"Oh Prophet, contend against the Infidels and the hypocrites, and be rigorous with them. Hell shall be their dwelling-place! Wretched the journey thither."—The Kuran.
The clouds upon the Syrian border gathered so rapidly that they threatened any moment to burst during the autumn of 680. When Mahomet heard that the feudatories were massed under the bidding of Heraclius at Hims, he realised there was no time to be lost. Eagerly he summoned his army, and expected from it the same enthusiasm for the campaign as he himself displayed.
But there was no generous response to his call. Syria was far away, the Believers could not be convinced of the importance of the attack. They were weary of the incessant warfare and it was, moreover, the season of the heats, when no man willingly embarked upon arduous tasks. The Companions rallied at once to the side of their leader, and many true Believers also supported their lord, but the Citizens and the Bedouins murmured against his exactions, and for the most part refused to accompany him.
Only Mahomet's indefatigable energy summoned together a sufficient army. But the Believers were generous, and gave not only themselves but their gold, and after some delay the expedition was organised.
Mahomet himself led the troop, leaving Abu Bekr in Medina to conduct the daily prayer and have charge of the religious life of the city, while to Molleima were given the administrative duties. The expedition reached the valley of Heja, where Mahomet called a halt, and there, about half-way from his goal, rested the greater part of two days. The next days saw him continually advancing over the scanty desert ways, urging on his soldiers with prayers and exhortations, so that they might not grow weary with the long heat and the silence. Finally he sighted Tebuk, where the rebel army was reported to be.
But by this time the border tribes had dispersed, frightened into inactivity by the strength of Mahomet's army, and incapacitated further by lack of definite leadership. There seemed no fighting to be done, but Mahomet was determined to make sure of his peaceful triumph. The main force stayed at Tebuk, while Khalid was despatched to Dumah, there to intimidate both Jews and Bedouins by the size of his force and their fighting prowess. The manoeuvre was entirely successful, and before long Mahomet had received the submission of the tribes dwelling along the shores of the Elanitic Gulf.
Meanwhile, he had recourse to diplomacy as well as the sword. He sent a letter to John, Christian prince of Eyla, and received from him a most favourable hearing. John accompanied the messenger back to the Prophet, where he accorded him meet reverence and regard as the leader of a mighty faith. Between the two princes a treaty was drawn up, the text of which is extant, and very probably authentic. It is characteristic of the whole series of treaties entered into at this time by Mahomet with the desert tribes, and as such is interesting enough to reproduce. These treaties are given at full length in Wakidi; they differ from each other by only small details, and that drawn up for John of Eyla may be taken as fairly representative. It is little more than a guarantee of safe conduct upon either side, and is noticeably free from any religious requirements or commissions:
"In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful. A compact of peace from God and from Mahomet, the Prophet and Apostle of God, granted unto Yuhanna, son of Rubah, and unto the people of Eyla. For them who remain at home and for those that travel by sea or by land, there is the guarantee of God and of Mahomet, the Apostle of God, and for all that are with them, whether of Syria or of Yeman, or of the Sea Coast. Whoso contraveneth this treaty, his wealth shall not save him—it shall be the fair prize of him that taketh it. Now it shall not be lawful to hinder the men of Eyla from any springs which they have been in the habit of frequenting, nor from any journey they desire to make, whether by sea or by land. The writing of Juheim and Sharrabil, by command of the Apostle of God."
When this scanty document had been completed John of Eyla betook himself again to his own country, leaving Mahomet free to enter into further compacts with the Jews of Mauna, Adzuh, and Jaaba. When these had been ratified and Mahomet had received tribute from the surrounding people, he set out again for Medina, having first made sure of Khalid's success in Dumah, and receiving the conversion of the chief of that tribe with much gladness.
Now, departing to Medina confident in his success, it was with no good will that he entered its walls. Many of his erstwhile followers, especially the tribes of Bedouins, had refused him their help upon this adventure, and, immediate danger being past, he returned to rend them in the fury of his eloquence. His success had given him the right to chastise; even the Ansar were not exempt from his wrath. Three who remained behind were proscribed, and compelled to fulfil fifty days of penance.
"Had there been a near advantage and a short journey, they would certainly have followed thee; but the way seemed long to them. Yet they will swear by God, 'Had we been able we had surely gone forth with you; they are self-destroyers! And God knoweth that they are surely liars!'"
Before he had entered the city his anger was further provoked by the Beni Ganim, who had erected a mosque, ostensibly out of piety, really to spite the Beni Amru ibn Auf and to make them jealous for their own mosque at Kuba, whose stones he had laid with his own hands. He fell upon the Ganim, "some who have built a mosque for mischief," and demolished the building. Then he drew attention to their perfidy in the Kuran, and took care that there should be no more mosques built in the spirit of rivalry and envy.
Very little time after his return to Medina, Abdallah, leader of the Disaffected, his opponent and critic for so many years, died suddenly. His death meant a great change in the position of his party. There was no strong man to succeed Abdallah, and they found themselves without leader or policy. They had for long been nominally allies of Mahomet, but had not scrupled under Abdallah's leadership to question his authority by opposition and sometimes in open acts of war. Abdallah's death crushed for ever any attempts at revolt in Medina, and fused the Disaffected into the common stock of Believers.
Abdallah occupies rather a peculiar position in Mahomet's entourage; he was often the Prophet's opponent, sometimes his open defier, and yet Mahomet's dealings with him were uniformly gentle and forbearing. He may have had some personal regard for him. Abdallah was a stern and upright man, whose uncompromising nature would speedily win Mahomet's respect. Possibly the Prophet felt he might be too powerful an enemy, and determined to ignore his insurrections. He paid him that respect which his generosity of mind allowed him to offer towards any he knew and liked. The Mahomet whose ruthlessness towards his opponents fell like an awe upon all Arabia, could know and do homage to an enemy who had shown himself worthy of his steel. All things seemed to be working towards Mahomet's final prevailing. Now at last after many years the city of Medina was unfeignedly his, the Jews were extirpated, the Disaffected united under his banner.
