Read Ebook: Selections from the Kur-an by Lane Poole Stanley Author Of Introduction Etc Lane Edward William Editor

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'He lived with his wives in a row of humble cottages, separated from one another by palm-branches, cemented together with mud. He would kindle the fire, sweep the floor, and milk the goats himself. ???sheh tells us that he slept upon a leathern mat, and that he mended his clothes, and even clouted his shoes, with his own hand. For months together ... he did not get a sufficient meal. The little food that he had was always shared with those who dropped in to partake of it. Indeed, outside the Prophet's house was a bench or gallery, on which were always to be found a number of the poor, who lived entirely on his generosity, and were hence called the "people of the bench." His ordinary food was dates and water or barley-bread; milk and honey were luxuries of which he was fond, but which he rarely allowed himself. The fare of the desert seemed most congenial to him, even when he was sovereign of Arabia.'

Mo?ammad was full forty before he felt himself called to be an apostle to his people. If he did not actually worship the local deities of the place, at least he made no public protest against the fetish worship of the ?ureysh. Yet in the several phases of his life, in his contact with traders, in his association with Zeyd and other men, he had gained an insight into better things than idols and human sacrifices, divining-arrows and mountains and stars. He had heard a dim echo of some 'religion of Abraham;' he had listened to the stories of the Haggadah: he knew a very little about Jesus of Nazareth. He seems to have suffered long under the burden of doubt and self-distrust. He used to wander about the hills alone, brooding over these things; he shunned the society of men, and 'solitude became a passion to him.'

At length came the crisis. He was spending the sacred months on Mount ?ir?, 'a huge barren rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing out solitary in the full white glare of the desert sun, shadowless, flowerless, without well or rill.' Here in a cave Mo?ammad gave himself up to prayer and fasting. Long months or even years of doubt had increased his nervous excitable disposition. He had had, they say, cataleptic fits during his childhood, and was evidently more delicately and finely constituted than those around him. Given this nervous nature, and the grim solitude of the hill where he had almost lived for long weary months, blindly feeling after some truth upon which to rest his soul, it is not difficult to believe the tradition of the cave, that Mo?ammad heard a voice say, 'Cry!' 'What shall I cry?' he answers--the question that has been burning his heart during all his mental struggles--

Cry! in the name of thy Lord, who hath created; He hath created man from a clot of blood. Cry! and thy Lord is the Most Bountiful, Who hath taught by the pen: He hath taught man that which he knew not.

Mo?ammad arose trembling, and went to Khadeejeh, and told her what he had seen; and she did her woman's part, and believed in him and soothed his terror, and bade him hope for the future. Yet he could not believe in himself. Was he not perhaps mad, possessed by a devil? Were these voices of a truth from God? And so he went again on his solitary wanderings, hearing strange sounds, and thinking them at one time the testimony of Heaven, at another the temptings of Satan or the ravings of madness. Doubting, wondering, hoping, he had fain put an end to a life which had become intolerable in its changings from the heaven of hope to the hell of despair, when again he heard the voice, 'Thou art the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.' Conviction at length seized hold upon him; he was indeed to bring a message of good tidings to the Arabs, the message of God through His angel Gabriel. He went back to Khadeejeh exhausted in mind and body. 'Wrap me, wrap me,' he said; and the word came unto him--

O thou enwrapped in thy mantle Arise and warn! And thy Lord,--magnify Him! And thy raiment,--purify it! And the abomination,--flee it! And bestow not favours that thou mayest receive again with increase, And for thy Lord wait thou patiently.

Five converts followed in Aboo-Bekr's steps; among them ?Othm?n, the third Khalif, and ?al?ah, the man of war. The ranks of the faithful were swelled from humbler sources. There were many negro slaves in Mekka, and of them not a few had been predisposed by earlier teaching to join in the worship of the One God; and of those who were first converted was the Abyssinian Bil?l, the original Mu?ddin of Isl?m, and ever a devoted disciple of the Prophet. These and others from the ?ureysh raised the number of Muslims to more than thirty souls by the fourth year of Mo?ammad's mission--thirty in three long years, and few of them men of influence!

At last, moved by the sufferings of his lowly followers, he advised them to seek a refuge in Abyssinia--'a land of righteousness, wherein no man is wronged;' and in the fifth year of his mission eleven men and four women left Mekka secretly, and were received in Abyssinia with welcome and peace. These first emigrants were followed by more the next year, till the number reached one hundred. The ?ureysh were very wroth at the escape of their victims, and sent ambassadors to the Nej?shee, the Christian king of Abyssinia, to demand that the refugees should be given up to them. But the Nej?shee assembled his bishops and sent for the Muslims and asked them why they had fled; and one of them answered and said--

'O king! we lived in ignorance, idolatry, and unchastity; the strong oppressed the weak; we spoke untruth; we violated the duties of hospitality. Then a prophet arose, one whom we knew from our youth, with whose descent and conduct and good faith and morality we are all well acquainted. He told us to worship one God, to speak truth, to keep good faith, to assist our relations, to fulfil the rights of hospitality, and to abstain from all things impure, ungodly, unrighteous. And he ordered us to say prayers, give alms, and to fast. We believed in him; we followed him. But our countrymen persecuted us, tortured us, and tried to cause us to forsake our religion; and now we throw ourselves upon thy protection. Wilt thou not protect us?' And he recited a chapter of the ?ur-?n, which spoke of Christ; and the king and the bishops wept upon their beards. And the king dismissed the messengers and would not give up the men.

