Chapter IV: Christendom and Islam (1)

We are now come to the greatest of contrasts and oppositions in human history—to the Church of Christ, the foundress of nations, and to Islam, her counterfeit and opponent; to the law which went forth from Jerusalem and struck its perpetual root in Rome, and to the force which went forth from Mecca, tarried for a while in Damascus and Bagdad, and then encamped in the city of Constantine. Two reigns which never have ceased and never can cease to counterwork each other, the reign of the Word and the reign of the Sword.

In the twenty-eight years which run from A.D. 632 to 661 of the four chalifs, Abu Bekr, Omar, Osman, and Ali, the sword has severed from the throne of Constantine its fairest provinces, and conquered besides a territory, the whole mass of which exceeded the Roman empire at its greatest extension. The sword of Mohammed’s successors in doing this has inflicted deadly wounds on the Christian patriarchates and dioceses subjected to the new dominion. It has also reduced the unsubdued portion of the eastern empire to tremble for its future existence: it has made the whole West, already in possession of the Teuton family of races, gather itself together, and prepare for a death struggle with the advancing enemy.

It is necessary to consider in his personal life the man who gives name to this immense movement, who raised the banner which flouted the Cross and wrote upon that banner the symbol of human enjoyment against that of divine abasement. The facts of his life which I wish to note are especially those which are reproduced in his religion. They pass beyond the sphere of the individual because they reappear incessantly in the history of twelve hundred and fifty years, and affect nations of the south and east which dwell from the Atlantic Ocean to the extremities of China.

Mohammed(85) was born in April, 571, in the city of Mecca, of a family possessing spiritual rank in that home of ancient pilgrimages for the Arabian tribes. But the branch to which he belonged was poor. His father, Abdallah, died about the time of his birth. His mother, Aminah, born in Medina, was so poor that she could scarcely support a nurse for him. His mother died when he was six years old. His grandfather then took care of him, but died also after two years. From that time his uncle, Abu Talib, provided for him, but was so poor likewise that the orphan child was presently reduced to tend sheep, whereas the rich class at Mecca was largely engaged in traffic with their caravans, which visited Abyssinia, Southern Arabia, Syria, Egypt, and Persia. Mohammed is said in his youth to have twice visited Syria, probably as a camel driver. But it is said with greater certainty that at twenty-five he entered the service of a rich widow, Chadidja, and journeyed for her in South Arabia. He afterwards married her, and then for the first time became sufficiently rich to turn the thoughts which slumbered within him to higher subjects than procuring his daily bread.

His marriage with Chadidja lasted till he was fifty years of age, when he lost her and at the same time his uncle Abu Talib. During the whole period of his marriage with Chadidja, who was much older than himself, he lived in close union with her—what seems to have been, at least in regard to this relationship—a virtuous and religious life. Mohammed’s education had been much neglected. His country at the time was in a most uncivilised condition, destitute of science, arts, and letters. Bardship alone was in repute, and for this Mohammed had no gift, though he had a great gift of oratory. The art of writing was little diffused; it is doubtful whether Mohammed even in his later years possessed it. He was acquainted with Jewish and Christian doctrines only by oral information. The great authority of St. John of Damascus says that he lighted upon the Old and New Testaments by conferences with an Arian monk, and thus drew up his own religion. He was about forty years of age when he began to carry out a design to restore what he thought the religion of Abraham, and to destroy the idolatry into which his countrymen had fallen. He met with small success and much opposition in this attempt until in the eleventh year of the mission which he claimed as prophet, and the fifty-first of his life, a most marked change in his personal conduct and in the conditions of his life took place.

The chief men at Mecca had generally refused to receive him as a prophet and to accept the reformation of religion which he proposed to them. In his first years he had confined his revelations to his nearest relations and friends. He had gained Abu Bekr and his young cousin Ali, an uncle Hamza, named for his valour “the Lion of God,” and above all, Omar, at first his opponent, but when converted the most energetic character among all the companions of the prophet, and the strongest support of Islam. On the whole, however, things had gone so far against him that he retired secretly, together with Abu Bekr, from Mecca to Medina. This event, termed The Flight, took place in September, 622, from which year his followers count their time. It may be taken as indeed the time in which his full character as prophet came forth to light. Henceforth he appeared rather as the preacher of a new religion than as the restorer of what he called the religion of Abraham.

