f I Main Ub. ^IST. • *•• THE ASCENSION OF MOHAMMED. frpm.D'Ohjsqrfa 'Thble^u &entrctl de V Empire Othoman. MOHAMMED' AND THE RISE OF ISLAM BY D. S. MARGOLIOUTH THIRD EDITION G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON 3be •Knickerbocker press (3P76- A?3 1906 b Copyright, 1905 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS ttbe fmfclterbocRer f>re««, Hew Uorfe • .• • • • • .•-•» • •• •.:• • • :• :.• : ••• • • • •• PREFACE THE biographers of the Prophet Mohammed* form a long series which it is impossible to end, but in which it would be honourable to find a place. The most famous of them is prob- ably Sir Walter Raleigh, f while the palm for elo- quence and historical insight may well be awarded to Gibbon. \ During the time when Gibbon wrote, and for long after, historians mainly relied for their knowledge of the life of Mohammed on the Biography of Abu'l- Fida, who died in the year 722 A.H., 1322 A.D., of whose work Gagnier produced an indifferent edition. § The scholars of the nineteenth century were natur- ally not satisfied with so late an authority ; and they succeeded in bringing to light all the earliest docu- ments preserved by the Mohammedans. The merit * Of the sources of the biography of the Prophet a valuable ao count is given by E. Sachau, Ibn Sad III., i., Preface. \ The Life and Death of Mahomet, London, 1637. (If genuine.) \ Among eloquent accounts of Mohammed, that in Mr. Reade's Martyrdom of Man, 14th ed., 260 foil., deserves mention. That by Wellhausen in the introduction to Das Arabische Reich und sein Sturz is masterly in the extreme. § Oxford, 1723. Abu'1-Fida is referred to as the chief authority perhaps for the last time by T. Wright, Christianity in Arabia. iii 222387 iv Preface of discovering and utilising these ancient works is shared by G. Weil, Caussin de Perceval, F. Wiisten- feld, A. Sprenger, and Sir William Muir ; and the Lives of Mohammed by the last two of these writers * are likely to be regarded as classical so long as there are students of Oriental history in Europe; notwith- standing the fact that Muir's Life is written with a confessedly Christian bias, and that Sprenger's is de- faced by some slipshod scholarship and untrust- worthy archaeology.f Since these works were composed, knowledge of Mohammed and his time has been increased by the publication of many Arabic texts, and the labours of European scholars on Mohammedan antiquities. % The works of I. Goldziher, J. Wellhausen, and Th. Noldeke have elucidated much that was obscure, and facilitated the understanding of Arabian history both before and after the Prophet. And from the follow- ing Arabic works, most of which have been published since Sprenger and Muir wrote, many fresh details of interest and even of importance occasionally have been furnished. i . The Musnad, or collection of traditions of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, who died in 241 A.H., (855 A.D.: Cairo, * Muir's, London, 1857-1861 ; Sprenger's (2d ed.), Berlin, 1869. f Wellhausen's judgment of it ( Wakidi, pp. 24-26) is absolutely fair and sound. \ The most important Lives of Mohammed which have appeared in Europe are those by L. Krehl (Leipzig, 1884), H. Grimme (Miins- ter, 1892-1895), F. Buhl (Copenhagen, 1903). The new editions of Grimme's work and of Wollaston's Half-hours with Mohammed, and the magnificent work of Prince Caetani were published too late for the present writer to utilise. Preface v 1890, in six volumes, fol.). In this work the sayings of the Prophet recorded by different individuals are given in separate collections for each individual. The same tradition is sometimes given ten, twenty, or even a hundred times. Much of the matter is scarcely to be found elsewhere, and is likely to be genuine. The account of this work given by Gold- ziher, Z. D. M. G., 1. 463-599, is of course excellent. 2. The gigantic Commentary on the Kora?i by the historian Tabari, who died 310 A.H., (922 A.D.: Cairo, 1902- 1904, in thirty volumes, fol.). This commentary is for the historian of far greater value than the pop- ular commentaries of Zamakhshari and Baidawi, who lived many centuries later, and were influenced by later controversies. 3. The fsaba/i, or Dictionary of Persons who knew Mohammed, by Ibn Hajar (Calcutta, 1853-1894, four volumes). In spite of the late date of the author of this great dictionary, his work is historically valu- able, owing to the fact that it embodies matter taken from sources which are no longer accessible. Ibn Hajar was possessed of an extraordinary library. 4. The works of early Arabic writers, especially the polygraph 'Amr, son of Bahr, called Al-Jahiz, who died in 255 A.H. (868 A.D.). Of his works there are now accessible three edited by the late Van Vloten, and the treatise on rhetoric published in Cairo. Though not dealing directly with Moham- med, they contain many an allusion which it is pos. sible to utilise. The present writer has gone through, in addition to these (so far as they were accessible to him), vi Preface the authorities utilised already by his predecessors, of which the chief are enumerated in the Biblio- graphy. One of these, the Class Book of Ibn Scid {pb. 230 A.H., 845 A.D.) is in course of publication. Since the authors of books in this series have the number of their pages limited, it has been found necessary to abbreviate, and this has been done by omitting three kinds of matter : 1. Translations of the Koran (except in the rarest cases). 2. All anecdotes that are obviously or most prob- ably fabulous. 3. Such incidents as are of little consequence either in themselves or for the development of the narrative. Some principles for estimating the credibility of traditions are given by Muir in his Introduction, and by Goldziher in his Muhammadanische Studien. A few important observations bearing on this subject are also made by Noldeke, Z. D. M. G., Hi., 16, foil. The number of motives leading to the fabrication of traditions was so great that the historian is in con- stant danger of employing as veracious records what were deliberate fictions. I can only hope that I have not displayed greater credulity than my pre- decessors. In condemning traditions as unhistorical I have ordinarily considered the obelus of Goldziher, Noldeke, or Wellhausen as sufficient. The standpoint from which this book is written is suggested by the title of the series. I regard Mohammed as a great man, who solved a political problem of appalling difficulty, — the construction of Preface vii a state and an empire out of the Arab tribes. I have endeavoured, in recounting the mode in which he accomplished this, to do justice to his intellectual ability and to observe towards him the respectful attitude which his greatness deserves ; but otherwise this book does not aim at being either an apology or an indictment. Indeed neither sort of work is now required. The charming and eloquent treatise of Syed Ameer Ali * is probably the best achievement in the way of an apology for Mohammed that is ever likely to be composed in a European language, whereas indictments are very numerous — some dig- nified and moderate, as is the work of Sir William Muir; others fanatical and virulent. f These works are ordinarily designed to show the superiority or in- feriority of Mohammed's religion to some other sys- tem ; an endeavour from which it is hoped that this book will be found to be absolutely free. There are two forms of literature to which I should especially wish to acknowledge obligations. One of these consists of works in which we have authentic biographies of persons who have convinced many of their fellows that they were in receipt of divine communications; in particular I may mention the history of modern Spiritualism, by F. Podmore,^: and the study on the founder of Mormonism, by I. W. Riley. § For the employment of "revelations" *The Spirit of Islam, London, 1896, Calcutta, 1902. \ Bottom is probably touched by the New but True Life of the Car~ penter, including a New Life of Mohammed, by Amos : Bristol, 1903. \ Modern Spiritualism, London, Macmillan, 1902. %A Psychological Study of Joseph Smith, Jr., London, Heine- man n, 1903. viii Preface as a political instrument, and for the difficulties which attend the career of Prophet-statesman, the life of Joseph Smith (the founder of Mor- monism) furnishes illustrations of the most in- structive character; only the biographer of Mohammed must envy the wealth and authenticity of the material at Dr. Riley's disposal, without which the formulae of modern psychology could not have been applied to the interpretation of Smith's career so successfully as Dr. Riley has applied them. A second class of works are those in which savage life is described at first hand : and among these the Autobiography of James P. Beckwourth deserves special notice. There are chapters in that work where by substituting camel for horse we might find a reproduction of Bedouin manners and institutions ; and the question of Beckwourth's veracity does not affect the general truth of his descriptions. Finally, I have to thank various persons from whom I have derived assistance. I am indebted for many suggestions and improvements to the Editor of the Series, to J. P. Margoliouth, and to the Rev. W. J. Foxell, who have read and re-read the proofs ; to Mr. A. E. Cowley, Fellow of Magdalen College, for advice in the selection of coins ; to Dr. J. Ritchie, Fellow of New College, and Mr. R. B. Townshend for guidance with regard to medical and anthropo- logical works ; and to Mr. G. Zaidan, editor of the Cairene journal Hilal, for leave to reproduce certain plates that have appeared in his magazine, and also for the names of certain Arabic works with which I Preface IX was not previously acquainted. Mr. Zaidan is well known in Arabic-speaking countries as a historian, novelist, and journalist; and I hope that ere long I may have the pleasure of introducing some of his works to English readers. In the second edition certain errors have been corrected, to which the author's attention was called by Pere Lammens, S.J., of Beyrut, and Prof. I. Goldziher. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE . iU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii TRANSLITERATION XVU CHRONOLOGY xix GEOGRAPHY Xxi CHAPTER I THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE HERO .... I CHAPTER II EARLY LIFE OF MOHAMMED 45 CHAPTER III ISLAM AS A SECRET SOCIETY , . . .83 CHAPTER IV PUBLICITY Il8 CHAPTER V HISTORY OF THE MECCAN PERIOD . . . • l$ 2 xi xii Contents CHAPTER VI PAGE THE MIGRATION 185 CHAPTER VII THE BATTLE OF BADR 234 CHAPTER VIII PROGRESS AND A SETBACK 275 CHAPTER IX THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWS .... 309 CHAPTER X STEPS TOWARDS THE TAKING OF MECCAH . . 338 CHAPTER XI THE TAKING OF MECCAH 377 CHAPTER XII THE SETTLEMENT OF ARABIA .... 410 CHAPTER XIII THE LAST YEAR 444 INDEX 473 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGK THE ASCENSION OF MOHAMMED . Frontispiece From D'Ohsson's Tableau antral de P Empire Othoman. TOMB OF EVE AT JEDDAH 6 SHERIF'S HOUSE AT MECCAH 12 COIN, WITH ABYSSINIAN KING APHIDAS ON OBVERSE, AND ON REVERSE THE LAST JEWISH KING OF YEMEN, DHU NUWAS OR DIMEAN ... 36 From Rlippell, Reise in Abessinien, t. viii., pi. vi.; vol. ii., pp. 344 and 429. THE WELL ZEMZEM 48 From Ali Bey's Travels. VIEW OF ARAFAT 5 1 BEDOUIN ARABS STORY-TELLING ...» 59 Drawn by Alfred Fredericks. THE BLACK STONE 79 From Ali Bey's Travels. POSTURES OF PRAYER 102 xiii xiv Illustrations PAGE MOSQUE OF OMAR, JERUSALEM . . . .128 From Archer and Kingsford's Story of the Crusades. M. EARLY MOSLEM COIN 133 (Bodleian Library.) Cf Lane- Poole, Or. Coins of the British Museum, i., p. 174, 4. AR. COIN OF KHOSROES II., WITH MOSLEM FORMULA ADDED 133 Bodleian Library. AV. COIN OF HERACLIUS I. AND HERACLIUS CON- ST ANTINE . . . . . . • ^33 (Bodleian Library.) Cf. Sabatier, Monnaies Byzantines, pi. xxix., 18. AR. COIN OF KHOSROES II 133 (Bodleian Library.) Cf. Longperier, Dynastie Sassanide, pi. xi., 4. JE. MOSLEM IMITATION OF COIN OF HERACLIUS, STRUCK AT EMESA I33 (Bodleian Library.) Cf. Lane- Poole, Or. Coins of the British Museum, ix., p. 6. VIEW OF MASSOUA ...... 157 From a lithograph. OBELISKS AT AXUM 160 From an engraving. ON THE ROAD TO MEDINAH 2IO CUFIC KORAN IN THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, SURAH LXXII., 27, 28, AND LXXIII., 1,2. . . 219 CAMELS OF BURDEN RESTING 244 From De Laborde's Voyage en Syrie. Illustrations xv PACK A CARAVAN HALTED 252 From a photograph. ARAB WOMAN ATTENDING WOUNDED MAN . . 291 From Mayeux's Bedouins. TOMB OF THE MARTYRS NEAR MEDINAH . . 306 CARAVAN FACING JEBEL NUR . . . , 311 THE DROMEDARY OF THE DESERT .... 341 Etching by R. Swain Gifford. PANORAMA OF MECCAH 345 From the "Hilal," 1902. LETTER OF THE PROPHET TO THE "MUKAUKIS," DISCOVERED BY M. £TIENNE BARTH£l£mY ; BELIEVED BY SEVERAL SCHOLARS TO BE THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT ... .... 365 From the "Hilal," Nov. 1904. VIEW OF MINA 372 From All Bey's Travels. PILGRIMS LEAVING ARAFAT 382 THE KA'BAH WITH THE STATION OF ABRAHAM . 386 From the "Hilal." THE HOLY CARPET 394 From the "Hilal." A BEDOUIN ON A CAMEL 436 SABJEAN INSCRIPTION 440 In the British Museum. XVI Illustrations THE REMAINS OF A PALACE AT AXUM From an engraving. THE HOLY MOSQUE AT MECCAH From the "Hilal." THE Ka'bAH WITH PILGRIMS PRAYING PLAN OF MECCAH MAP OF ARABIA IN THE 7TH CENTURY A.D. MAP OF WEST CENTRAL ARABIA IN THE 7TH CENTURY A.D. .... PAGE . 443 . 444 . 460 > AT END TRANSLITERATION In this matter the example of Noldeke and Well- hausen in their popular writings has been followed. The mode of transliteration is similar to that in use at Cairo for ordinary purposes. The Arabic letters are represented by those English letters or combinations of letters which come nearest to the Arabic sounds: one who is acquainted with the original language will without difficulty be able to identify the words and names ; whereas, to the reader who is ignorant of Arabic, further differentiation by means of diacritic points (e, g. t s, t, k) is of no value. A few proper names that are familiar have been left in their popular forms. CHRONOLOGY COMPARATIVE tables of months and days as between the Mohammedan and Christian eras are to be found in Wiistenfeld, Vergleich- ungstabellen der Muhammedanischen und Christ- lichen Zeitrechnung, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1903 ; copied in Tre'sor de Chronologie, Paris, 1889. Others are in Dub- baneh's Universal Calendar, Cairo, 1896, and (in Arabic) the Taivfikiyydt of Mukhtar Basha, Cairo, 131 1. For the first nine years of Islam these tables are somewhat misleading, since they assume that the pre-Islamic Calendar was purely lunar, whereas it is certain that it was not. Moreover the occasional notices of the weather during the Prophet's expe- ditions, etc. (collected by Wellhausen, W. p. 17, sq., Reste, pp. 94-101), disagree seriously with Wusten- feld's synchronisms; in some cases by antedating the events by two and a half months tolerable cor- respondence is obtained. It is not however possible to make out enough of the pre-Islamic Calendar to substitute a detailed scheme for Wustenfeld's ; and it has been pointed out by Winckler (Altorie?italische Forschungen, ii., 324-350) that the Calendar of Medi- nah may well have been different from that of Mec- cah, the same month-names having quite different xx Chronology values at the two cities. His investigations into the origin of the Arabic Calendar, which have been amplified by D. Nielsen, Die Altarabische Mond- religion, Strassburg, 1904, are of no practical import- ance for fixing the dates of events during the early years of the Hijrah. The date of the Flight itself (8 Rabi' I., Sept. 20, 622) is fixed by the tradition that the Prophet arrived at Kuba on the Jewish Day of Atonement. Another date, that of the burial of the Prophet's son Ibrahim, is fixed by the solar eclipse, 7-9 A.M., Jan. 27, 632 ; but the synchronism, 28 Shawwal, A. H. 10, is not in agreement with the Arabic records, which put the event in some other month. The traditions bearing on this subject are discussed by Rhodokanakis, IV. Z. K. M. f xiv., 78 ; another synchronism suggested ibid, from the lunar eclipse of Nov. 19-20,625, identified with 13 Jumada II. A. H. 4, is useless, since the month and year in the Arabic tradition are uncertain. To a further synchronism, connected with the Prophet's birth, discussed by Mahmoud Efendi, Sur le Calendrier Arabe avant V fslamisme, an allusion is sufficient. GEOGRAPHY THE political conditions of Arabia will have al- tered very considerably before any scientific exploration and surveying of the country are possible. The