Mahomet, Founder of Islam Part 17

April pa.s.sed quietly enough at Medina, but with May came the news of fresh disturbances upon the Syrian border. They were not serious, but the pretext was sufficient. Muta was as yet unavenged, and Mahomet was glad to be able to send a force again to the troublesome frontier. Osama, son of Zeid, slain in that disastrous battle, was chosen for leader of this expedition in spite of his youth, which aroused the quick anger of some of the Muslim warriors. But Mahomet maintained his choice. He was given the battle banner by the Prophet himself, and the expedition sallied forth to Jorf, where it was delayed and finally hastily recalled by news of a grave and most disturbing nature.

Even as he blessed the Syrian expedition and sent it on its road, Mahomet was in no fit state of health for public duties. After a little while, however, his will triumphed over his flesh, and he thrust back the weakness. But his physical nature had already been strained to breaking point under the stress of his life. He had perforce to bow to the dictates of his body. He gave up attempting to throw off the fever, and retired to Ayesha's house, attributing the seizure to the effects of the poison at Kheibar, and convinced that his end was at hand.

In the house of his favourite wife he remained during the few remaining days of his life. He lingered for about a week before his indomitable soul gave way before the a.s.saults of death, and all the time he continued to attend to public affairs and to take his accustomed part in them as long as possible. About the third day of his illness he heard the people still murmuring over the appointment of Osama upon the Syrian expedition.

Rising from his couch he went out to speak to them, and commanded them to cease from such empty discontent, reminding them that he was their Prophet and master, and that they might safely rely upon him.

The exertion of moving proved too much for his strength. He was now indeed a broken man, and this activity was but the last conquest of mind over his ever-growing weakness of body. He returned exhausted to Ayesha's room, and, knowing that his mission was over, commanded Abu Bekr to lead the public prayers. By this act he virtually nominated Abu Bekr his successor; for the privilege of leading the prayers belonged exclusively to himself, and his designation of the office was as plain a proof as there could be that he considered the mantle of authority to have descended upon his friend and counsellor, who had been to him so unfailing a resource in defeat and triumph through all the tumultuous years.

From this time the Prophet grew steadily worse. His physical break-up was complete. He had used every particle of his enormous energy in the fulfilment of his work; now that activity had ceased there were no reserves left.

He became delirious, and finally weak to the point of utter exhaustion.

Many are the traditions concerning his dying words, chiefly exhortations for the preservation of the faith he had so laboriously brought to life.

He is said to have cursed both Jews and Christians in his paroxysms of fever, but in his lucid moments he seems to have been filled with love for his disciples, and fears for the future of his religion and temporal state.

He lingered thus for two more days--days which gathered round him the deep spiritual fervour, the human love and affection of every Believer, so that the records are interpenetrated with the grief and tenderness of a people's sorrow. On the third day he rallied sufficiently to come to morning prayer, where he took a seat by Abu Bekr in token of his dedication of the headship of Islam to him alone. The Believers' joy at the sight of their Prophet showed itself in their thronging thanksgivings and in their escort of their chief back to his place of rest. It seemed that his illness was but slight, and that before long he would appear among them once more in all the fullness of his strength. But the exertion sapped his little remaining vitality, and he could scarcely reach Ayesha's room again. There a few hours afterwards, after a period of semi-consciousness, he died in her arms while it was yet only a little after mid-day.

The forlorn Ayesha was almost too terrified to impart the dreadful news.

Abu Bekr was summoned instantly, and came with awe and horror into the mosque. Omar, Mahomet's beloved warrior-friend, refused to believe that his leader was really dead, and even rushed to announce his belief to the people. But Abu Bekr visited the place of death and a.s.sured himself by the still cold form of the Prophet that he was indeed dead. He went out with despair in his countenance, and convinced the Faithful that the soul of their leader had pa.s.sed. There fell upon Islam the hush of an intolerable knowledge, and in the first blankness of realisation they were dumb and pa.s.sive.