The most important principle laid down by him from the time of his migration from Mecca to Medina was that he then first permitted in the name of God war against unbelievers. He afterwards made this a holy duty. It was considered the first of virtues to fight the enemies of Islam. To those who fell in such a battle he promised the highest joys of paradise; to those who rejected him he threatened a shameful death by the disposition of God.(86)

Upon his first settlement in Medina, which afterwards changed its original name of Jathripp into this new name, signifying the city, he built a mosque and arranged worship, in which a short prayer was offered five times a day. He sought at first to gain over the Jews residing there, and marked Jerusalem as the _Kiblah_, that is, the point to which the face should be turned in prayer, and the tenth day of the first month as a fast day, and allowed Jewish converts to keep the Sabbath.(87) But when he found that the Jews would receive a Messias only of the race of David he became their bitterest enemy. Later he appointed Mecca instead of Jerusalem as the Kiblah, the month Ramadhan as fasting time, and Friday as the day of rest.

His first campaigns, when he could scarcely bring a few hundred men into the field, for the inhabitants of Medina had not yet joined him, but had only granted him protection, were but predatory attacks on the caravans of Mecca, which came near Medina. But when the Meccans grew prudent, and either defended their caravans with a strong escort, or sent them round by bye-paths to Syria, Mohammed planned a plundering attack in one of the holy months, when every Arab deemed himself secure. This is the beginning of a number of actions which, though he was not endued with a delicate moral sense, he must have known to be bad, and only ordered, or at least approved, for the sake of the end aimed at, chastisement of the heathen, and breaking in upon their commerce. What Mohammed did was to call his follower Abdallah, to give him a sealed packet, and instruct him to go to South Arabia with twelve companions. He was not to open the packet before the third day, and then fulfil the order it contained. Abdallah obeyed, broke the seal on the third day, and found only the words: Go with thy companions to the valley of Nachlah (south-east of Mecca), and there wait for the caravans of Mecca. Words which Abdallah interpreted to mean that he should fall upon these caravans. This he accomplished without difficulty. Two men were taken prisoners, one killed, and the whole lading carried as plunder to Medina. Mohammed had plainly used this short and sealed packet to cut off all explanation with Abdallah respecting an act of rapine in the sacred months, so as to be able to put away the responsibility from himself, as might be needed. Even the Moslim at Medina had but one cry of reprobation over this desecration of the sacred months. Mohammed at first disavowed Abdallah as having gone beyond his command, for he had not told him to attack the caravans in the sacred months. But when he found himself considered no less the author of this deed, and as he did not mean for the future to secure to Mecca four tranquil mouths for its commerce, Koran verses were published in which war against unbelievers was excused at every time, because they committed the much greater sin of driving the prophet out of his country.(88)

The attempt to exculpate Mohammed from the guilt of the blood murderously shed in falling upon this caravan is made the more difficult because his biographers speak of many other murders ordered by him even in the case of women, and extol him for such things. It may be noted that in the last time before his flight he was no longer true and sincere. Thus he recorded the whole history of the Old and New Testament prophets, adorned with many Jewish and Christian legends, which he maintained, as was his wont, to have been revealed to him by the angel Gabriel. This did not impose upon the inhabitants of Mecca, who were right in ascribing his knowledge of these things to intercourse with foreign informants less illiterate than himself.