maps which have been added to this volume are intended as an unpretentious aid to those who would follow the campaigns of the Prophet and the gradual extension of his sphere of influence. For both, the author has availed himself of Sprenger's classical works on Arabian geography — Die Post- und Reiserouten des Orients, Leipzig, 1864, and Die alte Geographie Arabiens, Bern, 1875. For the map of Central Arabia, use has further been made of Wiisten- f eld's Das Gebiet von Medina, Gottingen, 1873, and also of the measurements given by Al-Bekri in his Geographical Dictionary, ed. Wiistenfeld, 1876; valu- able information about the modern nomenclature of this part of Arabia is to be found in the monographs Die geographische Lage Mekkas, by J. J. Hess, Frei- burg (Schweiz), 1900, and Der Hedjaz und die Strasse von Mekka ?iach Medina, by B. Moritz, Berlin, 1890. The map of the location of Tribes is based on the monograph of Blau, Z.D.M.G., xxiii., Arabien im sechsten Jahrhundert, whose results have been modified in part from Hamdani's Geography of the xxii Geography Arabian Penifisula, ed. Miiller, 1891, and in part from the authorities already mentioned. The results of exploration in Arabia down to the year 1875 are weu * summarised by A. Zehme in the work called A rabien und die Araber seit 100 Jahren, Halle, 1875; while D. Hogarth's Penetration of Arabia, London, 1904, summarises more recent enterprise. The plan of Meccah which is reproduced, is that of Burckhardt, as modified by Wustenfeld in the fourth volume of his Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, Leipzig, 1861 ; its cor- rectness is attested by the greatest modern authority on Meccah, Snouck Hurgronje, who adopts it with very trifling alterations in his article in the Verhand- lungen der geographischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin, xiv., 138, foil., 1887, as well as in his classical work on Meccah. BIBLIOGRAPHY* i . Lives of Mohammed and Histories of the early days of Islam : Ibn Ishak (quoted in the notes as Ishak), ob. about 150 a.h., 767 a.d.: his work (so far as is at present known) exists in two abridgments only: that by Ibn Hisham, ob. 218 a.h., 833 a.d., which has been published by Wiistenfeld, Gottingen, i860, and later by Zubair Pasha; and that by Tabari, ob. 310 a.h., 922 a.d., embodied in his Chronicle, published at Leyden, 1882-1885. Wakidi, ob. 207 a.h., 823 a.d., author of a treatise on Mohammed's Campaigns, of which an imperfect edition was issued by von Kremer, Calcutta, 1856; an abridged transla- tion of a far more perfect copy was made by Wellhausen and published with the title Muhammed in Medina, Berlin, 1882. To this last reference is made as Wakidi (W.). Ibn Sa'd, Secretary of Wakidi, ob. 230 a.h., 845 a.d.; author oi an encyclopaedic work on the Prophet, his followers, etc., of which three volumes have thus far been published at Berlin under the superintendence of E. Sachau. Ya'kubi, ob. about 292 a.h., 905 a.d., author of a history in two parts, Pre-Islamic and Islamic, published by Houtsma, Leyden, 1883. Ibn al-Athir, ob. 630 a.h., 1233 a.d., author of a Universal History, published at Leyden and in Egypt. Diyarbekri, ob. 982 a.h., 1574 a.d., author of a Life of the Prophet, followed by a sketch of Islamic history, called Ta'rikh al-Khatnis, published at Cairo, 1302 a.h. * Works mentioned in the Preface are not repeated here. xxiv Bibliography Halabi, ob. 1044 a.h., 1634 a.d., author of a Life of the Prophet, called Insan al-'uyun, published at Cairo, 1292 a.h. 2. Books of Tradition (i.e. collections of sayings attri- buted to the Prophet, and traced back to him through a series of trustworthy witnesses) : Musnad of Ibn Hanbal. See Preface. Collection by Bokhari, ob. 256 a.h., 870 a.d.: the un- finished edition by Krehl, Leyden, 1 864-1 868, is quoted as Bokhari (K.); for the parts wanting in this edition that of Cairo, 13 12, has been used; Bokhari (Kast.) refers to the sixth edition of the Commentary of Kastalani, Cairo, 1306 a.h. Collection by Muslim, ob. 261 a.h., 875 a.d., published at Cairo, 1290 a.h. Collection by Tirmidhi, ob. 279A.H., 892 a.d., published at Cairo, 1292, in two volumes, and Lucknow, 130 1, in one volume. Collection by Nasa'i, ob. 303 a.h., 916 a.d., published at Cairo, 13 14 a.h. These collections are enumerated in order of importance. The remaining authentic collections, by Malik Ibn Anas, ob. 179 a.h., 795 a.d., Ibn Majah, ob. 273 a.h., 887 a.d., and Abu Dawud, ob. 275 a.h., 889 a.d., have not been cited. 3. Commentaries on the Koran: Tab. or Tabari (Comm.) refers to the Commentary on the Koran by the historian whose date has been given above, recently published at Cairo. Other commentaries occa- sionally cited are those by Zamakhshari, ob. 538 a.h., 1 144 a.d.; Baidawi, ob. 691 a.h., 1292 a.d. Of modern works on the Koran, Preserved Smith, The Bible and Islam, New York, 1897, is occasionally cited; the author has further profited by the treatises of H. Hirschfeld, though he has had no occasion to cite them. The remaining Arabic works occasionally cited in the notes will be familiar to scholars. 4. History of Meccah and Medinah : History of Meccah by Azraki, ob. about 245 a.h., 859 a.d., Bibliography xxv edited by Wustenfeld, Leipzig, 1858. The editor has ap- pended in two volumes extracts from other and later his- torians of Meccah, and in a third volume a German epitome of the whole. History of Medinah by Samhudi, ob. 911 a.h., 1505 a.d., published at Cairo, 1285 a.h.: epitomised by Wustenfeld in his Geschichte der Stadt Medina, Gottingen, 1873. Modern works on Meccah and Medinah. Burckhardt's Travels, quoted from the French transla- tion, Paris, 1835. Burton's Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah, Memorial edition, London, 1893. A. H. Keane, Six Months in the Hejaz, London, 1887. Soubhy, Pelerinage a la Mecque et b, Medine, Cairo, 1894. Muhammad Basha Sadik, The Pilgrim's Guide (Arabic), Cairo, 1313 a.h., 1895 a.d. Gervais-Courtellemont, Mon Voyage a la Mecque, Paris, 1897. Sabri Pasha, Mirror of the Two Sanctuaries (Turkish), Constantinople, 1886. 5. Works of I. Goldziher: M.S., abbreviation for Muhammadanische Studien, Halle, 1889, 1890. Abhandlungen zur arabischen Litteratur, Leyden, 1896, 1899. 6. Of Th. Noldeke: Geschichte des Korans, Gdttingen, i860. Das Leben Muhammeds, Hannover, 1863. Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden, Leyden, 1879. Die Ghassanischen Fursten aus dem Hause Gafna's, Berlin, 1887. Sketches of Eastern History, trans, by Black, London, 1896. 7. Of J. W T ellhausen: Muhammed in Medina, see above; the introduction and notes are cited as Wellhausen (W.) or (Wakidi). Reste arabischen Heidenthums, Berlin, 1897. Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, viertes Heft, Berlin, 1889. XXVI Bibliography Die Ehe bei den Arabern, GSttingen, 1893. Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz, Berlin, 1902. Numerous articles by these writers in the Z. D. M. G. (Zeitschrift der deutschen trior genldndischen Gesellschaft) and W. Z. K. M. {Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgen- landes) are also cited; J. R. A. S. stands for Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. MOHAMMED MOHAMMED CHAPTER I THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE HERO AT some time in the year 594 of our era, a cara- van bearing the merchandise of a wealthy woman at Meccah was safely conducted to Bostra and safely brought back with profits propor- tionate to the risk of the undertaking. Of the quali- ties necessary for the conduct of such an expedition many differ little from those required by a successful general : ability to enforce discipline, skill in evading enemies and courage in meeting them, the power to discriminate false news from true, and to penetrate into other men's designs. And when the mart has been safely reached, and the leader of the caravan or agent has to sell the goods entrusted to him so as to obtain the best return, another set of qualities are called into play ; of which fidelity to his em- ployer is the chief, but patience and shrevdness are also indispensable. The leader of the expedition to Bostra, Mohammed, the orphan son of Abdallah, X I 1 f<< * < N 9 2 ft N *i * w 6 Early Life of Mohammed 49 Arabs, and many a poet boasts of his skill in elud- ing the creditors' claims. * The name Abd al- Muttalib, " slave of al-Muttalib," of which a fanciful explanation is given by our historians, is probably to be interpreted as meaning that its owner was at one time actually a slave, though afterwards manu- mitted and enrolled in the Hashim clan.f The names of his ten sons and six daughters are probably historical, and indeed four of the former and two of the latter play parts of importance in the se- quel. All ten sons, it is said, were of massive build and dark colour. \ From the names of some of them we learn that Abd al-Muttalib was piously disposed towards the deities Allah, Manat, and Al-'Uzza. 'Ab- bas appears to have inherited the money-lending and watering businesses, and to have succeeded well in them. He also imported spices from Yemen which he sold at the time of the feast. § Abu Talib dealt in cloth and perfume, || and succeeded less well. An- other son, Hamzah, made his living by hunting. A fourth, Zubair, was engaged in the carrying trade, and this perhaps furnished the remainder with the means of livelihood. Abdallah, the Prophet's father, is supposed to have died while absent from Meccah on a business journey. * Noldeke, Beitr&ge zur Kenntniss der Poesie der alten Araber, 183-199. \ Baihaki, Ma/iasin t 393, makes him originate the custom of dyeing the hair black. X Jahiz, Opuscula, 75, 5. § Tabari, 1162, 13. | Jahiz, Mahasin, 165. 50 Mohammed The name Mohammed (of which Ahmad and Mahmud were varieties) * was given the future Prophet ; it was apparently not uncommon, and belonged to a distant connexion. \ At a later time, when Mohammed's enemies wished to insult him, they called him the son of Abu Kabshah. Great uncertainty prevails as to the identity of this per- son ; some holding that he was an ancestor of the Prophet % or ancient Kurashite, § who had en- deavoured to change the national religion, substi- tuting the worship of Sirius for that of stones ; whence Mohammed, when he began his religious innovations, was regarded as his moral descendant. A fragment of interesting history may be imbedded in this tale. Mohammed, it is said, occasionally spoke of his foster-father, and many assumed that Abu Kabshah was the man. With this statement there is connected a legend that Mohammed was nursed by some woman other than his mother : and this woman's husband would, according to Arabian ideas, bear a relation to Mohammed not much infe- rior to that of father. At a late period in his career a captive woman claimed to be his foster- sister, and proved her claim to the Prophet's satis- faction by showing where he had once bitten her in ♦The discussion of these names by Rosch, Z. D. M. G. y xlvi., 432-440, leads to no results. f It is worth noticing that the name of the Elephant brought by Abrahat against the Ka'bah was Mahmud {Azraki, 96 ) Was the Prophet thence supposed to have been born in the year called after it ? \ Baidawi on Surah liii., 50. § Zamakhshari, Ibid. I Early Life of Mohammed 5 1 the back. The foster-sister, however, refused an offer to remain in the neighbourhood of her distin- guished relation, whence we are perhaps to infer that she was an impostor ; while from the proof which she adduced of her identity, it would appear that Mohammed acknowledged having been a pas- sionate child. The family to whose charge he was committed are all of them shadowy figures ; their tribe is said to have been the Banu Sa'd, a branch of the Hawazin, who encamped at no great distance from Meccah.* The identification of Abu Kabshah with the father of the family seems very clearly to rest on a combination which may be sound, but which is by no means certain. The patronymic f Abu Kabshah would appear to have been fairly common, and calling Mohammed Abu Kabshah's son conveyed some sting ; but what the nature of the insult was we cannot define with certainty. Another woman to whom the honour of having nursed Mohammed is ascribed was Thuwaibah, slave of his uncle Abu Lahab. It is said that Abd al-Muttalib died when his grandson was eight years of age, leaving him to the care of his uncle Abu Talib. Abu Talib probably employed him in looking after the sheep and camels which he kept at 'Uranah, near Mt. Arafat,:f just as his son Ja'far was employed in looking after sheep at Badr. § When Mohammed had attained to power and ♦According to Al-Bekri, at Hudaibiah, afterwards the scene of some famous negotiations. t " Father of so-and-so," not "son of so-and-so." % Azraki, 71. § Wakidi ( W.), 73. 52 Mohammed eminence he still used to tar his own camel,* and to divert himself by branding the camels and sheep f that were brought in as alms, in which business he displayed some technical skill % ; and used to amaze his followers by his familiarity with the details of Bedouin life. In such societies as that of Meccah the difference between the occupations of the grand and the humble is at all times small, most of all in the time of youth. Mohammed probably did much the same as was done by his cousins and those of his uncles who were near his age. There are some games which Bedouin children play; certain weapons of which they learn the use in early life. A legend § shows us the youthful Prophet playing at " white bone." A bone of " dazzling whiteness" is thrown to a distance at night ; and the boy who finds it be- comes leader. In another tradition || Mohammed confesses that twice when he was feeding his flock, he had left the care of the beasts to one of his com- panions, in order that he might take part in the revelries of the town ; on both occasions, if we are to believe him, sleep fell on him miraculously before he could so disgrace himself. Mayeux would have it that the Bedouins still attach vast importance to the study of eloquence, of fluent and correct delivery; and Mohammed may have had some early practice in this accomplish- * Musnad, iii., 175. f Ibid., iii, 254. \ Isabah, i., 525. %Alif-Ba, L, 322. I Chronicles of Meccah, ii M 7. Early Life of Mohammed . 53 ment, in which he afterwards excelled. The Arabs who speculate on the subject observe that the Arab eloquence is invariably improvisation * ; the elab- orate preparation of a discourse which gives value to European oratory is unknown to them. Further, the love of horses which characterised Mohammed at a later timef is likely to have been imbibed in early youth. Many traditions record his admiration for the Arab steed, and some of them are likely to be authentic ; even when Prophet and sov- ereign of Medinah he is said to have encouraged and taken part in horse-racing.^; Not a few of the Meccans possessed horses, as appears from the his- tory of his campaigns; yet their employment seems to have been confined to war; for travelling they used the camel. The horse, however, is a favourite subject for poetic descriptions, and pride in the horse is characteristic of the Arab race. Dogs were detested by the Prophet, and he was near giving orders to extinguish the species. If for the forty years of Mohammed's life which elapsed before his " mission," we omit what is evi- dently or most probably fabulous, it is surprising how little remains to be narrated. There appears, however, to be no ground for disputing the state- ment that he acted as helper, supplying arrows to his uncle Zubair, at a series of battles which took place when he was in his teens. Those battles belonged to wtat is known as the second Fijar war, waged * Jahiz, Bayan. f Afusnad, v., 27 ; Wakidi (W.), 402. $ Afusnad, iii., 160 ; Wakidi {IV.), 184. 54 Mohammed between the Kuraish with their allies, the Kinanah, and the collection of tribes called Kais. The quar- rel arose like most of these quarrels, from the chief constituents of Arab life, the blood-feud and the relation of patron and client. The King of Hirah desired the protection of a central Arabian chieftain for the goods which he was sending to the 'Ukaz market. This was offered by a man named Al- Barrad, who had been ejected from tribe after tribe owing to his bad character, but whom the Kurashite Harb, father of Mohammed's antagonist Abu Sufyan, had undertaken to protect. The King perhaps wisely preferred the guaranty of a chieftain, of the Kaisite tribe Hawazin, named 'Urwah, whom Al-Barrad, out of pique, waylaid and slew. But then he remembered the troublesome fact that with the Hawazin his own life would not count as the equivalent of their kins- man's ; they would want not an outcast like himself, but some eminent member of the tribe that had fool- ishly taken him in.