by faith in his mission, and that abso-
lute devotion to his person which only the rarest of men
can command. But as his power grew, his character
suffered. The lust of rule ate like a canker into his
soul ; he shrank from no cruelty or treachery to compass
his ends, though he was never cruel when unreserved

GENERAL REVIEW 227

submission was made. His debt to the Jews and to
their Scriptures may be read in every page of his Book,
yet he shrank not from the blasphemy of saying that
every word of his pretended revelation had been given
to him directly by God through the Archangel Gabriel.
He justified his vagrant love and his jealousy of his
wives by the command of the Almighty, registered (as
he taught) from all eternity in the highest heaven.
Shutting his eyes to the purer light of Jewish and
Christian revelation, he assumed by his own teaching
to supersede them both. Yet we have seen that the
morality of the latest, falls far below that of the earlier
religions ; the whole position of women was changed for
the worse, and instead of the equal and help of her hus-
band the wife was degraded to be his slave and his toy ;
slavery was sanctioned as of divine institution for all
time ; the savage law of retaliation and blood-revenge
was re-enacted, and the inhuman and barbarous penal-
ties of mutilation for theft and robbery were com-
manded. Freedom of thought and liberty of conscience
were stifled, and the sword was called in to compel when
persuasion failed. When he meddled with the calendar,
Muhammad made inextricable confusion. Presumptu-
ously declaring that on a certain day the seasons had
returned to the point at which they stood when God
placed man upon earth, he fixed a lunar year of twelve
months, which has been ever since a source of trouble
and annoyance. Professing to establish a universal
religion, he stultified himself by laying down rules for
the annual month of fasting which could by no possi-
bility be observed in extreme northern or extreme
southern latitudes. Tried, in fact, by all those tests
which he himself challenged, his religion is shown to be

228 MUHAMMAD AND HIS POWER

not of God and himself to lie under the condemnation
he pronounces on those who speak without warrant in
God's name.

I have briefly outlined the early political conquests
of the new faith, when under able captains the resist-
less valour of Arabia's locust-like swarms of warriors
subdued the fairest and most fruitful lands of Asia and
northern Africa, strongholds which it possesses to this
day. We have seen how soon wealth corrupted the
first simplicity of Islam, how ambition deluged its
kingdoms with civil bloodshed, and yet how firm a
grasp that false system still has over one-sixth of the
whole human race ; and how deeply founded is, after
nearly thirteen hundred years, the baleful power of
Muhammad.

If it be thought that the judgment passed on the
Prophet of Arabia is harsh, let it be remembered that
the evidence on which it rests comes all from the lips
and the pens of his own devoted adherents. The voice of
foes or detractors of his own time, or of time immedi-
ately following, has not reached the ears of later ages.
Everything that could tend to his glory was eagerly
sought out and treasured up by men jealous of his good
name, and everything that might seem to detract there-
from was carefully suppressed. His lightest words
were sacred to them, his most trifling actions were the
example they strove to follow. To them he was high-
est and most excellent of the creatures of God's hand,
last and most perfect of the messengers who declared
His will to man. The vast body of tradition
which was traced back to the lips of those who had
most closely companied with him was jealously sifted
and scrutinised, though not tested by the canons of

CONCLUSION 229

western criticism; it is on this that our knowledge
is founded, and our judgment passed, — and the
followers of the Prophet can scarcely complain if,
even on such evidence, the verdict of history goes
against him.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A.

WOMAN AND THE FUTURE LIFE.

MUHAMMAD taught clearly and definitely (Q. xxxiii. 35) that
Paradise was to be the reward of good women no less than of
good men. He left, however, the nature of their enjoyments
to be inferred. But the not uncommon belief that Muslims
hold that women either have no souls, or that their souls
perish at the death of the body, is no groundless calumny of
the Christian. If Hood sang of

" the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,"

the Prophet himself said that " Hell was for the most part
peopled with women " ; and there is remarkable recent evidence
that the belief that women do not live after death is held by
educated Muslims.