The first proper fight between Mohammed and the Meccans took place in the second year of the Hegira at Bedr, a station between Medina and Mecca. Mohammed had gone out with somewhat more than 300 men to surprise and plunder certain rich caravans on their return from Syria. Abu Sofian, the head of the Omeiad line, led these caravans, and had notice of Mohammed’s purpose. He sent an express to Mecca inviting his townsmen to despatch an armed escort to defend their property. Before these, 900 strong, arrived, Abu Sofian, knowing that Mohammed lay in wait for him at Bedr, succeeded in passing round this place by directing his caravans in security along the coast road. When news that their goods were safe reached the Meccan camp, a portion of the escort, which had taken arms only through fear of losing their property, wished to return. The rest, bitter enemies of Mohammed, and also fighting men, preferred to advance upon Bedr. This was resolved upon, but many in the force persisted in returning to Mecca. The same hesitation prevailed in the prophet’s camp: which had come out intending to plunder, not for a fight with an enemy still continuing to be in number. But yet greater was the fear of showing cowardice, and so striking the new faith with the hardest blow. So they came to a bloody conflict, in which the disciplined Medinese prevailed over the Meccans whom their commercial habits had partly enfeebled. They carried off rich plunder. Mohammed did not himself fight: he was praying in a hut until he sank exhausted, and when he recovered consciousness, announced a victory to his friends obtained by the aid of celestial warriors. This first deed of arms laid the basis for a rapid increase of Mohammedanism. It gave the poor community spoil in arms, in horses, and in camels, and in no little ransom for the prisoners taken. It strengthened their confidence, increased their following, and encouraged them to further enterprise. The Jewish tribe Keinuka was their first prey. It was compelled to unconditional surrender, and would probably have been entirely massacred if a free retreat had not been obtained for it by Abd Allah, the head of an Arabian clan dwelling in Medina, with whom these Jews had been in former alliance. But all their goods went to the Moslem. At this time occur many slayings of particularly hated or dangerous enemies of Islam. So Mohammed inflicted a great terror which reduced to silence individual opponents, and carried waverers into the bosom of Islam, which promised them security.

But, in the meantime, the Meccans were not idle. Both interest and honour required them to avenge the defeat at Bedr. Abu Sofian, in the year 625, the third of the Hegira, appeared at the head of 3000 men, and occupied a camp to the east of Medina. Mohammed wished to confine himself to the defence of the city, but his more fanatic followers denounced this conduct as cowardice, and he was compelled to march out with about a thousand men, of whom nearly a third were commanded by Abd Allah: This man, a secret enemy of Mohammed, returned back into the city. The Moslim, however, in spite of their small number, fought with effect at Mount Ohod, north of Medina, until the bowmen, who were ranged against the enemy’s horsemen, deserted their post, and the impetuous Chalid fell upon their retreat. A panic seized the believers, so that they sought safety in flight. Mohammed himself was wounded, and sank to the ground, so that a report of his death was spread, which added to the discomfiture of his host. But a faithful henchman recognised him by the eyes alone, in spite of mail-coat, helmet, and visor, and brought him to safety, while the Meccans, believing his death, cared not to pursue the other fugitives, and were retiring. Only after the battle was ended, Abu Sofian learnt that he was still alive. Mohammed, the day after the battle, in which he lost 70 men, pursued the enemy for some distance, only to show that he was not discouraged. The defeat at Ohod lessened Mohammed’s reputation as much as the victory at Bedr had raised it. The only considerable gain which Mohammed, in the fourth year of the Hegira, could offer to his believers to make up for the losses suffered, was the expulsion of the Jews of the clan Nadir, who had lands and many strong castles near Medina. They surrendered these, and as there had been no battle, Mohammed confiscated their property, and bestowed it on his party of fugitives from Mecca. At the end of this year he appeared near Bedr with a larger force, to show that he was not afraid to defy Abu Sofian, who had threatened a fresh attack after the battle at Ohod. But the Meccans were not ready, and, moreover, would not fight on a bad year. Towards the end of the fifth year, in 627, they appeared again under Abu Sofian, about ten thousand strong, with their allies, out of various Bedouin clans before Medina. The Medinese could hardly set 3000 men against them, and were, in general, down-hearted, fearing an attack besides from the Jewish clan, Kureiza. This time Mohammed maintained his plan not to meet the enemy in the open field, but only to defend the town. By the advice of a Persian he drew a broad trench about it. Slight as this defence was, it sufficed, in the Arab ignorance of the art of siege, to keep the enemy from an attack in force. Bad weather ensued, and Mohammed succeeded in sowing distrust of each other among the confederates, so that they retired after doing nothing. But, though the siege of Medina had cost Mohammed little material loss, his reputation as warrior and as prophet had suffered greatly, as at Ohod. Instead of following the Arabian custom, to offer battle, he had cowered behind walls and trenches. Again he turned first against the Jews, who had entered into negotiations with the Meccans. After a few weeks, he compelled them to surrender. These were of the clan Kureiza, formerly confederates with the second large Arabian clan domiciled in Medina. They hoped, through the mediation of this clan, to get as good conditions as the clan Keinuka had obtained through Abd Allah. But the head of this clan had been wounded during the siege of the city, and when Mohammed appealed to his judgment, he condemned to death the men whose number ran from 600 to 900, and their wives and children to slavery. Mohammed had this hard sentence executed immediately in the marketplace of Medina. This expedition was followed by others against hostile Bedouin clans. Thus the bad impression left by the siege was gradually effaced. So at the end of the sixth year of the Hegira, 628, Mohammed was able to resolve, at the head of his friends, as well believers as heathen Arabs in alliance with him, on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He issued a solemn invitation to join this pilgrimage. It met with small acceptance. He had issued it in the name of God, and so was obliged to carry it out, though it was attended by an inconsiderable number, as to which the accounts vary between 700 and 1400 men. He had to trust to the Arab reluctance to shed blood in the sacred months, though he had himself violated one sacred month by murder and robbery. Finding the Meccans resolute to forbid him entrance into their city, he had to halt on the border of the holy territory. After long treating, agreement was made that he should retire for that year, but should be allowed in the following year to pass three days in Mecca on pilgrimage. The Meccans, for the sake of their commerce, were as anxious for peace as Mohammed, and so a truce for ten years was struck, which yet had this favourable condition for them, that, while their fugitives were to be given up, those of Mohammed might be secure in Mecca.