* It was suggested to Abdallah Ibn Jud'an, an eminent Meccan, with whom the tribes that came to the fair of 'Ukaz deposited their arms, that he might seize those of the Hawazin, and so render them harmless ; but he refused to take this unfair advantage, and instead restored to all the tribes their arms and bade the Kuraish return to Meccah ; on the way thither they were attacked by the Hawazin, who, after an uneventful battle, ar- ranged to continue the fight the same time^i the following year. For four years successively the war, or rather the game, was renewed, with varying * Kamil, ii. , 239 ; Frocks A, Blutracht, Early Life of Mohammed 55 success ; at the fourth battle the Kuraish were vic- torious, but a Kurashite woman who had married a man of Kais was permitted to grant their lives to any Kaisites who took refuge in her tent, which she had enlarged on purpose; in the fifth year the Kaisites got the better, and after that the warfare dwindled down to occasional murders, when mem- bers of the rival tribes met. Finally the parties decided to count the slain and pay blood-money for the surplus. The series of mock battles was dated by the Arab archaeologists from the fact that Mo- hammed took no part in the first, but witnessed the remainder. It was naturally inferred that he was prevented by youth from being present at the first fight, and his own practice at a later time was to allow no recruits younger than fifteen. If this rea- soning be correct, the period covered by the war would be 584-588 A.D. He himself dated one of the fights as fought in his twentieth year. It is not recorded (except indeed in a legend which scarcely professes to be historical) that Mo- hammed distinguished himself in any way during these wars ; but when he came to rule a state him- self we find that two of the lessons which they sug- gest to the modern reader had impressed themselves deeply upon his mind. One was the necessity of settling affairs of blood by some expedient less wasteful and more satisfactory than that which was illustrated by the war of the Fijar ; and a second was that war should be regarded not as a game which might be played for an indefinite period, but as a mode of obtaining decisive results. His 56 Mohammed enemies arranged, when they were successful, to continue the battle next year, but not he. Nor do we find him imitating the conduct of the chivalrous Abdallah, son of Jud'an, who furnished a vindictive foe with weapons to be used against his friends. The story of this war is of interest, since of those who figured in it, many were fathers of men who be- came prominent in the Prophet's time, and some continued their activity into that period. Abdallah, son of Jud'an, probably loomed in the eyes of the youthful Prophet as a mighty figure. The legend makes him fabulously wealthy, as having discovered a mass of jewels hidden in a hill, with the aid whereof he became chief of his tribe, and indeed the leading man in Meccah, profuse in gifts and lavish in hospitality*; late in life Mohammed could recall banquets given by the great man, at which verses in his praise were recited.f Harb, son of Umayyah, who commanded on one of the days, % was the father of the Meccan who opposed to Mo- hammed the most dogged resistance. Al-Zubair, the Prophet's uncle, who was at times in command, appears on few occasions in history ; he is, however, said to have been a poet, and to have practised hos- pitality on a liberal scale to poets of other tribes ; and on one occasion to have taken his nephew with him on a journey into Yemen. A story (which we have no means of checking) makes him venture to dispute the patronage of Harb, father of Abu Sufyan, *Goldziher, Z. D. M. G., xlvi., 7. f Isabah, ii., 706. \Kamilol Mubarrad, i., 187. Early Life of Mohammed 57 when his own father, Abd al-Muttalib, was prepared to respect it.* There is no doubt that Mohammed often accom- panied the Meccan caravans to their various de- stinations. The leading men of Meccah were con- stantly engaged in the conduct of these caravans, in which, as has been seen, many military qualities could be displayed. Their caravans regularly visited Syria and Yemen, but occasionally Egypt, Abys- sinia, and Persia provided them with markets ; the last of these countries not being in regular com- mercial relations with them.f The Christian king- dom of Hirah was also said to be visited by Meccan merchants; and one of the lovers of Hind, daughter of 'Utbah, of whom more will be heard, is said to have been a courtier of the King of Hirah, whose assistance he could demand for matrimonial pro- jects.^: In a tradition the Prophet speaks of the white palaces of Hirah, seen by him (professedly) from Medinah. The Koran shows him acquainted with travelling by sea as well as by land ; he there describes the motions of ships and the results of storms with a realism which savours of experience. He knows too of a sweet sea as well as of a salt sea ; the former he calls Euphrates ; the two, he sup- posed, were kept from combining by a dam. His language about Egypt seems also to imply that he had been there §; and there is reason for supposing *Jahiz t Mahasin, 154. \ Isabah, iii., 379. \Aghani, viii., 50. Probably an anachronism is involved. § Noldeke, Sketches, c. ii., shows that Mohammed was unaware that V CO < 5 2 2 O Early Life of Mohammed 59 sat ions (*.£•., at wine-shops) or from listening to story- tellers. To any well-guarded caravan in Eastern countries some strangers are sure to attach them- selves, who are anxious to enjoy the security and who in return will make themselves useful or agree- able. Among such would doubtless be Jewish dealers who traded in clothes* and other goods. From intercourse with these persons the Prophet is likely to have derived many an anecdote, and also many an outlandish expression. Some of these would figure in his conversation \ ; and his sacred book afterwards contained a number of phrases which even his intimate associates at Meccah did not understand.^: What is known as education he clearly had not re- ceived. It is certain that he was not as a child taught to read or write, though these arts were known to many Meccans, as will appear from the sequel ; their use in commerce was so great, as Mo- hammed himself afterwards emphasised, that his failing to learn them was probably due to the neglect into which an orphan ordinarily falls. For the other Arab fine art, poetry, he had absolutely no ear: hence we may infer that the form of education which consisted in learning by heart the tribal lays § was also denied him. Yet even here his power of picking up information did not altogether fail. The Tradi- tion could name verses which had specially attracted + Goldziher, Z. D. M. G., xlvi., 185. \ Kami/, i., 27. \ Comm. on Surah xvi., 47. § Jahiz^ Bayan y i., 107. 60 Mohammed the Prophet's fancy.* The language of the Koran was thought by experts to bear a striking likeness to that of the early poetry : and though for us it is diffi- cult to pass an opinion on this point, seeing that the early poetry is largely fabrication modelled on the Koran, we may accept the opinion of the Arabs. Of those lays which were recited on solemn or festive occasions some verses then stuck in his memory and provided the form of future revelations. Notwith- standing this fact he had a sincere aversion for poetry,f and an equally strong one for the only other known form of literary composition^ — rhymed prose. Perhaps he thus avenged himself for the want of education which had rendered him unable to handle either. From intercourse with Arabian Jews and Christians he derived a sort of biblical phraseology, § such as is to be found in the works not only of Eastern Jews and Christians, but even in the modern languages of Europe. Of phrases like " tasting death," " to bring from darkness to light," " to pervert the straight way of God," " the trumpet shall be blown," " to roll up the heavens as a scroll is rolled up," " they have weights in their ears," " the new heavens and the new earth," " the first and second death," " that which eye hath not seen nor ear heard nor hath * Jahiz, Mahasin, 186; Musnad, vi., 31. f Goldziher \ M. S., i., 53., regards this as a theological aversion, the poets being the chief exponents of pagan ideas. Surah xxxvi., 69. \Musnad, iv., 245 ; Jahiz, Bayan, i., 112. § Preserved Smith suggests that many of these phrases may have been merely Semitic. Early Life of Mohammed 6 1 entered into the heart of man," "a camel entering a needle's eye," " as far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed our sins from us" * — a biblical scholar would have easily been able to tell the source : Mohammed probably heard them in the conversation of his pious friends and automatically adopted them. To the last he appears to have adhered to the habit of picking up information and then utilising it: he heard casually from his girl-wife Ayeshah that a Jewess had talked to her about the torment of the grave; after this he introduced a prayer to be de- livered therefrom into his ordinary devotion. Having heard a Mary mentioned in the story of Moses and another in the story of Jesus, it did not occur to him to distinguish between them. Late in his career he casually heard from a visitor to Najran that they were separated by some thousands of years ; he did not reject this information, but found a means of reconciling it with his former statement.f When at times some Jew or Christian testified publicly that Mohammed had correctly reproduced the informa- tion which he had picked up, it occasioned him the keenest pleasure.^ Of the superstitions of the Arabs, which differ slightly, if at all, from those of other races, he would seem to have imbibed a fair share. To omens, especially those connected with names, he attached great importance. When a man was wanted to milk * Musnad, vi., 57. f Muslim^ ii . , 168 . There is a controversy on this subject; see Ed, Sayous, J/sus-Christ d'aprh Mahomet, Paris, 1880, p. 36. \ Muslim , ii. 380. / 62 Mohammed a camel, he disqualified one applicant after another, till one offered whose name meant "long life."* Whenever the name of a new adherent contained anything ill-omened, it was his custom to alter it ; if a convert was named Rough, he called him Smooth. At the most important crisis in his career, the preparation for the battle of Badr, and at other times, f he was guided in his strategy by the names of the places on the different routes. Just as Bedouin tribes were guided in their migrations by the instincts of their camels, so Mohammed, at times, left the determination of his policy to the conduct of the beast which he happened to be riding. He was a firm believer in the evil eye, and the possibility of averting it by means of charms ; nor does he ever seem to have doubted the efficacy of incantations. As such he at one time recom- mended the Lord's Prayer — or as much as he knew of it J ; when portions of his Koran had become classical he approved of their being used for this purpose ; and even claimed part of the fee when a serpent's bite was healed by the aid of one of the verses. § Belief in the Jinn, mysterious beings who haunted the desert, was authorised by him, whether he shared it himself or not. From some super- stitions he emancipated himself in time. It is recorded that when his followers wished to attribute * fsabah, i., 655. f WaHdi ( W.\ 266. \Musnad, vi., 21. It was similarly used by Christians : y. M Robertson, A Short History of Christianity, 125. § Musnad, ii., 183. Early Life of Mohammed 63 an eclipse of the sun to the death of his son Ibrahim, he assured them that eclipses were not connected with the fortunes of any persons, however important. Still he continued to regard eclipses as events of a serious nature, for which a special form of prayer was desirable. Experience as a caravan-boy taught him the art of scouting; the power of inferring from minute signs and indications much about the whereabouts, the numbers, and the equipments of the enemy, perhaps not more than many of the caravan-leaders knew, yet sufficient to stand him in good stead when he became a captain of banditti. At times secret ways of procuring information stood at his command, the nature of which we can scarcely divine. But nature, rather than experience, had en- dowed him with one gift more to be envied than any other: knowledge of mankind. His instinctive judgment of men and people was rarely, we might say never, wrong. The personal appearance of the Prophet in mid- dle life was recorded by many persons. According to the ordinary tradition he was " of middle height, bluish coloured, with hair that was neither straight nor curly : with a large head, large eyes, heavy eyelashes, a reddish tint in his eyes, thick-bearded, broad-shouldered, with thick hands and feet " * ; another description adds " with a large mouth, with eyes horizontally long, and with little flesh on the heels " f ; according to one account his hands were + Musnad, i., 89 ; Bokhari {K.), ii., 392. f Muslim , ii., 217. 64 Mohammed abnormally soft, which the palmists tell us signifies " a natural tendency towards the miraculous." His style of dress seems to have varied at different times: his favourite costume being a striped dress of Yemen make,* though sometimes he wore a Syrian jubbah with narrow sleeves, f or a cloak (mirt) of twisted black hair,;): or a red gown (Jiullati).% On the day of the taking of Meccah he wore a black turban. 1 What is recorded of his tastes and habits exhibits ordinarily a high degree of refinement and delicacy. He abhorred anything that produced an evil odour : garlic and onions were described by him as evil vegetables, ^[ and his loathing of anything that tainted the breath was used as a lever by mem- bers of his harem. When sovereign he found fault with those whose hair was untidy, or whose clothes were dirty,** being himself particular as to his ap- pearance. He disliked yellow teeth, ft and almost made the use of the toothpick a religious ordinance. We know, from the Koran, J;); that Mohammed was a young man of promise, and, indeed, should expect that the astounding talents which he afterwards dis- played would give evidence of themselves in youth. * Hibrah. Muslim , ii., 154. \ Musnad, i., 29. %Ibid., vi., 162. § Bokhari (A".), ii., 392. I Musnad, iii., 363. % Ibid,, iv., 19. ** Ibid., iii., 356. \\ Ibid., iii., 442. %% Surah xi., 65. Early Life of Mohammed 65 And of his ambition we have evidence in the comfort which his notoriety afforded him at a time when few things were going well with his project: u Have we not expanded thy breast and exalted thy name?" is the form which the divine consolation takes, when the Prophet is in trouble. Expansion of the breast, the organisation of life about a new centre, as P10- fessor Starbuck expresses it, and celebrity, were then things for which he yearned ; but his early promise Jed to none of those fiascos in which the efforts of persons who are anxious to distinguish themselves are apt to result. And how could Mohammed distinguish himself? Like Beckwourth, doubtless, who, in every fight, killed the rival chieftain, or at every assault was the first to scale the wall ; so the battles of Fijar (and others perhaps of which there is no record) gave Mo- hammed the chance of proving himself the first man of the Kuraish. At these battles his future antago- nists, Abu Sufyan and his brother, had won the title " The Lions." * Men, too, who played a rdle similar to that of David were not wanting in Arabia. The poet-king Imru'ulkais, being driven from home by his father, had collected a number of outcasts round him with whom he raided his neighbours. The sequel shows that Mohammed was not born for that sort of distinction. Care for his life and safety was invariably his first consideration ; in the presence of danger, indeed, he kept his head, and even fought, if necessary, bravely. But he lacked the courage of the man who, when a champion is called for, hurries * Ibn Duraid % 103. 5 66 Mohammed to be first. The four Fijar battles therefore brought him no laurels. The lads who were prepared to pass their lives in camel-driving, or similar occupations, doubtless took to themselves wives at seventeen or eighteen, and so settled into a slough of poverty, whence they could not, save by marvellous luck, emerge. Mohammed, though not without his share of that passion of which the Talmud rightly says nine parts have been given to the Arabs, and only one to the rest of the world, waited to marry till he could better himself thereby. He had indeed made an offer for the hand of his cousin, Umm Hani, Abu Talib's daughter, a girl of whom he doubtless saw much in his childhood and youth. For the character of the relations be- tween the sexes at this time an analogy should be drawn rather from Bedouin life than from the town life introduced by the founder of Islam; and in the Bedouin life these marriages between cousins, which are normal, are often preceded and determined by attachment.