When the army at Jorf was apprised of the news, it broke up at once and returned to Medina. With the withdrawal of the guiding hand their battle enthusiasm became as nought, and they could only join the waiting ranks of the Citizens--a crowd that would now be driven whither its masters saw fit.

The Faithful a.s.sembled round the mosque to question the future of themselves and their rulers. Abu Bekr addressed them at once, and it was soon evident that he had them well in hand. He was supported by Omar and the chief leaders, except Ali, who maintained a jealous att.i.tude, chiefly due to the feelings of envy aroused in the mind of Fatima, his wife, at the sight of Ayesha's privileges. At last, when Abu Bekr had told the circ.u.mstances of the Prophet's death, tenderly and with that loving reverence which characterised him, the Faithful were attuned to the acceptance of this man as their Prophet's successor. The chief men, followed by the rank and file, swore fealty to him, and covenanted to maintain intact and precious the Faith bequeathed them by their leader, who had been also their guide and fellow-worshipper of Allah.

There remained only the last dignity of burial. The Prophet's body was washed and prepared for the grave. Around it was wrapped white linen and an outer covering of striped Yemen stuff. Abu Bekr and Omar performed these simple services for their Prophet, and then a grave was dug for him in Ayesha's house, and a part.i.tion made between the grave and the antechamber. It was dug vaulted fashion, and the body deposited there upon the evening of the day of death. The people were permitted to visit it, and after the long procession had looked their last upon their Prophet, Abu Bekr and Omar delivered speeches to the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, urging them to remain faithful to their religion, and to hold before them continually the example of the Prophet, who even now was received into the Paradise he had described so ardently and loved with such enshrining desire.

Thus the Prophet of Islam, religious and political leader, director of armies, lover of women, austere, devout, pa.s.sionate, cunning, lay as he would have wished in the simplicity of that communal life, in the midst of his followers, near the sacred temple of his own devising. He had lived close to his disciples, had appeared to them a man among men, indued only with the divine authority of his religious enthusiasm; now he rested among them as one of themselves, and none but felt the inspiration of his energy inform their activities after him, though the manifestation thereof confined itself to the violence necessary to maintain the Prophet's domain secure from its earthly enemies.

Mahomet, indeed, in his mortal likeness rested in the quiet of Ayesha's chamber, but his spirit still led his followers to prayer and conquest, still stood at the head of his armies, urging to victory and plunder, so that they might find in the flaunting banners of Islam the fulfilment of their l.u.s.ts and aspirations, their worldly triumphs and the glories of their heavenly vision.

CHAPTER XXII

THE GENESIS OF ISLAM

"The Jews say, 'Ezra is a son of G.o.d,' and the Christians say, 'The Messiah is a son of G.o.d' ... they resemble the saying of the Infidels of old.... They take their teachers and their monks and the Messiah, son of Mary, for Lords beside G.o.d, though bidden to worship one G.o.d only. There is no G.o.d but He! Far what from his glory be what they a.s.sociate with Him."--_The Kuran_.

The Prophet of Arabia had scarcely been committed to the keeping of earth, when on all sides rebellion against his rule arose. The unity that he had laboured so long to create was still in embryo, but the seed of it was living, and developed rapidly to its full fruition. In the political sphere his achievement is not limited to the immediate security of his dominion. He had inculcated, mainly by the forcible logic of the sword, the idea of union and discipline, and had restored in mightier degree the fallen greatness of his land. Traditions of Arabian prosperity during the time when it was the trade route from Persia and the East to Petraea, Palestine, and even Asia Minor lingered in the native mind. The caravan routes from Southern Arabia, famous in Biblical story, had made the importance of such cities as Mecca and Sana, but with the maritime enterprise of Rome their well-being declined, and the consequent distress in Yemen induced its tribes to emigrate northwards to Mecca, to Syria, and the Central Desert. Southern Arabia never recovered from the blow to its trade, and in the sixth century Yemen became merely a dependency of Persia. Central Arabia was an unknown country, inhabited by marauding tribes in a constant state of political flux; while Hira, the kingdom to the east of the desert on the banks of the Euphrates, had become a satrapy of Persia early in the century in which Mahomet lived, and Heraclius by frequent inroads had reduced the kingdom of Palmyra to impotence. Arabia was ripe for the rise of a strong political leader; for it was flanked by no powerful kingdom, and within itself there was no organisation and no reliable political influence.

