Mahomet, Founder of Islam Part 3

It is impossible for any decision to be made as to the mainspring of his beliefs, except in the light of his character and development of mind. He was pa.s.sionate and yet practical, holding within himself the elements of seer and statesman, prophet and law-giver, as yet doubtful of the voice which inspired him, but spurred on in his quest for the truth by an intensity of spirit that carried him forward resistlessly as soon as conviction came to him. The man who imposed his dauntless determination upon a whole people, who founded a system of religious and social laws, who moved armies to fight primarily for an idea, could not lightly gain is right to exhort and control. His nature is almost cataclysmic, and once filled with the fire of the Lord, he bursts forth among his fellow-men "with the right hand striking," to use his own vivid metaphor, but before this evidence of power has come an agonising period of doubt.

Traces of his mental turmoil are seen abundantly in his physical nature.

We read of his exhaustion after the inspiration comes, and of "the terrific Suras" that took their toll of his vitality afterwards. The mission imposed upon him was no light burden, and demanded of him strength both of body and mind. The successive stages by which he became convinced of his divine call are only detailed in the histories with the concurrence of the supernatural; he sees material visions and dreams fervent dreams. With the ecstacy of Heaven about him, according to legend, he holds converse with the angel Gabriel, arch-messenger of G.o.d, and the divine injunctions must be translated into mental enthusiasms before the true evolution of Mahomet's mind can be dimly conceived.

When he was forty he sought solitude more constantly than formerly. There were deeps in his own nature of which he was only now becoming aware. A restlessness of mind beset him, and continually he retired to a cave at the base of Mount Hira, where he could meditate undisturbed. This mountain, hallowed for ever by the followers of Islam, is now called somewhat ironically, considering its natural barrenness, Jebel Nur, the mountain of Light. Mahomet was of a nervous temperament, the nature that suffers more intensely through its imaginative foresight than in actual experience. He was of those who see keenly and feel towards their beliefs. His faith in G.o.d produced none of that self-abnegating rapture to be found in the devotions of many early Christians; it was a personal pa.s.sion, sweeping up his whole nature within its folds, and rousing the enfolded not to meditation but to instant action.

Through all the legendary accounts there beats that excitement that tells of a mind wrought to the highest pitch, afire with visions, alive with desire. Then, when his fervour attained its zenith, Gabriel came to him in sleep with a silken cloth in his hand covered with writing and said to Mahomet:

"Read!"

"I cannot read."

Then the angel wrapped the cloth about him and once more commanded, "Read!"

Again came the answer, "I cannot read," and again the angel covered him, still repeating, "Read!"

Then his mouth was opened and he read the first sura of the Kuran: "Recite thou in the name of thy Lord who created thee," and when he awoke it seemed to him that these words were graven upon his heart.

Mahomet went immediately up into the mountain, and there Gabriel appeared to him waking and said:

"Thou art G.o.d's Prophet, and I am Gabriel."

The archangel vanished, but Mahomet remained rooted to the spot, until Khadijah's messengers found him and brought him to her. The simple story of Mahomet's call to the prophetic office from the lips of the old chroniclers is peculiarly fragrant, but it leaves us in considerable doubt as to the real means by which he attained his faith and was emboldened to preach to his people. It is certain that he had no idea at the time when he received his inspiration, of the ultimate political role in store for him. He was now simply the man who warned the people of their sins, and who insisted upon the sovereignty of one G.o.d. Very little argument is ever used by Mahomet to spread his faith. He spoke a plain message, and those who disregarded it were infallibly doomed. He saw himself in the forefront as the man who knew G.o.d, and strove to win his countrymen to right ways of life; he did not see himself at the head of earthly armies, controlling the nucleus of a mighty and united Arabia, and until his flight from Mecca to Medina he regarded himself merely as a religious teacher, the political side of his mission growing out of the exigencies of circ.u.mstance, almost without his own volition.

His exaltation upon the mountain of light soon faded into uncertainty and fearfulness before the influence of the world's harsh wisdom. Mahomet entered upon a period of hesitation and dreariness, doubtful of himself, of his vision, and of the divine favour. His soul voyaged on dark and troubled seas and gazed into abysmal s.p.a.ces. At one time he would receive the light of the seven Heavens within his mind, and feel upon him the fervour of the Hebrew prophets of old, and again he would call in vain upon G.o.d, and, and seeking, would be flung back upon a darkness of doubt more terrible than the lightnings of divine wrath.