* Mohammed's proposal was rejected by his uncle, who preferred another and probably richer cousin. This early rebuff may have had something to do with the future career of the Prophet, on whom the ills of poverty had thus been painfully impressed. Long after, Umm Hani, re- lieved of her husband, desired Mohammed to renew the offer, but he refused. When he was twenty-five years of age, Khadijah, the wealthy woman whose * Mayeux, iii., 143. The well-informed novelist in the Egyptian magazine Rats, ii., 93, makes it a rule of the Bedouins that love must not precede marriage. Early Life of Mohammed 67 caravan he had safely conducted, offered him her hand. Arab ladies have to this day no gine in such matters, and in pagan times women were doubtless freer than after Islam had introduced the veil ; some of the privileges dating from the old days of matriarchate remaining.* She was some years older than Mohammed, but assuredly not forty, as Mohammed's biographers assert ; though the legend makes some of the Bedouin ladies keep their good looks till eighty or even one hundred,f and the Kurashite women were regarded as an exception to the law which renders childbearing impossible after sixty. % Her nephew Hakim, son of Hizam, was one of the Meccan magnates. At a later period he figures as a trader, and, indeed, a speculator in corn.§ He professed to have liberated forty slaves in Pagan times. || If it be true that he gave four hundred dirhemsT for the slave Zaid, son of Harithah, and then presented him to his aunt, he must, indeed, have had means — accumu- lated, it is said, by rigid economy.** Khadijah's cousin Warakah is said to have blessed the union in the homely language of the Bedouins, calling Mohammed a camel "whose nose would not be * Robertson Smith, in his Kinship and Marriage, has an excursus on Khadijah's marriage, but brings no fresh light. f Jahiz, Afahasin, 205. \Id., Opuscula, 78, 5. %AIusnad, iii., 403. I Ibid., iii., 434. 1 Ibn Sa'd, iii., 27. ** Baihaki, Mahasin, 315. He was one of those who ran away from Badr. Ibn Duraid, 103. 68 Mohammed struck."* The future Prophet left his uncle's camels to become master of a house — or part of one, for Khadijah lived in the house of her above-mentioned nephew, in the Hizamiyah street, with a covered walk and a garden, where there was a door leading to the house of 'Awwam, who had married an aunt of the Prophet. \ That great step in a career had been taken where- by a man, freed from the absorbing care of his daily bread, like a balloon loosed from its moorings, begins to ascend. Henceforth he either led no camels, or led his own. But indeed he appears to have been set up in business in Meccah, having for his partner Kais, son of Al-Sa'ib, whose fidelity he afterwards commended highly. The tradition ap- pears not to know with what goods he supplied his fellow-citizens, though it has preserved this detail in the case of his immediate associates. In the one shopping scene of which we have a record for this period the Prophet is buyer, not seller. Suwaid, son of Kais, said : " Makhramah, the Abdite, and I brought a bale of clothes from Haji to Meccah ; the Prophet bargained with us for a pair of breeches ; there were in the shop some persons who were weigh- ing with pieces of clay, and the Prophet told them to give us good measure." % Since breeches could scarcely be sold by weight, perhaps the Prophet gave them some grain or fruit in return. Mohammed and * Mubarrad, Kamil, i., 93. Another tradition ascribes the words to Abu Sufyan, when Mohammed married his daughter. Letters 0/ Hamadhani, p. 216. f Azraki, 463. \Musnad t iv., 352. Early Life of Mohammed 69 his partner offered their goods for sale in the dwelling of the latter,* and the traces of this calling are found all over his Sacred Book. A dissertation has been written on the commercial language of the Koran, showing that the tradesman Prophet could not keep free of metaphors taken from his business. M God," he repeatedly says, " is good at accounts. The Be- lievers are doing a good business, the unbelievers a losing trade. Those who buy error for guidance make a bad bargain." The shake of the hand which closes a bargain became with him and his followers the form by which homage was done to a sovereign. Even when he was sovereign at Medinah he did not disdain to buy goods wholesale and make a profit by selling them retail f ; while occasionally he consented to act as auctioneer. % Children were born to the couple, four daughters and one son or more ; whence Mohammed could call himself honourably Abu'l-Kasim, father of Kasim, after the style of the Arabs ; whether they held like the Indians that a sonless man goes straight to hell, or whether without a son a man had no full franchise. But the son or sons died in infancy,§ and the girls were weaklings, of whom the most long-lived did not see her fortieth year ; whence some who understand med- icine have drawn their inferences about their father. The names of some of the children show that their' * Azraki, 471. f Afusnad, i., 255. \Ibid.i Hi., in. Hence he is supposed to have invented auc- tions. Baihaki, Mahasin, 393, 3. §One of these was born in Islam, according to our authorities, after his mother was fifty-two. Ibn Sa'd, iii., 2. jo Mohammed parents when they named them were idolators. Nor is there anything to indicate that Mohammed was at this time of a monotheistic or religious turn of mind. He with Khadijah performed some domestic rite in honour of one of the goddesses each night before retiring.* At the wedding of his cousin, Abu Lahab's daughter, he is represented as clamouring for sport f ; and indeed even when Prophet he had a taste for the performances of singing girls. % He con- fessed to having at one time sacrificed a grey sheep to Al-'Uzza§ — and probably did so more than once, since after his mission he used to slaughter sheep for sacrifice with his own hands.] A story which may be true shows us Mohammed with his stepson invit- ing the Meccan monotheist Zaid, son of \Amr, to eat with them — of meat offered to idols : the old man refused ; thereby inspiring Mohammed with a dislike for such food-T Of Khadijah's children — and Mohammed appears to have had both stepsons and stepdaughters — not much is recorded. Mohammed was at all times of an affectionate disposition, and even demonstratively so ; he expressed disgust at a man who having ten children declared that he had never kissed one of them ** : and he remained demonstratively affection- ate to the end towards the slave Zaid, whom he * Musnad, iv., 222. \Ibid., iv., 67. \ Ibid., iii., 391. § Wellhausen, Reste, 34. \ Musnad, iii., 99. \ Ibid., i., 189. ** Tirmidhi, 321 (i., 348). Early Life of Mohammed 7 1 adopted as a son. In his prayers he would at times hold a child in his arms when he stood up, putting it down when he prostrated himself.* At Medinah f he would let a little girl take his hand and lead him where she chose. Affectionate treatment of step- children is attested for a later period of his life. % He is not likely to have failed in his duty towards Khadijah's children : and indeed one of these is said to have lost his life in endeavouring to save Moham- med from the fury of the populace when he first preached the unity of God. Of another a story is told in which he offers friendly counsel to his step- father. As Mohammed's daughters grew up, they were given in marriage : Umm Kulthum to her cousin on the father's side, son of Abu Lahab, presently Mo- hammed's bitter enemy ; Zainab to her cousin on the mother's side, Abu'l-'Asi. All this was normal and in order. Abu'l-'Asi was a brave man and true, § accustomed to spend his evenings in Moham- med's house.] This marriage was one of affection, which Islam could not change. Zainab in after times repeatedly made use of her privileges as the Prophet's daughter to save the life of her unbeliev- ing husband ; and his faithfulness to her won him warm encomiums from her father. For the rest we imagine Mohammed during these * JVasa'i, i., 132. f Musnad, iii., 174. X Ibid., vi., 101. §Ibid., iv., 326. I Isabah % iv., 223. 72 Mohammed fifteen years to have been a respected and undis- tinguished tradesman. The little that we glean of his sayings during the period is commonplace. One 'Arfajah, son of Al-As'ad, had lost his nose in a pre- Islamic battle, and had one of silver fitted to his face ; as this became foul, Mohammed recommended him to try one of gold.* ^In the case of many of the Heroes of the Na- tions it is possible to point to the occasion which first led them to play their heroic part ; a crisis called and they responded. In Mohammed's case it is impossible to indicate any such event. For many years he was, as we have seen, a respectable citizen, an undistinguished tradesman ; at the age of forty we find him the nucleus of a secret society, aiming at reconstruction of the entire social fabric. At the age of forty, it is asserted, a Meccan citizen had access to the Council Chamber ; and there may be some truth in this statement, though only a vague interpretation can be given it, since there were no registers at Meccah, and when the Prophet died, it was uncertain whether he was sixty-three or sixty- five. Supposing him to have been harbouring his scheme of reform for years, he may have waited first till he could gauge the possibilities of the Council Chamber for launching it. If the Council Chamber resembled any other debating body, the Prophet would have had little chance of succeeding there; for he was not a ready debater, and when he became a religious controversialist, he received divine orders to avoid public disputation. Still it was in Mo- * Musnad, v., 23, etc. Early Life of Mohammed 73 hammed's character to try easy and normal methods before he attempted abnormal and difficult ones, and there may be some connection between the facts of the fortieth year being the time for the acquisition of the franchise and the period of Mo- hammed's life at which his mission commenced. And since it was his custom only to launch his schemes when they were mature, the part which he was to play may have been present to his mind for many years, suggested by conversations with Jews, Christians, and Parsees ; shown to him to be imperatively called for by the difficulties and in- justices which arose from the need of it. The Jews, the Christians, the Magians, the Sabae- ans, had all one thing which the Arabs had not : a legislator, who had acted as divine commissioner. None of the members of these sects hesitated a moment when asked what code he followed, or from whom it emanated. Moses, Jesus, Zoroaster, St. John the Baptist, they would severally and im- mediately reply. But whom did the worshippers of Hubal, Al-Lat, and Al-'Uzza follow ? No one at all. Foreigners indeed told them that they had Abra- ham for their father, but only foreigners knew any- thing about him ; to the Meccans he was not even a name. Those who tried to discover either an Abrahamic community or an Abrahamic code trav- ersed the world in vain. Yet each nation ought to have a leader.* Here then was an opportunity for a Prophet. In what form the conviction comes to a man of * Surah xiii., 8, 74 Mohammed the existence of a need which he can or should sup- ply is rarely recorded, perhaps not often remem- bered. Of the evils of the tribal system and the blood-feud Mohammed had ample experience ; and visits to countries where the whole population was subject to the law of God may well have convinced him that the Arabs were backward, and that the revelation of a divine code was an indispensable preliminary of progress. Such a code was associated with the God of the Jews and the Christians, but not with the Meccan Allah, Al-Lat, and Al-'Uzza, though it is likely that these deities approved and disap- proved of various acts. But the name of the God of the Jews and Christians was identical with that of the god of the Kuraish. The inference that there was room for a messenger of Allah lay in the pre- mises which the phenomena provided ; Mohammed's greatness is to be found in the two facts of his drawing the inference, and of his ability to render that knowledge effective. The execution of this resolve closes this period of forty years or more ; his soaring spirit had found the outlet upwards through which it proceeded to make its way. It is more often the seeker who finds than one who is not searching. When Starbuck wished to collect cases of conversion, he had to go to sects in which it was normal, and where men and women might expect to be converted. And the conversions which he studied were found by him to resemble cases in which persons feel after an idea with unrest and perplexity until the result is finally presented to clear consciousness ready made. Early Life of Mohammed 75 "The unaccomplished volition is doubtless an indica- tion that new nerve-connections are budding, that a new- channel of mental activity is being opened, and in time the act of centring force (trying) in the given direction may through increased circulation and heightened nutri- tion of that point itself directly contribute to the forma- tion of those nerve-connections through which the high potential energy which corresponds to the new insight expends itself." Into this psychological explanation we cannot in the present case follow him ; but the evidence which he has produced of conversion meaning the start- ing of a fresh career, the bringing of the converted individual into fresh connection with his fellows, is very much to the purpose. To the enlarging of the breast and the exalting of the name the Koran adds the forgiveness of sin. Normal cases of conver- sion bring out only the last sensation, the forgiveness of sin ; the enlarging of the breast and exalting of the name are found in cases where the converted person has abnormal talents. The idea of reproducing the role of Moses, Jesus, or Zoroaster must not be judged from the mod- ern standpoint, whence those characters are either wholly unhistorical, or owe that which is enviable in their history to myth and legend. To Mohammed the first two (of the third he may not have heard) were men, highly favoured by God, it is true, but still flesh and blood, " eating food." To carry out in practice the part of a mythical hero was, as he afterwards found, exceedingly diffi- cult ; but that his predecessors were mythical never y y6 Mohammed entered into his mind. The idea that a Prophet was expected in Arabia, that either Jews or Christians foretold the arrival of one, may be dismissed as a vatichiium post eventum ; so, too, when Islam had conquered Persia, it was discovered that portents oc- curred in Persia when Mohammed was born. The Meccans, as we see them in the Fijar wars, or at the building of their Ka'bah, appear by no means deso- late at the want of a Prophet. They enjoyed their life exceedingly ; even when the battle of Badr was looming, they went to the fight in high spirits, spend- ing lavishly ; wine and music were at their feasts. And the best proof that they enjoyed life is to be found in the good nature with which they fought. They gladly displayed their courage, but bore no ill-will against the foe. That Mohammed in the course of his conversa- tions with Jews and Christians had become con- vinced of the general truth of their systems is fairly clear; or rather it had not occurred to him to doubt it. He shared the general attitude of the people of Meccah towards their learned neighbours. But these conversations had further forced upon his attention the divisions that existed, not only between Jews and Christians — who each denied that the other had any standing ground — but also between the Christian sects, which anathematised each other. It is curi- ous that the founder of the Mormons similarly re- ceived an early impulse from his observation of the differences between the rival sects.* Which were in the right, Jews or Christians, and if the latter, which * The Mormons, London, 185 i„ Early Life of Mohammed Jj of the sects? Clearly a new Prophet was needed to settle this point, and Mohammed, at Medinah, claimed that it was his mission to put them right where they disagreed. The notions, however, which he acquired of both Jewish and Christian doctrine were, as has been seen, those of a superficial, though shrewd, observer. If he thought the Christians wor- shipped a goddess and two gods, that was the prac- tical as opposed to the theoretical character of all but Nestorian Christianity in the East.