The ?ureysh, foiled in their attempt to recapture the slaves, vented their malice on those believers who remained. Insults were heaped upon the Muslims, and persecution grew hotter each day. For a moment Mo?ammad faltered in his work. Could he not spare his people these sufferings? Was it impossible to reconcile the religion of the city with the belief in one supreme God? After all, was the worship of those idols so false a thing? did it not hold the germ of a great truth? And so Mo?ammad made his first and last concession. He recited a revelation to the ?ureysh, in which he spoke respectfully of the three moon-goddesses, and asserted that their intercession with God might be hoped for: 'Wherefore bow down before God and serve Him;' and the whole audience, overjoyed at the compromise, bowed down and worshipped at the name of the God of Mo?ammad--the whole city was reconciled to the double religion. But this Dreamer of the Desert was not the man to rest upon a lie. At the price of the whole city of Mekka he would not remain untrue to himself. He came forward and said he had done wrong--the devil had tempted him. He openly and frankly retracted what he had said: and 'As for their idols, they were but empty names which they and their fathers had invented.'

Western biographers have rejoiced greatly over 'Mo?ammad's fall.' Yet it was a tempting compromise, and few would have withstood it. And the life of Mo?ammad is not the life of a god, but of a man: from first to last it is intensely human. But if for once he was not superior to the temptation of gaining over the whole city and obtaining peace where before there was only bitter persecution, what can we say of his manfully thrusting back the rich prize he had gained, freely confessing his fault, and resolutely giving himself over again to the old indignities and insults? If he was once insincere--and who is not?--how intrepid was his after-sincerity! He was untrue to himself for a while, and he is ever referring to it in his public preaching with shame and remorse; but the false step was more than atoned for by his magnificent recantation.

Mo?ammad's influence with the people at large was certainly weakened by this temporary change of front, and the opposition of the leaders of the ?ureysh, checked for the moment by the Prophet's concession, now that he had repudiated it, broke forth into fiercer flame. They heaped insults upon him, and he could not traverse the city without the encounter of a curse. They threw unclean things at him, and vexed him in his every doing. The protection of Aboo-??lib alone saved him from personal danger. This refuge the ?ureysh determined to remove. They had attempted before, but had been turned back with a soft answer. They now went to the chief, of fourscore years, and demanded that he should either compel his nephew to hold his peace, or else that he should withdraw his protection. Having thus spoken they departed. The old man sent for Mo?ammad, and told him what they had said. 'Now therefore save thyself and me also, and cast not upon me a burden heavier than I can bear;' for he was grieved at the strife between his family and his wider kindred, and would fain have seen Mo?ammad temporize with the ?ureysh. But though the Prophet believed that at length his uncle was indeed about to abandon him, his courage and high resolve never faltered. 'Though they should set the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left to persuade me, yet while God commands me I will not renounce my purpose.' But to lose his uncle's love!--he burst into tears, and turned to go. But Aboo-??lib called aloud, 'Son of my brother, come back.' So he came. And he said, 'Depart in peace, my nephew, and say whatsoever thou desirest; for, by the Lord, I will never deliver thee up.'

The faithfulness of Aboo-??lib was soon to be tried. At first, indeed, things looked brighter. The old chief's firm bearing overawed the ?ureysh, and they were still more cowed by two great additions that were now joined to the Muslim ranks. One was Mo?ammad's uncle, ?amzeh, 'the Lion of God,' a mighty hunter and warrior of the true Arab mettle, whose sword was worth twenty of weaker men to the cause of Isl?m. The other was ?Omar, afterwards Khalif, whose fierce impulsive nature had hitherto marked him as a violent opponent of the new faith, but who afterwards proved himself one of the mainstays of Isl?m. The gain of two such men first frightened then maddened the ?ureysh. The leaders met together and consulted what they should do. It was no longer a case of an enthusiast followed by a crowd of slaves and a few worthy merchants; it was a faction led by stout warriors, such as ?amzeh, ?al?ah, ?Omar,--half-a-dozen picked swordsmen; and the Muslims, emboldened by their new allies, were boldly surrounding the Ka?beh, and performing the rites of their religion in the face of all the people. The ?ureysh resolved on extreme measures. They determined to shut off the obnoxious family of the H?shimees from the rest of their kindred. The chiefs drew up a document, in which they vowed that they would not marry with the H?shimees, nor buy and sell with them, nor hold with them any communication soever; and this they hung up in the Ka?beh.

