The aim of this little volume is to present all that is most enduring and memorable in the public orations and private sayings of the prophet Mohammad in such a form that the general reader may be tempted to learn a little of what a great man was and of what made him great. At present, it must be allowed that although “Auld Mahound” is a household word, he is very little more than a word. Things are constantly being said, written, and preached about the Arab prophet and the religion he taught, of which an elementary acquaintance with him would show the absurdity. No one would dare to treat the ordinary classics of European literature in this fashion; or, if he did, his exposure would immediately ensue. What I wish to do is to enable any one, at the cost of the least possible exertion, to put himself into a position to judge of popular fallacies about Mohammad and his creed as surely and certainly as he can judge of errors in ordinary education and scholarship. I do not wish to mention the Koran by name more than can be helped, for I have observed that the word has a deterrent effect upon readers who like their literary food light and easy of digestion. It cannot, however, be disguised that a great deal of this book consists of the Koran, and it may therefore be as well to explain away as far as possible the prejudice which the ill-fated name is apt to excite. It is not easy to say for how much of this prejudice the standard English translator is responsible. The patient and meritorious George Sale put the Koran into tangled English and heavy quarto,—people read quartos then and did not call them Éditions de luxe,—his version then appeared in a clumsy octavo, with most undesirable type and paper; finally it has come out in a cheap edition, of which it need only be said that utility rather than taste has been consulted. One can hardly blame any one for refusing to look even at the outsides of these volumes. And the inside,—not the mere outward inside, if I may so say, the type and paper,—but the heart of hearts, the matter itself, is by no means calculated to tempt a reluctant reader. The Koran is there arranged according to the orthodox form, instead of in chronological order,—it must be allowed that the chronological order was not discovered in Sale’s time,—and the result is that impression of chaotic indefiniteness which impressed Carlyle so strongly, and which Carlyle has impressed upon most of the present generation. A large disorderly collection of prophetic rhapsody did not prove inviting, as the state of popular knowledge about Mohammad very clearly shows.

The attitude of the multitude towards Sale’s Koran was on the whole reasonable. But if the faults that were found there are shown to belong to Sale and not to the Koran, or only partly to it, the attitude should change. In the first place, the Koran is not a large book, and in the second, it is by no means so disorderly and anarchic as is commonly supposed. Reckoned by the number of verses, the Koran is only two-thirds of the length of the New Testament, or, if the wearisome stories of the Jewish patriarchs which Mohammad told and retold are omitted, it is no more than the Gospels and Acts. It has been remarked that the Sunday edition of the New York Herald is three times as long. But the real permanent contents of the Koran may be taken at far less even than this estimate. The book is full—I will not say of vain repetitions, for in teaching and preaching repetition is necessary—but of reiterations of certain cardinal articles of faith, and certain standard demonstrations of these articles by the analogy of nature. Like the numerous stories borrowed by Mohammad from the Talmud, which have little but an antiquarian interest, many of these reiterated arguments and illustrations may with advantage be passed over. There is also a considerable portion of the Koran which is devoted to the exposure and confutation of those who, from political, commercial, or religious motives, made it their business to thwart Mohammad in his efforts to reform his people. These personal, one might say party, speeches are valuable only to the biographer and historian of the times. They throw but little light on the character of the man Mohammad himself. They show him, indeed, to be—what we knew him before—a sensitive, irritable man, keenly alive to ridicule and scorn. But for this purpose one instance is sufficient. We do not form our estimate of a great statesman from his moments of irritation, but from those larger utterances which reveal the results of a life’s study of men and government. So with Mohammad, we may abandon the personal and temporary element in the Koran, and base our judgment upon those utterances which stand for all time, and deal not with individuals or classes, but with man as he is, in Arabia or England, or where we will. This position is not taken with the object of saving Mohammad from himself. His attacks upon his opponents will bear comparison with those of other statesmen. They are doubtless couched in more barbaric language than we are accustomed to, and where we insinuate, Mohammad curses outright. But in the face of a treacherous and malignant opposition, the Arabian prophet comported himself with singular self-restraint. He only threatened hell-fire, and people of all denominations are still threatened with that every Sunday, to say nothing of Lent. Leaving out the Jewish stories, needless repetitions, and temporary exhortations or personal vindications, the speeches of Mohammad may be set forth in very moderate compass. One speech—sura, or chapter, as it is generally called—follows another so much to the same effect, that a limited number will be found to contain all the ideas which a minute study of the whole Koran could collect. I believe there is nothing important, either in doctrine or style, which is not contained in the twenty-eight speeches which fill the first hundred and thirty pages of this small volume. If I were a Mohammadan, I think I could accept the present collection as a sufficient representation of what the Koran teaches.