The material was there, but it needed the shaping of a master-hand at the instigation of unflagging zeal if it was to be wrought into order and strength. Tireless energy and unceasing belief in his own power could alone accomplish the task, and these Mahomet possessed in abundance.

Before his death he had secured the subjection of Yemen and Hadramaut, had penetrated far into the Syrian borderland, and had made his rule felt among the nomad tribes of the interior as far as the confines of Persia.

With his rise to power the national feeling of Arabia was born, and under his successors developed by the enticements of plunder and glory until it soared beyond mere nationality and dreamt of world-conquest, by which presumption its ruin was wrought. Mahomet was the instigator of all this absorbing activity, although he never calculated the extent of his political impulse. In superseding the already effete tribal ideals he was to himself only spreading the faith of his inspiration. All governmental conceptions die slowly, and the tribal life of Arabia was far from extinguished at the end of his mission. But its vitality was gone, and the focus of Arabia's obedience had shifted from the clan to the Prophet as military overlord.

It is pre-eminently in the domain of political actions that Mahomet's personality is revealed. The living fibres of his unique character pulse through all his dealings with his fellow-leaders and opponents. Before all things he possessed the capacity of inspiring both love and fear.

Ali, Abu Bekr, Hamza, Omar, Zeid, every one of his followers, felt the force of his affection continually upon them, and were bound to him by ties that neither misfortune nor any unworthy act of his could break. And their devotion was called upon to suffer many tests. Mahomet was self-willed and ruthless, subordinating the means to the end without any misgivings. In his remorseless dealings with the Jews, in his calm repudiation of obligations with the heathen as soon as he felt himself strong enough, he shows affinities to the most conscienceless statesman that ever graced European diplomacy.

His method of conquest and government combines watchfulness and strength.

No help was scorned by this builder of power. What he could not achieve by force he attempted to gain by cunning. He had a large faith in the power of argument backed by force, and his winning over of Abbas and Abu Sofian chiefly by the aid of these two factors, combined with their personal ambition, is only the supreme instance of his master-strokes of policy. He knew how to play upon the baser pa.s.sions of men, and especially was he mindful of the lure of gold. His first forays against the Kureisch were set before the eyes of his disciples as much in the light of plundering expeditions as religious wars against an infidel and oppressive nation.

He is at once the outcome of circ.u.mstances, and independent of them. He gave coherence to all the unformulated desires for a fuller scope of military and mercantile power stirring at the fount of Arabia's life, and at the same time he founded his dominion in a unique and absolutely personal manner. Within his sphere of governance his will was supreme and una.s.sailable.

If these mutable tribal ent.i.ties were to be united at all, despotism was the only possible form of command. As his polity demanded authority vested in one person only, so his conception of G.o.d is that of an absolute monarch, resistance to whom is annihilation.

Out of this idea the doctrine of fatalism was evolved. It was necessary during the first terrible years of uncertainty in Islam, in order to produce among Mahomet's followers a recklessness in battle, and in the varying fortunes of their life at Medina, born of the knowledge that their fate was irrevocably decided. They fought for the true G.o.d against the idolaters; this true G.o.d held their destinies in his hand; nothing could be altered. The result was that the Muslim fought with superhuman daring, and faced overwhelming forces undaunted. But the time came when Islam had no longer any need to fight, and the doctrine of fatalism still lived. It sank into mental and physical inactivity, and of that inactivity, induced by the knowledge that their energies were unavailing, pessimism was bred. Despotism and fatality are perhaps the purely personal ideas that Mahomet gave to his political state, the latter encroaching, however, as most of his secular principles, upon the realm of philosophy. Indeed, his political rule is inseparable from his religion, and as a religious leader he is more justly appraised.