The H?shimees were not many enough to fight the whole city, so they went every man of them, save one, to the shi-b of Aboo-??lib,--a long, narrow mountain defile on the eastern skirts of Mekka, cut off by rocks or walls from the city, except for one narrow gateway,--and there shut themselves up. For though the ban did not forbid them to go about as heretofore, they knew that no soul would speak with them, and that they would be subject to the maltreatment of any vagabond they met. So they collected their stores and waited. Every man of the family, Muslim or Pagan, cast in his lot with their common kinsman, Mo?ammad, saving only his own uncle, Aboo-Lahab, a determined enemy to Isl?m, to whom a special denunciation is justly consecrated in the ?ur-?n.

For two long years the H?shimees remained shut up in their quarter. Only at the pilgrimage-time--when the blessed institution of the sacred months made violence sacrilege--could Mo?ammad come forth and speak unto the people of the things that were in his heart to say. Scarcely any converts were made during this weary time; and most of those who had previously been converted, and did not belong to the doomed clan, took refuge in Abyssinia; so that in the seventh year of Mo?ammad's mission there were probably not more than twelve Muslims of any weight who remained by him. Still the H?shimees remained in their quarter. It seemed as if they must all perish: their stores were almost gone, and the cries of starving children could be heard outside. Kind-hearted neighbours would sometimes smuggle-in a camel's load of food, but it availed little. The ?ureysh themselves were getting ashamed of their work, and were wishing for an excuse for releasing their kinsmen. The excuse came in time. It was discovered that the deed of ban was eaten up by worms, and Aboo-??lib turned the discovery to his advantage. The venerable old chief went out and met the ?ureysh at the Ka?beh, and pointing to the crumbling leaf he bitterly reproached them with their hardness of heart towards their brethren: then he departed. And straightway there rose up five chiefs, heads of great families, and, amid the murmurs of the fiercer spirits who were still for no quarter, they put on their armour, and going to the shi-b of Aboo-??lib, bade the H?shimees come forth in peace. And they came forth.

It was now the eighth year of Mo?ammad's mission; and for the last two years, wasted in excommunication, Isl?m had almost stood still, at least externally. For though Mo?ammad's patient bearing under the ban had gained over a few of his imprisoned clan to his side, he had made no converts beyond the walls of his quarter. During the sacred months he had gone forth to speak to the people,--to the caravans of strangers and the folk at the fairs,--but he had no success; for hard behind him followed Aboo-Lahab, the squinter, who mocked at him, and told the people he was only 'a liar and a sabian.' And the people answered that his own kindred must best know what he was, and they would hear nothing from him. The bold conduct of the five chiefs had indeed secured for Mo?ammad a temporary respite from persecution; but this relief was utterly outweighed by the troubles that now fell upon him and fitly gave that year the name of 'The Year of Mourning.' For soon after the revoking of the ban Aboo-??lib died, and five weeks later Khadeejeh. In the first Mo?ammad lost his ancient protector, who, though he would never give up his old belief, had yet faithfully guarded the Prophet from his childhood upwards, and, with the true Arab sentiment of kinship, had subjected himself and his clan to years of persecution and poverty in order to defend his brother's son from his enemies. The death of Khadeejeh was even a heavier calamity to Mo?ammad. She first had believed in him, and she had ever been his angel of hope and consolation. To his death he cherished a tender regret for her; and when his young bride ???sheh, the favourite of his declining years, jealously abused 'that toothless old woman,' he answered with indignation, 'When I was poor, she enriched me; when they called me a liar, she alone believed in me; when all the world was against me, she alone remained true.'

Mo?ammad might well feel himself alone in the world. Most of his followers were in Abyssinia; only a few tried friends remained at Mekka. All the city was against him; his protector was dead, and his faithful wife. Dejected, almost hopeless, he would try a new field. If Mekka rejected him, might not Et-???f give him welcome? He set out on foot on his journey of seventy miles, taking only Zeyd with him; and he told the people of Et-???f his simple message. They stoned him out of the city for three miles. Bleeding and fainting, he paused to rest in an orchard, to recover strength before he went back to the insults of his own people. The owners of the place sent him some grapes; and he gathered up his strength once more, and bent his weary feet towards Mekka. On the way, as he slept, his fancy called up a strange dream: men had rejected him, and now he thought he saw the Jinn, the spirits of the air, falling down and worshipping the One God, and bearing witness to the truth of Isl?m. Heartened by the vision, he pushed on; and when Zeyd asked him if he did not fear to throw himself again into the hands of the ?ureysh, he answered, 'God will protect His religion and help His prophet.'