The obscurity of the Koran is largely due to its ordinary arrangement. This consists merely in putting the longest chapters first and the shortest last. The Mohammadans appear to be contented with this curious order, which after all is not more remarkable than that of some other sacred books. German criticism, however, has discovered the method of arranging the Koran in approximately chronological sequence. To explain how this is established would carry me too far, but the results are certain. We can state positively that the chapters of the Koran—or, as I prefer to call them, the speeches of Mohammad—fall into certain definite chronological groups, and if we cannot arrange each individual speech in its precise place, we can at least tell to which group, extending over but few years, it belongs. The effect of this critical arrangement is to throw a perfectly clear light on the development of Mohammad’s teaching, and the changes in his style and method. When the Koran is thus arranged—as it is in Mr. Rodwell’s charming version, which deserves to be better read than it is—the impression of anarchy disappears, and we see only the growth of a remarkable mind, the alternations of weakness and strength in a gifted soul, the inevitable inconsistencies of a great man. I do not believe any one who reads the speeches of Mohammad as I have arranged them in Professor NÖldeke’s chronological order will say that they have no definite aim or coherence. They may be monotonous, and often they are rambling, but their intention and sequence of thought are to me clear as noonday.

It is something more, however, than any supposed length or obscurity that has hitherto scared people from the Koran. The truth is that the atmosphere of our Arabian prophet’s thoughts is so different from what we breathe ourselves, that it needs a certain effort to transplant ourselves into it. That it can be done, and done triumphantly, may be proved by Mr. Browning’s Saul, as Semitic a poem as ever came from the desert itself. We see the whole life and character of the Bedawy in these lines:—

It is not easy to catch the Arab spirit as Mr. Browning has caught it. Arab poetry is a sealed book to most, even among special Orientalists; they construe it, but it does not move them. The cause is to be found in the abrupt transition of thought which is required if we would enter into the spirit of desert song. The Arab stands in direct contrast to ourselves of the north. He is not in the least like an Englishman. His mind travels by entirely different routes from ours, and his body is built up of much more inflammable materials. His free desert air makes him impatient of control in a degree which we can scarcely understand in an organised community. It is difficult now to conceive a nation without cabinets and secretaries of State and policemen, yet to the Arab these things were not only unknown but inconceivable. He lived the free aimless satisfied life of a child. He was supremely content with the exquisite sense of simple existence, and was happy because he lived. Throughout a life that was full of energy, of passion, of strong endeavour after his ideal of desert perfectness, there was yet a restful sense of satisfied enjoyment, a feeling that life was of a surety well worth living. What his ideal was, and how different from any of the ideals of to-day, we know from his own poetry. It was, not in the gentler virtues that he prided himself:—

The ideal warrior, however, is not always so fierce as this, as may be seen in the following lament for a departed hero, where a gentler touch mingles in its warlike manliness:—