Meanwhile, the city of Taif still held out in spite of Malik's incessant warfare against it. But its defences were steadily growing weaker, and at last the inhabitants knew they could no longer continue the hopeless struggle. The chief citizens sent an embassy to Mahomet, promising to destroy their idol within three years if the Prophet would release them from their harassment. But Mahomet refused unconditionally. The uprooting of idolatry was ever the price of his mercy. The message was sent back that instant demolition of the accursed thing must be made or the siege would continue. Then the people of Taif, hoping once more for clemency, asked to be released from the obligation of daily prayer. This request Mahomet also refused, but in deference to their ancestral worship, and no doubt in some pity for their plight, he allowed their idol to be destroyed by other hands than their own. Abu Sofian and Molleima were despatched with a covering force to destroy the great image Lat, which had stood for time immemorial in the centre of Taif and was the shrine for all the prayers and devotions of that fair and ancient city.
Taif was the last stronghold of the idolaters. When that had fallen beneath the sway of the Prophet and his remote, austerely majestic God-head, indivisible and personless, the doom of the old gods was at hand. They were dethroned from their high places at the bidding of a man; but they had not bowed their heads before his proclaimed message, but before the strength of his armies, the onward sweep of his ceaseless and victorious warfare. To Mahomet, indeed, Allah had never shown himself more gracious than at the fall of idolatrous Taif. He resolved thereupon that the crowning act of homage should be fulfilled. He would make a solemn journey to the holy city, and accomplish the Greater Pilgrimage with purified rites freed from the curse of the worship of many gods.
But when he came to the setting forth, and the sacred month of Dzul Higg was upon him, he found that many idolatrous practices still remained as part of the great ceremonial. He could not contaminate himself by undertaking the pilgrimage while these remained, but he could send Abu Bekr to ensure that none should remain after this year's cleansing. He was now strong enough to insist that the rooting out of idolatry was his chief policy, and to make the breaking up of the ancestral gods incumbent upon the whole country. Abu Bekr was commissioned to set forth upon his task with 300 men, and to spare neither himself nor them until the mission was accomplished and every idolatrous practice blotted out.
And now follows one of the most characteristic acts Mahomet ever performed, wherein obligation is made to bow to expediency and the bonds of treaties snap and break before the wind of the Prophet's will. Abu Bekr had started but one day's journey upon the Meccan road when Ali was sent after him with a document bearing the Prophet's seal. This he was to read to the Faithful, and receive their pledge that they would act upon its contents. Mahomet also published abroad a like proclamation in the city itself. The document drawn up and despatched with such haste was nothing less than a Release for the Prophet and his followers from all obligations to the Infidels after a term of four months.
"A Release by God and the Apostle in respect of the Heathen with whom ye have entered into treaty. Go to and fro in the earth securely in the four months to come. And know ye cannot hinder God, and that verily God will bring disgrace upon the Unbelievers. And an announcement from God and his Apostle unto the People on the day of Pilgrimage that God is discharged from (liability to) the Heathen and his Prophet likewise…. Fulfil unto these their engagements until the expiration of their terms; for God loveth the pious. And when the forbidden months are over then fight gainst the heathen, wheresoever ye find them, … but if they repent and establish Prayer and give the Tithes, leave them in peace…. O ye that believe, verily the Unbelievers are unclean. Wherefore let them not approach the Holy Temple after this year."
No one reading this writing, which bears upon it all the stamps of authenticity, can fail to see the motive behind its words. Its unscrupulousness has received in all good faith the sanction of the Most High. Mahomet knew that the time was ripe for an uncompromising insistence upon the acceptance of his faith. He was strong enough to compel. It was Allah who had strengthened his armies and given him dominion, therefore in Allah's name he repudiated his agreements with heathen peoples, and by virtue of his power he purposed to bestow upon his Lord a greater glory. An act wrought in such defiance of honour at the inspiration of God savours unquestionably of hypocrisy, but none who estimates aright the age and environment in which Mahomet dwelt can accuse him of anything more than a keenness of political cunning which led him to value accurately his own power and the waning reputation of idolatry.
The evil example he had set in this first Release extended with his conquests until it was accounted of universal application, and no Muslim considered himself dishonoured if he broke his pledge with any Unbeliever. From this time a more dogmatic and terrible note enters into his message. He openly asserts that idolatry is to be extirpated from Arabia by the sword, and that Judaism and Christianity are to be reduced to subordinate positions. Judaism he had never forgiven for its rejection of him as Prophet and head of a federal state; Christianity he hated and despised, because to him in these later years monotheism had become a fanatic belief, and the whole conception of Christ's divinity was abhorrent to his worship of Allah. He was not strong enough to proclaim a destructive war against either faith, but he allowed them to exist in his dominions upon a precarious footing, always liable to abuse, attack, and profanation.
From the spring of 631 until the end of his life, Mahomet's campaigns consist in defensive and punitive expeditions. The realm of Arabia was virtually his, and the constant succession of embassies promising obedience and expressing homage continued until the end. But he was not allowed to enjoy his power in peace. The continuous series of small insurrections, speedily suppressed, which had accompanied his rise to power in later years, was by no means ended with his comparative security. But they never grew sufficiently in volume to threaten his dominion; they were wiped out at once by the alertness and political genius of his rule, until his death gave all the smaller chieftains fresh hope and became the signal for a desperate and almost successful attempt to throw off the shackles.