In the sphere of religion the raw material was to his hand. At the inception of his mission Mecca and Central Arabia, though confirmed in idolatry, still mingled with their rites some distorted Jewish traditions and ceremonies, while Yemen had embraced the Christian faith for a short time as a dependency of Abyssinia, but had relapsed into idolatry with the interference of Persia. Both the border kingdoms to the north, Palmyra and Hira, were Christian, and in the time of their prosperity had influenced Arabia in the direction of Christianity. The Christian Scriptures were known and respected, but these impulses were feeble and spasmodic, so that the bulk of Arabia remained fixed in its ancient idolatry.

By far the more enduring influence was that of Judaism. Many Jewish tribes were settled in Arabia, and the ancient traditions of the Jewish race, the great figures of Abraham, Lot, and Noah were set vividly before the eyes of the Arabs. There was every indication that a religious teacher might use the existing elements of Judaism and Christianity to produce a monotheistic faith, partaking of their nature, and for a time Mahomet endeavoured to bring both forms within the scope of his mission.

But compromise, whether with idolaters or Jews, was found to be impossible, and here religious and political ideals are inextricably blended. If Mahomet had acquiesced in the Jewish religion, had submitted to the sovereignty of Jerusalem as the Holy Place, he would have found it impossible to have established his supremacy in Medina, and the religion of Islam as he conceived it would have been overriden by the older and more hallowed faith of the Jews. He saw the danger, and his dominant spirit could not allow the existence of an equal or superior power to his own. With that fiery daring and supreme belief in his destiny which characterised him in later life, he cast away all pretensions to friendliness either with the Jews or the Christians, and steered his followers triumphantly through the perils that beset every adherent to an idea.

But in compelling acceptance of his central thesis of the unity of the G.o.dhead, he showed signal wisdom and knowledge of men. He was himself by no means impervious to the value of tradition, and never conceived his faith as having no historical basis in the religious legends of his birthplace. That the Muslim belief possesses inst.i.tutions such as the reverence for the Kaaba, the rite of Pilgrimage, the acceptance of Mecca as its sacred city, is due to its founder's love of his native place, and the ceremonial of which his own creed was really the inseparable outcome.

Besides his recognition of the need of ritual, he was fully aware of the repugnance of most men to the wholly new. Whenever possible he emphasized his connection with the ancient ceremonies of Mecca in their purer form, and as soon as his power was sufficient, he enforced the recognition of his claims upon the city itself.

His achievement as religious reformer rests largely upon the state of preparation in which he found his medium, but it owes its efficiency to one force alone. Mahomet was possessed of one central idea, the indivisibility of G.o.d, and it was sufficient to uphold him against all calamities. The Kuran sounds the note of insistence which rings the clarion call of his message. With eloquence of mind and soul, with a repet.i.tion that is wearisome to the outsider, he forces that dominant truth into the hearts of his hearers. It cannot escape them, for he will not cease to remind them of their doom if they do not obey. What he set out to do for the religious life of Arabia he accomplished, chiefly because he concentrated the whole of his demands into one formula, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d"; then when success had shown him the measure of his ascendancy, "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d, and Mahomet is His prophet."

At the end of his life idolatry was uprooted from his native country. The tribes might rebel against the heaviness of his political yoke, and were often held to him by the slenderest of diplomatic threads, but their monotheistic beliefs remained intact once Islam had gained the ascendancy over them. At the end of the Farewell Pilgrimage, he realised with one grand uplifting of his soul in thanksgiving that he had indeed caught up the errant attempts of Arabia to remodel its unsatisfying faith, and had made of them a triumphant reality, in which the conception of Allah's unity was the essential belief.