The fierceness of the Arab warrior was tempered by those virtues in which more civilised nations are found wanting. If he was swift to strike, the Arab was also prompt to succour, ready to give shelter and protection even to his worst enemy. The hospitality of the Arab is a proverb, but unlike many proverbs it is strictly true. The last milch-camel must be killed rather than the duties of the host neglected. The chief of a clan—not necessarily the richest man in it, but the strongest and wisest—set the example in all Arab virtues, and his tent was so placed in the camp that it was the first the enemy would attack, and also the first that the wayworn traveller would approach. Beacons were lighted hard by to guide wanderers to the hospitable haven, and any man, of whatever condition, who came to the Arab nobleman’s tent and said, “I throw myself on your honour,” was safe from pursuit even at the cost of his host’s life. Honour, like hospitality, meant more than it does now; and the Arab chieftain’s pledge of welcome meant protection, unswerving fidelity, help, and succour. Like his pride of birth, devotion to the clan, courage, and generosity, this hospitable trusty friendship of the Arab belongs no doubt to the barbarous virtues of the old world; but it is just these parts of barbarism which civilisation might profitably emulate.

As a friend and as an enemy there was no ambiguity about the Arab. In both relations he was frank, generous, and fearless. And the same may be said of his love. The Arab of the Days of Ignorance, as Mohammadans style the time before the birth of their prophet, was the forerunner of the best side of mediÆval chivalry, which indeed is forced to own an Arabian origin. The Arab chief was as much a knight-errant in love as he was a chivalrous opponent in fight. The position of the women of Arabia before the coming of Mohammad has often been commiserated. That women were probably held in low esteem in the town-life which formed an important factor in the Arabian polity is probably true; savage virtues are apt to disappear in the civilised society of cities. But poetry is a good test of a nation’s character,—not, perhaps, of a highly civilised nation, for then affectation and the vogue come into play,—but undoubtedly of a partly savage nation, where poets only say what they and their fellow men feel. Arabian poetry is full of a chivalrous reverence for women. Allowing for difference of language and the varieties of human nature, it is much more reverent than a great deal of the poetry of our own country to-day. In the old days, says an ancient writer, the true Arab had but one love, and her he loved till death. The Bedawy or Arab of the desert, though he was not above a certain amount of gallantry of a romantic and exciting order, regarded women as divinities to be worshipped, not as chattels to possess. The poems are full of instances of the courtly respect, “full of state and ancientry,” displayed by the heroes of the desert towards defenceless maidens, and the mere existence of so general an ideal of conduct in the poems is a strong argument for Arab chivalry; for with the Arabs the abyss between the ideal accepted of the mind and the attaining thereof in action was narrower than it is among more advanced nations. We remember the story of Antar, the Bayard of pagan Arabia, who gave his life to guard some helpless women; and recall these verses of Muweylik, which breathe a tender chivalrous regret for an only love:—

If anywhere poetry is a gauge of national character, it was so in Arabia, for nowhere was it more a part of the national life. That line, “to think how his work to-day would live in to-morrow’s tale,” is a true touch. The Arabs were before all things a poetical people. It is not easy to judge of this poetry in translation, even in the fine renderings which I have taken above from Mr. C. J. Lyall, but its effect on the Arabs themselves was unmistakeable. Damiri has a saying, “Wisdom hath alighted on three things, the brain of the Franks, the hands of the Chinese, and the tongue of the Arabs,” and the last is not the least true. They had an annual fair, the AcadÉmie franÇaise of Arabia, where the poets of rival clans recited their masterpieces before immense audiences, and received the summary criticism of the multitude. This fair of Okadh was a literary congress, without formal judges, but with unbounded influence. It was here that the polished heroes of the desert determined points of grammar and prosody; here the seven “Golden Songs” were sung, although (alas for the legend!) they were not afterwards suspended in the Kaaba; and here “a magical language, the language of the Hijaz,” was built out of the dialects of Arabia and made ready to the skilful hand of Mohammad, that he might conquer the world with his Koran.