The first important conversion after his return from Taif was that of Jeyfar, King of Oman, followed closely by the districts of Mahra and Yemen, which localities had been hovering for some time between Islam and idolatry. The tribes of Najran were inclined to Christianity, and Mahomet was now anxious to gain them over to himself. The severity he had practised against a certain Christian church of Hanifa, however, weighed with them against any allegiance until he promised that theirs should be more favourably treated. A treaty was then made with these tribes by which each was to respect the religion of the other.
Mahomet remained in Medina throughout the year 631 and the beginning of 632, keeping his state like unto that of a king, surrounded by his Companions and Believers, receiving and sending forth embassies, receiving also tribute from those lands he had conquered, the beginning of that wealth which was to create the magnificence of Bagdad, the treasures of Cordova. The tribes of the Beni Asad, the Beni Kunda, and many from the territory of Hadramaut made their submission; tax-gatherers were also sent out to all the tributary peoples, and returned in safety with their toll. Almost it seemed as if peace had settled for good upon the land. The only threatenings came from the Beni Harith of the country bordering Najran, and the Beni Nakhla, with a few minor tribes near Yemen. Khalid was sent to call the Beni Harith to conversion at the point of the sword, and Ali subdued without effort the enfeebled resistance of the Beni Nakhla. Continual embassies poured into Medina. The country was quiet at last. After years of tumult Arabia had settled for the moment peaceably under the yoke of a religious enthusiast, who nevertheless possessed sufficient political and military genius to found his kingdom well and strongly.
Mahomet had attained his aims, and whether he could keep what he had now rested with himself alone. After this period of calm there is a diminution in his energy and fiery zeal. The effort of that continual warfare had kept him in perpetual fever of action; when its strain was removed he felt the weight of his kingdom and the religion he had so fearlessly reared. Until the end of his life he kept his hold upon his subjects, and every branch of justice, law, administration, and military policy felt his detailed guiding, but with the attainment of peace for Arabia under his sway, his aggressive strivings vanished. Virtually he had accomplished his destiny, and with the keen prescience of those who have lived and worked for one object, he knew that the outermost stronghold of those which Islam was destined to subdue had yielded to his passionate insistence. His successors would carry his work to higher attainments, but his personal part was done, and it was with a sense of finality that almost brought peace to his perpetually striving nature that he prepared for his last witness to the glory and unity of Allah, the performance of the Greater and Farewell Pilgrimage.
"This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measure of my favours upon you; and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion."—The Kuran.
A year had passed since Abu Bekr's purgatory Pilgrimage, and now the sacred month drew near once more and found Mahomet secure in his adopted city, the acknowledged spiritual and political leader among the Arabian tribes. Not since his exile had the Prophet performed in their entirety the rites of the Greater Pilgrimage. Now he felt that his achievements would receive upon them the seal of Allah and become attested in the eyes of the world if he should undertake a complete and purified Pilgrimage in company with the host of his followers. The Pilgrimage was proclaimed abroad in Islam, and every Believer who could by any means accomplish it assumed the Pilgrim's garb, until the army of the devout numbered about 40,000 men. All the Prophet's wives accompanied him, and every Believer of any standing in the newly formed state was his close attendant. It was felt, indeed, that this was to be the Pilgrimage that was to ordain and sanction the rite for all time. In the deepest spirit of religion and devotion it was undertaken and completed. Islam was now to show to the world the measure of its strength, and to succeeding generations the sum of its being and the insistence of its call.
With the host travelled also a hundred camels, destined as a sacrifice upon the triumphant day when the ceremonies should be accomplished. By easy stages the Pilgrims journeyed through the desert. There was no hurry, for there was no fear of attack. The whole company was unarmed, save for the defensive sword allowed to each man. Over the desert they moved like locusts, overwhelming the country, and the tune of their march spread far around. In ten days the pilgrim army, in the gladness of self-confidence and power, arrived at Sarif, a short day's march from their goal. There Mahomet rested before he embarked upon the final journey.
Mecca lay before him, awaiting his coming, her animosities silenced, her populace acquiescent, her temples freed from the curse of idolatry. His mind was uplifted into a fervour of praise. He seemed in truth about to enter upon his triumph, to celebrate in very flesh the ceremonies he had reverenced, to celebrate them in his own peculiar manner, freed of what was to him their bane and degradation. Something of the foreknowledge of the approaching cessation of activity flashed across him as he mounted Al-Caswa and prepared to make the entry of the city.
He came upon the upper suburbs by the same route as he had entered Mecca two years before, and proceeded to the Kaaba. There he performed the circuits of the sacred place and the preliminary rites of the Greater Pilgrimage. Then he returned to the valley outside the city where his tent was pitched, and tarried there the night. And now Ali, the mighty in arms, reached the city from an admonitory expedition and demanded the privilege of performing the Pilgrimage. Mahomet replied that like most other Believers he might perform the rites of the Lesser Pilgrimage, but that the Greater was barred to him because he had no victims. But Ali refused to forego his privilege, and at last Mahomet, urged by his love for him and his fear of creating any disturbance at such a time, felt it wiser to yield. He gave Ali the half of his own victims, and their friendship and Ali's devotion to his master were idealised and made sweeter for the gift.
Now the rites of the Greater Pilgrimage properly began. Mahomet preached to the people from the Kaaba on the morning of the next day, and when his words had roused the intense religious spirit of those listening masses he set out for Mina, accompanied by Bilal, followed by every Believer, and prepared to spend the night in the sacred valley. When morning dawned he made his way to Arafat, where he climbed the hill in the midst of the low-lying desolate ground. Standing at the summit of the hill, surrounded by the hosts of his followers, revealed to their eyes in all the splendour and dignity of his familiarity and personally wrested authority, he recited some of the verses of the Kuran dealing with the fit and proper celebration of the Pilgrimage. He expounded then the manner in which that rite was to be performed for all time. So long as there remains one Muslim upon earth his Pilgrimage will be carried out along the traditions laid down for him at this beneficent moment.
