Part 2

The religion of the ancient Arabs, little as we know of it, is especially interesting inasmuch as the Arabs longest retained the original Semitic character, and hence probably the original Semitic religion; and thus in the ancient cult of Arabia we may see the religion once professed by Chaldeans, Canaanites, Israelites, and Phœnicians. This ancient religion “rises little higher than animistic polydaemonism; it is a collection of tribal religions standing side by side, only loosely united, though there are traces of a once closer connection.” The great objects of worship were the sun, and the stars, and the three moon-goddesses,--El-Lāt, the bright moon, Menāh, the dark, and El-´Uzza, the union of the two--whilst a lower cultus of trees, stones, and mountains shows that the religion had not quite risen above simple fetishism. There are traces of a belief in a supreme God behind this pantheon, and the moon-goddesses and other divinities were regarded as daughters of the Most High God (Allāh ta´āla). The various deities (but not the supreme Allāh) had their fanes where human sacrifices, though rare, were not unknown; and their cult was superintended by a hereditary line of seers, who were held in great reverence, but never developed into a priestly caste.

Besides the tribal gods, individual households had their special _penates_, to whom was due the first and the last salām of the returning or outgoing master. But in spite of all this superstitious apparatus the Arabs were never a religious people. In the old days, as now, they were reckless, sceptical, materialistic. They had their gods and their divining arrows, but they were ready to demolish both if the responses proved contrary to their wishes. An Arab, who wished to avenge the death of his father, went to consult the square block of white stone called El-Khalasa, by means of divining arrows. Three times he tried, and each time he drew the arrow forbidding vengeance. Then he broke the arrows, and flung them in the face of the idol, crying, “Wretch! if it had been _your_ father who was murdered, you would not have forbidden me to avenge him!” The great majority believed in no future life, nor in a reckoning day of good and evil. If a few tied camels to the graves of the dead that the corpse might ride mounted to the judgment-seat, they must have done so more by force of superstitious habit than anything else.

Christianity and Judaism had made but small impress upon the Arabs. There were Jewish tribes in the north, and there is evidence in the Korān and elsewhere that the traditions and rites of Judaism were widely known in Arabia. But the creed was too narrow and too exclusively national to commend itself to the majority of the people. Christianity fared even worse. Whether or not St. Paul went there, it is at least certain that very little effect was produced by the preaching of Christianity in Arabia. We hear of Christians on the borders, and even two or three among the Mekkans, and bishops and churches are spoken of at Dhafār and Nejrān. But the Christianity that the Arabs knew was, like the Judaism of the northern tribes, a very imperfect reflection of the faith it professed to be. It had become a thing of the head instead of the heart, and the refinements of monophysite and monothelite doctrines gained no hold on the Arab mind.

Thus Judaism and Christianity, though they were well known, and furnished many of the ideas and most of the ceremonies of Islām, were never able to effect any general settlement in Arabia. The common Arabs did not care much about any religion, and the finer spirits found the wrangling dogmatism of the Christian and the narrow isolation of the Jew little to their mind. For there were men before the time of Mohammad who were dissatisfied with the low fetishism in which their countrymen were plunged, and who protested emphatically against the idle and often cruel superstitions of the Arabs. Not to refer to the prophets, who, as the Korān relates, were sent in old times to the tribes of Ad and Thamūd to convert them, there was, immediately before the preaching of Mohammad, a general feeling that a change was at hand; a prophet was expected, and women were anxiously hoping for male children, if so be they might mother the Apostle of God; and the more thoughtful minds, tinged with traditions of Judaism, were seeking for what they called the “religion of Abraham.” These men were called “Hanīfs,” or “incliners,” and their religion seems to have consisted chiefly in a negative position,--in denying the superstition of the Arabs, and in only asserting the existence of one sole-ruling God whose absolute slaves are all mankind--without being able to decide on any minor doctrines, or to determine in what manner this One God was to be worshipped. So long as the Hanīfs could give their countrymen no more definite creed than this, their influence was limited to a few inquiring and doubting minds. It was reserved for Mohammad to formulate the faith of the Hanīfs in the dogmas of Islām.

It is essential to bear in mind all these surroundings of Mohammad if we would understand his position and influence. A desert Arab in love of liberty and worship of nature’s beauty, but lacking something of the frank chivalrous spirit of the desert warrior--more a saint than a knight,--yet possessing a patient determined perseverance which belonged to the life of the town, a moral force which the roaming Bedawy did not need, Mohammad owed something to either side of Arabian life; whilst without the influence of other religions, especially the Jewish, he could never have come forward as the preacher of Islām. Even the old nature worship of the Arabs had its share in the new religion, and no faith was made up of more varied materials than that which Mohammad impressed upon so large a portion of mankind.