Hitherto we have been looking at but one side of Arab life. The Bedawis were indeed the bulk of the race and furnished the swords of the Muslim conquests; but there was also a vigorous town-life in Arabia, and the citizens waxed rich with the gains of their trafficking. For through Arabia ran the trade-route between east and west: it was the Arab traders who carried the produce of the Yemen to the markets of Syria; and how ancient was their commerce one may divine from the words of a poet of Judaea, spoken more than a thousand years before the coming of Mohammad—

Ezekiel xxvii. 19-22.

Mekka was the centre of this trading life, the typical Arab city of old times, a stirring little town, with its caravans bringing the silks and woven stuffs of Syria and the far-famed damask, and carrying away the sweet-smelling produce of Arabia, frankincense, cinnamon, sandal-wood, aloe and myrrh, and the dates and leather and metals of the south, and the goods that came to the Yemen from Africa and even India; its assemblies of merchant-princes in the Council Hall near the Kaaba; and again its young poets running over with love and gallantry; its Greek and Persian slave-girls brightening the luxurious banquet with their native songs, when as yet there was no Arab school of music and the monotonous but not unmelodious chant of the camel-driver was the national song of Arabia; and its club, where busy men spent their idle hours in playing chess and draughts, or in gossiping with their acquaintance. It was a little republic of commerce, too much infected with the luxuries and refinements of the states it traded with, yet retaining enough of the free Arab nature to redeem it from the charge of effeminacy. Mekka was a home of music and poetry, and this characteristic lasted into Muslim times. There is a story of a certain stonemason who had a wonderful gift of singing. When he was at work the young men used to come and importune him, and bring him gifts of money and food to induce him to sing. He would then make a stipulation that they should first help him with his work. And forthwith they would strip off their cloaks, and the stones would gather round him rapidly. Then he would mount a rock and sing, whilst the whole hill was coloured red and yellow with the variegated garments of his audience. It was, however, in this town-life that the worst qualities of the Arab came out; it was here that his raging passion for dicing and his thirst for wine were most prominent. In the desert there was no great opportunity for indulging in either luxury, but in a town which often welcomed a caravan bringing goods to the value of twenty thousand pound such excesses were to be looked for. Excited by the songs of the Greek slave-girls, and the fumes of mellow wine, the Mekkan would throw the dice till, like the German of Tacitus, he had staked and lost his own liberty.

But Mekka was more than a centre of trade and of song. It was the focus of the religion of the Arabs. Thither the tribes went up every year to kiss the black stone which had fallen from heaven in the primeval days of Adam, and to make the seven circuits of the Kaaba, naked,—for they would not approach God in the garments in which they had done their sins,—and to perform the other ceremonies of the pilgrimage. The Kaaba, a cubical building in the centre of Mekka, was the most sacred temple in all Arabia, and it gave its sanctity to all the district around. It was built, saith tradition, by Adam from a heavenly model, and then rebuilt from time to time by Seth and Abraham and Ishmael, and less reverend persons, and it contained the sacred things of the land. Here was the black stone, here the great god of red agate, and the three hundred and sixty idols, one for each day of the year, which Mohammad afterwards destroyed in one day. Here was Abraham’s stone, and that other which marked the tomb of Ishmael, and hard by was Zemzem, the God-sent spring which gushed from the sand when the forefather of the Arabs was perishing of thirst.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He lived with his wives in a row of humble cottages, separated from one another by palm-branches, cemented together with mud. He would kindle the fire, sweep the floor, and milk the goats himself. The little food he had was always shared with those who dropped in to partake of it. Indeed, outside the prophet’s house was a bench or gallery, on which were always to be found a number of poor, who lived entirely upon his generosity, and were hence called ‘the people of the bench.’ His ordinary food was dates and water, or barley bread; milk and honey were luxuries of which he was fond, but which he rarely allowed himself. The fare of the desert seemed most congenial to him, even when he was sovereign of Arabia.”

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

Koran, ch. xcvi.

