Part 4

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.

There are those who see imposture in all this; for such I have no answer. Nor does it matter whether in a hysterical fit or under any physical disease soever Moḥammad saw these visions and heard these voices. We are not concerned to draw the lines of demarcation between enthusiasm and ecstasy and inspiration. It is sufficient that Moḥammad _did_ see these things—the subjective creations of a tormented mind. It is sufficient that he believed them to be a message from on high, and that for years of neglect and persecution and for years of triumph and conquest he acted upon his belief.

Moḥammad now (612) came forward as the Apostle of the One God to the people of Arabia: he was at last well assured that his God was of a truth _the_ God, and that He had indeed sent him with a message to his people, that they too might turn from their idols and serve the living God. He was in the minority of one, but he was no longer afraid; he had learnt that self-trust which is the condition of all true work. At first he spoke to his near kinsmen and friends; and it is impossible to overrate the importance of the fact that his closest relations and those who lived under his roof were the first to believe and the staunchest of faith. The prophet who is _with_ honour in his own home need appeal to no stronger proof of his sincerity, and that Moḥammad _was_ ‘a hero to his own valet’ is an invincible argument for his earnestness. The motherly Khadeejeh had at once, with a woman’s instinct, divined her husband’s heart and confirmed his fainting hope by her firm faith in him. His dearest friends, Zeyd and ´Alee, were the next converts; and though, to his grief, he could never induce his lifelong protector, Aboo-Ṭálib, to abandon the gods of his fathers, yet the old man loved him none the less, and said, when he heard of ´Alee’s conversion, ‘Well, my son, he will not call thee to aught save what is good; wherefore thou art free to cleave unto him.’ A priceless aid was gained in the accession of Aboo-Bekr, who succeeded Moḥammad as the first Khalif of Islám, and whose calm judgment and quick sagacity, joined to a gentle and compassionate heart, were of incalculable service to the faith. Aboo-Bekr was one of the wealthiest merchants of Mekka, and exercised no small influence among his fellow-citizens, no less by his character than his position. Like Moḥammad, he had a nickname, Eṣ-Ṣiddeeḳ, ‘The True:’ _The True_ and _The Trusty_,—no mean augury for the future of the religion!

Five converts followed in Aboo-Bekr’s steps; among them ´Othmán, the third Khalif, and Ṭalḥah, 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 Bilál, the original Muëddin of Islám, and ever a devoted disciple of the Prophet. These and others from the Ḳureysh raised the number of Muslims to more than thirty souls by the fourth year of Moḥammad’s mission—thirty in three long years, and few of them men of influence!

This small success had been achieved with very little opposition from the idolaters. Moḥammad had not spoken much in public; and when he did speak to strangers, he restrained himself from attacking their worship, and only enjoined them to worship the One God who had created all things. The people were rather interested, and wondered whether he were a soothsayer or madman, or if indeed there were truth in his words. But now (A.D. 615) Moḥammad entered upon a more public career. He summoned the Ḳureysh to a conference at the hill of Eṣ-Ṣafá, and said, ‘I am come to you as a warner, and as the forerunner of a fearful punishment.... I cannot protect you in this world, nor can I promise you aught in the next life, unless ye say, There is no God but Alláh.’ He was laughed to scorn, and the assembly broke up; but from this time he ceased not to preach to the people of a punishment that would come upon the unbelieving city. He told them, in the fiery language of the early soorahs, how God had punished the old tribes of the Arabs who would not believe in His messengers, how the Flood had swallowed up the people who would not hearken to Noah. He swore unto them, by the wonderful sights of nature, by the noonday brightness, by the night when she spreadeth her veil, by the day when it appeareth in glory, that a like destruction would assuredly come upon them if they did not turn away from their idols and serve God alone. He enforced his message with every resource of language and metaphor, till he made it burn in the ears of the people. And then he told them of the Last Day, when a just reckoning should be taken of the deeds they had done; and he spoke of Paradise and Hell with all the glow of Eastern imagery. The people were moved, terrified; conversions increased. It was time the Ḳureysh should take some step. If the idols were destroyed, what would come to them, the keepers of the idols, and their renown throughout the land? How should they retain the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes who came to worship their several divinities at the Kaạbeh? That a few should follow the ravings of a madman or magician who preferred one god above the beautiful deities of Mekka was little matter; but that some leading men of the city should join the sect, and that the magician should terrify the people in open day with his denunciations of the worship which _they_ superintended, was intolerable. The chiefs were seriously alarmed, and resolved on a more active policy. Hitherto they had merely ridiculed the professors of this new faith; they would now take stronger measures. Moḥammad himself they dared not touch; for he belonged to a noble family, which, though it was reduced and impoverished, had deserved well of the city, and which, moreover, was now headed by a man who was reverenced throughout Mekka, and was none other than the adoptive father and protector of Moḥammad himself. Nor was it safe to attack the other chief men among the Muslims, for the blood-revenge was no light risk. They were thus compelled to content themselves with the mean satisfaction of torturing the black slaves who had joined the obnoxious faction. They exposed them on the scorching sand, and withheld water till they recanted—which they did, only to profess the faith once more when they were let go. The first Muëddin alone remained steadfast: as he lay half stifled he would only answer, ‘Aḥad! Aḥad!’—‘One [God]! One!’—till Aboo-Bekr came and bought his freedom, as he was wont to do for many of the miserable victims. Moḥammad was very gentle with these forced renegades: he knew what stuff men are made of, and he bade them be of good cheer for their lips, so that their hearts were sound.