* Nor could he fail to observe that the Christians were more lax in the matter of food than the Jews. With each community he sympathised in one point or another; to have joined either of the communities and to have become a missionary for either would have been a serious mistake, and utterly unsuited to Mo- hammed's plans. Christianity could not be disso- ciated from subjection to the suzerainty of Byzan- tium ; and Mohammed was far too great a patriot to contemplate the introduction of a foreign yoke. A convert to an old established religion, he could not have pretended to such knowledge of it as older members possessed ; and even appointed head of a new congregation, he would have been compelled to affiliate it to some existing branch. It is certain that a fundamental dogma of his system was the personal ore that he was God's Prophet ; agreement on other points presently became useless, if that were not conceded. Hence it would appear that Mohammed regarded these systems chiefly as systems founded respectively * J. M. Robertson, A Short History of Christianity, 1902, p. 184. yS Mohammed by Moses and Jesus — a point of view from which they are not ordinarily regarded, since men think rather in each case of the code than of the authority for it. Whoso honours not himself shall not be honoured, Zuhair sings : the ambitious Christian or Jew hopes to be a bishop, perhaps, or a rabbi, but regards the founders of the systems as beyond all possibility of competition. But thoughts are not impracticable because they are bold, and this Arab conceived the idea which a proselyte's notion of Judaism or Christianity would have rendered be- yond his reach. To the proselyte both figures would have seemed simply inaccessible, placed on pinnacles beyond climbing. To the cool-headed student of human nature they were men, and what they had done he could do. It is likely, we might say certain, that Mohammed's notion of a Prophet underwent some growth in the course of his career ; we can even trace the steps by which the mission was extended from Meccah to the world ; and before Mohammed reached Medinah he may not have been quite familiar with the Hebrew word for prophet. But there were certain notions connected with the office which were in his mind from first to last. A messenger of God was quite certain to be successful. The messengers, he was to learn, were harassed by opposition and unbelief, but they succeeded in time. The notion that Jesus was cruci- fied was repugnant to his system, he was convinced that the truth was with the Julianists who held that the traitor Judas had been crucified : the true Prophet was naturally and certainly victorious. Of the whole it O i I- ^ «> <, * I Early Life of Mohammed 79 number, from Abraham to Mohammed, this held good. Belief therefore in himself was the dogma which he taught himself first, and afterwards taught others. Of strong convictions on other subjects we cannot be so sure ; and in any case, of the charge of fanatic- ism, brought against him by several writers, he can easily be cleared. Reasons of policy and reasons of humanity were sufficient to make him modify or at times even abandon each one of the doctrines and practices on which he set the greatest store. To these voices the ears of fanatics are closed, but his were invariably open. Of exaggeration, whether in religious exercises or in liberality, he always had a horror : beneath the mask of the enthusiast there was the soundest and sanest common-sense. Though he railed against idolatry, he clearly had not that physical repugnance to it which men have often had : otherwise the Kissing of the Black Stone would not have been a ceremony for which he yearned when deprived of it, and which he permanently retained. His physical repugnance seems to have been not to fetishes but to representations, which, according to some anecdotes that are recorded, he found worrying and distracting. His identification of the god Al- lah with the God of the Jews and Christians was in a manner accidental ; it is precisely parallel to St. Paul's endeavour to make the " Unknown God " paramount at Athens to the exclusion of all the other deities. But the Jewish and Christian records narrated how their Allah had despatched messengers, and such a messenger he might be. The message 80 Mohammed was in many cases subordinate to the dignity of the office, just as we think of a king's ambassador as a high official, rather than as the bearer of a definite message. For the contents of the message he had to go back to Jewish and Christian Scriptures, until the course of events provided him with plenty to say. Why and how the idea of playing that part should have come into the mind of this particular Arab, or in the case of this particular Arab have found a man with the patience and resolution and inge- nuity to make it a success — about that we cannot even hazard a conjecture. As Carlyle says, from the time of Tubal Cain there had been iron and boiling water ; but through all these millennia no one invented the steam-engine. Either men wanted the ingenuity to see the possibilities of things, or they wanted the patience to make their discover- ies fruitful. The daughter of Abu Jahl, one of Mo- hammed's chief opponents, declared that her father might have been Prophet had he chosen, but was unwilling to create sedition.* Prophets indeed had arisen in Arabia before Mohammed : in Yemen among the Himyarites one Samaifa had imitated the exploit of old Zamolxis : had hidden himself for a time and then re-appeared, when one hundred thou- sand men prostrated themselves before their risen lord.f Legends containing probably some germ of truth recorded how shortly before Mohammed one Khalid, son of Sinan, had been sent to preach to the *Azraki, 192; Wakidi (IV.), 343. f Isabah, i., 1003. Early Life of Mohammed 81 tribe of 'Abs, and one Hanzalah, son of Safwan, to some other of the inhabitants of Arabia. In Yemamah, too, one Maslamah had given a sign that he was sent from God : through the narrow neck of a bottle he introduced an egg unbroken to the bowl.* Since Yemamah supplied Meccah with corn, the tradition that makes Mohammed a pupil of Maslamah has certainly some foundation. But Mohammed had far more to teach Maslamah than to learn from him. Maslamah's aspirations scarcely rose above those of a conjurer ; his pupil, far less able to mystify, saw how a Prophet could become the head of a state. When the plan had become an assured success, others were inclined to try it for their own benefit. To Mohammed their claims did not seem to merit a moment's consideration, he treated them as the people of Meccah had at first treated him. The wish that all the Lord's people were prophets, probably never felt by any who uttered it, was not even expressed by him. If men failed to agree with his second dogma, his own apostleship, he devised ingenious reasons for showing that they disagreed with him concerning the first dogma, the Unity of God. Hence we are justified in supposing that the second was the dogma to which he attached the greater importance. And if a Prophet was not a subject charged with painful duties, but a sovereign privileged with extraordinary rights, the unity of * That Maslamah had taken the title Rahman before Moham- med left Meccah is attested by Wakidi ( W.\ 58 ; see also J. R. A, S., 1903. 6 82 Mohammed God's Prophet was no less certain than the unity of God. The sayings that are recorded of the Prophet show that he never compromised that high dignity by any of the humility, genuine or affected, which meets us in the speeches of those who preached a doctrine without political ambitions. In dicta which are ascribed to him he declared himself to be the best in character and the most perfect in beauty among mankind. His was the most noble pedigree,* consisting entirely of well-born men and chaste women. He was the most eloquent of all who had pronounced the characteristic Arabic letter dad. In the Koran he repeatedly points out what a privilege his presence is, and how he is a proof or embodiment of God's mercy to the world. If ever he spoke of himself in a less exalted strain, it was when some reverse, the blame for which he re- fused to accept, compelled him to tell his followers that they had expected too much. Hence we are driven to the assumption that however many mo- tives may have led to the adoption of the role of Prophet, the desire for personal distinction, which the Koran puts into the mouth of Noah's adversaries,f — or let us rather say for a place in the community whence he could enforce his ideas on the rest, — was one of them ; and we shall more easily be able to ap- preciate and admire the skill with which he piloted his way, if we keep clearly in our minds the destina- tion for which he was steering. *Musnad, iv., 107, 166. f Surah xxiii., 24. CHAPTER III ISLAM AS A SECRET SOCIETY IN his thirty-ninth year Mohammed became ac- quainted or became intimate with Abu Bakr, son of Abu Kuhafah, a cloth merchant, Mo- hammed's junior by two years. He possessed some business ability, whereby he had acquired a consid- erable fortune, and, his father being blind, was the head of the household. He was a man of a kindly and complaisant disposition, of charming manners and ready wit, though of an occasionally obscene tongue, and his company was much sought after. Since the Meccan tribes, like other Arabs, habitually gathered in circles at evening time, and some ladies* held salons in the courts of their houses, there was at Meccah every opportunity of convers- ing. Abu Bakr was a hero worshipper, if ever there was one; he possessed a quality common in women, but sometimes present in men, i.e., readiness to fol- low the fortunes of some one else with complete and blind devotion, never questioning nor looking back ; to have believed much was with him a reason for * Azraki, 467. S3 84 Mohammed believing more. Mohammed, a shrewd judge of men, perceived this quality and used it. A year after their intimacy had begun, Mo- hammed's call came, and the proselytising was then done not by Mohammed, but by Abu Bakr. Whether Mohammed had sounded any one before, to find out the possibility of winning disciples, is not known ; what is certain is that in this person Mohammed discovered a man capable of believing that one of his fellow-citizens had a message from God, which it was incumbent on him to receive and promote. It is so much easier to invite men to recognise the claims of another than of oneself that in the later history of Islam we find those Mahdis most successful who could keep hidden while some follower proclaimed their advent. But these were ordinarily cases of collusion, where each party anticipated some definite advantage from such an arrangement : in Abu Bakr's case the notion of acknowledged collusion cannot be admitted. Mo- hammed used to assert that if he were to make any man his confidant (khalil) he would make Abu Bakr, but that he had not made a confidant of any one. Abu Bakr, though an invaluable assistant, was not an accomplice. He never forgot the distance between his master and himself. When a man professes to produce messages from another world, he has to make both their form and their manner correspond in some way with super- natural origin. The problem before the medium is to produce a message without appearing to furnish it himself ; and Mohammed had to solve that prob- Islam as a Seer el Sociely 8 5 lem no less than a modern medium. When revela- tions came to him in public he seems instinctively * (or, perhaps, after the example of the Kahins) to have adopted a process common to the prophets of all ages ; just as to the Sibyl : " talia fanti Ante fores subito non voltus, non color unus, Non comptae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum, Et rabie fera corda tument: majorque videri Nee mortale sonans, adflata est numine quando Jam propiore dei," so Mohammed would fall into a violent state of agita- tion, his face would turn livid, f and he would cover himself with a blanket, from which he would after- wards emerge perspiring copiously, % with a message ready. At some period or other the articulate mes- sage seems to have been preceded by an inarticulate one, letters of the alphabet forming no words — curi- ously resembling the initial movements of a plan- chette. § We have already seen reason for believing that Mohammed at some time had epileptic fits; whence the phenomena accompanying such a fit may ♦One of the chief authorities for traditions of the Prophet used at times to introduce his recollections of the Prophet's utterances with a similar performance. Tabari, Comm., xii., 9. f Tabari, Comm., xxviii., 4. \Bouveret, Les sueurs Morbides (Paris, 1880), says : " Adamkie- wicz has shown that perspiration can be provoked by artificial or voluntary incitation of the muscles and their nerves." § Noldekes ingenious explanation of the mystic letters as signatures of MSS. is abandoned by him in his Sketches for a theory resembling the above. 86 Mohammed have suggested a form which could afterwards be artificially reproduced. The process described, at times accompanied by snoring and reddening of the face,* presently came to be recognised as the normal form of inspiration, and could be produced without the slightest preparation ; the Prophet would receive a divine communication in immediate answer to a question addressed him while he was eating ; and would, after delivering it in this fashion, proceed to finish the morsel which he held in his hand when he was interrupted f ; or a revelation would come in answer to a question addressed him as he stood in the pulpit. % In revelations which appear to be very early Mohammed is addressed as " the man in the blanket," or " the man who is wrapped up." What- ever may have been the occasion for this process, the Prophet appears to have retained it from first to last. The other questions which the medium must solve roncern the matter of the revelation. Once the head of a state Mohammed had plenty to say ; but at the commencement of his career, the matter was not provided by the circumstances. Mediums who are similarly placed as a rule hit on the same plan. They put into God's mouth sayings which are gen- erally acknowledged to be His — i. e. y verses of the Old or New Testament. These being recognised as God's Word, no one is compromised by their iteration. When Mohammed, forced by circum- * Musnad, iv., 222. Bouveret, p. 47 : "La peau put rougir simuL tantment" when perspiration is the result of a violent emotion, f Musnad ', vi., 56. \Ibid. % iii., 21. Islam as a Secret Society 87 stances to produce revelations in increasing quan- tities, followed this safe method, he could declare that it was a miracle by which he was made ac- quainted with the contents of books which he had never read. When his style as a preacher had justly won him the applause of large audiences, he could change his ground somewhat and declare that the miracle lay in his unrivalled eloquence. This however is to anticipate. The earliest scraps of revelation, which were communicated to Abu Bakr, appear to have been imitations of the utter- ances of revivalist preachers, whom Mohammed had heard on his travels. There is (as we have seen) a tradition that he had heard sermons from " the most eloquent of the Arabs," Kuss, son of Sa'idah, who bade men remember the transitoriness of life, and infer the existence of the Creator from the phe- nomena of the world. The subjects on which these preachers dwelt were ^^ibtless the Day of Judg- ment, the pains of hell fire, and the necessity of worshipping Allah rather than the idols ; these be- ing the ordinary themes of Christian revivalists. Experience, moreover, shows that warnings of the approaching end of the world readily find a hear- ing.* Those who describe the first discourses of the Prophet speak of them as warning the Meccans of the divine punishment: the speaker comparing himself to one who gives the alarm when the enemy is raiding, f As we shall presently see, this doctrine is not really to be dissociated from that of resurrec- * History of the Mormons, London, 1851. t " I am the naked alarm-giver," Alif-Bd, i., 133. 