Now, having ordered all matters, Mahomet raised his hands to Heaven and called Allah to witness that he had completed his task:
"This day have I perfected your religion for you."
The supreme moment came and fled, and the Prophet descended once more into the plain and journeyed again to the valley of Mecca, where, according to immemorial tradition, he cast stones, or rather small pebbles, at the rock of the Devil's Corner, symbolic of the defeat of the powers of darkness by puny and assailed mankind. Thereafter he slew his victims in thankful and devout spirit, and the Greater Pilgrimage was completed. In token he shaved his head, pared his nails, and removed the pilgrim's robe; then, coming before the people, he exhorted them further, enjoining upon them the strict observance of daily prayers, the fast of Ramadan, the rites of Pilgrimage, and all the essential ceremonial of the Muslim faith. He abolished also with one short verse of the Kuran the intercalary year, which had been in use among the Faithful during the whole of his Medinan rule. The Believers were now subject to the fluctuation of their months, so that their years follow a perpetually changing cycle, bearing no relation to the solar seasons.
When the exhortation was ended Mahomet departed to Mecca, and there he encircled the Kaaba and entered its portals for prayer. But of this last act he repented later, inasmuch as it would not be possible hereafter for every Muslim to do so, and he had desired to perform in all particulars the exact ceremonies incumbent upon the Faithful for all the future years. He now made an ending of all his observances, and with every rite fulfilled, at the head of his vast concourse, summoned by his tireless will and held together by his overmastering zeal, the Prophet returned to his governmental city, ready to take up anew the reins of his temporal ruling, with the sense of fine things fittingly achieved, a great purpose accomplished, which rendered him as much at peace as his fiery temperament and the flame of his activity could compass.
Fulfilment had come with the performance of the Greater Pilgrimage, but still his state demanded his personal government. Death alone could still his ardent pulses and bring about his relinquishment of command over the kingdom that was his—death that was even now winging his silent way nearer, and whose shadow had almost touched the fount of the Prophet's earthly life.
In such manner the Greater Pilgrimage was fulfilled, and the burden of its accomplishing is the Muslim reverence for ceremony. The ritual in all its forgotten superstition and immemorial tradition appealed most potently to the emotions of every Believer, all the more so because it had not been imposed upon him as a new and untried ceremony by a religious reformer, but came to him with all its hallowed sanctity fresh upon it, to be bound up inseparably with his religious life by its purification under the Prophet's guidance.
Its use by the founder of Islam bears witness at once to his knowledge of the earlier faith and traditions and his reverence for them, as well as his keen insight, which placed the rite of pilgrimage in the forefront of his religious system. He knew the value of ritual and the force of age-long association. The Farewell Pilgrimage is the last great public act he performed. He felt that it strengthened Islam's connection with the beliefs and ceremonies of his ancestors, legendarily free from idolatry under the governance of Abraham and Ishmael. He realised, too, that it rounded off the ceremonial side of his faith, giving his followers an example and a material union with himself and his God. It was the knowledge that this union would always be a living fact to his descendants, so long as the sacred ceremony was performed, that caused him to assert its necessity and to place it among the few unalterable injunctions to all the Faithful.
Meanwhile a phenomenon had arisen inseparable from the activities of great men. Wherever there are strong souls, from whose spirit flows any inspiring energy, there will always be found their imitators, when the battle has been won. Whether hypocrites, or genuinely led by a sheep-like instinct into the same path as their models, they follow the steps of their forerunners, and usually achieve some slight fame before the dark closes around them.
Early in the year Badzan, Governor of Marab, Nazran, and Hamadan, died. His territory was seized by Mahomet, in defiance of the claims of his son Shehr, and divided among different governors. His success in the temporal world, and especially this peaceful annexation of land, wrought so vividly upon the imaginations of his countrymen that three false Prophets arose and three separate bands of devoted fanatics appeared to uphold them. Of these three men the most effective was Tuleiha of the Beri Asad, who gathered together an army and was only repelled and crushed by Khalid himself. But Tuleiha still persisted in spite of defeat, and was content to bide his time until, under Abu Bekr, his faction rose again to importance and constituted a serious disturbance to the rule of the first Caliph.
Moseilama, of whom not so much is known, also attempted to usurp the Prophet's power at the close of his life. Mahomet demanded his submission; Moseilama refused, but before adequate punishment could be meted out the Prophet was stricken down with illness, so that the task of chastisement devolved upon Abu Bekr. Aswad, "the veiled Prophet of Yemen," might have proved the most formidable of the three, had not rashness of conduct and lack of governance caused his undoing. He cast off the Muslim yoke while the Prophet was still alive, and proclaimed himself the magician prince who would liberate his followers from the tyrant's yoke. Najran rose in his favour, and he marched confidently upon Sana, the great capital city of Yemen, slew the puppet king Shehr and took command of the surrounding country. Mahomet purposed to send a force against him, but even while his army was massing for the march he heard that the Veiled Prophet was assassinated. The sudden success had proved his ruin. Aswad only needed the touch of power to call out his latent tyranny, cruelty, and stupidity. He treated the people harshly, and they could not retaliate effectually; but he forgot, being of unreflecting mould, the imperative necessity of conciliating the chiefs of his armed forces. He offended his leaders of armies, and the end came swiftly. The leaders deserted to Mahomet, and treacherously murdered him when he had counted their submission was beyond question. The three impostors were not powerful enough to disturb seriously the steady flow of Mahomet's organising and administrative activities, but they are indicative of the thin crust that divided his rule from anarchy, a crust even now cracking under the weight of the burdens imposed upon it, needing the constant cement of armed expeditions to keep it from crumbling beyond Mahomet's own remedying.