Besides his religious and political attainments, he gave to Arabia as a whole its first written social and moral code. Here the estimate of his accomplishment is difficult to render, bemuse comparison with the existing state is almost impossible. Extensively in the Kuran, but to a greater degree in the ma.s.s of his traditional sayings, crystallised into a standard edition by Al-Bokhari, when due allowance has been made for the additions and exaggerations of his followers, the chief characteristic is the casual nature of his laws.

All his dictates as to the control of marriage, the sale and tenure of land, commerce, plunder, as well as health and dietary are the result of definite cases coming within his adjudication. Such an idea as the deliberate compilation of a code never occurred to him, and there is no evidence that he ever referred to his former decisions in similar cases, so that possibilities of contradiction and evasion are limitless. Out of this jumble of inconsistencies Muslim law and practice has grown. He was enabled to impose his commands upon the conquered peoples by means of his military organisation, so that it was not long before Arabia was ruled in rough fashion by his social and moral precepts enforced by the sword. His wives offend him, and he forthwith sets down the duties and position of women in his temporal state. He desires the wife of his friend, and the result is a Kuranic decree sanctioning the taking of a woman under those conditions. He is jealous of his younger and more comely a.s.sociates, and thereupon ordains the perpetual seclusion of women. He is annoyed at the untimely visits to his house of a.s.sembly, and so he commands that no Believer shall enter another's apartment uninvited. It is inconvenient to relinquish the watch night or day during the period of siege in Medina, therefore he inst.i.tutes a system whereby half the army is to pray while the other half remains at its post. Instances may be multiplied without ceasing of this building up of a whole social code upon the most casual foundations. But unheeding as was its genesis, it was in the main effective for those times, and in any case it subst.i.tuted definite laws for the measureless wastes of tradition and custom.

It is probable that Mahomet relied a great deal upon existing usages. He was too wise to disturb them unnecessarily. His was a nature of extremes combined with a wisdom that came as a revelation to his followers. Where he hates it is with a hurricane of wrath and destruction, where he loves it is with the same impetuous tenacity. His denunciations of the infidels, of his enemies among the Kureisch, of the laggards within his own city, of the defamers of holy things, of drunkards, of the unclean, of those who even copy the features of their kindred or picture their idea of G.o.d, are written in the most violent words, whose fury seems to smite upon the ear with the rushing of flame.

And so the prevailing stamp upon Muslim inst.i.tutions is fanaticism and intolerance. As the Prophet drew up hard-and-fast rules, so his followers insisted upon their remorseless continuance. Mahomet found himself compelled to issue ordinances, often hurried and unreflecting, to meet immediate needs, to settle disputes whose prolongation would have meant his ruin. He possessed the qualities of poet, seer, and religious mystic, but these in his later life were overshadowed by the characteristics of lawgiver, soldier, and statesman demanded by his position as head of a body of men. But neither his mysticism nor his poetic feeling entirely desert him. They flash out at rare moments in the later suras of the Kuran, and are apparent in his actions and the traditional accounts of his sayings, while his creed remained steadfast and una.s.sailable with a strength that neither defeat nor disaffection could shake. With all the incompleteness and often contradiction of his administration, he nevertheless was able to satisfy his followers as to its efficacy mainly by his exhaustless belief in himself and his work.

