A Literary History of the Arabs Part 17

(1) O thou who enwrapped dost lie!

(2) Arise and prophesy,[298]

(3) And thy Lord magnify, (4) And thy raiment purify, (5) And the abomination fly![299]

Mu?ammad no longer doubted that he had a divinely ordained mission to preach in public. His feelings of relief and thankfulness are expressed in several Suras of this period, _e.g._--

THE SuRA OF THE MORNING (XCIII).

(1) By the Morning bright (2) And the softly falling Night, (3) Thy Lord hath not forsaken thee, neither art thou hateful in His sight.

(4) Verily, the Beginning is hard unto thee, but the End shall be light.[300]

(5) Thou shalt be satisfied, the Lord shall thee requite.

(6) Did not He shelter thee when He found thee in orphan's plight?

(7) Did not He find thee astray and lead thee aright?

(8) Did not He find thee poor and make thee rich by His might?

(9) Wherefore, the orphan betray not, (10) And the beggar turn away not, (11) And tell of the bounty of thy Lord.

[Sidenote: The first Moslems.]

[Sidenote: Hostility of the Quraysh.]

[Sidenote: Emigration to Abyssinia.]

[Sidenote: Temporary reconciliation with the Quraysh.]

According to his biographers, an interval of three years elapsed between the sending of Mu?ammad and his appearance as a public preacher of the faith that was in him. Naturally, he would first turn to his own family and friends, but it is difficult to accept the statement that he made no proselytes openly during so long a period. The contrary is a.s.serted in an ancient tradition related by al-Zuhri ( 742 A.D.), where we read that the Prophet summoned the people to embrace Islam[301] both in private and public; and that those who responded to his appeal were, for the most part, young men belonging to the poorer cla.s.s.[302] He found, however, some influential adherents. Besides Khadija, who was the first to believe, there were his cousin 'Ali, his adopted son, Zayd b.

?aritha, and, most important of all, Abu Bakr b. Abi Quhafa, a leading merchant of the Quraysh, universally respected and beloved for his integrity, wisdom, and kindly disposition. At the outset Mu?ammad seems to have avoided everything calculated to offend the heathens, confining himself to moral and religious generalities, so that many believed, and the Meccan aristocrats themselves regarded him with good-humoured toleration as a harmless oracle-monger. "Look!" they said as he pa.s.sed by, "there goes the man of the Banu 'Abd al-Mu??alib who tells of heaven." But no sooner did he begin to emphasise the Unity of G.o.d, to fulminate against idolatry, and to preach the Resurrection of the dead, than his followers melted away in face of the bitter antagonism which these doctrines excited amongst the Quraysh, who saw in the Ka'ba and its venerable cult the mainspring of their commercial prosperity, and were irritated by the Prophet's declaration that their ancestors were burning in h.e.l.l-fire. The authority of Abu ?alib secured the personal safety of Mu?ammad; of the little band who remained faithful some were protected by the strong family feeling characteristic of old Arabian society, but many were poor and friendless; and these, especially the slaves, whom the levelling ideas of Islam had attracted in large numbers, were subjected to cruel persecution.[303] Nevertheless Mu?ammad continued to preach. "I will not forsake this cause" (thus he is said to have answered Abu ?alib, who informed him of the threatening att.i.tude of the Quraysh and begged him not to lay on him a greater burden than he could bear) "until G.o.d shall make it prevail or until I shall perish therein--not though they should set the sun on my right hand and the moon on my left!"[304] But progress was slow and painful: the Meccans stood obstinately aloof, deriding both his prophetic authority and the Divine chastis.e.m.e.nt with which he sought to terrify them. Moreover, they used every kind of pressure short of actual violence in order to seduce his followers, so that many recanted, and in the fifth year of his mission he saw himself driven to the necessity of commanding a general emigration to the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia, where the Moslems would be received with open arms[305] and would be withdrawn from temptation.[306] About a hundred men and women went into exile, leaving their Prophet with a small party of staunch and devoted comrades to persevere in a struggle that was daily becoming more difficult. In a moment of weakness Mu?ammad resolved to attempt a compromise with his countrymen. One day, it is said, the chief men of Mecca, a.s.sembled in a group beside the Ka'ba, discussed as was their wont the affairs of the city, when Mu?ammad appeared and, seating himself by them in a friendly manner, began to recite in their hearing the 53rd Sura of the Koran.

When he came to the verses (19-20)--

"Do ye see Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza, and Manat, the third and last?"

Satan prompted him to add:--

"These are the most exalted Cranes (or Swans), And verily their intercession is to be hoped for."

The Quraysh were surprised and delighted with this acknowledgment of their deities; and as Mu?ammad wound up the Sura with the closing words--

"Wherefore bow down before G.o.d and serve Him,"

the whole a.s.sembly prostrated themselves with one accord on the ground and worshipped.[307] But scarcely had Mu?ammad returned to his house when he repented of the sin into which he had fallen. He cancelled the idolatrous verses and revealed in their place those which now stand in the Koran--

"Shall yours be the male and his the female?[308]

This were then an unjust division!