Of his early life very little is known. He was born in A.D. 571, and came of the noble tribe of the Koreysh, who had long been guardians of the sacred Kaaba. He lost both his parents early, and as his branch of the tribe had become poor, his duty was to betake himself to the hillsides and pasture the flocks of his neighbours. In after years he would look back with pleasure on these days, and say that God took never a prophet save from among the sheep-folds. The life on the hills gave him the true shepherd’s eye for nature which is seen in every speech of the Korān; and it was in those solitary watches under the silent sky, with none near to distract him, that he began those earnest communings with his soul which made him in the end the prophet of his nation. Beyond this shepherd life and his later and more adventurous trade of camel-driver to the Syrian caravans of his rich cousin, Khadīja, whom he presently married at the age of twenty-five, there is little that can be positively asserted of Mohammad’s youth. He must have witnessed the poets’ contests at the Fair of ´Okadh, and listened to the earnest talk of the Jews and Hanīfs who visited the markets; he may have heard a little, dimly, of Jesus of Nazareth; what he did we know not; what he was is expressed in the nickname by which he was known--“El-Amīn,” the Trusty.

“Mohammad was of the middle height, rather thin, but broad of shoulders, wide of chest, strong of bone and muscle. His head was massive, strongly developed. Dark hair, slightly curled, flowed in a dense mass almost to his shoulders; even in advanced age it was sprinkled with only about twenty gray hairs, produced by the agonies of his ‘Revelations.’ His face was oval-shaped, slightly tawny of colour. Fine long arched eyebrows were divided by a vein, which throbbed visibly in moments of passion. Great black restless eyes shone out from under long heavy eyelashes. His nose was large, slightly aquiline. His teeth, upon which he bestowed great care, were well set, dazzling white. A full beard framed his manly face. His skin was clear and soft, his complexion ‘red and white,’ his hands were as ‘silk and satin,’ even as those of a woman. His step was quick and elastic, yet firm as that of one who steps ‘from a high to a low place.’ In turning his face he would also turn his whole body. His whole gait and presence were dignified and imposing. His countenance was mild and pensive. His laugh was rarely more than a smile.

“In his habits he was extremely simple, though he bestowed great care on his person. His eating and drinking, his dress and his furniture retained, even when he had reached the fulness of power, their almost primitive nature. The only luxuries he indulged in were, besides arms, which he highly prized, a pair of yellow boots, a present from the Negus of Abyssinia. Perfumes, however, he loved passionately, being most sensitive to smells. Strong drink he abhorred.

“His constitution was extremely delicate. He was nervously afraid of bodily pain; he would sob and roar under it. Eminently unpractical in all common things of life, he was gifted with mighty powers of imagination, elevation of mind, delicacy and refinement of feeling. ‘He is more modest than a virgin behind her curtain,’ it was said of him. He was most indulgent to his inferiors, and would never allow his awkward little page to be scolded whatever he did. ‘Ten years,’ said Anas his servant, ‘was I about the Prophet, and he never said as much as “uff” to me.’ He was very affectionate towards his family. One of his boys died on his breast in the smoky house of the nurse, a blacksmith’s wife. He was very fond of children; he would stop them in the streets and pat their little heads. He never struck any one in his life. The worst expression he ever made use of in conversation was, ‘What has come to him? may his forehead be darkened with mud!’ When asked to curse some one, he replied, ‘I have not been sent to curse, but to be a mercy to mankind.’ ‘He visited the sick, followed any bier he met, accepted the invitation of a slave to dinner, mended his own clothes, milked the goats, and waited upon himself,’ relates summarily another tradition. He never first withdrew his hand out of another man’s palm, and turned not before the other had turned.

“He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation. Those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him; they who described him would say, ‘I have never seen his like either before or after.’ He was of great taciturnity, but when he spoke it was with emphasis and deliberation, and no one could forget what he said. He was, however, very nervous and restless withal; often low-spirited, downcast, as to heart and eyes. Yet he would at times suddenly break through these broodings, become gay, talkative, jocular, chiefly among his own. He would then delight in telling little stories, fairy tales, and the like. He would romp with the children and play with their toys.”

“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. The little food 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 poor, who lived entirely upon 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.”