April passed quietly enough at Medina, but with May came the news of fresh disturbances upon the Syrian border. They were not serious, but the pretext was sufficient. Muta was as yet unavenged, and Mahomet was glad to be able to send a force again to the troublesome frontier. Osama, son of Zeid, slain in that disastrous battle, was chosen for leader of this expedition in spite of his youth, which aroused the quick anger of some of the Muslim warriors. But Mahomet maintained his choice. He was given the battle banner by the Prophet himself, and the expedition sallied forth to Jorf, where it was delayed and finally hastily recalled by news of a grave and most disturbing nature.
Even as he blessed the Syrian expedition and sent it on its road, Mahomet was in no fit state of health for public duties. After a little while, however, his will triumphed over his flesh, and he thrust back the weakness. But his physical nature had already been strained to breaking point under the stress of his life. He had perforce to bow to the dictates of his body. He gave up attempting to throw off the fever, and retired to Ayesha's house, attributing the seizure to the effects of the poison at Kheibar, and convinced that his end was at hand.
In the house of his favourite wife he remained during the few remaining days of his life. He lingered for about a week before his indomitable soul gave way before the assaults of death, and all the time he continued to attend to public affairs and to take his accustomed part in them as long as possible. About the third day of his illness he heard the people still murmuring over the appointment of Osama upon the Syrian expedition. Rising from his couch he went out to speak to them, and commanded them to cease from such empty discontent, reminding them that he was their Prophet and master, and that they might safely rely upon him.
The exertion of moving proved too much for his strength. He was now indeed a broken man, and this activity was but the last conquest of mind over his ever-growing weakness of body. He returned exhausted to Ayesha's room, and, knowing that his mission was over, commanded Abu Bekr to lead the public prayers. By this act he virtually nominated Abu Bekr his successor; for the privilege of leading the prayers belonged exclusively to himself, and his designation of the office was as plain a proof as there could be that he considered the mantle of authority to have descended upon his friend and counsellor, who had been to him so unfailing a resource in defeat and triumph through all the tumultuous years.
From this time the Prophet grew steadily worse. His physical break-up was complete. He had used every particle of his enormous energy in the fulfilment of his work; now that activity had ceased there were no reserves left.
He became delirious, and finally weak to the point of utter exhaustion. Many are the traditions concerning his dying words, chiefly exhortations for the preservation of the faith he had so laboriously brought to life. He is said to have cursed both Jews and Christians in his paroxysms of fever, but in his lucid moments he seems to have been filled with love for his disciples, and fears for the future of his religion and temporal state.
He lingered thus for two more days—days which gathered round him the deep spiritual fervour, the human love and affection of every Believer, so that the records are interpenetrated with the grief and tenderness of a people's sorrow. On the third day he rallied sufficiently to come to morning prayer, where he took a seat by Abu Bekr in token of his dedication of the headship of Islam to him alone. The Believers' joy at the sight of their Prophet showed itself in their thronging thanksgivings and in their escort of their chief back to his place of rest. It seemed that his illness was but slight, and that before long he would appear among them once more in all the fullness of his strength. But the exertion sapped his little remaining vitality, and he could scarcely reach Ayesha's room again. There a few hours afterwards, after a period of semi-consciousness, he died in her arms while it was yet only a little after mid-day.
The forlorn Ayesha was almost too terrified to impart the dreadful news. Abu Bekr was summoned instantly, and came with awe and horror into the mosque. Omar, Mahomet's beloved warrior-friend, refused to believe that his leader was really dead, and even rushed to announce his belief to the people. But Abu Bekr visited the place of death and assured himself by the still cold form of the Prophet that he was indeed dead. He went out with despair in his countenance, and convinced the Faithful that the soul of their leader had passed. There fell upon Islam the hush of an intolerable knowledge, and in the first blankness of realisation they were dumb and passive.
When the army at Jorf was apprised of the news, it broke up at once and returned to Medina. With the withdrawal of the guiding hand their battle enthusiasm became as nought, and they could only join the waiting ranks of the Citizens—a crowd that would now be driven whither its masters saw fit.
The Faithful assembled round the mosque to question the future of themselves and their rulers. Abu Bekr addressed them at once, and it was soon evident that he had them well in hand. He was supported by Omar and the chief leaders, except Ali, who maintained a jealous attitude, chiefly due to the feelings of envy aroused in the mind of Fatima, his wife, at the sight of Ayesha's privileges. At last, when Abu Bekr had told the circumstances of the Prophet's death, tenderly and with that loving reverence which characterised him, the Faithful were attuned to the acceptance of this man as their Prophet's successor. The chief men, followed by the rank and file, swore fealty to him, and covenanted to maintain intact and precious the Faith bequeathed them by their leader, who had been also their guide and fellow-worshipper of Allah.
There remained only the last dignity of burial. The Prophet's body was washed and prepared for the grave. Around it was wrapped white linen and an outer covering of striped Yemen stuff. Abu Bekr and Omar performed these simple services for their Prophet, and then a grave was dug for him in Ayesha's house, and a partition made between the grave and the antechamber. It was dug vaulted fashion, and the body deposited there upon the evening of the day of death. The people were permitted to visit it, and after the long procession had looked their last upon their Prophet, Abu Bekr and Omar delivered speeches to the assembled multitude, urging them to remain faithful to their religion, and to hold before them continually the example of the Prophet, who even now was received into the Paradise he had described so ardently and loved with such enshrining desire.