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

Koran, ch. lxxiv.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The high poetic fervour of the first group of Mekka speeches is to some extent lost in the Second, and still more in the Third period, corresponding to the fifth and sixth years, and from thence to the Hijra, respectively, and each comprising twenty-one speeches. The change is partly one of style, partly of matter. The verses and the speeches themselves become longer and more rambling; the resonant oaths by all the wonders of nature are exchanged for the mild asseveration, “By the Koran.” There is more self-assertion and formality, and the special words of God are as it were italicised by the prefixed verb, “Say.” It must be remembered that the speeches of the Koran are all supposed to be the utterances of God in propri personÂ, of whom Mohammad is only the mouthpiece. The apparent vindications and laudations of the prophet himself are explicable from this point of view; and the reader must never forget it when he is perplexed by the “we” (God), and “thou” (Mohammad), and “ye” (the audience), of the Koran. The most important alteration to be observed in the progress of the orations at Mekka is the introduction of numerous stories derived, with considerable corruptions, from the Jewish Haggadah. More than fifteen hundred verses, nearly a quarter of the Kur-an, are occupied with wearisome repetitions of these legends. They are to be seen methodically arranged in Lane’s Selections from the Kur-an, and I need only say that, with the exception of one or two typical examples (like the speech called The Moon, p. 41), and a few digressions in speeches (like The Children of Israel, p. 57) that were too important to be omitted, these tales are excluded from the present collection. Their only real interest is Mohammad’s use of them as evidence of the continuity of revelation. He believed that all preceding prophets were inspired of God, and that they taught the same faith as himself. From Adam to Jesus they all brought their messages to their people, and were rejected. He makes them exhort their people in precisely similar words to those with which he exhorts the Koreysh. There is nothing new in his own doctrine, he says, it is but the teaching of Abraham, of Moses, of Christ, of all the prophets. But it is the last and best, the seal of prophecy, after which no other will be given before the Great Day. It supersedes or confirms all that goes before.

Quite half of the second group of Mekka speeches consists of these Jewish legends. There are not so many in the third, and none in the first. But if the Third does not contain quite so many of these tedious fables, it is even tamer in style. Mohammad seems to be cataloguing the signs of nature mechanically, and he is constantly recurring to the charge of forgery which was often brought against him, or to the demand for miracles, which he always frankly admitted he could not gratify. I am only a warner, he said; I cannot show you a sign—a miracle—except what ye see every day and night. Signs are with God: He who could make the heavens could easily show you a sign if He pleased; beware, lest one day ye see a sign indeed, and taste in hell that which ye called a lie! That the old eloquence, in spite of repetition and wearing trouble, was not dead, may be seen from the speech called Thunder (p. 104), where the nature painting is as fine as anywhere in the Koran.

The first great division of Mohammad’s speeches, then, is oratorical rather than dogmatic. He has a great dogma, indeed, and uses every resource to recommend it. But there is little detail in these ninety Mekka speeches. Hardly any definite laws or precepts are to be found in them, and most of these in the speech entitled The Children of Israel (p. 57). Certain general rules of prayer are given, hospitality and thrift are commended in a breath, “Let not thy hand be chained to thy neck, nor yet stretch it out right open;” infanticide, inchastity, homicide (save in blood-revenge), the robbing of orphans, a false balance, usury, a broken covenant, and a proud stomach, are denounced; certain foods are prohibited; and the whole duty of man is thus briefly summed up:—“Say: I am only a man like you: I am inspired that your God is but One God. Then let him who hopeth to meet his Lord do righteousness, and join no (idol) in his worship of God.”

There is little here of a complicated ritual or a metaphysical theology. Thus far the social and religious laws which we associate with Islam are not found in the Mohammadan Bible. We hear only the voice crying in the wilderness, “Hear ye, people! The Lord your God is one Lord.”