So this lonely man came back to dwell among his enemies. Though a brave Arab gentleman, compassionating his aloneness, gave him the Bedawee pledge of protection, yet he well knew that the power of his foes made such protection almost useless, and at any time he might be assassinated. But the ?ureysh had not yet come to think of the last resource, and meanwhile a new prospect was opening out for Mo?ammad. That same year, as he was visiting the caravans of the pilgrims who had come from all parts of Arabia to worship at the Ka?beh, he found a group of men of Yethrib who were willing to listen to his words. He expounded to them the faith he was sent to preach, and he told them how his people had rejected him, and asked them whether Yethrib would receive him. The men were impressed with his words and professed Isl?m, and promised to bring news the next year; then they returned home and talked of this matter to their brethren. Now at Yethrib, besides two pagan tribes that had migrated upwards from the south, there were three clans of Jewish Arabs. Between the pagans and Jews, and then between the two pagan clans, there had been deadly wars; and now there were many parties in the city, and no one was master. The Jews, on the one hand, were expecting their Messiah; the pagans looked for a prophet. If Mo?ammad were not the Messiah, the Jews thought that he might at least be their tool to subdue their pagan rivals. 'Whether he is a prophet or not,' said the pagans, 'he is our kinsman by his mother, and will help us to overawe the Jews; and if he is the coming prophet, it is our policy to recognise him before those Jews who are always threatening us with their Messiah.' The teaching of Mo?ammad was so nearly Jewish, that a union of the two creeds might be hoped for; whilst to the pagan Arabs of Yethrib monotheism was no strange doctrine. All parties were therefore willing to receive Mo?ammad and at least try the experiment of his influence. As a peace-maker, prophet, or messiah, he would be equally welcome in a city torn asunder by party jealousies.

When the time of pilgrimage again came round, Mo?ammad waited at the appointed place in a secluded glen, and there met him men from the two pagan tribes of Yethrib--the clans of Khazraj and Aws--ten from one and two from the other. They told him of the willingness of their people to embrace Isl?m, and their hope to make ready the city for his welcome. They plighted their faith with him in these words: 'We will not worship save one God; we will not steal, nor commit adultery, nor kill our children; we will in nowise slander, nor will we disobey the prophet in anything that is right.' This is the first pledge of the ?A?abeh.

The twelve men of Yethrib went back and preached Isl?m to their people. 'So prepared was the ground, so zealous the propagation, and so apt the method, that the new faith spread rapidly from house to house and from tribe to tribe. The Jews looked on in amazement at the people, whom they had in vain endeavoured for generations to convince of the errors of Polytheism and dissuade from the abominations of idolatry, suddenly and of their own accord casting away their idols and professing belief in God alone.' They asked Mo?ammad to send them a teacher versed in the ?ur-?n, so anxious were they to know Isl?m truly; and Mu??ab was sent, and taught them and conducted their worship; so that Isl?m took deep root at Yethrib.

Meanwhile Mo?ammad was still among the ?ureysh at Mekka. His is now an attitude of waiting; he is listening for news from his distant converts. Resting his hopes upon them, and despairing of influencing the Mekkans, he does not preach so much as heretofore. He holds his peace mainly, and bides his time. One hears little of this interval of quietude. Isl?m seems stationary at Mekka, and its followers are silent and reserved. The ?ureysh are joyful at the ceasing of those denunciations which terrified whilst they angered them, yet they are not quite satisfied. The Muslims have a waiting look, as though there were something at hand.

It was during this year of expectation that the Prophet's celebrated 'Night Journey' took place. This Mi?r?j has been the subject of extravagant embellishments on the part of the traditionists and commentators, and the cause of much obloquy to the Prophet from his religious opponents. Mo?ammad dreamed a dream, and referred to it briefly and obscurely in the ?ur-?n. His followers persisted in believing it to have been a reality--an ascent to heaven in the body--till Mo?ammad was sick of repeating his simple assertion that it was a dream. The traditional form of this wonderful vision may be read in any life of Mo?ammad, and though it is doubtless very different from the story the Prophet himself gave, it is still a grand vision, full of glorious imagery, fraught with deep meaning.

Again the time of pilgrimage came round, and again Mo?ammad repaired to the glen of the Mountain-road. Mu??ab had told him the good tidings of the spread of the faith at Yethrib, and he was met at the rendezvous by more than seventy men. They came by twos and threes secretly for fear of the ?ureysh, 'waking not the sleeper, nor tarrying for the absent.' Then Mo?ammad recited to them verses from the ?ur-?n, and in answer to their invitation that he should come to them, and their profession that their lives were at his service, he asked them to pledge themselves to defend him as they would their own wives and children. And a murmur of eager assent rolled round about from the seventy, and an old man, one of their chiefs, stood forth and said, 'Stretch out thy hand, O Mo?ammad.' And the chief struck his own hand into Mo?ammad's palm in the frank Bedawee fashion, and thus pledged his fealty. Man after man the others followed, and struck their hands upon Mo?ammad's. Then he chose twelve of them as leaders over the rest, saying, 'Moses chose from among his people twelve leaders. Ye shall be the sureties for the rest, even as the apostles of Jesus were; and I am the surety for my people.' A voice of some stranger was heard near by, and the assembly hastily dispersed and stole back to their camp. This is the second pledge of the ?A?abeh.