This repulse of the prophet and his companions from the holy city and its temple was deeply felt, yet there were advantages obtained by this seemingly dishonouring truce. Mohammed appeared at least to be recognised by the proud city as an equal power. Now he might send out his missionaries into every part of Arabia, make proselytes and conclude alliances, and the right to enter Mecca the next year with those who believed in him was something gained which perceptibly advanced his claim among the Arabians. To increase his strength, enrich his followers, and so enlarge their numbers and efface by a new victory the bad impression which the failure of the pilgrimage had caused, he attacked the Jews of Cheiber, who had lands and several castles four or five days’ journey north-east of Medina. These were successively stormed and sacked, and all that the rest could do was to surrender to the conqueror on condition that they should serve him for the future as tenants who should give him half the produce of the land. So by the conquest of other Jews he was able to increase the number of his troops.

In the year 628-629 which passed between the failure of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and the subsequent pilgrimage carried out according to the treaty, several attacks on the Bedouins took place. The number of his believers and allies increased, and the thought was more and more developed in Mohammed that Islam must by degrees be accepted as the only true religion not only by all Arabians but by all the nations of the earth. Even before he had obtained possession of Mecca he sent messengers to the neighbouring princes of Persia, Byzantium, and Abyssinia, as well as to the Christian governor of Egypt, and to several Arabian chiefs subject to Byzantine or Persian sovereignty, inviting them to be converted to his faith. These embassies had no result, and were rejected with more or less harshness. Only the Greek governor of Egypt gave them a friendly reception, and without being converted to Islam sent the prophet costly presents, among them two slave women, of whom one, Mariam, so greatly charmed Mohammed that for her company he neglected his wives.

For the man who had been faithful to his old wife Chadidja until her death, when he was past fifty years of age, had from the time that he came forward, not merely as the restorer of a primitive religion which had suffered corruptions, but as the herald of a new religion, say from the date of the Hegira itself, espoused about a dozen wives,(89) some for love and some for policy, to make alliance with families of repute. Among these was Aischa, daughter of Abu Bekr, whom he took when scarcely out of her childhood, a daughter of Omar, and a sister of Abd Allah, who had been disgraced by the violation of a sacred month. The Koran limits the number of lawful wives to four, but Mohammed himself was to be an exception. At the time polygamy in Arabia had no restriction, and as public opinion was not shocked, his wives had to submit. But when Mariam, the Abyssinian slave, assumed the position of a dangerous rival, they complained to their families, and showed their contempt to the faithless husband. He promised to quit the favoured slave, but he dwelt with her for a month apart from his wives and then produced verses of the Koran, dispensing him from his promise respecting Mariam, and threatening his wives that if they continued in their disobedience he would take instead of them more submissive wives and virgins.