In military development his contribution was unique. He gathered together all the war-loving propensities of the Faithful, and wove them into a solidarity of aim. His personal courage was not great, but his strategy and above all his invincible confidence, which refused to admit defeat, were beyond question. Every leader he sent upon plundering or admonitory expeditions bore witness to his efficiency and his zeal. He subjected the Muslim to a discipline that brought out their best qualities of tenacity and daring. He would not allow his soldiery to become individual plunderers, but insisted that the booty should be equally divided. In the beginning he possessed few hors.e.m.e.n, but he rapidly produced a squadron of cavalry as soon as he became convinced of their usefulness. His readiness to accept advice as to the defence of Medina proved the salvation of the city. Under him the military prowess of Islam had ample scope, for he gave his leaders complete freedom of action; the result was visible in the supreme fighting quality of Ali, Omar, and Hamza, while the chances of achieving glory under his banner were the moving motives of the conversion of Khalid and Abbas. He subdued internecine warfare, and by a bold stroke united the warrior instincts of Arabia against external foes, laying upon them the sanction of religion and the promise of eternal happiness.

Though unskilled in the mechanism of knowledge--he could neither read nor write--he has left his mark upon the literature of his age and the years succeeding him. The Kuran was the sum of his inspiration, the expression in poetic and visionary language of his beliefs and ideals. He found the medium prepared. The Arabs had long previously evolved a poetry of their own which lived not in written words, but in their traditional songs.

Mahomet's first flush of inspiration, which waned before the heaviness of his later tasks, is the c.u.mulation of that wild and fervid art with the breath of the desert urgent within it.

The Kuran was never written down during his lifetime, but was collected into a jumble of fragments, "gathered together from date-leaves and tablets of white stone, and from the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of men," by Zeid in the first troublous years of the Caliphate. We have inevitably lost much of its original fire, and its effect is weakened by any translation into the unsuitable medium of modern speech. But that it is a valuable contribution to the literature of its country cannot be doubted, especially in the earlier portions, before Mahomet's love of harangue and the necessity of some vehicle by which to make his political dictates known had transformed its style into the bald reiterative medley of its later pages.

Through it all runs the fire of his genius; in the later suras it is the reflection of his energy that looks out from the pages; the flame itself has now lighted his actions and inspired his dreams of conquest. The Kuran is the best revelation of Mahomet himself that posterity possesses, imperfect as was the manner of its handing down to the modern world. It shows us both the beauty and strength of his personality and his cruelty, evasions, magnanimities, and l.u.s.ts. More than all, the pa.s.sionate zeal beating through it makes clear the secret of his sustained endeavours through discouragement and defeat until his triumph dawned.

To those outside the sphere of his magnetism, Mahomet seems urged on by a power beyond himself and scarcely within his control. His gifts bear intimate relation to the particular phase in the task of creating a religion and a political ent.i.ty that was uppermost at the moment.

In Mecca he is poet and visionary, the man who speaks with angels and has seen Gabriel and Israfil, "whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all G.o.d's creatures." He penetrates in fancy to the innermost Holy Place and beholds the G.o.d of battles, even feels his touch, icy-cold upon his shoulder, and returns with the glow of that immortal intercourse upon him. It sustains him in defeat and danger, and by the power of it he converts a few in Medina and flees thither to complete his task. In Medina he becomes a watchful leader, and still inspired by heavenly visitants, he produces order out of chaos and guards his power from numberless a.s.saults.

In attempting to explain his achievements, when allowance is made for all those factors which gave him help, we are compelled to do homage to the strength of his personality. Neither in his revelations through the Kuran nor in the traditions of him is his secret to be found. He lived outside himself, and his actions are the standard of his accomplishments. He found Arabia the prey of warring tribes, without leader, without laws, without religion, save an idolatry obstinate but creatively dead, and he took the existing elements, wrought into them his own convictions, quickened them with the fire of his zeal, and created an embryo with effective laws, fitting social and religious inst.i.tutions, but greater than all these, with the enthusiasm for an idea that led his followers to prayer and conquest. The Kuran, tradition, the later histories, all minister to that personality which informed the Muslim, so that they swept through the land like flame, impelled not only by religious zeal, but also by the memory of their leader's struggles and victories, and of his journey before them on the perilous path of warfare to the Paradise promised to the Faithful.