They are naught but names which ye and your fathers have named."

[Sidenote: Mu?ammad's concession to the idolaters.]

We can easily comprehend why Ibn Hisham omits all mention of this episode from his Biography, and why the fact itself is denied by many Moslem theologians.[309] The Prophet's friends were scandalised, his enemies laughed him to scorn. It was probably no sudden lapse, as tradition represents, but a calculated endeavour to come to terms with the Quraysh; and so far from being immediately annulled, the reconciliation seems to have lasted long enough for the news of it to reach the emigrants in Abyssinia and induce some of them to return to Mecca. While putting the best face on the matter, Mu?ammad felt keenly both his own disgrace and the public discredit. It speaks well for his sincerity that, as soon as he perceived any compromise with idolatry to be impossible--to be, in fact, a surrender of the great principle by which he was inspired--he frankly confessed his error and delusion.

Henceforth he "wages mortal strife with images in every shape"--there is no G.o.d but Allah.

[Sidenote: Death of Khadija and Abu ?alib.]

The further course of events which culminated in Mu?ammad's Flight to Medina may be sketched in a few words. Persecution now waxed hotter than ever, as the Prophet, rising from his temporary vacillation like a giant refreshed, threw his whole force into the denunciation of idolatry. The conversion of 'Umar b. al-Kha??ab, the future Caliph, a man of 'blood and iron,' gave the signal for open revolt. "The Moslems no longer concealed their worship within their own dwellings, but with conscious strength and defiant att.i.tude a.s.sembled in companies about the Ka'ba, performed their rites of prayer and compa.s.sed the Holy House. Their courage rose. Dread and uneasiness seized the Quraysh." The latter retaliated by cutting off all relations with the Hashimites, who were pledged to defend their kinsman, whether they recognised him as a prophet or no. This ban or boycott secluded them in an outlying quarter of the city, where for more than two years they endured the utmost privations, but it only cemented their loyalty to Mu?ammad, and ultimately dissensions among the Quraysh themselves caused it to be removed. Shortly afterwards the Prophet suffered a double bereavement--the death of his wife, Khadija, was followed by that of the n.o.ble Abu ?alib, who, though he never accepted Islam, stood firm to the last in defence of his brother's son. Left alone to protect himself, Mu?ammad realised that he must take some decisive step. The situation was critical. Events had shown that he had nothing to hope and everything to fear from the Meccan aristocracy. He had warned them again and again of the wrath to come, yet they gave no heed. He was now convinced that they would not and could not believe, since G.o.d in His inscrutable wisdom had predestined them to eternal d.a.m.nation.

Consequently he resolved on a bold and, according to Arab ways of thinking, abominable expedient, namely, to abandon his fellow-tribesmen and seek aid from strangers.[310] Having vainly appealed to the inhabitants of ?a'if, he turned to Medina, where, among a population largely composed of Jews, the revolutionary ideas of Islam might more readily take root and flourish than in the Holy City of Arabian heathendom. This time he was not disappointed. A strong party in Medina hailed him as the true Prophet, eagerly embraced his creed, and swore to defend him at all hazards. In the spring of the year 622 A.D. the Moslems of Mecca quietly left their homes and journeyed northward. A few months later (September, 622) Mu?ammad himself, eluding the vigilance of the Quraysh, entered Medina in triumph amidst the crowds and acclamations due to a conqueror.

[Sidenote: The _Hijra_ or Migration to Medina (622 A.D.).]

This is the celebrated Migration or Hegira (properly _Hijra_) which marks the end of the Barbaric Age (_al-Jahiliyya_) and the beginning of the Mu?ammadan Era. It also marks a new epoch in the Prophet's history; but before attempting to indicate the nature of the change it will be convenient, in order that we may form a juster conception of his character, to give some account of his early teaching and preaching as set forth in that portion of the Koran which was revealed at Mecca.

[Sidenote: The Koran.]

[Sidenote: Was Mu?ammad poet?]

Koran (Qur'an) is derived from the Arabic root _qara'a_, 'to read,' and means 'reading aloud' or 'chanting.' This term may be applied either to a single Revelation or to several recited together or, in its usual acceptation, to the whole body of Revelations which are thought by Moslems to be, actually and literally, the Word of G.o.d; so that in quoting from the Koran they say _qala 'llahu_, _i.e._, 'G.o.d said.' Each Revelation forms a separate _Sura_ (chapter)[311] composed of verses of varying length which have no metre but are generally rhymed. Thus, as regards its external features, the style of the Koran is modelled upon the _Saj'_,[312] or rhymed prose, of the pagan soothsayers, but with such freedom that it may fairly be described as original. Since it was not in Mu?ammad's power to create a form that should be absolutely new, his choice lay between _Saj'_ and poetry, the only forms of elevated style then known to the Arabs. He himself declared that he was no poet,[313] and this is true in the sense that he may have lacked the technical accomplishment of verse-making. It must, however, be borne in mind that his disavowal does not refer primarily to the poetic art, but rather to the person and character of the poets themselves. He, the divinely inspired Prophet, could have nothing to do with men who owed their inspiration to demons and gloried in the ideals of paganism which he was striving to overthrow. "_And the poets do those follow who go astray! Dost thou not see that they wander distraught in every vale? and that they say that which they do not?_" (Kor. xxvi, 224-226). Mu?ammad was not of these; although he was not so unlike them as he pretended.