But a more important incident in the domestic life of Mohammed was to occur, which showed how entirely he was led away by sensual passion.(90) He had fallen in love with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, formerly his slave, then his adopted son, and one of the most attached among his followers. Zeid perceived this and was willing to cede her to the man who was not only his prophet but his benefactor. The prophet took her, and added her to the number of his wives. But the Arabians, though they practised unlimited polygamy, did not allow to marry the wife of an adopted son, whom they considered in the light of a real son. Mohammed felt the scandal, and produced a passage from the Koran. In it he declared in the name of God the custom hitherto entertained of treating adopted children as really children to be foolish, and for the future even sinful. Then he spread the belief that Zeid’s divorce from his wife had taken place against his own advice; he makes God remind him in a following verse how notwithstanding his own love for her he had counselled Zeid to keep her; and how even after the divorce, he had shrunk, through fear of men, from espousing her until God had expressly commanded it,(91) and this for two reasons, first, to shew that he who acts after the will of God should not heed the tattle of men; and secondly to give by his own example the more force to the newly-enacted law in regard of adopted sons; a law, he added, which earlier prophets, whom he takes care not to name, had promulgated.

But this marriage(92) also led to further revelations in the Koran, which entirely severed the wives of Mohammed from the male world: and also separated the other believing women by a thick veil from the eyes of strangers. Mohammed’s jealousy stretched even beyond the grave, and he forbade second marriage to his wives even after his death. The object was to restrict them from all life in public to their own homes, and even there, to intercourse with their own sex, or only their nearest male relations. In spite of their polygamy, the wife had hitherto among the Arabians been the companion of their life: Mohammed reduced her to be a house-slave. She became in Islam a holy thing, indeed: but a holy thing kept under veil and bolt, and guarded not by her own virtue, but by eunuchs, from desecration.(93)

Mohammed’s invitation to the governor of Egypt, followed by the gift of the slave woman to Mohammed, led to disastrous consequences in Islam to woman’s position. The prophet called in God to sanction man’s lordship over woman: the first time in history that such a corruption claimed a divine sanction.

In the eighth year of the Hegira, January, 630, Mohammed obtained possession of Mecca. To avenge a rupture of the existing truce, he broke with 10,000 men into the neighbourhood of the city, which admitted him both as its temporal lord and as the prophet of God, without a fight. He received the homage of its inhabitants on one of the city’s hills, and their oath to follow him in all wars against unbelievers. At the same time, he declared Mecca to be again a holy city, in which God had allowed him alone to shed blood, which, for the future, was never to be.(94)

After gaining this possession of Mecca, Mohammed issued in the ninth Sura of the Koran what amounted to a new law of nations, and a new practice of war. From that time forward none but Mohammedans were to enter the holy city of Mecca and its circle: but likewise, outside of this, idolaters were to be exterminated, Jews and Christians were only to be suffered, when they paid tribute, and humbled themselves.(95) “O true believers, verily the idolaters are unclean: let them not therefore, come near unto the holy temple after this year. And if ye fear want by the cutting off trade and communication with them, God will enrich you with His abundance, if He pleaseth, for God is knowing and wise. Fight against them who believe not in God, nor in the Last Day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden, and profess not the true religion of those to whom the Scriptures have been delivered, until they pay tribute by right of subjection, and they be reduced low. The Jews say Ezra is the son of God, and the Christians say Christ is the Son of God. This is their saying in their mouths: they imitate the saying of those who were unbelievers in former times. May God resist them. How are they infatuated! Besides God, they take their priests and their monks for their lords, and Christ, the Son of Mary; only they are commanded to worship one God only. There is no God but He. Far be that from Him which they associate with Him. They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths: but God willeth no other than to perfect His light, although the infidels be averse thereto. It is He who hath sent His Apostle with the direction and true religion, that He may cause it to appear superior to every other religion, although the idolaters be averse thereto.”

This Sura was the last in time of those issued. “It(96) bears the stamp of much reflection and careful execution.” In March, 631, Mohammed had sent the greater pilgrimage to Mecca, under guidance of Abu Bekr. This Sura was published on the chief day of the pilgrimage, and “its promulgation committed to Ali,(97) who rode for that purpose on the prophet’s slit-eared camel from Medina to Mecca, and, standing up before the whole assembly at Al Akaba, told them that he was the messenger of the Apostle of God unto them”. Thus it establishes the definitive position of Mohammed in regard to all other religions, and the exclusiveness of his own claim.

In the last days of Mohammed, when the religious capital of Arabia had been taken by him, and this new law of war had been published, embassies from all parts of Arabia streamed to him, for to the Arabians there remained no choice between the Koran and the sword. He may be considered as the lord by conquest of Arabia, and moreover as one who pretended to issue in the name of God and as His sole apostle a new world-religion. Scarcely more than a year after this proclamation of war against what he chose to consider idolatry he died on the 8th June 632, at the age of 63 lunar or 61 solar years.

