Chapter VII: Part 7

Certain other tales may be accepted without too much over-scrupulous demur. As he lay alternately drawing the bed-clothes over his face and then tossing them off, he would shriek out unconnected sentences: “The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians!... O Lord, let not my tomb be ever an object of worship!... Verily the chiefest among you all for love and devotion to me is Abu Bekr. If I were to choose a bosom friend it would be he; but Islam hath made a closer brotherhood amongst us.... O my soul! Why seekest thou refuge elsewhere than in God alone?... Fetch me hither pen and ink, that I may make for you a writing which shall hinder you from going astray for ever.” On Monday he seemed a little better, but it was only the final flicker of the dying candle. Toward midday, as Ayesha sat holding his head tenderly on her bosom “between her lungs and her neck,” she noticed that his wandering eye had fixed upon a green toothpick; and, after chewing it so that it might be more pliable, she offered it to the dying man who used it for a moment with all his old vigor. But he soon began to sink rapidly, and, as though realizing the imminence of death, he called aloud: “O Lord, I beseech thee assist me in the agonies of death!” Then, while he spasmodically blew breath over his burning body, he thrice repeated, “Gabriel, come close unto me!” It is a regrettable fact that the interesting question of his final utterance must forever remain undecided. One authority declares that he expressed a wish to have concubines treated with consideration; but it is perhaps more appropriate to accept the story that, as consciousness slowly departed, he gently breathed: “Lord, grant me pardon; and join me to the blessed companionship on high. Eternity in Paradise!... Pardon!... The blessed companionship on high!...”--his head fell lower, a cold drop of moisture trickled down upon Ayesha’s breast, and all was over.

Yet no one, not even Ayesha, could believe it for a time. Thinking that he had only fainted, she called aloud for help; and Omar, who immediately came in, looked lovingly upon the familiar and still lifelike features and exclaimed: “The Prophet is not dead; he hath but swooned away.” But Abu Bekr, who was welcomed into the sacred adytum with the feminine salutation, “Come, for this day no permission needeth to be asked,” at once realized the awful truth, which he cautiously made known by stooping and kissing his master’s face, and saying: “Sweet wast thou in life, and sweet thou art in death. Yes, thou _art_ dead! Alas, my friend, my chosen one!” After kissing the face a second time, he covered it with a striped cloth and gently withdrew from the room, while Mohammed’s wives beat their faces, uttered loud and plaintive ululations, “and there arose a wailing of celestial voices.” The corpse was washed and laid out, and, in addition to the garment which he wore at the time of his death, two sheets of costly white linen were wrapped around it. After some discussion, it was decided on the advice of Islam’s new leader, Abu Bekr--“I have heard it from the lips of Mohammed himself,” he announced, “that in whatsoever spot a prophet dieth, there also should he be buried”--that a deep grave should be excavated beneath the apartment of Ayesha. During the night the ominous thud of pickaxes disturbed the troubled dreams of the Prophet’s widows--“I did not believe that Mohammed was really dead,” confessed Um Selama, “till I heard the sound of the pickaxes at the digging of the grave, from the next room”--and next day a constant stream of weeping Moslems filed by to look for the last time upon the beloved face that now resembled a sheet of withered parchment. That evening the body was lowered into the grave, whose bottom had been covered with the Prophet’s precious red mantle; the gaping hole was built over with unbaked bricks, plain earth was then shoveled upon the tomb, and there, in the august simplicity of his domestic abode, Mohammed’s form has ever since remained.

Meanwhile--since all things are possible with Allah--it may surely be conjectured that Gabriel had abundantly granted the Prophet’s dying request, and had borne him, along the familiar route previously traversed in the midnight journey from Jerusalem, for the second and last time into the presence of his Maker. And there--may not one hope?--at the zenith of the Seventh Heaven, in that ravishing Paradise which so closely resembles an infinitely idealized Arabian oasis, he abides even unto this day and will continue to dwell “For ever therein--a fair abode and resting place!”--enjoying the ineffable entertainments that have been prepared for the Moslem saints and martyrs who, triumphant over sin and suffering, have been welcomed to the indepictable felicities of the divine beatitudes; quaffing deep draughts from those inexhaustible “rivers of wine” which the Koran promises to those who have manfully abstained from all earthly elixirs; continually cherished by seventy dark-eyed, deep-bosomed Houris who, as befits inhabitants of the “Garden of Delight,” individually reside within the modest seclusion of enormous hollow pearls; ever and anon chanting, through his black-bearded lips, the ninety-nine beautiful names of Allah, and concluding with the inevitable refrain, “_La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah!_”

Transcriber's Notes

Other than the apparent typographical errors noted below, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained as printed.

1. Page 60: "third party of the Pentateuch" has been changed to "third part of the Pentateuch".

2. Page 85: "the the inscribed name" has been changed to "the inscribed name".

3. Page 131: "crown of martydom" has been changed to "crown of martyrdom".

4. Page 165: "Moses asssuredly would not" has been changed to "Moses assuredly would not".

5. Page 231: An exclamation point has been inserted after "Ruin seize them!".