The ?ureysh knew that some meeting had taken place, and though they could not bring home the offence to any of the Yethrib pilgrims, they kept a stricter watch on the movements of Mo?ammad and his friends after the pilgrims had returned homeward. It was clear that Mekka was no longer a safe place for the Muslims, and a few days after the second pledge Mo?ammad told his followers to betake themselves secretly to Yethrib. For two months at the beginning of the eleventh year of the mission the Muslims were leaving Mekka in small companies to make the journey of 250 miles to Yethrib. One hundred families had gone, and whole quarters of the city were deserted, left with empty houses and locked doors, 'a prey to woe and wind.' There were but three believers now remaining in Mekka--these were Mo?ammad, Aboo-Bekr, and ?Alee. Like the captain of a sinking ship, the Prophet would not leave till all the crew were safe. But now they were all gone save his two early friends, and everything was ready for the journey; still the Prophet did not go. But the ?ureysh, who had been too much taken by surprise to prevent the emigration, now prepared measures for a summary vengeance on the disturber of their peace and the emptier of their city. They set a watch on his house, and, it is said, commissioned a band of armed youths of different families to assassinate him together, that the blood recompense might not fall on one household alone. But Mo?ammad had warning of his danger, and leaving ?Alee to deceive the enemy, he was concealed with Aboo-Bekr in a narrow-mouthed cave on Mount Th?r, an hour-and-a-half's journey from Mekka, before the ?ureysh knew of his escape. For three days they remained hidden there, while their enemies were searching the country for them. Once they were very near, and Aboo-Bekr trembled:--'We are but two.' 'Nay,' answered Mo?ammad, 'we are three, for God is with us.' And a spider, they say, wove its web over the entrance of the cave, so that the ?ureysh passed on, thinking that no man had entered there.

A great change now comes over the Prophet's life. It is still the same man, but the surroundings are totally different; the work to be done is on a wider, rougher stage. Thus far we have seen a gentle, thoughtful boy tending the sheep round Mekka;--a young man of little note, of whom the people only knew that he was pure and upright and true;--then a man of forty whose solitary communion with his soul has pressed him to the last terrible questions that each man, if he will think at all, must some time ask himself--What is life? What does this world mean? What is reality, what is truth? Long months, years perhaps, we know not how long and weary, filled with the tortures of doubt and the despair of ever attaining to the truth, filled with the dreary thought of his aloneness in the relentless universe, and the longing to end it all, brought at last their fruits--sure conviction of the great secret of life, a firm belief in the Creator in whom all things live and move and have their being, whom to serve is man's highest duty and privilege, the one thing to be done. And then ten years of struggling with careless, unthinking idolators; ten years of slow results, the gaining over of a few close friends, the devoted attachment of some slaves and men of the meaner rank; finally, the conversion of half-a-dozen great citizen chiefs, ending in the flight of the whole brotherhood of believers from their native city and their welcome to a town of strangers, where the faith had forced itself home to the hearts of perhaps two hundred citizens. It was but little that was done; so many years of toil, of indomitable courage and perseverance and long-suffering, and only about three hundred converts at the end! But it was the seed of a great harvest. Mo?ammad had shown men what he was; the nobility of his character, his strong friendship, his endurance and courage, above all, his earnestness and fiery enthusiasm for the truth he came to preach,--these things had revealed the hero, the master whom it was alike impossible to disobey and impossible not to love. Henceforward it is only a question of time. As the men of Medina come to know Mo?ammad, they too will devote themselves to him body and soul; and the enthusiasm will catch fire and spread among the tribes till all Arabia is at the feet of the Prophet of the One God. 'No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of His own clouting.' He had the gift of influencing men, and he had the nobility only to influence them for good.