When we review the ten years which elapsed from the Hegira to the death of Mohammed, the following points are salient.

The imposition of religious belief by force becomes more and more the main principle of Mohammed. As he increases in power the principle is set forth with greater distinctness. He began as a citizen of Mecca by trying to persuade his relations and friends. With some he succeeded. His kinsmen gave him a partial support rather of clanship than of faith. But he found it expedient to fly from his native city, and the flight marks to all future time the beginning of his assumption not only to be a prophet, but in that character to publish a new religion. The Flight is the Mohammedan era as the birth of Christ is the Christian. At the end of the ninth year the proclamation against idolatry in the ninth Sura, the last in time of the whole series, marks the completion of the parent idea. Mohammed declares himself the apostle of God, as such alone charged “with the direction and true religion,” while Christians, though they are commanded “to worship one God only, associate Christ the Son of Mary with Him”. Whereas Mohammed declares Christ to be indeed one in the series of prophets, the last before himself; but himself to be the prophet who completes the chain. Thus he enacts that Christians can be safe before his people only in one of two ways, either by forming part of them, that is, by taking Mohammed instead of Christ, or by submitting to pay tribute, and to the humiliations which accompany tribute. Thus the parent idea is the messiahship of force.

It may be noted that it comes out in a profession of faith drawn especially to exclude the association of the Son of Mary with God. Thus Mohammed crowns the work which Arius attempted three hundred years before. After the restless heresies in which the Greek mind had fluctuated during these three centuries, the greatest enemy to the Greek empire and faith was set up on that very negation of the godhead of Christ with which those heresies had begun. Fifty years of Arian success, in which the emperors, Constantius and Valens, take a large part, inspired and supported by Eusebius, Macedonius, Eudoxius, and Demophilus, four successive bishops of Byzantium, cause that disorganisation of the eastern Church which St. Basil described as its ruin. Fifty years of patronising the Monothelite heresy, in which the emperors Heraclius and Constans II. bear the largest part, supported by four Byzantine patriarchs, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paulus, and Peter, beginning in 628, mark the rise and accompany the establishment of the Mohammedan empire and creed. Honorius dies before the heresy is presented for acceptance in Rome in the imperial Ecthesis. Ten Popes succeeding Honorius, in spite of the temporal distress which surrounds them, oppose to the utmost the Byzantine heresy and despotism in the midst of whom one gloriously lays down his life and is martyred by the eastern emperor as guilty of high treason. This is the connection between Arius and Mohammed, who appears as the divine punishment and remedy for Byzantine successors of Constantine who would confiscate the liberty of the church, and for state-made patriarchs who foster and formulate heresy.

Secondly, the revelations which Mohammed professes to receive from God he professes also to be brought to him by the Angel Gabriel. Nor is he ashamed to make this angel serve him in actions of the utmost turpitude. Thus when the governor of Egypt bestows on him the slave-girl Mariam, he falls so desperately in love with her that his proper wives, including his favourite, the girl-wife Aischa, the daughter of his chief adherent, Abu Bekr, revolt. The prophet is embarrassed and summons the Angel Gabriel to his aid. Forthwith a passage of the Koran preaches to the discontented wives obedience in the name of God, and the prophet threatens that if they continue to be insubordinate he will dismiss them and find others more obedient and submissive. Nor is even this the lowest depth of infamy. For when he violates even the customs of the Arabs around him, loose as they were, and favourable to the selfishness of the stronger sex, and takes the wife of his most faithful follower and adopted son, he calls in Gabriel to justify the adultery in the name of God, and to enlarge to any extent which the prophet may choose his exclusive privilege of taking wives. It would be difficult to say how the stamp of imposture could be fixed on the Koran with more convincing force than by this association of an angel and of God himself with acts which are contrary to the universal natural law.