Mohammad’s position at Medina was totally different from that he occupied at Mekka. Instead of a struggling reformer, despised and ridiculed by almost every man he met, he was a king, ruling a large city with despotic power, and needing every resource of statecraft to maintain order among its contentious elements. There was a large party, known in the Koran as the “Disaffected” or “Hypocrites,” who found it politic to profess Islam, but were ready to avail themselves of any propitious occasion to overturn or injure it. Still more important were the Jewish Arab tribes settled at Medina, who at first hoped to find a tool to their hands in the new prophet, who seemed to teach something very like Judaism; but who, when they found him unmanageable, straightway turned upon him with double malignity, and exerted themselves in all treacherous ways to countermine his authority and help his enemies within and without the city. Mohammad has been blamed for the severity with which he suppressed the rebellious parties in his state, and the sentences of exile and death passed upon the Jews have been regarded as proofs of a vindictive nature. An impartial study of the facts of the case, however, shows plainly that strong measures were needed for the preservation of the Muslim religion and polity; and the vigorous blows struck by Mohammad at rebellion in the beginning probably saved bloodshed afterwards. Whilst the prophet’s supremacy was being established and maintained among the mixed population of Medina, a vigorous warfare was carried on outside with his old persecutors, the Koreysh. On the history of this war, consisting as it did mainly of small raids and attacks upon caravans, I need not dwell. Its leading features were the two battles of Bedr and Ohud, in the first of which three hundred Muslims, though outnumbered at the odds of three to one, were completely victorious (a.d. 624, a.h. 2); whilst at Ohud, being outnumbered in the like proportion, and deserted by the “Disaffected” party, they were almost as decisively defeated (a.h. 3). Two years later the Koreysh gathered together their allies, advanced upon Medina, and besieged it for fifteen days; but the foresight of Mohammad in digging a trench, and the enthusiasm of the Muslims in defending it, resisted all assaults, and the coming of the heavy storms for which the climate of Medina is noted drove the enemy back to Mekka. The next year (a.h. 6) a ten years’ truce (see The Victory, p. 124, and notes) was concluded with the Koreysh, in pursuance of which a strange scene took place in the following spring. It was agreed that Mohammad and his people should perform the Lesser Pilgrimage, and that the Koreysh should for that purpose vacate Mekka for three days. Accordingly in March 629, about two thousand Muslims, with Mohammad at their head on his famous camel, El-Kaswa,—the camel on which he had fled from Mekka,—trooped down the valley and performed the rites which every Muslim to this day observes.

“It was surely a strange sight which at this time presented itself in the vale of Mekka, a sight unique in the history of the world. The ancient city is for three days evacuated by all its inhabitants, high and low, every house deserted; and as they retire, the exiled converts, many years banished from their birthplace, approach in a great body, accompanied by their allies, revisit the empty homes of their childhood, and within the short allotted space fulfil the rites of pilgrimage. The ousted inhabitants, climbing the heights around, take refuge under tents or other shelter among the hills and glens; and clustering on the overhanging peak of Abu-Kubeys, thence watch the movements of the visitors beneath them, as with the Prophet at their head they make the circuit of the Kaaba and the rapid procession between Es-Safa and Marwah; and anxiously scan every figure if perchance they may recognise among the worshippers some long lost friend or relative. It was a scene rendered possible only by the throes which gave birth to Islam.” When the three days were over, Mohammad and his party peaceably returned to Medina, and the Mekkans re-entered their homes. But this pilgrimage, and the self-restraint of the Muslims therein, advanced the cause of Islam among its enemies. Converts increased daily, and some leading men of the Koreysh went over to Mohammad. The clans around were sending-in deputations of homage. But the final keystone was set in the 8th year of the flight (a.d. 630), when a body of Koreysh broke the truce by attacking an ally of the Muslims, and Mohammad forthwith marched upon Mekka with ten thousand men, and the city, despairing of defence, surrendered. The day of Mohammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the Koreysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn in which they had afflicted him, and gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mekka. Four criminals whom justice condemned made up Mohammad’s proscription list when he entered as a conqueror to the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered quietly and peaceably; no house was robbed, no women insulted. One thing alone suffered destruction. Going to the Kaaba, Mohammad stood before each of the three hundred and sixty idols, and pointed to it with his staff, saying, “Truth is come, and falsehood is fled away!” and at these words his attendants hewed them down, and all the idols and household gods of Mekka and round about were destroyed.