88 Mohammed tion ; and the distinctive features of Mohammed's teaching, as opposed to the ideas of paganism, were from first to last the doctrine of a future life, and of the unity of God. Arabian oratory seems to have been in some sort of rhyme, and this Mohammed imitated though he little understood its nature. Against the supposition that Mohammed deliber- ately mystified his contemporaries, objection has been taken both in ancient and modern times from the uprightness of his character, which is even said to have earned him the name of " the Trusty." Hence the story that he trained a pigeon to peck grains from his ear has called forth bitter indigna- tion from Carlyle and others. And indeed the Moslem tradition does not record any occasions on which he received revelations from pigeons. Still, many scenes are recorded in which he appears to have studied theatrical effect of a scarcely less naive kind. In an empty room he professed to be unable to find sitting-place, — all the seats being occupied by angels. He turned his face away modestly from a corpse, out of regard for two Houris who had come from heaven to tend their husband. There is even reason for supposing that he, at times, let confeder- ates act the part of Gabriel, or let his followers iden- tify some interlocutor of his with that angel,* The revelations which he produced find a close parallel in those of modern mediums, which can be studied in the history of Spiritualism by Mr. F. Podmore, whose researches cast great clou^ t on the proposition * Ibn Sotd II., ii., 52. One Harithah Ibn Al-Nu'man declared he had seen Gabriel twice. Islam as a Secret Society 89 that an honourable man would not mystify his fel- lows; and also make it appear that the conviction produced by the performances of a medium is often not shaken by the clearest exposure.- Of one of the mediums whose career he describes, this author ob- serves that he possessed the friendship and perfect trust of his sitters, was aided by the religious emo- tions inspired by his trance utterances, and could appeal to an unstained character and a life of honour- able activity. The possession of these advantages greatly helped this medium in producing belief in his sincerity ; but the historian of Spiritualism, though uncertain how to account for all the phenomena, and acknowledging the difficulties which attend his ex- planation, is inclined to attribute all that is wonder- ful in the medium's performances to trickery^ What is clear is that Mohammed possessed the same ad- vantages as Podmore enumerates, and thereby won adherents ; that nevertheless the process of revelation was so suspicious that one of the scribes employed to take down the effusions became convinced that it was imposture and discarded Islam in consequence.* But to those who are studying merely the political effectiveness of supernatural revelations the sincerity of the medium is a question of little consequence. We regard then Mohammed's assumption of the role of medium as due to the receptivity of Abu Bakr. \ It was in the Prophet's character to bide * Musnad, iii., 121, etc. \ Xoldeke, Z. D. M. G. t lii., 16-21, makes the order of converts Khadijah, Zaid, Ali, some slaves, Sa'd, son of Abu Wakkas, and Abu Bakr, with other Kurashites. 90 Mohammed his time — to wait, before taking any step, till the favourable moment had arrived. But such a new role cannot be taken up quite suddenly — there must be some period of transition between the old life and the new. Most mediums have for such trans- ition a period of solitude. Thus Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon sect, wandered into a wood, and there, under the guidance of angels, unearthed the Book of Mormon. The Seer of Poughkeepsie, in March, 1844, "wandered into the country under the guidance of his inward monitor, and fell into a spontaneous trance, during which Galen and Swe- denborg appeared to him in a churchyard, and instructed him concerning his message to mankind." His work, The Principles of Nature, afterwards delivered by him in trance, if not quite so success- ful as the Koran, nevertheless went through thirty- four editions in thirty years, and is still * quoted by some as a divine revelation. Now that Mohammed's prophetic career began with a period of solitude seems attested, though there is some inconsistency between our authorities as to the details. For one month of the year — and it would appear the month of Ramadan, afterwards stereotyped as the Fasting Month of Islam — the Meccans practised a rite called tahannuth, of which the exact meaning is indeed unknown, but which apparently was some sort of asceticism. During this month it was Mohammed's custom to retire to a cave in Mt. Hira, some three miles from Meccah in the direction of Ta'if. He would appear to have taken his family with him: * Contemporary Rev. % Oct., 1903. Islam as a Secret Society 91 yet probably their daily worship of Al-Lat or Al- 'Uzza * would not be carried on at such a time. Moreover, a month devoted to ascetic observance was one specially suited for aspirations towards a more spiritual form of religion than the ordinary paganism. At some time then in this month, when he had descended by himself to the midst of the valley, occurred the theophany (or its equivalent) which led to Mohammed's starting as a divine messenger. The idea of Joseph Smith was to communicate to the world the contents of certain hidden tablets only accessible to himself, and in a language which he only could translate " by the grace of God." Mo- hammed's was very similar ; he was empowered (or, according to one account, forced) to read matter contained in a well-guarded tablet — he having pre- viously been unable to read or write. To the miracle whereby he was enabled to read without having learned — which may have been suggested by narratives current about other prophets — he alludes,t but he does not insist on it. His idea of being permitted only occasionally to get access to the guarded tablet was a better one than Smith's, be- cause it enabled him to legislate as occasion de- manded. In the traditions which bear on this subject the communication is done by Gabriel, the angel who in the New Testament conveys messages ; but in the theophany recorded in the Koran, it appears to be God Himself who descended, and at a * Musnad, iv., 222. \ Surah xxix., 47. 92 Mohammed distance of rather less than two bowshots * addressed the Prophet, and on a second occasion was seen by him " at the lotus of the extreme end, where is the garden of lodging." The substitution afterwards of Gabriel is probably due to the development of the Prophet's theology. More than a shadowy outline of this commence- ment of revelation will never be known. The earliest account makes the Prophet so much alarmed by his experience, and so afraid of becoming a Kahin or a poet, that he all but commits suicide ; Khadijah, finding him, comforts him with the assurance that he is going to be the national nabl (Prophet) — a word which she can scarcely have known ; and consults her learned relative Warakah, son of Naufal, who is equally encouraging. His words are given as, " Kaddosh, Kaddosh, this is the Greater Nomos." The first two words are Hebrew, and mean " Holy, Holy ! " The last is Greek for " Law." The curious and hybrid nature of the expressions makes it pos- sible that there may be some truth in this story ; but that the exclamation did not suit the occasion on which it is supposed to have been uttered is implied by the commentators, who make the " Law " mean King's messenger, and apply it to Gabriel. Another account made Khadijah consult not Warakah, but a Christian slave, who recognised the name Gabriel. Warakah figures no further in the narrative, f and it would be rash to assert that the interview between * The original is obscure. fin Usd al-ghabah, i. , 207, he is said to have witnessed the torture of one of Mohammed's followers. Islam as a Secret Society 93 him and Khadijah was historical; it was known that a relative of Khadijah was enlightened, and the legend could scarcely do less than make him acknowledge her husband's mission. Nor do we assign any historical value to the tradition that Mohammed dreamed he saw Warakah after his death in white raiment, signifying a place in Para- dise. * But that Khadijah may have been prepared by her cousin's speculations and studies for a revolt from the Meccan religion is not improbable. In Khadijah's case moreover we might expect a priori that maternal grief over her dead sons would enter into the process of conversion, and this is confirmed by a story told in the memoirs of Ali. ff\ If idolators went to hell, she asked her husband, were her parents in hell ? Mohammed replied that they were, and, seeirfg that she looked pained, assured her that if she could see them with their true nature revealed, she would detest them too. Next she asked were their dead children in hell also? To this question the Prophet in reply produced a revelation : u And whoso believe and are followed by their seed in faith, unto them shall we attach their seedjj A brilliant answer ; since thereby the bereaved mother was assured that the eternal happiness of her dead sons was made conditional on her believing; the chance being thus given her not only of recovering them, but of giving them access to the Garden of Delight. No wonder that Khadijah devoted herself * Musnad, vi., 68. \Ibid. % i., 135. \ Surah lii. f 21. 94 Mohammed heart and soul to the mission, and received a promise of a very special place in Paradise.* It is clear that some of the ordinances of Islam must have commenced from the moment that the revelations were communicated to Abu Bakr and Khadijah. For it is by no means sufficient to warn people of the terrors of the Day of Judgment ; some answer must be given to the question, What shall I do to be saved ? And that answer, in order that it may satisfy, must involve certain injunctions. There appear to have been commands to wash the clothes, and to avoid the idols. The first of these was an easy symbolical act — with many races the clothes are all but identical with the wearer, f The second was difficult in a community where people saw much of each other ; from stories which shall be mentioned we gather that worship of idols was a familiar feature of every-day life. Abandonment of idolatry could not easily be concealed from the household ; hence the secret of the Prophet's mission had to be revealed almost at the first to the two lads who were about Khadijah's house, Zaid, son of Harithah, the adopted son, and Ali, the Prophet's cousin, son of Abu Talib, for whom Mohammed had undertaken to provide, owing to his uncle find- ing difficulty in maintaining his numerous family.^ The latter was about ten years of age ; the former was ten years the Prophet's junior § — according to * Musnad y iv., 356. f Wellkausen, Reste, 196. \Noldeke, Z. D. M. G., lii., 19, regards this as a fiction. %Jbn Sa'd, in., 30. Islam as a Secret Society 95 the most likely account — but, as we shall have oc- casion to see, entirely subject to the Prophet's authority. It is stated that the revelations ceased for a time after they had begun — a phenomenon which may be compared with the fact made out by Starbuck in the cases of conversion which he studied : complete re- lapses, he shows, are few, but periods of inactivity and indifference numerous. Khadijah is credited with having consoled the Prophet during the tem- porary suspense of the divine visitations; which perhaps we may interpret as meaning that the strong- minded woman who kept him faithful during the years in which his master-passion must have been strongest compelled him to adhere to the line which he had taken. But indeed he was compelled to con- tinue by Abu Bakr, who immediately started pro- selytising. Doubtless at the Prophet's desire the mission was conducted with profound secrecy. Abu Bakr communicated nothing save to persons in whom he had confidence ; and on whom he was able to ob- tain some leverage. But neither he nor the Prophet were impatient, and they were satisfied if the first year of Abu Bakr's propaganda produced three con- verts.* There is strong reason for thinking that he was helped from the first by an Abyssinian slave, Bilal, of whose antecedents we should gladly know more ; for Omar declared that Bilal was a third part of Islam f ; and, lest we should mistake the meaning of the phrase, a later follower used to call himself * Isaiah, ii., 162. f Jahiz, Opuscula, 58. 96 Mohammed the quarter of Islam, * because, when he visited Mo- hammed at 'Ukaz, he found him followed as yet by one freeman, Abu Bakr, and one slave, Bilal. The tradition clearly does not know for certain whose slave he was. In want of better information we are inclined to attribute to him some of the Abyssinian elements in the Prophet's productions.f He was after a time purchased and manumitted by Abu Bakr. How Abu Bakr proceeded is not recorded in many cases. There is, however, one anecdote which is likely to be true and characteristic. Othman, son of 'Affan, six years the Prophet's junior, was a cloth merchant, having for partner a cousin of Mo- hammed ^;jTie also did some business as a money- lender, advancing sums for enterprises of which he was to enjoy half the profits, § and in money matters showed remarkable acuteness.J His sister was a milliner, married to a barber,! and he himself was unusually handsome, fond of personal adorn- ment, and dignified ; Mohammed even did not venture to appear in deshabille before him,** or allow slave-girls to beat drums in his presencejf He was no fighting man, as his subsequent history proved, for he shirked one battle-field, ran away from * Musnad, iv., 385. f Enumerated by Wellhausen, Reste, 232. %Isabah, i., 1036. § Ibn Sa'd, iii., ill. I Wakidi ( W.\ 231. ^Isabah, i., 714. ** Muslim, ii., 234. \\ Afusnad, iv., 353. Islam as a Secret Society 97 another, and was killed, priest-like, ostentatiously reading the Koran. He loved Mohammed's fair daughter, Rukayyah, and learned to his chagrin that she had been betrothed to another. Hearing the sad news he came to pour his grief into Abu Bakr's friendly ears. Abu Bakr in reply asked him whether he did not think the Meccan gods stocks and stones ? — a question of doubtful appropriateness, it might seem, unless their services had been called in by the lover ; but a conversation followed, whence Othman inferred that if he chose to declare the Meccan gods worthy of contempt and acknowledge that Mohammed had a mission to suppress them, Mohammed's daughter might still be his. Mo* hammed presently passed by^ Abu Bakr whispered something into his ear and the affair was arranged. Othman became a believer and Rukayyah became his wife. In this case the process of conversion is laid bare, and offers no further difficulty to the reader. In each of the other cases the shrewd missionary must have seen his opening, though we do not often know what it was. Abu Bakr probably was aware that women are more amenable to conversion than men, resident foreigners than natives,* slaves than freemen, persons in distress than persons in pro- sperity and affluence. When Islam was found out, the humble character of many of Mohammed's fol- lowers was a stumbling-block to the Meccan aristo- crats, who requested him to send away this scum before they would argue with him. Indeed the * Wellhausen, Reste % 221. 98 Mohammed Koran acknowledges so distinctly that the followers of the Prophet were the lowest of the people * that grave doubt attaches to early traditions which con- flict with this statement. (The phraseology em- ployed, " the worst of us — at first sight," is curiously lucid. 7 And later on, when the aristocrats had been forced into Islam, they were wont to reproach their new brethren with their earlier condition. f For many a man the honour of being Abu Bakr's first convert was afterwards claimed ; and the length of time in which the mission remained a secret rendered their claims difficult to assess. When men were asked what first led them to Mohammed they were apt to give fantastic answers ; perhaps they had forgotten the real motive or preferred to conceal it. Khalid, son of Sa'id, the fourth or fifth convert, dreamed that his father was pushing him into a lake of fire, whence another man saved him. He asked Abu Bakr to in- terpret % ; Abu Bakr took him to Mohammed, then in retreat at Ajyad, near Safa ; in whom the dreamer recognised his Saviour, and was converted. Do men really dream thus? Flammarion and Myers would answer that they do. Abdallah, son of Mas'ud, a client and serf, declared that when feeding the herds of 'Ukbah, son of Mu'ait (afterwards a prominent opponent of Mohammed) in the country, he had been solicited for a bowl of milk by Mohammed and Abu Bakr, who were walking together away from * Surah xi., 27. \Wahidi, 1 1 8. \ Abu Bakr regularly figures as dream interpreter. Wellhauscn KW.) t 14. Islam as a Secret Society 99 men ; and Abdallah was converted by perceiving the goat's udder swell and contract at the Prophet's pleasure.