We have now to see Mo?ammad as king. Though he came as a fugitive, rejected as an impostor by his own citizens, yet it was not long before his word was supreme in his adopted city. He had to rule over a mixed and divided people, and this must have helped him to the supreme voice. There were four distinct parties at Medina. First, the 'Refugees' , who had fled from Mekka; on these Mo?ammad could always rely with implicit faith. But he attached equal importance to the early converts of Medina, who had invited him among them and given him a home when the future seemed very hopeless before him, and who were thenceforward known by the honourable title of the 'Helpers' . How devoted was the affection of these men is shown by the well-known scene at El-Ji?r?neh, when the Helpers were discontented with their share of the spoils, and Mo?ammad answered, 'Why are ye disturbed in mind because of the things of this life wherewith I have sought to incline the hearts of these men of Mekka into Isl?m, whereas ye are already steadfast in the faith? Are ye not satisfied that others should obtain the flocks and the camels, while ye carry back the Prophet of the Lord unto your homes? Nay, I will not leave you for ever. If all mankind went one way, and the men of Medina went another way, verily I would go the way of the men of Medina. The Lord be favourable unto them, and bless them, and their sons, and their sons' sons, for ever!' And the 'Helpers' wept upon their beards, and cried with one voice, 'Yea, we are well satisfied, O Prophet, with our lot.' To retain the allegiance of the Refugees and the Helpers was never a trouble to Mo?ammad; the only difficulty was to rein in their zeal and hold them back from doing things of blood and vengeance on the enemies of Isl?m. To prevent the danger of jealousy between the Refugees and the Helpers, Mo?ammad assigned each Refugee to one of the An??r to be his brother; and this tie of gossipry superseded all nearer ties, till Mo?ammad saw the time was over when it was needed. The third party in Medina was that of the 'Disaffected,' or in the language of Isl?m the 'Hypocrites' . This was composed of the large body of men who gave in their nominal allegiance to Mo?ammad and his religion when they saw they could not safely withstand his power, but who were always ready to turn about if they thought there was a chance of his overthrow. Mo?ammad treated these men and their leader ?Abdallah ibn Ubayy with patient courtesy and friendliness, and, though they actually deserted him more than once at vitally critical moments, he never retaliated, even when he was strong enough to crush them, but rather sought to win them over heartily to his cause by treating them as though they were what he would have them be. The result was that this party gradually diminished and became absorbed in the general mass of earnest Muslims, and though up to its leader's death it constantly called forth Mo?ammad's powers of conciliation, after that it vanished from the history of parties.

The step was false: the Jews missed their game, and they had to pay for it. Whether it was possible to form a coalition,--whether the Jews might have induced Mo?ammad to waive certain minor points if they recognised his prophetic mission,--it is difficult to say. It seems most probable that Mo?ammad would not have yielded a jot to their demands, and would have accepted nothing short of unconditional surrender to his religion. And it is at least doubtful whether Isl?m would have gained anything by a further infusion of Judaism. It already contained all that it could assimilate of the Hebrew faith; the rest was too narrow for the universal scope of Isl?m. The religion of Mo?ammad lost little, we may be sure, by the standing aloof of the Arabian Jews; but the Jews themselves lost much. Mo?ammad, indeed, treated them kindly so long as kindness was possible. He made a treaty with them, whereby the rights of the Muslims and the Jews were defined. They were to practise their several religions unmolested; protection and security were promised to all the parties to the treaty, irrespective of creed; each was to help the other if attacked; no alliance was to be made with the ?ureysh; war was to be made in common, and no war could be made without the consent of Mo?ammad: crime alone could do away with the protection of this treaty.

But the Jews would not content themselves with standing aloof; they must needs act on the offensive. They began by asking Mo?ammad hard questions out of their law, and his answers they easily refuted from their books. They denied all knowledge of the Jewish stories in the ?ur-?n--though they knew that they came from their own Haggadah, which was ever in their mouths in their own quarter,--and they showed him their Bible, where, of course, the Haggadistic legends were not to be found. Mo?ammad had but one course open to him--to say they had suppressed or changed their books; and he denounced them accordingly, and said that his was the true account of the patriarchs and prophets, revealed from heaven. Not satisfied with tormenting Mo?ammad with questions on that T?rah which they were always wrangling about themselves, they took hold of the every day formulas of Isl?m, the daily prayers and ejaculations, and, 'twisting their tongues,' mispronounced them so that they meant something absurd or blasphemous. When asked which they preferred, Isl?m or idolatry, they frankly avowed that they preferred idolatry. To lie about their own religion and to ridicule another religion that was doing a great and good work around them was not enough for these Jews; they must set their poets to work to lampoon the women of the believers in obscene verse, and such outrages upon common decency, not to say upon the code of Arab honour and chivalry, became a favourite occupation among the poets of the Jewish clans.

These were offences against the religion and the persons of the Muslims. They also conspired against the state. Mo?ammad was not only the preacher of Isl?m, he was also the king of Medina, and was responsible for the safety and peace of the city. As a prophet, he could afford to ignore the jibes of the Jews, though they maddened him to fury; but as the chief of the city, the general in a time of almost continual warfare, when Medina was kept in a state of military defence and under a sort of military discipline, he could not overlook treachery. He was bound by his duty to his subjects to suppress a party that might lead to the sack of the city by investing armies. The measures he took for this object have furnished his European biographers with a handle for attack. It is, I believe, solely on the ground of his treatment of the Jews that Mo?ammad has been called 'a bloodthirsty tyrant:' it would certainly be difficult to support the epithet on other grounds.