Sir Edward Malet, in his charming book of recollections
(Shifting Scenes), records a conversation he had with the late
Khedive of Egypt (Tauflq), Tewfik Pasha, for whom Sir
Edward had high regard. There was fear that the rebels
would storm the palace and murder the Khedive and all his

231

232 APPENDICES

family, and Tewfik explained the abject terror of his wives by
saying, " For them, you know, existence ends absolutely with
death." If the Khedive of Egypt held such a belief, it is
probably common among his co-religionists.

APPENDIX B.

THE MUSSULMAN CALENDAR.

The Muhammadan Era (A.H.) dates from the Flight of the
Prophet from Mecca to Medina, A.D. 622. It begins, however,
not from the day of the Flight, but from 1st Muharram of that
(Arab) year, corresponding to April-May. The old Arab
year, like the Greek, was luni-solar, a correction being made
by intercalary months as required : the system, according to
Al Biru.ni, was borrowed from the Jews. But at the Farewell
Pilgrimage, in the last year of his life, Muhammad by pro-
clamation (Q. ix. 38) abolished the intercalary system as a
pagan usage, and declared that thenceforward the years should
consist each of twelve lunar months. The Hijra Era was
officially instituted by Omar, seventeen years after the Flight.

The present year 1901 A.D. is 1319 A.H. (20th April =
1 Muharram), and the complex rule for converting the year
A.H. into A.D. is as follows (H. H. Wilson) : Multiply the
H. year by 2977, the difference between 100 solar and 100
Muhammadan years : divide the product by 100, and
deduct the quotient from the A.H. ; then add to the result
621 '569, — and the sum is the A.D. The rule for the con-
version of A.D. into A.H. is even more complicated.

The old Arab names for the months of the year were

APPENDICES 233

retained in Islam, and had been given from the natural
character of the seasons. When, therefore, owing to the
lunar computation, the months gradually retrograded through
the whole year, the names were often absurdly at variance
with the reality of the season. One effect of the change has
been to make the severity of the Fast of Eamadhan to vary
from year to year.

APPEXDIX C.
AN ORIGINAL DESPATCH OF MUHAMMAD.

Sir "W. Muir expresses in his Life of Mahomet a hope,
which is not unreasonable, that we may yet recover the
original letters of protection granted by the Prophet to
Christian chiefs. We do, however, possess the equally inter-
esting summons addressed, in 7 A.H., to Muqauqas, Governor
of Egypt, calling upon him to embrace Islam. An identical
summons was addressed (see pp. 121 and foil.) to the Emperor
Heraclius, the King of Persia, and others.

The despatch already existed in the Traditions, as having
been handed down by Ibn Abbas, who cites that which was
addressed to Heraclius. The original document, which the
late learned Dr. P. Badger declared to be genuine, was dis-
covered in 1858 by some French travellers at a convent in
Upper Egypt, and is now preserved at Constantinople. It is
thus translated by Dr. Badger :

" In the Xame of God, the Pitiful, the Compassionate !
From Muhammad, the servant of God and His Prophet, to
Mukaukis, the head of the Copts. Peace be upon him who
follows the right way (Islam). Further, I write you to

234 APPENDICES

embrace Islam : become a Muslim and you will be saved, (and)
God will vouchsafe you a double reward ; but if you decline,
you will be answerable for the calamities which shall befall
the Copts. l 0, people of the Book (having Sacred Scriptures),
come ye to a just judgment between us and you. — That we
worship not aught but God, and that we associate nothing with
Him (as a plurality of persons), and that the one of us take not
the other for lords (Rabbis) beside God. Then if they decline,
say : Sear ye witness that ice are Muslims."

(Seal)

The above is taken from Sir. W. Smith's Dictionary of
Christian Biography, art. MUHAMMAD (by Dr. G. Badger).
1 Quran iii. 57.

IXDEX

ABBAS, Muhammad's uncle, at

Aqaba, 80 ; warns him, 98 ;

converted, 127.
Abdallah, Muhammad's father :

redeemed, 39 ; marries Amina,

and dies, 40.
Abdallah, blind man, 66.
Abdallah, Khazraj chief: befriends

Jews, 97, 99 ; at Uhud, 99, 103 ;

troubles Muhammad, 108 ; dies,

140.