* Othman, son of Maz'un,f a man of ascetic turn of mind, came one day to sit with the Prophet; the Prophet gazed up into heaven, presently looked at a certain spot, went thither, came back, and again gazed up into heaven. Asked the meaning of this performance, he replied that he had been visited by a messenger of God, who told him to preach justice, kindness, chastity, etc.; and Othman believed. Several declared that dissatisfaction with pagan beliefs was what had led them to the Prophet ; and if there was a trace of this feeling in a man, Abu Bakr would not let it escape him. Such a convert may have been Sa'id, son of Zaid Ibn 'Amr; his father had rejected polytheism and idolatry before Mohammed's mission was started, without, however, adopting Judaism or Christianity. Sa'id's conver- sion was early, but he is not reckoned among Abu Bakr's proselytes. Such a convert may also have been 'Abd al-Ka'bah (servant of the Ka'bah), son of 'Auf, re-named 'Abd al-Rahman ; for the Ka'bah was not yet dissociated from paganism.:): This man was a merchant, partner of a certain Rabah, called by his new friends the trustworthy ; he had a rare talent for making money, with which he was free- handed. Years after, when he§ with the other Refugees arrived at Yathrib destitute, he asked for * Musnad, i., 462. 1\Ibid,\., 318. % His original name is doubtful ; others give it as servant of 'Amr %Alif-Bfi,i., 437 ioo Mohammed no further provision than to be shown the market ; once there he could get on, though he had no cap- ital.* He is said to have been a total abstainer be- fore conversion ; to have disapproved of righting in the cause of Islam, yet when the practice had once begun, to have been inferior to none in courage. Such a man might not seem to be promising ma- terial for Abu Bakr; but he was some eight years Abu Bakr's junior, and may have been subject to his influence. Or in his case, too, a lady may have been involved. There was at Meccah a certain Mikdad, who had fled from his own tribe for a murder, and been received by the Kindah ; among them, too, he shed blood, and fled to Meccah, where he was adopted by a man named Al-Aswad, of the tribe of Mohammed's mother. 'Abd al-Ka'bah advised him (in conversation) to marry, yet refused him his daughter, with scorn ; but he found consolation from Mohammed, who gave him the daughter of his uncle, Zubair, already dead, on the same condi- tions (we suspect) as those to which Othman had been compelled to assent. The further steps which led to the winning over of 'Abd al-Ka'bah are un- known. With Mikdad there was won another con- vert, 'Utbah, son of Ghazwan, also a client, and probably poor. Three men who figure among the earliest converts are Al-Zubair, son of 'Awwam; Sa'd, son of Abu Wakkas, and Talhah, son of 'Ubaidallah. The first of these, according to different traditions was eight, ten, or seventeen at this time ; he was a cousin of * Isabah. Islam as a Secret. Society } i ',; : \ : iot the Prophet, son of a corn-chandler, in training to be a butcher, and is said to have experienced rough treatment at home. If his conversion be rightly placed at this time, perhaps he was a playmate of Ali, initiated in the mysteries that he might not reveal them; for, as we have seen, their houses were connected. Talhah was certainly grown up, and professed to have been directed to Mohammed by a monk whom he met when travelling on business to Syria. If any value attaches to this statement, it probably means that he had heard the Arabian paganism ridiculed by followers of the fashionable creed, and though their jibes were without effect on most minds, some were impressed thereby. Later in life he won celebrity by his freehandedness with money.* Sa'd claimed to have been for a whole week the third Moslem, in which case he was actually Abu Bakr's first convert. He was by trade an arrow- maker, and was thought to have shed the first blood in the new cause. He was aged seventeen at the time of his conversion. Every convert when brought to Mohammed ex- hibited some repugnance, except Abu Bakr. This was afterwards acknowledged by the Prophet : but he did not state what it was that the newcomers disliked. Nor have we any record of the procedure at these solemn scenes: at most we hear that the Prophet taught the proselytes to pray. At a later time, however, admission to see the Prophet meant * Ghurar al-KhascCis, 245. IC2: Mohammed that the proselyte was prepared to swear allegiance, and bound himself to abstain from certain immoral acts ; for the commission of which he was to undergo punishment in this life, if he meant to escape punish- ment hereafter*; and besides at a still later period (in the case of men) to fight all nations till they adopted the new religion. We can scarcely doubt that from the first the proselytes undertook some serious obligation, such as those who are admitted to other secret societies undertake ; those obligations are not ordinarily some definite performances in the present but readiness to act when called upon in the future. It would appear that from the first the Prophet instituted brotherhoods between pairs of believers, whose new relationship was to supersede the claims of blood just as the Christianity of the tribes who formed the y Ibad or Christians of Hirah had provided a bond different from that of the tribe. The repugnance observed by the Prophet probably lay in the anxiety which even the young feel in com- mitting themselves to something for life, especially when that something is an unknown quantity, a course of which the issue is obscure. Of the evolution of the Mohammedan ceremony called saldt, the name of which was borrowed from either the Jewish or the Christian name for prayer, we possess little detailed knowledge. In the form afterwards stereotyped the Jewish practice of stand- ing erect, the Christian of prostration,^ and a third * Tabari, i., 1213. \ Rothstein, Lakhmiden, 25. \ Von Kr enter, Streifziige % 15. POSTURES OF PRAYER. Islam as a Secret Society . 103 of inclination (the back horizontal with the hands on the knees) were combined ; and certain formulae were prescribed. " We used at first," said a convert, " not knowing what to say when we prayed, to salute God, Gabriel, and Michael; the Prophet presently taught us another formula instead."* A prayer corre- sponding to the Pater Noster was composed probably at a later time : it contains polemical references to some sect or sects not specified, f As will be seen, the saldt was afterwards employed as a sort of military drill : at the first it was ascetic in character, the de- votee " tying a cord to his chest." % That the division of the day into periods for the purpose of performing saldt five times was an innovation of the late Meccan period is asserted by the tradition ; and the details of the purity legislation appear to have been still later. Yet the theory that God should be approached only by persons in a state of purity was known in South Arabia before Mohammed's time, whence it is probable that his earliest converts were instructed therein ; and indeed the washing of the garments which marked conversion belongs to the same range of ideas. The saldt was during this early period performed in strict privacy, and doubtless meetings of believers were fixed with great caution. Whatever part the * Musnad, i., 423. f "Lead us in the straight path, the path of those unto whom Thou hast been gracious, not those with whom Thou hast been angry [the Jews ?], nor those who go astray [the Christians?]" This is Tirmidhi's explanation. \ Tabari, Comm., xvi., 90. Probably the other end of the cord was attached to the roof; Histoire du Bas-cmpire, xiii., 312. 104 • Mohammed converts had previously taken in the Meccan worship they doubtless continued to take. Whether the sanctity of the Ka'bah was maintained at this time by the Prophet we do not know : more probably it was rejected. And if the question of a direction to be taken in prayer was considered at this time, we can scarcely doubt that the Temple of Jerusalem was the point to which he turned. The connection of the Abraham-myth with the Ka'bah appears to have been the result of later speculation, and to have been fully developed only when a political need for it arose. A fair amount of the Koran must have been in existence when Abu Bakr started his mission ; at least he must have been able to assure the prose- lytes that his Prophet was in receipt of divine com- munications, such as he could allege in proof of his personal acquaintance with the real God ; and it is probable that with the gradual increase in the num- bers of the believers, the Koran transformed itself from the " mediumistic " communications with which it began to the powerful sermons with which its second period is occupied. For a very small audi- ence the processes undergone by the medium are exceedingly effective. The necessity of excluding strangers keeps those present in a state of alarm ; the approach of the " superior condition" shown by the medium collapsing, requiring to be wrapped up, and then revealing himself in a violent state of perspiration, is highly sensational ; the marvellous processes which the spectators have witnessed make them attach extraordinary value to the utterances Islam as a Secret Society 105 which the medium produces, as the result of his trance. If any unbelievers are present the medium (in many cases) cannot act : and the words of the biographers imply that in the case of these early converts they signified their belief before they were brought into Mohammed's presence. As the Prophet more and more identified himself with his part he endeavoured to live up to it. It is said that he habitually wore a veil,* and this prac- tice may have begun at the time of these mys- terious stances, of which it served to enhance the solemnity. In course of time he acquired a be- nign and pastoral manner; when he shook hands he would not withdraw his hand first ; when he looked at a man he would wait for the other to turn away his face.f Scrupulous care was bestowed by him on his person : every night he painted his eyes, and his body was at all times fragrant with perfumes.^ His hair was suffered to grow long till it reached his shoulders ; and when it began to display signs of grey, § these were concealed with dyes. || He pos- sessed the art of speaking a word in season to the neophytes — saying something which gratified the special inclinations of each, or which manifested acquaintance with his antecedents. How many of the stories which illustrate the latter talent are true it is hard to say ; but there is little doubt that he ras acquainted with the devices known to modern *Jahiz s Bayan, ii., 79, 84. f Tirmidhiy 410 (ii., 80). \Alif-Bd, ii., 29. %Musnad, iv., 188. I Ibid., iv., 163. This is disputed. io6 Mohammed mediums by which private information can either be obtained, or the appearance of possessing it dis- played. Moreover, in the early period none were admitted to see the Prophet in character of whom the missionary was not sure, and who had not been prepared to venerate. "The needs of his profession do not appear to have made him actually a student — yet there is no ques- tion that as the Koran grew in bulk, its knowledge of biblical stories became somewhat more accurate : and though this greater degree of accuracy may have at times been due to the Prophet's memory, it is more likely that he took such opportunities as offered of acquiring more information. The follow- ing story gives us an idea of his method. Jabr, a client of the Banu 'Abd al-Dar, was a Jew* who worked as a smith in Meccah. He and Yasar (also a Jew) used to sit together at their trade and in the course of their work read out their sacred book ; the Prophet used to pass by and listen. Presently Jabr was converted by hearing the Prophet read the Surah of Joseph. f It has been suggested that some of the Christian matter in the Koran may have been learned from an early follower named Suhaib, who was a Greek from Mosul.J The tradition names more than one person who was thought by the Meccans to be the Prophet's mentor, and the Koran even refutes this charge by stating that the person to whom they allude had a foreign tongue, and could * Or a Christian ; the Moslems are careless about distinguishing, f Isabah, i., 452 ; Wakidi ( IV.), 349. % Loth in Z. D. M. G., xxxv., 621. Islam as a Secret Society 107 not therefore be the author of an Arabic Koran. Perhaps that reply is unconvincing ; but the impres- sion which the Koran leaves is that of information picked up casually rather than acquired by any sort of methodical study.* In a Surah delivered at Medinah in which the story of Saul should be told, Saul's name is mutilated to Talut, clearly a jingle with Galut,the nearest that the Prophet could get to Goliath : the name of Samuel is forgotten, he is con- fused with Gideon, and the story of Gideon is told wrongly. This phenomenon almost disposes of the theory of a mentor, for no mentor could be so ignor- ant of the Bible. Moreover the sources of the Koran are very numerous — Abyssinian and Syriac, as well as Hebrew and Greek.f So far then as the biblical tales of the Koran were not reproductions of matter heard by Mohammed on his early travels, they are likely to have been all picked up by listening when services or Bible readings were going on. The Jinn were thought by him to listen at the heavenly coun- cils in the same way, and in consequence to pick up intelligence which was only partially correct. That danger there was no way of averting, except engaging a teacher, which would have involved still greater risks. Publicity was expressly discouraged by him. A Syrian ('Amr, son of 'Abasah) who claimed at a later time to have been the fourth Moslem, asserted * Noldeke, Sketches, c. ii. fThe best evidence for this is the form assumed by the proper names. Syt, Die Eigcnnamen im Koran, 1903, does scant justice to this theme. 108 Mohammed that having himself abandoned the worship of idols,* he had come to Mohammed, who, he heard, was in possession of the truth ; he found Mohammed bent on maintaining the secrecy of his mission : he offered to join Mohammed openly, but was forbidden to do so, since he would serve the cause better by return- ing to his country and — we may presume — playing the part of Abu Bakr. Some early revelations are said to have been delivered in a cave, a natural form of hiding-place f; and in the anecdotes that have already been told Mohammed is found in seclusion ; when Abu Dharr, afterwards a famous ascetic, came from a distance to learn about the Prophet's views (according to one account), the latter was hiding in the mountains.^: But one fact that emerges from the obscurity which is spread over the early days of the mission is that Mohammed, after some conversions had been made, went into " the house of Al-Arkam, on Mount Safa." This Al-Arkam was a member of the tribe Makhzum, and must have been about seventeen when the mission started : some made him out to be the seventh, others the tenth convert. His house on Safa appears to have served as a meet- ing-house, where the Prophet could receive neophytes or hold stances without fear of being disturbed. So we are told of two converts, both Greek slaves, Suhaib, son of Sinan, and 'Ammar, son of Yasir, accidentally meeting at the door of Al-Arkam's house, entering to make their profession of faith, and * Musnad y iv., in. f Muslim, ii., 194. \Isabah, iii., 11 73. Islam as a Secret Society 109 then at eventide skulking away.