The bloodthirstiness consists in this: some half-dozen Jews, who had distinguished themselves by their virulence against the Muslims, or by their custom of carrying information to the common enemy of Medina, were executed; two of the three Jewish clans were sent into exile, just as they had previously come into exile, and the third was exterminated--the men killed, and the women and children made slaves. The execution of the half-dozen marked Jews is generally called assassination, because a Muslim was sent secretly to kill each of the criminals. The reason is almost too obvious to need explanation. There were no police or law-courts or even courts-martial at Medina; some one of the followers of Mo?ammad must therefore be the executor of the sentence of death, and it was better it should be done quietly, as the executing of a man openly before his clan would have caused a brawl and more bloodshed and retaliation, till the whole city had become mixed up in the quarrel. If secret assassination is the word for such deeds, secret assassination was a necessary part of the internal government of Medina. The men must be killed, and best in that way. In saying this I assume that Mo?ammad was cognisant of the deed, and that it was not merely a case of private vengeance; but in several instances the evidence that traces these executions to Mo?ammad's order is either entirely wanting or is too doubtful to claim our credence.

Of the sentences upon the three whole clans, that of exile, passed upon two of them, was clement enough. They were a turbulent set, always setting the people of Medina by the ears; and finally a brawl followed by an insurrection resulted in the expulsion of one tribe; and insubordination, alliance with enemies, and a suspicion of conspiracy against the Prophet's life, ended similarly for the second. Both tribes had violated the original treaty, and had endeavoured in every way to bring Mo?ammad and his religion to ridicule and destruction. The only question is whether their punishment was not too light. Of the third clan a fearful example was made, not by Mo?ammad, but by an arbiter appointed by themselves. When the ?ureysh and their allies were besieging Medina, and had well-nigh stormed the defences, this Jewish tribe entered into negotiations with the enemy, which were only circumvented by the diplomacy of the Prophet. When the besiegers had retired, Mo?ammad naturally demanded an explanation of the Jews. They resisted in their dogged way, and were themselves besieged and compelled to surrender at discretion. Mo?ammad, however, consented to the appointing of a chief of a tribe allied to the Jews as the judge who should pronounce sentence upon them. The man in question was a fierce soldier, who had been wounded in the attack on the Jews, and indeed died from his wound the same day. This chief gave sentence that the men, in number some six hundred, should be killed, and the women and children enslaved; and the sentence was carried out. It was a harsh, bloody sentence, worthy of the episcopal generals of the army against the Albigenses, or of the deeds of the Augustan age of Puritanism; but it must be remembered that the crime of these men was high treason against the State, during time of siege; and those who have read how Wellington's march could be traced by the bodies of deserters and pillagers hanging from the trees, need not be surprized at the summary execution of a traitorous clan.

Whilst Mo?ammad's supremacy was being established and maintained among the mixed population of Mekka, a vigorous warfare was being carried on outside with his old persecutors, the ?ureysh. On the history of this war, consisting as it did mainly of small raids and attacks upon caravans, I need not dwell; its leading features were the two battles of Bedr and O?ud, in the first of which three hundred Muslims, though outnumbered at the odds of three to one, were completely victorious ; whilst at O?ud, being outnumbered in the like proportion and deserted by the 'Disaffected' party, they were almost as decisively defeated . Two years later the ?ureysh, gathering together their allies, advanced upon Medina and besieged it for fifteen days; but the foresight of Mo?ammad in digging a trench, and the enthusiasm of the Muslims in defending it, resisted all assaults, and the coming of the heavy storms for which the climate of Medina is noted drove the enemy back to Mekka. The next year a ten years' truce was concluded with the ?ureysh, in pursuance of which a strange scene took place in the following spring. It was agreed that Mo?ammad and his people should perform the Lesser Pilgrimage, and that the ?ureysh should for that purpose vacate Mekka for three days. Accordingly, in March 629, about two thousand Muslims, with Mo?ammad at their head on his famous camel El-?a?w?--the same on which he had fled from Mekka--trooped down the valley and performed the rites which every Muslim to this day observes.

'It was surely a strange sight which at this time presented itself in the vale of Mekka,--a sight unique in the history of the world. The ancient city is for three days evacuated by all its inhabitants, high and low, every house deserted; and, as they retire, the exiled converts, many years banished from their birthplace, approach in a great body, accompanied by their allies, revisit the empty homes of their childhood, and within the short allotted space fulfil the rites of pilgrimage. The ousted inhabitants, climbing the heights around, take refuge under tents or other shelter among the hills and glens; and, clustering on the overhanging peak of Aboo-?ubeys, thence watch the movements of the visitors beneath, as with the Prophet at their head they make the circuit of the Ka?beh and the rapid procession between E?-?af? and Marwah; and anxiously scan every figure if perchance they may recognise among the worshippers some long-lost friend or relative. It was a scene rendered possible only by the throes which gave birth to Isl?m.'