Abd al Manaf, 37, 49.
Abd al Mnttalib redigs Zemzem :

redeems Abdallah, 39 ; dies,

44.

Abraha, Abyssinian general, 29.
Abraham, 2; "faith of," 42, 63;

"station of," 128.
Abu Bakr converted, 61 ; described,

62 ; shares Flight, 81 ; at Badr,

93, and Uhud, 100 ; at Mecca,

140 ; first Khalifa, 146 ; defends

Me<lma, 164 ; character, 162 ;

dies, 168.
Abu Jahl, Muhammad's uncle and

foe, 62, 95.

Abu Ubaid, 169.

Abyssinia, 29 ; receives Muslims,
71 ff., 122.

Ad, impious Arab tribe, miracu-
lously destroyed, 68.

Alexandria taken, 175 ; library,
205.

Ali, 53, 61, 64; at Badr, 93;
marries Fatima, 98 ; at Uhud,
100; Medina, 115; Qamus, 122;
at Mecca, 140 ; succeeds Uth-
man, 185 ; war with Muawiya,
188; his "divine right," 184;
deposed, 189 ; murdered, 190 ;
worshipped by Shias, 221.

Allah, doctrine of, 198 S.

Allat, Al Uzza, idols, 34, 74.

Alms, 156.

Amina, Muhammad's mother, 3,
40, 48.

Amru converted, 125 ; takes Egypt,
173 ; his mosque, 175.

Antioch, 30 ; taken, 167.

Apostasy punished with death,
203.

Aqaba, pledges of, 79, 80.

Abu Lahb, 62, 64 ; cursed in ] Aqraba (Yamama), battle, 165.

Quran, 65. Arab character, 11, 17 ; poetry,

Abu Musa, 133, 189. 14, 16, 18 ; language, 15 ; ideals,

Abu Sufiyan, 92, 97 ; at Uhud, | 24.

100 ; besieges Medina, 115 ; his i Arabia, 1, 6 ; described, 7, etc.

murder attempted, 118 ; con-
verted, 127.

Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and
protector, 49, 66, 75.

235

Arrows of divination, 18.
Ashraf murdered, 97.
Asma murdered, 96.
Assassination, 96, 97, 102, 118.

236

INDEX

Aus and Khazraj, tribes at Medina,
35, 79, 90, etc.

Ayesha, 77 ; involved in scandal
and acquitted, 109, 111 ; nurses
Muhammad in last illness,
144 ff. ; opposes All, 187 ; source
of tradition, 187.

Ayla, John of, Christian chief, 139.

BADE, battle, 93 ff. ; fair, 105.

BanI Asad, 102 ; Amir, 103 ;
Mustaliq, 108 ; Saad, foster-
brethren of Muhammad, 45, 130.

Baraka, nurse of Muhammad, 44, 48.

Battles : Badr, 93 ; Buath, 36 ; of
"Camel," 187 ; " of chains," 187 ;
Jalaula, 172 ; Karbala, 190 ;
Nahawand, 172 ; Qadisiya, 171 ;
Siffin, 188 ; Uhud, 100 ; Ya-
mama, 165 ; Yarmuk, 170 ;
Zu Ear, 30.'

Battle-cry, 5, 99.

Bedouins, 4, 10, 15.

Bible. Muhammad borrowed from,
203.

Bilal, slave-convert, "crier" of
Islam, 70, 124.

Black Stone, kissed by pilgrims, 2,
54, 124.

Brotherhood, 12, 90.

Burton, SirE,., quoted, 10, 12,124w.,
141 7i., 156 n., 157, 177, 178, 198.

CAIRO, 8 ; founded, 175.

Calendar, Muslim, A pp. B.

Call to prayer, 89, 155.

"Carpe Diem," 21.

Chivalry in Old Arabia, 11, 15.

Christianity in Arabia, 1, 4, 25 ;

compared with Islam, 158, 202.
Circumambulation, 34, 124.
Climate, its influence, 5.
Code of Omar, 177.
"Commander of the Faithful"

title, 162 n.

Commandments of Islam, 209.
Commutation of months (Nasa), 33.
" Companions" of the Prophet, 16,

165, 180, 181.