* Many years lapsed before Mohammed was able to reward his faithful entertainer by presenting him with a dwell- ing at Medinah. Even if secrecy had not been desirable, the intense curiosity of Orientals would have seriously interfered with stances held in a thickly populated town. But that curiosity would not induce them to go a short journey outside it, hence Mohammed could hold his meetings in peace. Since at the first conversion did not interfere with a man's business, it is likely that these meetings were at irregular intervals. We should gladly be able to make use of the tables drawn up by Professor Starbuck in analysing the next set of conversions ; but the ages recorded are absolutely irregular, and the phenomena can be brought under no rule. The persons who went to the house of Arkam were of all sorts of ages, the oldest ten years the Prophet's senior, some in middle life, forty-six or thirty-four, several quite young. Several were slaves or freedmen — persons for whom a new system which holds out prospects of equality had an easily intelligible attraction. And indeed their condition speedily bettered itself — for the manumission of believers was soon declared to be a pious duty.f Some belonged to the .metic class, who were without relations in Meccah. Hatib, son of Abu Balta'ah, probably a Christian from Hirah, who will meet us once or twice in the sequel, is a speci- men. Most of them are however to us mere names. * Ibn Sad, iii., 162. f So Abu Bakr bought and manumitted 'Amir Ibn Fuhairah. no Mohammed In a few cases families were converted wholesale, three sons of Jahsh, three sons of Al-Harith (Hatib, Hattab, and Ma'mar), four sons of Al-Bukair, three sons of Maz'un, are enumerated among the acces- sions of this period ; and in several cases the conver- sion of one brother was succeeded by that of another ; so Ali's older brother Ja'far joined the movement, in which he was destined to play a part of some importance, though less distinguished than that of the Prophet's son-in-law. The privilege of re-naming followers was one of which other prophets had availed themselves, and this Mohammed claimed wherever a proselyte was called after an idol, or otherwise had an ill-omened appellation. Special titles of honour were also conferred, but probably at a later time: Abu Bakr was called the Faithful Friend, Zubair, the Apostle, Abu Ubaidah, son of Jarrah, the Faithful, Omar, the Saviour. These were like the decorations conferred by the sovereign in modern times on persons who have either done some public service, or are intrusted with some important charge. The precursors of Mohammed do not enter on the scene at this period, and it is not probable that they were in the secret, supposing more than one of them to have been alive at the time. "Those that are whole need not a physician," and the proud possess- ors of monotheistic book-learning were at no time promising material for proselytism. Moreover these persons (it would appear) had not kept their opinions secret. That conversion could be concealed for any Islam as a Secret Society 1 1 1 length of time is rather surprising, for, even if the positive part of the new system could be per- formed in secrecy, the negative part would speedily give evidence of itself. The worship of the gods was a feature of every-day life. Visits to their abodes for a number of days, accompanied by sacri- fices of sheep and camels, were not uncommon.* Mohammed's partner (or his son) described some of the household rites : " My parents used to churn the milk till it was done, when they would pour some of it into a vessel, and tell me to take it to the gods. Then a dog might come and drink the milk or eat the butter, and afterwards pollute the vessel." This rite was no more and no less ridiculous than any other in which an imaginary person is treated as a human being ; but it can be made out to be ridiculous : and the persons whose eyes had been focussed to the point whence the sacrifice of milk to Al-Lat ap- peared ridiculous would feel the greatest repugnance when called upon to take part in it : the young and thoughtless would burn to play the part of Abraham who broke his father's idols. And indeed Ali as- serted that Abraham's act had been imitated by the Prophet himself. The two went secretly to the Ka'bah to destroy an idol that was on the roof. First Mohammed tried to mount on Ali's shoulders: but Ali was not yet strong enough, and there- fore Mohammed had to support his cousin ; who wrenched the idol from its place, and caused it to crash in pieces on the ground.f Probably this story *Azraki, 81. \ Musnad, i., 84, etc. 1 1 2 Mohamrnea represents rather what they ought to have done than what they actually did. Still we see the need for proselytising only persons in whose self-control con- fidence could be felt. At a later period Mohammed is recorded to have recommended a certain proced- ure to persons who, in order to save their lives, had to go through some of the ceremonies of idolatry : to appear to men to worship while in secret venting some expressions of contempt upon the idol. Those who found the idols unable to resent this behaviour would be only confirmed in their contempt for them. Meanwhile the worship which was to be substituted for the old rites was carried on in strict privacy. To what extent the secret society was conscious of its potentialities we know not. The advantage of the darkness for the first few years of its growth was great. That darkness saved it from being crushed at the outset. Ridicule and contempt could be more easily endured when some hundred persons were involved, than if the Prophet had been com- pelled to endure them by himself. It saved him, too, from the character of the eccentric sage (such as Warakah and the others had borne), investing him from his first public appearance with that of the leader of a party : it gave the Prophet time to secure over a reasonable number of persons that influence which he could exercise to such an extraordinary degree. It prepared him for ruling men on a great scale. Gathered in the house of Al-Arkam there were specimens of most of the classes with whom his further career brought him in contact : there were examples of the religious enthusiast and gloomy Islam as a Secret Society 1 1 3 fanatic — Othman, son of Maz'un, seems to have been of this type ; some of the weak-minded and super- stitious ; many of the persons who find in religion the possibility of a career. The skill of both Abu Bakr and the Prophet was displayed in retaining their hold on this slowly growing company. In the case of the poor it was done by subsidies ; presently, when Islam was penalised, the Prophet found he had whole families on his hands ; but we need not doubt that from the first the wealth which he controlled proved useful. Unlike the Christian missionaries who had to be supported by their converts, he could claim that he sought no reward, and to the end re- fused either to enjoy the Alms himself, or to allow any members of his family to enjoy them. The most successful of the mediums played this card. Home with its aid won his way into the society of princes. Like most of those who have known mankind thoroughly, Mohammed held, and at times all but openly avowed, the doctrine that- every man has his price, and indeed a price to be estimated in camels. But where " temporal relief " was not required, the promise of the Garden worked wonders. The glow- ing descriptions thereof contained in the Koran are still a powerful instrument in the hands of Moslem missionaries. The history of Islam is a record of sacrifices gladly made in order to obtain those gaud- ily painted delights. Its character is not unlike that of some savage Paradises : " there are prettier women in the Land of the Great Spirit than any of your t squaws, and game in much greater abundance," said 1 1 4 Mohammed a Crow to Beckwourth,* urging him to fight. Its name was taken from Jews or Christians, its descrip- tion in part from Ta'if, where the wealthy Meccans had gardens, but various touches were added as occasion required. So soon as Islam became strong, the ordinary rule of the secret society was avowed : whereby whoso joins it once joins it for ever, his life being forfeit if he quits. This rule, which to the present day renders the conversion of a Mohammedan all but an impossibility, is so intimately connected with the nature of secret societies that we should place the beginnings of it very early ; and a suspicion at least of its existence was probably what kept many a proselyte faithful under persecution. Yet the re- ligion which is embraced for sordid motives is often retained for honourable reasons ; and early observers found that among the most sincere believers in Islam were persons who had been lured into it by bribes.f Moreover, to some persons secrecy has an attrac- tion, and some gratification is afforded by leading a double life. Secret societies still exist, meeting where no one suspects their object, sometimes proba- bly for mummeries, sometimes to discuss schemes of far-reaching import. One writer of ability sus- pects that at Mohammed's early meetings some socialistic scheme was discussed, some better divi- sion of wealth between rich and poor. % For this * Autobiography, 161. \ Muslim, ii., 212 ; Musnad, Hi., 175. % So, too, preachers describe fylohammed as sent that he might ob- tain justice for the poor from the rich. Hariri, p. 328. Islam as a Secret Society 1 1 5 there is little evidence. That the harsh things said at these meetings about the worship of idols included condemnation of the representatives of the official worship at Meccah is exceedingly probable ; and the notion that a Prophet ought to be an autocrat probably was developed very early. But if one of the secret society asked another why he belonged to it, he would probably have replied : in order to gain Paradise and escape the Fire. * Men were initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis for some similar reason. Examples are not wanting of converts whose faith received some sudden shock, or who (as unbelievers might say) suddenly woke up to the unreality of the whole system. New sects require some freemasonry by which members may know each other, and perhaps the greeting M Peace upon you " was introduced at this early period, though a visitor to Medinah fifteen years after the commencement of the mission de- clared that it was new.f This greeting was doubt- less usual among Jews and Christians; but it seems to have deeply affected Mohammed, who constantly refers to it in the Koran. God pronounces it over the Prophets, the angels taught it to Abraham, with it the beatified dead are greeted in Para- dise, where indeed it is the whole conversation. By adopting this salutation, Mohammed practically identified his system with that of Jews and *Cf. Tabari, i., 1218, 10. ' f Isabah, iii., 70; but Wellhausen(W., 75) renders this differently. In Muslim, ii., 255, Abu Dharr claims to have invented it. See also Goldziker, Z. DM. G., xlvi., 22. 1 1 6 Mohammed Christians. If this greeting was not at first permitted in public, perhaps the Moslems could recognise each other by some slight peculiarity in their attire; thus the Moslems let the end of the turban hang down the back, whereas the pagans tucked it in. * So at a later time members of the chief sects of Islam could be distinguished by their mode of dis- posing their turbans, f Finally a name had to be given to the new sect, and either accident or choice led to its being called the sect of the Muslims (Moslems) or Hanifs. Were these originally names by which the followers of Maslamah the prophet of the Banu Hani/ah had been known ? Or had some other sect, monotheistic and professedly following Abraham, whose descend- ants according to the Bible some of the Arabs were, been thus designated ? We cannot say ; no Arab seems to have known anything about the Hanifs, except that Abraham was one, and perhaps one or two of the precursors of Mohammed ; and since in Hebrew the word means " hypocrite " and in Syriac "heathen," pious followers of Mohammed did not care to study its etymology. The other name, Mus- lim, meant naturally " traitor," and when the new sect came to be lampooned, it provided the satirists with a witticism ; Mohammed showed some want of humour in adopting it, but displayed great ingenuity in giving it an honourable meaning : whereas it or- * Hariri, Sckoi., 346. f Hamadhani, Makamas, 199. So now Kaisites and Yemenites {Goldziher, M. S., i., 84). There is also incidental evidence that Mohammed at the first wore his hair in the Jewish style, and in such particulars he was likely to be followed by the disciples. Islam as a Secret Society 1 1 7 dinarily signified one who handed over his friends to their enemies, it was glorified into meaning one who handed over his person to God; and though, like Christian, it may conceivably have been first in- vented by enemies of the sect whom it designated, divine authority was presently adduced for the statement that Abraham coined the name. Like the Jews, these new Abrahamites called their pagan brethren the Gentiles, using an Abyssinian word. The pagans appear to have ordinarily called the new sect, when it had ceased to be secret, Sabian, * a word properly meaning Baptist, and belonging to a community still-perpetuated as the Soubbas, whose home is in the marshes of the Euphrates.f The ap- plication of the name to Mohammed's followers may have been due to mere ignorance, as the Arabians of our day called Doughty a Jew, because he was a Christian ; or it may have been due to the promin- ence given by Mohammed to the ceremony of washing. * The passages are collected by Wellhausen y Reste, 236, 237. f Sioujfi, Les Soubbas. CHAPTER IV PUBLICITY WHO first professed the new religion before the world is not certain : a tradition* as- cribes the act to a certain Khabbab, son of the Stammerer, a slave who worked at sword-making and a starveling.f To avow Islam meant to re- nounce publicly the national worship, to ridicule, and, if possible, break down idols, and unabashedly to use the new salutation and celebrate the new- fangled rites. For it must be remembered that Islam was in its nature polemical. Its Allah was not satis- fied with worship, unless similar honour was paid to no other name ; and his worship also was intolerant of idols, and of all rites not instituted or approved by himself. This then was the meaning of the meetings in the house of Al-Arkam, and doubtless of the knowing glances which the members of the new sect had been observed to interchange. Mohammed and Abu Bakr were planning an attack on the national religion, that cult which every Meccan * Isabah ; in Musnad, i. , 404, seven persons are named in this contest, but not Khabbab. \Tirmidhi, i., 181. Publicity 1 1 9 proudly remembered had within their memory been defended by a miracle from the Abyssinian invaders and in their myths had often thus triumphed before. The gods they worshipped were, Mohammed and Abu Bakr asserted, no gods. For their worship these innovators would substitute that of the Jews whose power in South Arabia had recently been overthrown, and of the Christians with whose defeat the national spirit of Arabia had just awakened. Mr. Grote in his treatment of the affair of the Hermocopidae taught men to judge one age by another. Persons who are tolerant of opinions which differ from their own become indignant when their own beliefs are ruthlessly assailed. When the asser- tions of Mohammed were first heard by those who had not been sounded and prepared for them, it was natural that they should appear ridiculous, and wicked, and suicidal. Ridiculous, because the gods were thoroughly familiar figures. " Their part- ners,"* Al-'Uzza and Al-Lat, did not exist? Why, lany a man could state the occasions on which they had done him personally a service, many a child owed its existence to their intervention, and recorded the fact by its name. To many they had appeared in dreams; to some doubtless in waking hours; solicit- ing and bestowing favours. And if the men's attach- ment to their deities was weak at times, that of the women who needed their help more was strong. But what weighed with the men who could think calmly f was the fact that Meccah lived mainly by * Surah vi., 137. f Wellhausen, Reste, 220. 1 20 Mohammed its being a religious centre, and by the pagan institu- tion of the four months of peace. That valuable in- stitution the Christians were known not to observe ; and since Mohammed's followers prayed toward another sanctuary and no longer kissed the Black Stone, * it could be inferred that he wanted to destroy the Ka'bah ; and indeed till a late period in his career there were Moslems who wished for its de- struction.! An early revelation seems intended to reassure the Meccans on this point ; and Mohammed, whose practical sense never deserted him, was care- ful to find a place for the Ka'bah in his system. Some of our authorities introduce the first public preaching of Islam with a theatrical scene. Moham- med goes to the precincts of the Ka'bah and calls on the assembled throng to utter the formula, " There is no God but Allah " ; the blasphemous words cause him to be mobbed ; news of his danger spreads to his family, and one of Khadijah's child- ren, Al-Harith, son of Abu Halah t rushing to defend his stepfather, perished, the first martyr of Islam. J But indeed the transference of the Islamic doctrine from secrecy to publicity must have taken place by some definite act of delivery — if the phrase may be employed. When one member of the community after another was found to be tainted with heresy, and each referred to Mohammed as his guide, Mo- hammed was, we suppose, confronted by some of those in authority, and challenged to declare his *Ibn Sa'