In all those exaltations and glooms Khadijah had part; she comforted his distress and shared his elation until the sorrowful period of the Fattrah, the pause in the revelation, was past. The period is variously estimated by the chroniclers, and there are many nebulous and spurious legends attaching to it, but whatever its length it seems certain that Mahomet gained within it a fuller knowledge of Jewish and Christian tenets, probably through Zeid, the Christian slave in his household, and most accounts agree that the Fattrah was ended by the revelation of the sura ent.i.tled "The Enwrapped," the mandate of the angel Gabriel:

"O thou enwrapped in thy mantle, Arise and warn!"

The explanation of the term "enwrapped in thy mantle" shows the prevailing belief in good and evil spirits characteristic of Mahomet's time. Wandering on the mountain, he saw in a vision the angel Gabriel seated on a throne between heaven and earth, and afraid before so much glory, ran to Khadijah, beseeching her to cover him with his mantle that the evil spirits whom he felt so near him might be avoided. Thereupon Gabriel came down to earth and revealed the Sura of Admonition. This supernatural command would appear to be the translation into the imaginative world of the peace of mind that descended upon Mahomet, and the conviction as to the reality of his inspiration following on a time of despair.

The command fell to one who was peculiarly fitted by nature and circ.u.mstance to obey it effectively. To Mahomet, who knew somewhat the chaos of religions around him--Pagan, Jewish, and Christian struggling together in unholy strife--the conception of G.o.d's unity, once it attained the strength of a conviction, necessarily resolved itself into an admonitory mission. "There is no G.o.d but G.o.d," therefore all who believe otherwise have incurred His wrath; hasten then to warn men of their sins. So his conviction pa.s.sed out of the region of thought into action and received upon it the stamp of time and place, becoming thereby inevitably more circ.u.mscribed and intense.

From now onwards the course of Mahomet's life is rendered indisputably plainer by our possession of that famous and much-maligned doc.u.ment, the Kuran, virtually a record of his inspired sayings as remembered and written down by his immediate successors. Apart from its intrinsic value as the universally recognised vehicle of the Islamic creed, it is of immense importance as a commentary upon Mahomet's career. When allowance has been made for its numberless contradictions and repet.i.tions, it still remains the best means of tracing Mahomet's mental development, as well as the course of his religious and political dominance. Although the original doc.u.ment was compiled regardless of chronology, expert scholarship has succeeded in determining the order of most of it contents, and if we cannot say the precise sequence of every sura, at least we can cla.s.sify each as belonging to one of the two great periods, the Meccan and Medinan, and may even distinguish with comparative accuracy three divisions within the former.

After Mahomet's mandate to preach and warn his fellow-men of their peril, the suras continue intermittently throughout his life. Those of the first period, when his mission was hardly accepted outside his family, bear upon them the stamp of a fiery nature, obsessed with its one idea; but behind the wild words lies a store of energy as yet undiscovered, which will find no fulfilment but in action. That zeal for an idea which caused the Kuran to be, expressed itself at first in words alone, but later was translated into political action, and it is the emptying of this vitality from his words into his works that is responsible for the contrasting prose of the later suras.

But no lack of poetic fire is discernible in the suras immediately following his call to the prophetic office, and from them much may be gathered as to the depth and intensity of his faith. They are almost strident with feeling; his sentences fall like blows upon an anvil, crude in their emphasis, and so swiftly uttered forth from the flame of his zeal, that they glow with reflected glory:

"Say, he is G.o.d alone, G.o.d the Eternal, He begetteth not and is not begotten, There is none like to Him."

"Verily, we have caused It (the Kuran) to descend on the night of power, And who shall teach thee what the Night of Power is?

The Night of Power excelleth a thousand months, Therein descend the angels and the spirit by permission of the Lord."

"By the snorting Chargers, By those that breathe forth sparks of fire And those that rush to the attack at morn!

And stir therein the dust aloft, Cleaving their midmost pa.s.sage through a host!