Creed of Islam, 154, 155.
Criminal laws, 202.
Cyprus taken, 182.

DAMASCUS,16; takenbyKhalid,167.

Dirge, 23.

Ditch at Medina, 114.

Divorce, ancient, 19 ; in Islam, 21 5.

EGYPT conquered, 173 ; revolts

from AH, 188.
"Eheu fugaces," 21.
Era, Muhammadan, 3, App. B. ;

fired by Omar, 177.
Exile to Abyssinia, 71 ; of Qainu-

qaa, 97 ; of Nazir, 103.

FAST of Ramadhan, 156.

Fdtiha: "Opening" Chapter of

Quran, 197.
Fatima, daughter of Muhammad,

All's wife, 52, 98, 163.

GABRIEL calls Muhammad, 55 ff. ;

helps him, 81 ; brings down

Quran, 133.
Ghassan, its history, 31.

HAFSA, Omar's daughter, 97, 133,
176.

Halima, Muhammad's foster-
mother, 45, 47.

Hamza, "Lion of God," Muham-
mad's uncle, 76, 93. 101.

Hasan, 98 ; abdicates, and is
poisoned, 190.

Hawazin tribe, attacks Muhammad,
defeated at Hunain, 129.

Hell, in Quran, 211.

Hijra, "Flight" to Medina, 3, 81.

Hira, 29.

Hubal, idol, 32 ; divination before,
39 ; 128.

Hunain, victory over Hawazin, 130.

Husain falls at Karbala, 191 ;
worshipped by Shias, 220.

IBRAHIM, Muhammad's son by
Mary, 183 ff.

INDEX

237

Islam, "Self-surrender," Muham-
mad's religion, passim ; breaks
all ties, 95, 97, 116 ; political
despotism, 157.

Idolatry denounced, 58, 65, 141.

JERUSALEM taken by Omar, 174.

Jesus Christ, 73, 76, 85.

Jews at Medina — exiled or mass-
acred, 97, 103, 116.

Jihad, "Holy War," commanded,
91, 157.

Jinns, spirits, 18, 34, 46.

Judgment day in Quran, 205 ff.

Juwairiya, 103, 108, 110.

KAABA, ancient temple, 2, 34, 124 ;

rebuilt, 54 ; cleansed, 124.
Karbala, tragedy of, 190.
Khadija, Muhammad's first wife,

52, 53, 56, 77.
Khaibar Jews, 118 ff.
Khalid, commander, 100, 115, 125,

126, 168 ; the "Sword of God,"

165.
Kufa founded, 173 ; All's capital,

187.

LAVE, ED., quoted, 151, 155, 157,

201, 213.
Lyall, Sir C. J., Ancient Arabian

Poetry, extracts, 21-24.

MADAIN, Persian capital, taken,

169 ff.
Maqauqas of Egypt, summoned to

Islam,121; original letter, App. C.
Marriage, laws of, 214.
Mecca, 1, 2, 7, 24 ; submits to

Muhammad, 127.
Meccans defeated at Badr, 93 ;

victors at Uhud, 100 ; besiege

Medina, 114.
Miracles disclaimed, 151 ; imputed

to Muhammad, 15, 81, 83.
' ' Miracle Play" of Persia, described,

219 ff.
Muawiya, 177, 184, 187, 189,

191.

j Muhammad, birth, 3, 40, 44 ;
epileptic, 47 ; marries Khadija,
52 ; is " called" by Gabriel, 55 ;
an "unlettered" Prophet, 57;
his early teaching, 72 ; flees to
Medina, 80 ; his ' ' night journey, "
82 ; marries Ayesha, 97 ; sanc-
tions assassinations, 96 ; fights
at Badr and Uhud, 93, 100 ;
exiles or massacres Jewish tribes,
103, 116 ; suspects and absolves
Ayesha, 109 ; captures Mecca,
127 ; leads Farewell Pilgrimage,
141-143 ; falls ill and dies, 144 ;
composes the Quran, fixes Arabic
style, 195 ; character and habits,
148 ; rejects Christianity, 205.

Musailima, "The Liar," 144, 165.