Thus the Prophet of Islam, religious and political leader, director of armies, lover of women, austere, devout, passionate, cunning, lay as he would have wished in the simplicity of that communal life, in the midst of his followers, near the sacred temple of his own devising. He had lived close to his disciples, had appeared to them a man among men, indued only with the divine authority of his religious enthusiasm; now he rested among them as one of themselves, and none but felt the inspiration of his energy inform their activities after him, though the manifestation thereof confined itself to the violence necessary to maintain the Prophet's domain secure from its earthly enemies.
Mahomet, indeed, in his mortal likeness rested in the quiet of Ayesha's chamber, but his spirit still led his followers to prayer and conquest, still stood at the head of his armies, urging to victory and plunder, so that they might find in the flaunting banners of Islam the fulfilment of their lusts and aspirations, their worldly triumphs and the glories of their heavenly vision.
"The Jews say, 'Ezra is a son of God,' and the Christians say, 'The Messiah is a son of God' … they resemble the saying of the Infidels of old…. They take their teachers and their monks and the Messiah, son of Mary, for Lords beside God, though bidden to worship one God only. There is no God but He! Far what from his glory be what they associate with Him."—The Kuran.
The Prophet of Arabia had scarcely been committed to the keeping of earth, when on all sides rebellion against his rule arose. The unity that he had laboured so long to create was still in embryo, but the seed of it was living, and developed rapidly to its full fruition. In the political sphere his achievement is not limited to the immediate security of his dominion. He had inculcated, mainly by the forcible logic of the sword, the idea of union and discipline, and had restored in mightier degree the fallen greatness of his land. Traditions of Arabian prosperity during the time when it was the trade route from Persia and the East to Petraea, Palestine, and even Asia Minor lingered in the native mind. The caravan routes from Southern Arabia, famous in Biblical story, had made the importance of such cities as Mecca and Sana, but with the maritime enterprise of Rome their well-being declined, and the consequent distress in Yemen induced its tribes to emigrate northwards to Mecca, to Syria, and the Central Desert. Southern Arabia never recovered from the blow to its trade, and in the sixth century Yemen became merely a dependency of Persia. Central Arabia was an unknown country, inhabited by marauding tribes in a constant state of political flux; while Hira, the kingdom to the east of the desert on the banks of the Euphrates, had become a satrapy of Persia early in the century in which Mahomet lived, and Heraclius by frequent inroads had reduced the kingdom of Palmyra to impotence. Arabia was ripe for the rise of a strong political leader; for it was flanked by no powerful kingdom, and within itself there was no organisation and no reliable political influence.
The material was there, but it needed the shaping of a master-hand at the instigation of unflagging zeal if it was to be wrought into order and strength. Tireless energy and unceasing belief in his own power could alone accomplish the task, and these Mahomet possessed in abundance. Before his death he had secured the subjection of Yemen and Hadramaut, had penetrated far into the Syrian borderland, and had made his rule felt among the nomad tribes of the interior as far as the confines of Persia. With his rise to power the national feeling of Arabia was born, and under his successors developed by the enticements of plunder and glory until it soared beyond mere nationality and dreamt of world-conquest, by which presumption its ruin was wrought. Mahomet was the instigator of all this absorbing activity, although he never calculated the extent of his political impulse. In superseding the already effete tribal ideals he was to himself only spreading the faith of his inspiration. All governmental conceptions die slowly, and the tribal life of Arabia was far from extinguished at the end of his mission. But its vitality was gone, and the focus of Arabia's obedience had shifted from the clan to the Prophet as military overlord.
It is pre-eminently in the domain of political actions that Mahomet's personality is revealed. The living fibres of his unique character pulse through all his dealings with his fellow-leaders and opponents. Before all things he possessed the capacity of inspiring both love and fear. Ali, Abu Bekr, Hamza, Omar, Zeid, every one of his followers, felt the force of his affection continually upon them, and were bound to him by ties that neither misfortune nor any unworthy act of his could break. And their devotion was called upon to suffer many tests. Mahomet was self-willed and ruthless, subordinating the means to the end without any misgivings. In his remorseless dealings with the Jews, in his calm repudiation of obligations with the heathen as soon as he felt himself strong enough, he shows affinities to the most conscienceless statesman that ever graced European diplomacy.
His method of conquest and government combines watchfulness and strength. No help was scorned by this builder of power. What he could not achieve by force he attempted to gain by cunning. He had a large faith in the power of argument backed by force, and his winning over of Abbas and Abu Sofian chiefly by the aid of these two factors, combined with their personal ambition, is only the supreme instance of his master-strokes of policy. He knew how to play upon the baser passions of men, and especially was he mindful of the lure of gold. His first forays against the Kureisch were set before the eyes of his disciples as much in the light of plundering expeditions as religious wars against an infidel and oppressive nation.
He is at once the outcome of circumstances, and independent of them. He gave coherence to all the unformulated desires for a fuller scope of military and mercantile power stirring at the fount of Arabia's life, and at the same time he founded his dominion in a unique and absolutely personal manner. Within his sphere of governance his will was supreme and unassailable.
If these mutable tribal entities were to be united at all, despotism was the only possible form of command. As his polity demanded authority vested in one person only, so his conception of God is that of an absolute monarch, resistance to whom is annihilation.