His kinship with the pagan _Sha'ir_ is clearly shown, for example, in the 113th and 114th Suras, which are charms against magic and _diablerie_, as well as in the solemn imprecation calling down destruction upon the head of his uncle, 'Abdu 'l-'Uzza, nicknamed Abu Lahab (Father of Flame).

THE SuRA OF ABu LAHAB (CXI).

(1) Perish the hands of Abu Lahab and perish he!

(2) His wealth shall not avail him nor all he hath gotten in fee.

(3) Burned in blazing fire he shall be!

(4) And his wife, the f.a.ggot-bearer, also she.

(5) Upon her neck a cord of fibres of the palm-tree.

If, then, we must allow that Mu?ammad's contemporaries had some justification for bestowing upon him the t.i.tle of poet against which he protested so vehemently, still less can his plea be accepted by the modern critic, whose verdict will be that the Koran is not poetical as a whole; that it contains many pages of rhetoric and much undeniable prose; but that, although Mu?ammad needed "heaven-sent moments for this skill," in the early Meccan Suras frequently, and fitfully elsewhere, his genius proclaims itself by grand lyrical outbursts which could never have been the work of a mere rhetorician.

[Sidenote: The Meccan Suras.]

"Mu?ammad's single aim in the Meccan Suras," says Noldeke, "is to convert the people, by means of persuasion, from their false G.o.ds to the One G.o.d. To whatever point the discourse is directed, this always remains the ground-thought; but instead of seeking to convince the reason of his hearers by logical proofs, he employs the arts of rhetoric to work upon their minds through the imagination.

Thus he glorifies G.o.d, describes His working in Nature and History, and ridicules on the other hand the impotence of the idols.

Especially important are the descriptions of the everlasting bliss of the pious and the torments of the wicked: these, particularly the latter, must be regarded as one of the mightiest factors in the propagation of Islam, through the impression which they make on the imagination of simple men who have not been hardened, from their youth up, by similar theological ideas. The Prophet often attacks his heathen adversaries personally and threatens them with eternal punishment; but while he is living among heathens alone, he seldom a.s.sails the Jews who stand much nearer to him, and the Christians scarcely ever."[314]

The preposterous arrangement of the Koran, to which I have already adverted, is mainly responsible for the opinion almost unanimously held by European readers that it is obscure, tiresome, uninteresting; a farrago of long-winded narratives and prosaic exhortations, quite unworthy to be named in the same breath with the Prophetical Books of the Old Testament. One may, indeed, peruse the greater part of the volume, beginning with the first chapter, and find but a few pa.s.sages of genuine enthusiasm to relieve the prevailing dulness. It is in the short Suras placed at the end of the Koran that we must look for evidence of Mu?ammad's prophetic gift. These are the earliest of all; in these the flame of inspiration burns purely and its natural force is not abated.

The following versions, like those which have preceded, imitate the original form as closely, I think, as is possible in English. They cannot, of course, do more than faintly suggest the striking effect of the sonorous Arabic when read aloud. The Koran was designed for oral recitation, and it must be _heard_ in order to be justly appraised.

THE SuRA OF THE SEVERING (Lx.x.xII).

(1) When the Sky shall be severed, (2) And when the Stars shall be shivered, (3) And when the Seas to mingle shall be suffered, (4) And when the Graves shall be uncovered-- (5) A soul shall know that which it hath deferred or delivered.[315]

(6) O Man, what beguiled thee against thy gracious Master to rebel, (7) Who created thee and fashioned thee right and thy frame did fairly build?

(8) He composed thee in whatever form He willed.

(9) Nay, but ye disbelieve in the Ordeal![316]

(10) Verily over you are Recorders honourable, (11) Your deeds inscribing without fail:[317]

(12) What ye do they know well.

(13) Surely the pious in delight shall dwell, (14) And surely the wicked shall be in h.e.l.l, (15) Burning there on the Day of Ordeal; (16) And evermore h.e.l.l-fire they shall feel!

(17) What shall make thee to understand what is the Day of Ordeal?

(18) Again, what shall make thee to understand what is the Day of Ordeal?-- (19) A Day when one soul shall not obtain anything for another soul, but the command on that Day shall be with G.o.d alone.