Muslim, "resigned," a follower of
Muhammad, 3, 7 ; passim.

"Muslims before Islam," 41.

Muta, defeat of Zaid, 125.

Mysticism in Islam, see Sufis.

OMAR, second Khalifa ; converted,
77 ; at Badr, 93, and Uhud, 100 ;
election, 168 ; at Jerusalem, 174 ;
character, 177 ; murdered, 178.

Orphans, pity for, 14.

PARADISE, 101 ; in Quran, 153,

209 ff.
Pilgrimage incumbent on Muslims,

7; "Farewell, "141.
Polygamy, 157, 215.
Prayer, five daily commanded, 86 ;

public, 155.
Predestination, 201.

QADISIYA, battle, decides fate of

Persia, 171.
Quraish, dominant tribe of Mecca,

33, 42,49, 81, etc.
Quran, "miracle," 57 ; eternal, 57,

107 ; how composed, 152, 153 ;

collected, 165 ; selections from,

197-200, 206-214.
Qusai, chief in Mecca, refounds the

city, 32, 37, 39.

238

INDEX

"REFUGEES " from Mecca, 90.
"Remission " or cessation of revela-
tions, 57.

SAAD, Muslim general, 170, 173,

182.

Shias and Sunnis, 216.
Slavery, 135, 215.
Sufis, mystics of Islam, 221 ; their

doctrine, 223.

TA,IF rejects Muhammad. 78; be-
sieged, 130 ; submits, 140.

"Throne Verse," 198.

Treaties, with Jews of Medina,
90 ; with Meccans, 120 ; with
Christian chiefs, 139.

UQAZ, fair of, 35, 51.
Uthman, third Khalifa, elected, 179;
character, 180 ; murdered, 184.

WAHHABIS, fanatics, 7, 8 ; their
doctrines, 224, 226.

Wives of Muhammad, special laws

for, 113.
Women before Islam, 17 ; in Islam,

106, 107, 113, 155, 157; and

future life, App. A.

YAMAN, 27, 28, 143.

Yarmuk, battle, decides fate of

Syria, 170.
Yazid, son and successor of Mua-

wiya, 191, 216.
Year "of Ashes," 177; "of the

Elephant," 29 ; "of the Flight,"

3, 81 ; "of deputations," 138.

ZAID, Muhammad's freedman, 53 ;

converted, 61 ; divorces Zainab,

praised in Quran, 117; killed, 125.
Zaid (2), Muhammad's secretary,

104 ; collects Quran, 166.
Zaid (3), the Sceptic, 42 ; his creed

and prayer, 43 ff.
Zemzem, fountain at Mecca, 2 ;

redug, 32.

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XIII. THE TWO BACONS AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE. Show-

ing how ROGER BACON prepared the way for FRANCIS BACON
LORD VERULAM. By Rev. W. J. COUPER, M.A.

XIV. SAVONAROLA. By Rev. G. M 'HARDY, D.D. [Now ready.

XV. LUTHER AND THE GERMAN REFORMATION. By Rev.
Professor T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., U.F.C. College, Glasgow.

[Now ready.

XVI. CRANMER AND THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. By A. D.

INNES, M.A.(Oxon.), London. [Nmo ready.

XVII. CALVIN AND THE REFORMED THEOLOGY. By Rev.
Principal SALMOND, D.D., U.F.C. College, Aberdeen.

XVIII. PASCAL AND THE PORT ROYALISTS. By Professor W.
CLARK, LL.D., D.C.L., Trinity College, Toronto.

XIX. DESCARTES, SPINOZA, AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY.
By Rev. Professor J. IVERACH, D.D., U.F.C. College, Aberdeen.

XX. WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND HIS WORK. By JAMES SIME,
M. A. , F. R. S. E. [Now ready.

XXI. WESLEY AND METHODISM. By F. J. SNELL, M.A.(Oxon.).

[Noio ready.

XXII. LESSING AND THE NEW HUMANISM. Including Baumgarten
and the Science of Esthetics. By Rev. A. P. DAVIDSON, M.A.

XXIII. HUME AND HIS INFLUENCE ON PHILOSOPHY AND

THEOLOGY. By Professor J. ORR, D.D., Glasgow.