Out of this idea the doctrine of fatalism was evolved. It was necessary during the first terrible years of uncertainty in Islam, in order to produce among Mahomet's followers a recklessness in battle, and in the varying fortunes of their life at Medina, born of the knowledge that their fate was irrevocably decided. They fought for the true God against the idolaters; this true God held their destinies in his hand; nothing could be altered. The result was that the Muslim fought with superhuman daring, and faced overwhelming forces undaunted. But the time came when Islam had no longer any need to fight, and the doctrine of fatalism still lived. It sank into mental and physical inactivity, and of that inactivity, induced by the knowledge that their energies were unavailing, pessimism was bred. Despotism and fatality are perhaps the purely personal ideas that Mahomet gave to his political state, the latter encroaching, however, as most of his secular principles, upon the realm of philosophy. Indeed, his political rule is inseparable from his religion, and as a religious leader he is more justly appraised.
In the sphere of religion the raw material was to his hand. At the inception of his mission Mecca and Central Arabia, though confirmed in idolatry, still mingled with their rites some distorted Jewish traditions and ceremonies, while Yemen had embraced the Christian faith for a short time as a dependency of Abyssinia, but had relapsed into idolatry with the interference of Persia. Both the border kingdoms to the north, Palmyra and Hira, were Christian, and in the time of their prosperity had influenced Arabia in the direction of Christianity. The Christian Scriptures were known and respected, but these impulses were feeble and spasmodic, so that the bulk of Arabia remained fixed in its ancient idolatry.
By far the more enduring influence was that of Judaism. Many Jewish tribes were settled in Arabia, and the ancient traditions of the Jewish race, the great figures of Abraham, Lot, and Noah were set vividly before the eyes of the Arabs. There was every indication that a religious teacher might use the existing elements of Judaism and Christianity to produce a monotheistic faith, partaking of their nature, and for a time Mahomet endeavoured to bring both forms within the scope of his mission. But compromise, whether with idolaters or Jews, was found to be impossible, and here religious and political ideals are inextricably blended. If Mahomet had acquiesced in the Jewish religion, had submitted to the sovereignty of Jerusalem as the Holy Place, he would have found it impossible to have established his supremacy in Medina, and the religion of Islam as he conceived it would have been overriden by the older and more hallowed faith of the Jews. He saw the danger, and his dominant spirit could not allow the existence of an equal or superior power to his own. With that fiery daring and supreme belief in his destiny which characterised him in later life, he cast away all pretensions to friendliness either with the Jews or the Christians, and steered his followers triumphantly through the perils that beset every adherent to an idea.
But in compelling acceptance of his central thesis of the unity of the Godhead, he showed signal wisdom and knowledge of men. He was himself by no means impervious to the value of tradition, and never conceived his faith as having no historical basis in the religious legends of his birthplace. That the Muslim belief possesses institutions such as the reverence for the Kaaba, the rite of Pilgrimage, the acceptance of Mecca as its sacred city, is due to its founder's love of his native place, and the ceremonial of which his own creed was really the inseparable outcome.
Besides his recognition of the need of ritual, he was fully aware of the repugnance of most men to the wholly new. Whenever possible he emphasized his connection with the ancient ceremonies of Mecca in their purer form, and as soon as his power was sufficient, he enforced the recognition of his claims upon the city itself.
His achievement as religious reformer rests largely upon the state of preparation in which he found his medium, but it owes its efficiency to one force alone. Mahomet was possessed of one central idea, the indivisibility of God, and it was sufficient to uphold him against all calamities. The Kuran sounds the note of insistence which rings the clarion call of his message. With eloquence of mind and soul, with a repetition that is wearisome to the outsider, he forces that dominant truth into the hearts of his hearers. It cannot escape them, for he will not cease to remind them of their doom if they do not obey. What he set out to do for the religious life of Arabia he accomplished, chiefly because he concentrated the whole of his demands into one formula, "There is no God but God"; then when success had shown him the measure of his ascendancy, "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet."
At the end of his life idolatry was uprooted from his native country. The tribes might rebel against the heaviness of his political yoke, and were often held to him by the slenderest of diplomatic threads, but their monotheistic beliefs remained intact once Islam had gained the ascendancy over them. At the end of the Farewell Pilgrimage, he realised with one grand uplifting of his soul in thanksgiving that he had indeed caught up the errant attempts of Arabia to remodel its unsatisfying faith, and had made of them a triumphant reality, in which the conception of Allah's unity was the essential belief.
Besides his religious and political attainments, he gave to Arabia as a whole its first written social and moral code. Here the estimate of his accomplishment is difficult to render, bemuse comparison with the existing state is almost impossible. Extensively in the Kuran, but to a greater degree in the mass of his traditional sayings, crystallised into a standard edition by Al-Bokhari, when due allowance has been made for the additions and exaggerations of his followers, the chief characteristic is the casual nature of his laws.
All his dictates as to the control of marriage, the sale and tenure of land, commerce, plunder, as well as health and dietary are the result of definite cases coming within his adjudication. Such an idea as the deliberate compilation of a code never occurred to him, and there is no evidence that he ever referred to his former decisions in similar cases, so that possibilities of contradiction and evasion are limitless. Out of this jumble of inconsistencies Muslim law and practice has grown. He was enabled to impose his commands upon the conquered peoples by means of his military organisation, so that it was not long before Arabia was ruled in rough fashion by his social and moral precepts enforced by the sword. His wives offend him, and he forthwith sets down the duties and position of women in his temporal state. He desires the wife of his friend, and the result is a Kuranic decree sanctioning the taking of a woman under those conditions. He is jealous of his younger and more comely associates, and thereupon ordains the perpetual seclusion of women. He is annoyed at the untimely visits to his house of assembly, and so he commands that no Believer shall enter another's apartment uninvited. It is inconvenient to relinquish the watch night or day during the period of siege in Medina, therefore he institutes a system whereby half the army is to pray while the other half remains at its post. Instances may be multiplied without ceasing of this building up of a whole social code upon the most casual foundations. But unheeding as was its genesis, it was in the main effective for those times, and in any case it substituted definite laws for the measureless wastes of tradition and custom.