Mohammad was forty before he began his mission of reform. He may long have doubted and questioned with himself, but at least outwardly he seems to have conformed to the popular religion. At length, as he was keeping the sacred months, the God’s Truce of the Arabs, in prayer and fasting on Mount Hirā, “a huge barren rock, torn by cleft and hollow ravine, standing out solitary in the full white glare of the desert sun,” he thought he heard a voice say “Cry.” “What shall I cry?” he answered. And the voice said:--

“Cry! in the name of thy Lord, who created-- Created man from blood. Cry! for thy Lord is the Bountifullest! Who taught the pen, Taught man what he did not know.”

_Korān_, ch. xcvi.

At first he thought he was possessed with a devil, and the refuge of suicide was often present to his mind. But yet again he heard the voice--“Thou art the Messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” He went back to Khadīja, worn out in body and mind. “Wrap me, wrap me,” he cried. And then the word came to him:--

“O thou who art wrapped, rise up and warn! And thy Lord magnify, And thy raiment purify, And abomination shun! And grant not favours to gain increase! And wait for thy Lord!”

_Korān_, ch. lxxiv.

These are the first two revelations that came to Mohammad. That he believed he heard them spoken by an angel from heaven is beyond doubt. His temperament was nervous and excitable from a child up. It is said he was subject to cataleptic fits, like Swedenborg; and at least it is certain that his constitution was more delicately and highly strung than most men’s. If it is any satisfaction to the incredulous to find evidence of a special tendency towards hallucinations, the proofs are at hand. But whether the “revelations” were subjective or not makes no difference to the result. Whencesoever they came, they were real and potent revelations to the man and to his people.

After this beginning of converse with the supernatural, or whatever we prefer to term it, the course of Mohammad’s revelations--the speeches which make up the Korān--flowed unbroken for twenty years and more. They fall naturally into two great divisions--the period of struggle at Mekka, and the period of triumph at Medina; and the characteristics of the two are diverse as the circumstances which called them forth. For whatever Mohammad himself thought of his revelations, to modern criticism they are speeches or sermons strictly connected with the religious and political circumstances of the speaker’s time. In the first period we see a man possessed of a strong religious idea, an idea dominating his life, and his one aim is to impress that idea on his people, the inhabitants of Mekka. He preached to them in season and out of season; whenever the spirit moved him he poured forth his burning eloquence into the ears of a suspicious and incredulous audience. Three years of unwearied effort produced the pitiful result of a score or so of converts, mainly from the poorest classes. In the fifth year even these were compelled by the persecutions of the Koreysh to take refuge in Abyssinia--“a land of righteousness, wherein no man is wronged.” Mohammad had by this time advanced from a mere inculcation of the doctrine of one all-powerful God to a plain attack upon the idolatry of the Mekkans; and the Koreysh, as guardians of the Kaaba and receivers of the pilgrims’ tolls, were keenly alive to the consequences which the overthrow of the sacred temple would entail upon its keepers. The result of Mohammad’s bold denunciations was a cruel persecution of his humbler followers, and their consequent flight to Abyssinia; he himself was too nearly allied to powerful chiefs to be lightly injured in a land where the blood-revenge held sway. Presently the devotion of the prophet, his manly bearing under obloquy and reproach, and above all, the winged words of his eloquence, brought several men of influence and wealth into his faith, and in the sixth year of his mission Mohammad found himself surrounded no longer by a crowd of slaves and beggars, but by tried swordsmen, chiefs of great families, leaders in the councils of Mekka; and the new sect performed their rites no more in secret, but publicly at the Kaaba, in the face of the whole city. The Koreysh resolved on stronger measures. After trying vainly to isolate him from his family--the true Arab spirit of kindred was not so easily shaken--they put the whole clan under a ban, and swore they would not marry with them, nor buy nor sell with them, nor hold with them any intercourse soever. To the credit of Mohammad and of his clan, only one man of them refused to share his fate, though most of them did not hold with his doctrines. Sooner than give up their kinsman, they went, every man of them, save that one, into their own quarter of the city, and there abode in banishment for two years. Starvation was busy with the incarcerated family, when the Koreysh grew ashamed of their work, and five chiefs arose and put on their armour and went to the ravine where the banished people were shut up, and bade them come forth.