XXIV. ROUSSEAU AND NATURALISM IN LIFE AND THOUGHT.

By Professor W. H. HUDSON, M.A., Leland Stanford Junior
University, California.

XXV. KANT AND HIS PHILOSOPHICAL REVOLUTION. By Pro-
fessor R. M. WENLEY, D.Sc., Ph.D., University of Michigan.

XXVI. SCHLEIERMACHER AND THE REJUVENESCENCE OF
THEOLOGY. By Professor A. MARTIN, D.D., New College,

Edinburgh. [Shortly.

XXVII. HEGEL AND HEGELIANISM. By Professor R. MACKINTOSH,
D.D., Lancashire Independent College, Manchester.

XXVIII. NEWMAN AND HIS INFLUENCE. By C. SABOLKA, Ph.D.,
Lilt. Doc., University of Edinburgh.

T. onil. T. Clark's Publications.

HOW TO READ THE PROPHETS :

Being the Prophecies arranged Chronologically in their Historical
Setting, with Explanations, Maps, and Glossary.

BY REV. BUCHANAN BLAKE, B.D.

Now Complete, in Five Volumes Crown Sz'o.

Part I. THE PRE -EXILIAN MINOR PROPHETS (with JOEL).

Second Edition. Price 45.
Part II. ISAIAH (Chapters i.-xxxix.). Second Edition. Price

25. 6.1

Part III. JEREMIAH. Price 45.

Part IY. EZEKIEL. Price 45.

Part Y. ISAIAH (xl.-lxvi.) and THE POST-EXILIAN PROPHETS.

Price 43.

N.B. — The Series being now complete, Messrs. Clark offer the SET
of FIVE VOLUMES for FIFTEEN SHILLINGS.

"It has often been found a difficulty to profit fully from the reading, especially
cf the smaller prophecies of the Old Testament. To make these prophecies intel-
ligible to the plainest reader, it seems desirable that a chronological arrangement
of the prophetic boohs should be attempted. Alongside of the several prophecies
should be placed those portions of the O'd Testament historical books which deal
with the same period. The aim of these manuals is consequently in this direction :
to bring within the reach of the many a clear and succinct presentation of these
prophets In their historical enuironment." — From the AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION.

" Those who already possess the earlier parts of the same work will
at once possess themselves of this new volume. Those who do not,
w ill be glad to have it recommended to their notice. The author's plan
has grown since he first announced it, and we are glad of it, as the
treatment is more full and thorough. It is enough now to say that
there is nothing like this little book on Jeremiah." — Church Bells.

" Mr Blake has already taught us how to read Isaiah and the Minor
Prophets, and we have found the task much lightened in consequence,
scarcely any more a toilsome task at all. For the difficulty of the
Prophets is in their arrangement, together with the numerous allusions,
local and historical, and these are the things Mr Blake takes pains to
put right for us. He puts them right, so that now we stand, as far as
it is possible we ever could stand, in the same position as the prophet's
hearers. No ' Aids to the Study of the Bible can approach these in
real helpfulness for the ordinary Bible reader." — The Expository Tinus.

" A pleasure to read, and profit for the reading. . . . The arrange-
ment of the historical sections, and the prophetical utterances connected
therewith, is admirable. All Bible students have reason to be grateful
to the author for this entertaining volume ; its form is inviting, its
interest absorbing." — Church Times.

"A well-conceived and carefully executed attempt to make these
writings speak for themselves. . . . His book will give a new meaning
to these prophecies to many a reader." — The Critical Review.

EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.
LONDON: SIMPKIN. MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

BY PROFESSOR W. N. CLARKE, P.P.

The Bookman says : ' Dr. Clarke's charm both of thought and expression
secures a welcome for anything he may write.'

1. AN OUTLINE OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.

Seventh Edition now ready, post 8vo, price 7s. 6d.

1 It is difficult to speak of this book in adequate terms without an
appearance of exaggerated praise . . . Here at last the great vital truths
of the Christian faith are set along the lines of the highest thought of the
liberal, reverent, modern mind, and with consummate skill and fascinating
interest. Theology is no doubt the queen of the sciences, but, as usually pre-
sented, in somewhat austere, ponderous, antiquated guise, has little human
attraction. Here it is quick with human interest, answering to the living
thoughts of the living generation." — Puritan.

2. WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF CHRISTIAN-

ITY?

Crown 8vo, price 2s. 6d.

'Dr. Clarke's "Outline of Christian Theology" had a reception rarely
accorded to an American book, and the sale is briskly proceeding. The
new little book is written in the same charming simplicity of language,
and its thoughts are as great and simple, that it is likely to find an equally
warm welcome beside its elder brother. There are three chapters: (1)
The Christian People; (2) The Christian Doctrine; (3) The Christian
Power.' — Expository Times.

3. CAN I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER?

Just published, crown 8vo, price 3s.

'Dr. Clarke has here, as elsewhere, shown himself a master in the arts of
popularising Christian apologetics.' — Christian World.

ST. PAUL'S CONCEPTION OF CHRIST;

or, The Doctrine of the Second Adam. Being the Sixteenth
Series of the 'Cunningham Lectures.' By DAVID SOMERVILLE,
D.D. In demy 8vo, price 9s.

' By its keen and profound insight, by its sanity, and by its fulness of
knowledge, the volume will at once take its place as the best authority on
that department of New Testament theology with which it deals.'—'
Review.

THE CHRIST OF HISTORY AND OF EXPERI-
ENCE.

Being the ' Kerr Lectures' for 1897. By DAVID W. F«.
D.D. In post 8vo, Third and Revised Edition, price 6s.
' An exceedingly able treatment of a great and important subject.' — The
late Professor CALDERWOOD.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

BIBLE GLASS fRIMERS.

EDITED BY REV. PRINCIPAL SALMOND, D.D.

In paper covers, 6<L each ; free by post, 7<L In cloth, 8<L each ; free by post, 9d .

The History of the English Bible, and How It has come down to Us. By

Rev. W. Bt-RNET 1 IIOMSOX. M.A., B.D. With Illustrations of MSS.
Historical Geography of the Holy Land. With 42 Illustrations. By Rev.

S. R. MACPHAIL, D.D.

Our Lord's Illustrations. By Rev. R. RESKEE, M.A.
Elijah and Elisha. BY hev. R. G. MACINTTRE, B.D.
The Exile and the Restoration. By Professor A. B. DAVIDSON, D. D.
The Miracles of Our Lord. By Professor J. LAIDLAW/D.D.
Christian Conduct; Christian Character: A Study in New Testament

Morality. By Professor T. B. E.ILPATRICK, D.D.
The Free Church of Scotland. By Rev. C. G. M-CRTB, D.D.
The Making of Israel. By Rev. C". A. SCOTT, B.D.
The Truth of Christianity. By Rev. Professor IVZRACH, D.D.
The Sabbath. By Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D.
Our Christian Passover. By Kev. C. A. SALMOND. M.A.
The Kingdom of God. A Plan of Study. In Three Parts. By Rev.

F. HERBERT STEAD, M.A. (Or the Three Parts in one vol. , cloth, Is. 6d.)
The Parables of Our Lord. By Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D.
Life of St. John. By PATON J. GLOAG, D.D.
Life of Abraham. By Rev. C. A. SCOTT, B.D.
Historical Connection between the Old and New Testaments. By Rev.

Professor Jons SKINNER, M.A. . D.D.
The Life of Christ. By Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D.
The Shorter Catechism. In Three Parts. By Rev. Principal SALMOND,

D.D. (Or in one vol., cloth, Is. 6d.)

The Period of the Judges. By the Rev. Professor PATERSON, D.D.
Outlines of Protestant Missions. By JOHN ROBSON, D.D.
Life of the Apostle Peter. By Rev. Principal SALMOND, D.D.
Outlines of Early Church History, By the late Rev. HKNRT WALLIS

SMITH, D.D.

Life of David. By the late Rev. PETEB THOMSON, M.A.
Life of Moses. By Rev. Professor IVERACH, D.D.

' Accurately done, clear, mature, and scholarly.'— Christian.
Life of PauL By PATON J. GLOAG, D.D.