Truly man is to his Lord ungrateful, And of this is himself a witness; And truly he is covetous in love of this world's good.

Ah, knoweth he not, that when what lies in the grave shall be bared And that brought forth that is in men's b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Verily in that day shall the Lord be made wise concerning them?"

After the first fire of prophetic zeal had illuminated him, Mahomet devoted himself to the conversion of his own household and family.

Khadijah was the first convert, as might have been expected from the close interdependence of their minds. She had become initiated into his prophetship almost equally with her husband, and it was her courage and firm trust in his inspiration that had sustained him during the terrible period of negation. Zeid, the Christian slave who had helped to mould Mahomet's thought by his knowledge of Christian doctrine, was his next convert, but both of these were eclipsed by the devotion to Mahomet's gospel of Ali, the future warrior, son of Abu Talib, and one destined to play a foremost part in the foundation of Islam.

Mahomet's gospel then penetrated beyond the confines of his household with the conversion of his friend Abu Bekr, a successful merchant living in the same quarter of the town as the Prophet. Abu Bekr, whose honesty gained him the t.i.tle of Al-Sidd.i.c.k (the true), and Ali were by far the most important of Mahomet's "companions." They helped to rule Islam during Mahomet's lifetime, and after his death took successive charge of its fortunes. Ali was too young at this time to manifest his qualities as warrior and ruler, but Abu Bekr was of middle age, and his nature remained substantially the same as at the inception of Islam. He was of short stature, with deep-seated eyes and a thoughtful, somewhat undecided mouth, by nature he was shrewd and intelligent, but possessed little of that original genius necessary to statesmanship in troublous times. His mild, sympathetic character endured him to his fellow-men, and his calm reasonableness earned the grat.i.tude of all who confided in him. He was never ruled by impulse, and of the fire burning almost indestructibly within Mahomet he knew nothing.

It is strange to consider what agency brought these two dissimilar souls into such close relationship. For the rest of his life Mahomet found a never-failing friend in Abu Bekr, and the attachment between the two, apart from their common fount of zeal for Islam, must have been such as is inspired by those of contrasting nature for each other. Mahomet saw a kindly, almost commonplace man, in whose sweet sanity his troubled soul could find a little peace. He was burdened at times with over-resolve that ate into his mind like acid. In Abu Bekr he could find the soothing influence he so often needed, and after the death of Khadijah this friend might be said in a measure to take her place. Abu Bekr, on the other hand, revered his leader as a man of finer, subtler stuff than himself, more alive to the virtue of speed, filled with a greater daring and a profounder impulse than he was. Mahomet, in common with most men meriting the t.i.tle of great, had a capacity for lifelong friendships as well as the power of inspiring belief and devotion in others.

Through Abu Bekr five converts were gained for the new religion, of whom Othman is the most important. His part in the establishment of the Islamic dominion was no slight one, but at the present he remains simply one of the early enthusiastic converts to Mahomet's evangel, while he enwound himself into the fortunes of his teacher by marrying Rockeya, one of Mahomet's daughters.

The conversion to Islam proceeded slowly but surely among the Kureisch; several slaves were won over, but at the end of four years only forty converts had been made, among whom, however, was Bilal, a slave, who later became the first Muaddzin, or summoner to prayer. During these four years the suras of the first Meccan period were revealed, and enough may be gathered from them to judge both the limits of Mahomet's preaching and the att.i.tude towards it on the part of the Kureisch.

Mahomet was content at this time to emphasise in eloquent, almost incoherent words his central theme--the unity of G.o.d. He calls upon the people to believe, and warns them of their fate if they refuse. The suras indicate the att.i.tude of indifference borne by the Kureisch towards Mahomet's mission at its inception. Wherever there are denunciatory suras, they are either for the chastis.e.m.e.nt of unbelievers or, as in Sura cxi, in revenge for the refusal of his relations to believe in his inspiration. Prophecies of bliss in store for the Faithful are frequent, and of the corresponding woe for Unbelievers. The whole is permeated with the spirit of the poet and visionary, a poetry tumultuous but strong, a vision lurid but inspiring.

