Mahomet Founder of Islam

ghbour and mistress, became, rather by chance than by design, the scene of Mahomet's struggles for temporal power and his ruthless wielding o

the boundary of several tribes, and was far enough north for the outer waves of Syrian disturbances to fli

m persecution, and forthwith took possession of the little hill-girt town. They settled there, driving out or conciliating the former inhabitants, until in the fourth century their tenuous prosperity was disturbed by the inroads of two Bedouin tribes, the Beni Aus and t

in it. Its religious life indeed was varied and chaotic. Jews, Arabian idolaters, immigrants from Christian Syria, torn by schisms, thronged its public places, and this confusion of faiths sharpened the religious and debating instincts of its peop

Dzul Hijj, 620, came a band of strangers over the hills, along the toilsome caravan route to the Kaaba, the goal of their intentions, the shrine of all their prayers. They performe

seemed to him sent in answer to his self-distrust, and his failure at Taif as eclipsed by this sudden success. The caravan returned to its native city, and there remained little for Mahomet to do except to wait for the arrival of next year's pilgrims, and to keep shining and ambient the flame of his r

ies. It has become reiterative and even laboured. He continues his practice of alluding to current events, which at Medina he was to pursue to the extent of making the Kuran a kind of spasmodic history of his time, as well as an elementary text-book of law and morality. In one of the suras-"The Cow"-Mahomet makes firs

d not speculative, and indeed to himself no less than to his followers the fundamentals of Christianity were of necessity too philosophic to be realised with any intensity of belief. The Christian virtues of meekness and resignation, too, might be respected in the abstract-passages in the Kuran and tradition assure us they were-but they were

wing beard. His eyes were black and ardent, his jaw firm but not prominent. He looked an upstanding man of open countenance, benignant and powerful, bearing between his shoulders the sign of his divine mission. He

erry child, who was to keep her reigning place in his affections until the end of his life. Daughter of Abu Bekr, she united in herself for Mahomet both policy and attractiveness, for by this betrothal he became of blood-kin with Abu Bekr, and thereby strengthe

of a new-comer. Sexual relations held for Mahomet towards the end of his life a peculiar potency, born of his intense energetic nature. He sought the society of woman because of the mental clarity that for him followed any expression of emotion. He was one of those men who must express-the artist, in fact; but an artist who used the

he paid homage to the sword, prime artificer in his career of conquest. But in those confidently intimate traditions handed down to us from his immediate entourage, and especially from Ayesha, we find him alternately passionate and gentle, wearing his power with conscious authority, mild in his treatment of the poor, terrible to his enemies, autocratic, intolerant, with a strange magnetism that bound men to him. The mystery enveloping great men even in their lifetime, amo

to confirm their faith. The momentous time arrived, and Mahomet went almost fearfully to meet the nucleus of his future kingdom in Acaba, a v

their leader. One is irresistibly reminded, in reading of this meeting, of that little outcast band from Judea which ultimately prevailed over C?sar Imperator through its mighty quality of faith. The accredited

we commit adultery nor kill our children; we will not slander in a

time should arrive, and there is no doubt that by now he had formed definite plans to set up his rule in Medina when there should be sufficient supporters there to guarantee his succes

g of time. More than ever he became sure of the guiding hand of Allah, that pointed indisputably to the stranger city as the goal of his strivi

ncreased noticeably during his last two years at Mecca. He paid them the honour of taking Jerusalem as his Kibla, or Holy Place, to which al

raditions crystallized by Al Bokharil, but there i

night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the

s ascendancy during his last years at Mecca, and establishes beyond dispute the inspired character of his Prophetship in the imaginations of the few Believers. There have been sole

east Borak, "greater than ass, smaller than mule," and was told to mount. The Faithful still show the spot at Jerusalem where his steed's hoof marked the ground as he spurned it with flying feet. With Gabriel by his side, mou

u, and who i

me the answer, "an

ply. And all the heavenly hierarchies, even unto the seventh Heaven, John and Jesus, Joseph, Enoch, Aaron, Moses, Abraham, acknowledged Mahomet in the same words, until the two came to "the tree called Sedrat," beyond which no man may pass

, even the Hall of Heavenly Audience, where are seventy thousand angels. He mounted the steps of the throne between their serried ranks, until at the

id Allah, "all thy people would be saved

met was

pray to Me fift

urned and retraced his steps to the

constrained to pray fifty times a day. Retu

er of his people considered was sufficient burden for his feeble subjects to bear. Wherefore the five periods set

events proved favourable. The achievements of the Persians on the Greek frontier had already attracted his attention in 616; there is an allusion to the battle and the Greek defeat in th

followers became less aggressive in Mecca when they knew that the Prophet had the nucleus of a new colony in another city. Persecution within Mecca therefore died down co

to divine anger at the rejection of the Prophet's heavenly message, and which Mahomet interpreted as the puni

s for the trials he knew must come. The Kuran thus became more important as the mouthpiece of his exhortations. The suras of this time resound with words of encouragement and confidence. He is about to become the leader of a perilous venture in honour of God. The reflex of the expectancy in the hearts of the Muslim may be traced in his messages to them. Their whole world, as it were, waited breathless, quiet, and tens