- little book conld not well be surpassed.' — Daily Review.
Life and Reign of Solomon. By Rev. RATITER WINTERBOTHAM. M. A., LL.B.

'Every teacher should have it.'— Rev. C. H. SPCKOEOX.
The History of the Reformation. By Rev. Professor WITHEROW.

'A vast amount of information set forth in a clear and concise manner.' — Uniie-i
Presbyterian Magazine.

The Kings of Israel. By Rev. W. WALKER, M.A.
' A masterpiece of lucid condensation.' — Christian Leader.
The Kings of Judah. By Rev. Professor GIVKH, Ph.D.

' Admirably arranged ; the style is sufficiently simple and clear to be quite within
the compass of young people.'— British Messenger.
Joshua and the Conquest. By Rev. Professor CROSKERT.

' This carefully written manual will be much appreciated.'— Daily Review.

Bible Words and Phrases. Explained and Illustrated. By Bev. CHARLES

MICHIE. M.A. 18mo, cloth, Is.

'Will be found interesting and instructive, and of the greatest value to young
students and teachers.' — Athenaeum.
The Seven Churches of Asia. By DKBORAH ALCOCK. 18mo, cloth, Is.

A GREAT BIBLICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

'If the other volumes come up to the standard of the first, this Dictionary seemi
likely to take its place as the standard authority for biblical students of the present
generation.' — Times.

To be Completed in Four Volumes, Imperial 8vo (ol nearly 900 pages each).
Price per Volume, in. cloth, 28s.; in half morocco, 34s.,

A DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE,

Dealing with its Language, Literature, and Contents,
including the Biblical Theology.

Edited by JAMES HASTINGS, M.A., D.D., with the Assistance of J. A.
SKLBIE, M.A., and, chiefly in the Revision of the Proofs, of A. B.
DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh ; S. R DRIVER, D.D., Litt.D.,
Oxford; and H. B. SWETE, D.D., Litt.D., Cambridge.

Full Prospectus, with Specimen Pages, from all Booksellers, or
from the Publishers.

' We offer Dr. Hastings our sincere congratulations on the publication of the first
instalment of this great enterprise. ... A work was urgently needed which should
present the student with the approved results of modern inquiry, and which should
also acquaint him with the methods by which theological problems are now approached
by the most learned and devout of our theologians.'— Guardian.

' We welcome with the utmost cordiality the first volume of Messrs. Clark's great
enterprise, " A Dictionary of the Bible." That there was room and need for sucli a
book is unquestionable. . . . We have here all that the student can desire, a work of
remarkable fulness, well up to date, and yet at the same time conservative in its
general tendency, almost faultlessly accurate, and produced by the publishers in a most
excellent and convenient style. We can thoroughly recommend it to our readers as a
book which should fully satisfy their anticipations. . . . This new Dictionary U one of
the most important aids that have recently been furnished to a true understanding of
Scripture, and, properly used, will brighten and enrich the pulpit work of every
minister who possesses it. ... We are greatly struck by the excellence of the short
articles. They are better done than in any other work of the kind. We have compared
several of them with their sources, and this shows at once the unpretentious labour
that is behind them. . . . Dr. A. B. Davidson is a tower of strength, and he shows at his
best in the articles on Angels, on Covenant (a masterpiece, full of illumination), and on
Eschatology of the Old Testament. His contributions are the chief ornaments and
treasure-stores of the Dictionary. . . . We are very conscious of having done most
inadequate justice to this very valuable book. Perhaps, however, enough lias been said
to show our great sense of its worth. It is a book that one is sure to be turning to again
and again with increased confidence and gratitude. It will be an evil omen for the
Church if ministers do not come forward to make the best of the opportunity now
presented them.' — EDITOR, British Weekly.

'Will give widespread satisfaction. Every person consulting it may rely upon its
trustworthiness. . . . Far away in advance of any other Bible Dictionary that has ever
been published in real usefulness for preachers, Bible students, and teachers.' —
Methodist Recorder.

' This monumental work. It has made a great beginning, and promises to take
rank as one of the most important biblical enterprises of the century.'— Christian
World.

EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.

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