The time of inaction was followed by a time of sorrow. Mohammad lost his wife and the aged chief, his uncle, who had hitherto been his protector. All Mekka was against him, and in despair of heart he journeyed to Taif, seventy miles away, and told his message to another folk: but they stoned him for three miles from the town. The time, however, was coming when a distant city would hold out welcoming hands to the prophet whom Mekka and Taif had rejected. As he dwelt-on disconsolately at Mekka, pilgrims from Yethrib (soon to be known as Medina or Medīnet-en-Neby, “the Prophet’s City”) hearkened to the new doctrine, and carried it home to their own folk. Jews had prepared the way for Islām at Medina; the new religion did not seem preposterous to those who had long heard of One God; and presently the Faithful began to leave Mekka in small companies, and take refuge in the hospitable city where their prophet was honoured. At length Mohammad, when like the captain of a sinking ship he had seen his followers safely away, accompanied by one faithful friend eluded the vigilance of the Koreysh, and safely arrived at Medina in the early summer of 622. This is the Hijra or “Flight” of Mohammad, from which the Muslims date their history.

During these years of struggle and persecution at Mekka 90 out of the 114 chapters or speeches which compose the Korān were revealed, amounting to about two-thirds of the whole book. All these speeches are inspired with but one great design, and are in strong contrast with the complicated character of the later chapters issued at Medina. In the Mekka chapters Mohammad appears in the unalloyed character of a prophet: he has not yet assumed the functions of a statesman and lawgiver. His object is not to give men a code or a constitution, but to call them to the worship of the One God. There is hardly a word of other doctrines, scarcely anything of ritual, or social or penal regulations. Every speech is directed simply to the grand design of the Prophet’s life, to convince men of the unutterable majesty of the One God, who brooks no rivals. Mohammad appeals to the people to credit the evidence of their own eyes; he calls to witness the wonders of nature, the stars in their courses, the sun and the moon, the dawn cleaving asunder the dark veil of night, the life-giving rain, the fruits of the earth, life and death, change and decay--all are “signs of God’s power, if only ye would understand.” Or he tells the people how it fared with older generations, when prophets came to them and exhorted them to believe in One God and do righteousness, and they rejected them; how there fell upon the unbelieving nation grievous woe. How was it with the people of Noah? he asks:--they were drowned in the flood because they would not hearken to his words. And the people of the Cities of the Plain? And Pharaoh and his host? And the old tribes of the Arabs who would not hear the warnings of their prophets? One answer follows each--there came upon them a great calamity. “These are the true stories,” he cries, “and there is only One God! and yet ye turn aside.” Eloquent appeals to the signs of nature, threats of a day of reckoning to come, warnings drawn from the legends of the prophets, arguments for the truth and reality of the revelation, make up the substance of this first division of the Korān.

In the earliest group of speeches delivered at Mekka, forty-eight in number, belonging to what is called the First Period, extending over the first four years of Mohammad’s mission, we feel the poetry of the man. Mohammad had not lived among the sheep-folds in vain, and spent long solitary nights gazing at the silent heaven and watching the dawn break over the mountains. This earliest portion of the Korān is one long blazonry of nature’s beauty. How can you believe in aught but the One omnipotent God when you see this glorious world around you and this wondrous tent of heaven above you? is Mohammad’s frequent question to his countrymen. “All things in heaven and earth supplicate Him; then which of the bounties of your Lord will ye deny?” There is little but this appeal to nature in the first part of the speeches at Mekka. The prophet was in too exalted a state during these early years to stoop to argument; he rather seeks to dazzle the sense with brilliant images of God’s workings in creation. “Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you, if ye would understand.” His sentences have a rhythmical ring though they are not in true metre. The lines are very short, yet with a musical cadence. The meaning is often but half expressed. The poet seems impatiently to stop as if he despaired of explaining himself: he has essayed a thing beyond words, has discovered the impotence of language, and broken off with the sentence unfinished. The style is throughout fiery and impassioned. The words are those of a man whose whole heart is bent on convincing, and they carry with them even now the impression of the burning vehemence with which they were originally hurled forth. These earliest speeches are generally brief. They are pitched too high to be long sustained. We feel we have here to do with a poet as well as a preacher, and that his poetry costs him too much to be spun out.

In urging to repentance and faith, Mohammad’s great weapon is the judgment to come--the day of retribution, when all mankind shall be arraigned before the throne of God; and those who have done good shall be given the book of the record of their actions in their right hand, and enjoy abiding happiness in gardens, under which the rivers flow; whilst the wicked shall receive his damning record in his left hand, and be dragged by heel and hair to hell, to broil therein for ever. The day of judgment is a stern reality to Mohammad. It is never out of his thoughts, and he says himself that if men realised what that day was, they would weep much and laugh little. He is never tired of depicting its terrors, and cannot find names enough to describe it. He calls it the Hour, the Mighty Day, the great Calamity, the Inevitable Fact, the Smiting, the Overwhelming, the Hard Day, the Promised Day, the Day of Decision.