It was thus that Mohammad entered again his native city. Through all the annals of conquest there is no triumphant entry comparable to this one.

The taking of Mekka was soon followed by the adhesion of all Arabia. Every reader knows the story of the spread of Islam. The tribes of every part of the peninsula sent embassies to do homage to the prophet. Arabia was not enough: Mohammad had written in his bold uncompromising way to the great kings of the East—to the Persian Chosroes and the Greek Emperor; and these little knew how soon his invitation to the faith would be[Pg xlviii] repeated, and how quickly Islam would be knocking at their doors with no faltering hand.

The prophet’s career was near its end. In the tenth year of the flight, twenty-three years after he had first felt the spirit move him to preach to his people, he resolved once more to leave his adopted city and go to Mekka to perform a farewell pilgrimage. And when the rites were done in the valley of Mina, the prophet spake unto the multitude—the forty thousand pilgrims—with solemn last words:

Ye people, hearken to my words: for I know not whether after this year I shall ever be amongst you here again.

Your lives and your property are sacred and inviolable amongst one another until the end of time.

The Lord hath ordained to every man the share of his inheritance; a testament is not lawful to the prejudice of heirs.

The child belongeth to the parent, and the violater of wedlock shall be stoned.

Ye people, ye have rights demandable of your wives, and they have rights demandable of you. Treat your women well.

And your slaves, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of the Lord and are not to be tormented.

Ye people! hearken unto my speech and comprehend it. Know that every Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim. All of you are on the same equality: ye are one brotherhood.

Then looking up to heaven he cried, “O Lord, I have delivered my message and fulfilled my mission.” And all the multitude answered, “Yea, verily hast thou!”—“O Lord, I beseech thee, bear Thou witness to it!” and, like Moses, he lifted up his hands and blessed the people. Three months more and Mohammad was dead,—a.h. 11, a.d. 632.

And when it was noised abroad that the prophet was dead, Omar, the fiery-hearted, the Simon Peter of Islam, rushed among the people and fiercely told them they lied; it could not be true. And Abu-Bekr came and said, “Ye people! he that hath worshipped Mohammad, let him know that Mohammad is dead; but he that hath worshipped God, that the Lord liveth and doth not die.”

The altered circumstances of Mohammad’s life at Medina produced a corresponding change in his speeches. They are now not so much exhortations to unbelievers as directions and encouragements to the faithful; and instead of being one complete oration, as most of the early speeches are, they are a collection of isolated “rulings” on various points of conduct. The prophet’s house at Medina became a court of appeal for the whole body of Muslims. They came to him with all their difficulties,—domestic, social, political, religious,—and asked for direction. Then Mohammad said in few words what he thought right and just; and these decisions have been treated as laws binding upon the Mohammadan world for all time. It is fortunate that Mohammad was a man of sound common sense, or the law of Islam would be a preposterous medley. As it is, it seems clear that the prophet never wished to lay down a code of law, and, instead of volunteering rules of conduct and ritual, used to wait to have them extorted from him by questioning. “God wishes to make things easy for you,” he says, “for man was created weak.” He seems to have distrusted himself as a lawgiver, for there is a tradition which relates a speech of his in which he cautions the people against taking his decision on worldly affairs as infallible. When he speaks of the things of God he is to be obeyed; but when he deals with human affairs he is only a man like those about him. He was contented to leave the ordinary Arab customs in force except when they were manifestly unjust. The truth is that, as in the Mekka speeches so in those of Medina, the legal and dogmatic element is curiously small. The greater part of those long chapters uttered in fragments at Medina, and then pieced together haphazard by the prophet’s amanuenses, consists of diatribes against the Jews and hypocrites, reflections on the conduct of the allies in battle, encouragement after defeat, exhortations as to the future, besides a great deal of personal matter—regulations of the prophet’s harem, vindications of his own or his wives’ conduct,—and similar things of a temporary and local interest. Though the style is monotonous and longwinded, like the third Mekka period, there are still flashes of the old eloquence, though perhaps it is less spontaneous than of old, such as we hear in the chapter of Light—