When the three days were over, Mo?ammad and his party peaceably returned to Medina; and the Mekkans re-entered their homes. But this pilgrimage, and the self-restraint of the Muslims therein, advanced the cause of Isl?m among its enemies. Converts increased daily, and some leading men of the ?ureysh now went over to Mo?ammad. The clans around were sending in their deputations of homage. But the final keystone was set in the eighth year of the flight , when a body of ?ureysh broke the truce by attacking an ally of the Muslims; and Mo?ammad forthwith marched upon Mekka with ten thousand men, and the city, defence being hopeless, surrendered. Now was the time for the Prophet to show his bloodthirsty nature. His old persecutors are at his feet. Will he not trample on them, torture them, revenge himself after his own cruel manner? Now the man will come forward in his true colours: we may prepare our horror, and cry shame beforehand.

But what is this? Is there no blood in the streets? Where are the bodies of the thousands that have been butchered? Facts are hard things; and it is a fact that the day of Mo?ammad's greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the ?ureysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn they had inflicted on him: he gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mekka. Four criminals, whom justice condemned, made up Mo?ammad's proscription list when he entered as a conqueror the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered quietly and peaceably; no house was robbed, no woman insulted. One thing alone suffered destruction. Going to the Ka?beh, Mo?ammad stood before each of the three hundred and sixty idols and pointed to it with his staff, saying, 'Truth is come and lying is undone,' and at these words his attendants hewed it down; and all the idols and household gods of Mekka and round about were destroyed.

It was thus that Mo?ammad entered again his native city. Through all the annals of conquest, there is no triumphant entry like unto this one.

The taking of Mekka was soon followed by the adhesion of all Arabia. Every reader knows the story of the spread of Isl?m. The tribes of every part of the peninsula sent embassies to do homage to the Prophet. Arabia was not enough: the Prophet had written in his bold uncompromising way to the great kings of the East, to the Persian Khusru, and the Greek Emperor; and these little knew how soon his invitation to the faith would be repeated, and how quickly Isl?m would be knocking at their doors with no faltering hand.

The Prophet's career was near its end. In the tenth year of the Flight, twenty years after he had first felt the Spirit move him to preach to his people, he resolved once more to leave his adopted city and go to Mekka to perform a farewell pilgrimage. And when the rites were done in the valley of Min?, the Prophet spoke unto the multitude--the forty thousand pilgrims--with solemn last words.

'YE PEOPLE! Hearken to my words; for I know not whether after this year I shall ever be amongst you here again.

'Your Lives and your Property are sacred and inviolable amongst one another until the end of time.

'The Lord hath ordained to every man the share of his inheritance: a Testament is not lawful to the prejudice of heirs.

'The child belongeth to the Parent; and the violator of Wedlock shall be stoned.

'Ye people! Ye have rights demandable of your Wives, and they have rights demandable of you. Treat your women well.

'And your Slaves, see that you feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of the Lord, and are not to be tormented.

'Ye people! Hearken unto my speech and comprehend it. Know that every Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim. All of you are on the same equality: ye are one Brotherhood.'

Then, looking up to heaven, he cried, 'O Lord! I have delivered my message and fulfilled my mission.' And all the multitude answered, 'Yea, verily hast thou'!--'O Lord! I beseech Thee, bear Thou witness to it'! and, like Moses, he lifted up his hands and blessed the people.

Three months more and Mo?ammad was dead.

A.H. 11. June, 632.

It is a hard thing to form a calm estimate of the Dreamer of the Desert. There is something so tender and womanly, and withal so heroic, about the man, that one is in peril of finding the judgment unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and well-nigh love that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone, braved for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to withdraw his hand from another's clasp, the beloved of children, who never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and a kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice. The frank friendship, the noble generosity, the dauntless courage and hope of the man, all tend to melt criticism in admiration.

In telling in brief outline the story of Mo?ammad's life I have endeavoured to avoid controversial points. I have tried to convey in the simplest manner the view of that life which a study of the authorities must force upon every unbiassed mind. Many of the events of Mo?ammad's life have been distorted and credited with ignoble motives by European biographers; but on the facts they mainly agree, and these I have narrated, without encumbering them with the ingenious adumbrations of their learned recorders. But there are some things in the Prophet's life which have given rise to charges too weighty to be dismissed without discussion. He has been accused of cruelty, sensuality, and insincerity; he has been called a 'bloodthirsty tyrant,' a voluptuary, and an impostor.

The charge of cruelty scarcely deserves consideration. I have already spoken of the punishment of the Jews, which forms the ground of the accusation. One has but to refer to Mo?ammad's conduct to the prisoners after the battle of Bedr, to his patient tolerance towards his enemies at Medina, his gentleness to his people, his love of children and the dumb creatures, and above all, his bloodless entry into Mekka, and the complete amnesty he gave to those who had been his bitter enemies during eighteen years of insult and persecution and finally open war, to show that cruelty was no part of Mo?ammad's nature.

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