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 (616) 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 Ḳureysh were very wroth at the escape of their victims, and sent ambassadors to the Nejáshee, the Christian king of Abyssinia, to demand that the refugees should be given up to them. But the Nejáshee 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 Ḳur-án, 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 Ḳureysh, 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 Moḥammad 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 Moḥammad made his first and last concession. He recited a revelation to the Ḳureysh, 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 Moḥammad—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 ‘Moḥammad’s fall.’ Yet it was a tempting compromise, and few would have withstood it. And the life of Moḥammad 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.

Moḥammad’s influence with the people at large was certainly weakened by this temporary change of front, and the opposition of the leaders of the Ḳureysh, 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-Ṭálib alone saved him from personal danger. This refuge the Ḳureysh 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 Moḥammad, 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 Moḥammad temporize with the Ḳureysh. 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-Ṭálib 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-Ṭálib was soon to be tried. At first, indeed, things looked brighter. The old chief’s firm bearing overawed the Ḳureysh, and they were still more cowed by two great additions that were now joined to the Muslim ranks. One was Moḥammad’s uncle, Ḥamzeh, ‘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 Islám. 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 Islám. The gain of two such men first frightened then maddened the Ḳureysh. 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 Ḥamzeh, Ṭalḥah, ´Omar,—half-a-dozen picked swordsmen; and the Muslims, emboldened by their new allies, were boldly surrounding the Kaạbeh, and performing the rites of their religion in the face of all the people. The Ḳureysh resolved on extreme measures. They determined to shut off the obnoxious family of the Háshimees from the rest of their kindred. The chiefs drew up a document, in which they vowed that they would not marry with the Háshimees, nor buy and sell with them, nor hold with them any communication soever; and this they hung up in the Kaạbeh.

The Háshimees were not many enough to fight the whole city, so they went every man of them, save one, to the shi-b (or quarter) of Aboo-Ṭálib,—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, Moḥammad, saving only his own uncle, Aboo-Lahab, a determined enemy to Islám, to whom a special denunciation is justly consecrated in the Ḳur-án.

For two long years the Háshimees remained shut up in their quarter. Only at the pilgrimage-time—when the blessed institution of the sacred months made violence sacrilege—could Moḥammad 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 Moḥammad’s mission there were probably not more than twelve Muslims of any weight who remained by him. Still the Háshimees 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 Ḳureysh 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-Ṭálib turned the discovery to his advantage. The venerable old chief went out and met the Ḳureysh at the Kaạbeh, 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-Ṭálib, bade the Háshimees come forth in peace. And they came forth.

It was now the eighth year of Moḥammad’s mission; and for the last two years, wasted in excommunication, Islám had almost stood still, at least externally. For though Moḥammad’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 Moḥammad 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-Ṭálib died, and five weeks later Khadeejeh. In the first Moḥammad 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 Moḥammad. 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 ´Áïsheh, 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.’

Moḥammad 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-Ṭáïf 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-Ṭáïf 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 Islám. 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 Ḳureysh, 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 Ḳureysh had not yet come to think of the last resource, and meanwhile a new prospect was opening out for Moḥammad. That same year, as he was visiting the caravans of the pilgrims who had come from all parts of Arabia to worship at the Kaạbeh, 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 Islám, 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 Moḥammad 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 Moḥammad 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 Moḥammad 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, Moḥammad 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 Islám, 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 ´Aḳabeh.

The twelve men of Yethrib went back and preached Islám 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 Moḥammad to send them a teacher versed in the Ḳur-án, so anxious were they to know Islám truly; and Muṣ´ab was sent, and taught them and conducted their worship; so that Islám took deep root at Yethrib.

Meanwhile Moḥammad was still among the Ḳureysh 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. Islám seems stationary at Mekka, and its followers are silent and reserved. The Ḳureysh 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.