It is probable that Mahomet relied a great deal upon existing usages. He was too wise to disturb them unnecessarily. His was a nature of extremes combined with a wisdom that came as a revelation to his followers. Where he hates it is with a hurricane of wrath and destruction, where he loves it is with the same impetuous tenacity. His denunciations of the infidels, of his enemies among the Kureisch, of the laggards within his own city, of the defamers of holy things, of drunkards, of the unclean, of those who even copy the features of their kindred or picture their idea of God, are written in the most violent words, whose fury seems to smite upon the ear with the rushing of flame.
And so the prevailing stamp upon Muslim institutions is fanaticism and intolerance. As the Prophet drew up hard-and-fast rules, so his followers insisted upon their remorseless continuance. Mahomet found himself compelled to issue ordinances, often hurried and unreflecting, to meet immediate needs, to settle disputes whose prolongation would have meant his ruin. He possessed the qualities of poet, seer, and religious mystic, but these in his later life were overshadowed by the characteristics of lawgiver, soldier, and statesman demanded by his position as head of a body of men. But neither his mysticism nor his poetic feeling entirely desert him. They flash out at rare moments in the later suras of the Kuran, and are apparent in his actions and the traditional accounts of his sayings, while his creed remained steadfast and unassailable with a strength that neither defeat nor disaffection could shake. With all the incompleteness and often contradiction of his administration, he nevertheless was able to satisfy his followers as to its efficacy mainly by his exhaustless belief in himself and his work.
In military development his contribution was unique. He gathered together all the war-loving propensities of the Faithful, and wove them into a solidarity of aim. His personal courage was not great, but his strategy and above all his invincible confidence, which refused to admit defeat, were beyond question. Every leader he sent upon plundering or admonitory expeditions bore witness to his efficiency and his zeal. He subjected the Muslim to a discipline that brought out their best qualities of tenacity and daring. He would not allow his soldiery to become individual plunderers, but insisted that the booty should be equally divided. In the beginning he possessed few horsemen, but he rapidly produced a squadron of cavalry as soon as he became convinced of their usefulness. His readiness to accept advice as to the defence of Medina proved the salvation of the city. Under him the military prowess of Islam had ample scope, for he gave his leaders complete freedom of action; the result was visible in the supreme fighting quality of Ali, Omar, and Hamza, while the chances of achieving glory under his banner were the moving motives of the conversion of Khalid and Abbas. He subdued internecine warfare, and by a bold stroke united the warrior instincts of Arabia against external foes, laying upon them the sanction of religion and the promise of eternal happiness.
Though unskilled in the mechanism of knowledge—he could neither read nor write—he has left his mark upon the literature of his age and the years succeeding him. The Kuran was the sum of his inspiration, the expression in poetic and visionary language of his beliefs and ideals. He found the medium prepared. The Arabs had long previously evolved a poetry of their own which lived not in written words, but in their traditional songs. Mahomet's first flush of inspiration, which waned before the heaviness of his later tasks, is the cumulation of that wild and fervid art with the breath of the desert urgent within it.
The Kuran was never written down during his lifetime, but was collected into a jumble of fragments, "gathered together from date-leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the breasts of men," by Zeid in the first troublous years of the Caliphate. We have inevitably lost much of its original fire, and its effect is weakened by any translation into the unsuitable medium of modern speech. But that it is a valuable contribution to the literature of its country cannot be doubted, especially in the earlier portions, before Mahomet's love of harangue and the necessity of some vehicle by which to make his political dictates known had transformed its style into the bald reiterative medley of its later pages.
Through it all runs the fire of his genius; in the later suras it is the reflection of his energy that looks out from the pages; the flame itself has now lighted his actions and inspired his dreams of conquest. The Kuran is the best revelation of Mahomet himself that posterity possesses, imperfect as was the manner of its handing down to the modern world. It shows us both the beauty and strength of his personality and his cruelty, evasions, magnanimities, and lusts. More than all, the passionate zeal beating through it makes clear the secret of his sustained endeavours through discouragement and defeat until his triumph dawned.
To those outside the sphere of his magnetism, Mahomet seems urged on by a power beyond himself and scarcely within his control. His gifts bear intimate relation to the particular phase in the task of creating a religion and a political entity that was uppermost at the moment.
In Mecca he is poet and visionary, the man who speaks with angels and has seen Gabriel and Israfil, "whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures." He penetrates in fancy to the innermost Holy Place and beholds the God of battles, even feels his touch, icy-cold upon his shoulder, and returns with the glow of that immortal intercourse upon him. It sustains him in defeat and danger, and by the power of it he converts a few in Medina and flees thither to complete his task. In Medina he becomes a watchful leader, and still inspired by heavenly visitants, he produces order out of chaos and guards his power from numberless assaults.
In attempting to explain his achievements, when allowance is made for all those factors which gave him help, we are compelled to do homage to the strength of his personality. Neither in his revelations through the Kuran nor in the traditions of him is his secret to be found. He lived outside himself, and his actions are the standard of his accomplishments. He found Arabia the prey of warring tribes, without leader, without laws, without religion, save an idolatry obstinate but creatively dead, and he took the existing elements, wrought into them his own convictions, quickened them with the fire of his zeal, and created an embryo with effective laws, fitting social and religious institutions, but greater than all these, with the enthusiasm for an idea that led his followers to prayer and conquest. The Kuran, tradition, the later histories, all minister to that personality which informed the Muslim, so that they swept through the land like flame, impelled not only by religious zeal, but also by the memory of their leader's struggles and victories, and of his journey before them on the perilous path of warfare to the Paradise promised to the Faithful.