xxiv. 35-43.

The actual legal residue in the Medina chapters is singularly small. Chapters ii., iv., and v., contain nearly all the law of the Koran; but it must be allowed they are very long chapters, and form nearly a tenth part of it. Their practical import,—the definite ruling of Mohammad on dogmatic, ritual, civil, and criminal matters,—is collected in pp. 133-144, and need not be repeated here. The conclusion, however, is worth pointing clearly. The Koran does not contain, even in outline, the elaborate ritual and complicated law which now passes under the name of Islam. It contains merely those decisions which happened to be called for at Medina. Mohammad himself knew that it did not provide for every emergency, and recommended a principle of analogical deduction to guide his followers when they were in doubt. This analogical deduction has been the ruin of Islam. Commentators and jurists have set their nimble wits to work to extract from the Koran legal decisions which an ordinary mind could never discover there; and the whole structure of modern Mohammadanism has been built upon this foundation of sand. The Koran is not responsible for it.

There is, however, another source of information about Mohammad’s teaching and practice which is largely responsible for the present form of the once simple creed of Mekka. Besides the public speeches which were held to be directly inspired by God, and indeed copied from a book supposed to exist in the handwriting of God,—the chapters of the Koran,—there were many sayings of Mohammad which were said in a private unofficial way in his circle of intimate friends, and which were almost as carefully treasured up as the others. These are the Traditions, or as I may call them, the Table-Talk of Mohammad, for they correspond more nearly to what we mean by table-talk than any other form of composition. The Table-Talk of Mohammad deals with the most minute and delicate circumstances of life, and is much more serviceable to the lawyer than the Koran itself. The sayings are very numerous and very detailed; but how far they are genuine it is not easy to determine. The Koran is known beyond any doubt to be at this moment, in all practical respects, identical with the prophet’s words as collected immediately after his death. How it was edited and collected may be read elsewhere. The only point to be here insisted on is that its genuineness is above suspicion. Unfortunately, as much cannot be said for the Traditions. They were collected at a late period, subjected to a totally useless and preposterous criticism, and thus reduced from 600,000 to 7275, without becoming in the least more trustworthy in the process. It is almost impossible now to sift them with any certainty. All we can go upon is internal evidence, and a few obvious contradictions in date—as when people relate things which they apparently heard before they were born. Beyond this, criticism is helpless, and all we can do is what I have done here—to collect those which strike the attention and do not seem peculiarly improbable, and accept them provisionally as possibly correct reports of Mohammad’s table-talk. There are six standard collections of orthodox traditions, but those on pp. 147-182 are taken from an abridgment, the Mishkat-el-Masabih, which Captain A. N. Matthews had the patience to translate and publish at Calcutta in 1809. In the midst of such doubt, they are sufficient for the purpose of illustration, without any pretence of completeness or critical precision.

In conclusion, let us banish from our minds any conception of the Koran as a code of law, or a systematic exposition of a creed. It is neither of these. Let us only think of a simple enthusiast confronted with many and varied difficulties, and trying to meet them as best he could by the inward light that guided him. The guidance was not perfect, we know, and there is much that is blameworthy in Mohammad; but whatever we believe of him, let it be granted that his errors were not the result of premeditated imposition, but were the mistakes of an ignorant, impressible, superstitious, but nevertheless noble and great man.

March 1882.