The little band of converts under guidance of this fierce rhetoric became united and strengthened in its faith, prepared to defend it, and to spread it as far as possible throughout their kindred.

About three years after Mahomet's receipt of his mission, in A.D. 618, an important change came over the att.i.tude of the Kureisch towards Islam.

Hitherto they had jeered or remained indifferent. Mahomet's uncles, Abu Talib and Abu Lahab, represented the two poles of Kureischite feeling.

Abu Talib remained untouched by the new faith, but his kindly nature did not allow him to adopt any severe measures for its repression, and, moreover, Mahomet was of his kindred, and he was willing to afford him protection in case of need. Abu Lahab jeered openly, and manifested his scorn by definite speeches. But as the bands of converts grew, the Kureisch found it undesirable to maintain their indifferent att.i.tude.

They began to persecute, first refusing to allow the Believers to meet, and then seeking them out individually to endeavour to torture them into recanting.

From this time dates the creation of one of the foremost principles in the creed of the Prophet. If a Believer is in danger of torture, he may dissemble his faith to save himself from infamy and death. Though in striking contrast to the Christian tenets, this exhortation was neither cowardly nor imprudent. In his eyes reckless courting of death would not avail the propagation of Islam, and though a man might die to some good service on the battlefield, smiting his enemies, no wise end could be served when his death would merely gratify the l.u.s.t of his murderers.

The persecution continued in spite of Mahomet's attempts to withstand it, until he was forced to go to Abu Talib for protection. This was accorded willingly, on account of kindred ties, but there can have been little cordiality between uncle and nephew on the subject, for Mahomet was more than ever determined upon the maintenance and growth of his principles.

Still the conversions to Islam continued, and the persecution of its adherents, until there came to the Kureisch a sharp intimation that this new sect arisen in their midst was not an ephemeral affair of a few weeks, but a prolonged endeavour to pursue the ideal of a single G.o.d. In 615 the first company of Muslim converts broke from the confined religious area of Mecca and journeyed into Abyssinia, where they could practice their faith in peace. This move convinced the Kureisch of the sincerity of their opponents, for they were almost strong enough to merit the name, and compelled them to believe a little in the force lying behind this strange manifestation of religious zeal in their midst.

Mahomet does not at this time seem to have been definitely ranged against the Kureisch. He was still on negotiable terms with them, and they were a little distrustful of his capacity and ignorant of his power. The stages by which he developed from a discredited citizen, obsessed by one idea, into a political opponent worthy of their best steel and bravest men was necessarily gradual, and indeed the Prophet himself had no knowledge of the role marked out for him by his own personality and the destinies of Arabia. The cause of Islam stood as yet in parlous condition, half-formulated, unwieldy, awaiting the moulding hand of persecution to develop it into a political and social system.

CHAPTER VI

SEVERANCE

"Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third idol beside?

These are the exalted females, and truly their intercession is to be expected."--_The Kuran_ (last two lines excised later by Mahomet).

The little band of converts, driven by the Kureisch to seek peace and freedom in Abyssinia, remained for two years in their country of refuge, but in 615 returned to Mecca for reasons which have never been fully explained, though it is easy, in the light of future events, to discover the motive behind such a move.

Mahomet was not yet convinced of the impossibility of compromise, neither was the powerful party among the Kureisch utterly indifferent to Mahomet's ancestry as a member of the house of Hashim, and his position as the husband of Khadijah. He had been respected among men for his uprightness before he affronted their prejudices by scorning their G.o.ds.

His power was daily becoming a source of strife and faction within the city, and the Kureisch were not averse from attempting to come to terms.

Mahomet for his part, as far as the scanty evidence of history unfolds his state of mind, seems to have been almost desperately anxious to effect an understanding with the Kureisch. His cause still journeyed by perilous ways, and at the time hopes of his future achievement were apparently dependent upon the goodwill of the dominant Meccan party.

The story runs that the chief men of Mecca were discussing within the Kaaba the affairs of the city. Mahomet came to them and recited Sura liii--The Star--a fulgent psalm in praise of G.o.d and heavenly joys. When he came to the verses:

"Do you see Al-Lat and Al-Ozza and Manat the third beside," he inserted:

"Verily these are the exalted females, and truly their intercession may be expected."