Thirdly, it may be remarked that as to polygamy, since it was the custom of the Arabians in his time to practise it without restraint, Mohammed might be considered as neither better nor worse than his countrymen, who had so corrupted the purity of the original law of marriage. This might be allowed if we were considering Mohammed simply as a Saracen of that time. But we are considering him in the light in which he put himself forward as the apostle of God, the one apostle who was to set forth the one God: “there is but one God and Mohammed is his prophet”. It is in this character that he did what no one had ever done before. Polygamy had crept in, “through the hardness of men’s hearts,” but Mohammed attempted to set by his appeal to God and his use of the Angel Gabriel a divine sanction upon this great corruption, and upon the unlimited concubinage which he practised himself, and authorised in others. Thus St. John Damascene a hundred years after his time used of him these indignant words: “This Mamed put together many foolish things. Thus in the writing entitled ‘Woman’ he lays down the law that a man may openly take four wives, and a thousand concubines if he can, as many as he can subject to himself(98) besides the four; and he may divorce when he pleases and take another. And he made this law for the following reason.” Then St. John narrates the case of Zeid and his wife in these words: “Zeid had a handsome wife; Mamed fell in love with her. As they sat together Mamed said, God has charged me to take thy wife. Zeid answered: Thou art the apostle, do as God told thee. Or to go further back, he said: God charged me that thou divorce thy wife. Zeid divorced her. After some days Mamed said: God also charged me to take her. So he took her and made her an adulteress, and then he enacted that every one who will may divorce his wife, and after the divorce, if she return to him, another must marry her first.”(99)

Patriarchs and prophets have sinned, as well as common men; but Mohammed is the only legislator who has called in God to sanction his sin, and propagate it among others in the name of God: and he did this under the title that he was the special apostle of God, sent to propagate the only true religion. The terrible sin of David stands out as contrary to all his previous life. He sought pardon for it, and after it became the great penitent, and humbly bowed his head beneath chastisements as awful as his own sin. Mohammed exulted in his sin, as deserving of praise and exceptional privilege.

Fourthly, throughout the ten years, from the Hegira to his death, Mohammed carried out his own principle of propagating religion by force in his utter disregard of human life. As soon as he had left Mecca he practised robbery upon its caravans and killed without scruple those who resisted the robbery. He tried to make friends with Jewish clans around him, and when they rejected him for their Messias, slew them by hundreds. He slew even for private revenge those who stood in his way: and women as well as men.

These alleged revelations become in Mohammed’s hands the enactments of a sovereign legislator. He claims them to be words of God delivered to him by the angel Gabriel. The personal character of Mohammed as developed in them is, therefore, of the greatest importance. He speaks not only of his “brother Moses” in the Jewish legislation which he closes, but of the Son of Mary as the Word and Spirit of God, on whose work he sets the superior seal of his own mission; and as a matter of fact, those who took his name had his personal character and actions before them for a standard, as the Christians had the Son of God. From the moment of his death this fact is brought out by the conduct of his followers. His chief companions meet and elect a head whom they call the chalif or successor of the prophet. That title is the sole source of his authority, which is both religious and civil, supreme in each, but supreme because it is the transmitted authority of the Prophet who is not a prophet only, but the “Apostle of God”. The four points above noted, the propagation of religion by force, the imposture in the use of the name of Gabriel, the enacting of polygamy with the superadded license of unbounded concubinage, and the employment of murder as means of success, mark the intense antagonism between the character of Mohammed and the character of Him whom he charged the Christians with associating to God. Instead of the Man, meek and humble of heart, who said to His disciples that in following His meekness and humility they should find rest for their souls, we have the man who ordered the believers in him to beat down all idolaters that did not profess, “There is one God, and Mohammed is His prophet,” and made death in battle against them to be the martyrdom which he chose for his people. Instead of the Man who said, “If I had not done among them the works which no other man hath done, they would not have sin,” we have the man who answered the appeal made to him for miraculous works in testimony of his mission, by disclaiming the power to do them. Instead of the Virgin’s Son who set up the virginal life, and propagated His faith by the teaching and example of those who followed it, we have the man who forged a divine permission for the grossest polygamy and an unlimited concubinage obtained by successful war. Instead of the Man who reverenced above all men the sanctuary of human life, we have the man who murdered without scruple those who did not accept his mission.

As to the nature of the kingdom which each of these two set up, the One in His last words to His disciples on the night of His sacrifice said, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and they that have power over them are called beneficent, but you not so: but he that is the greatest among you let him become as the younger, and he that is the leader as he that serveth”. In accordance with this precept, just as Mohammed was preparing to appear as the prophet, the greatest among Christians took as the symbol of his spiritual rule for his title, Servant of the servants of God: and so Chalid, the chief fighter, under Mohammed, Abu Bekr, and Omar, was termed “the sword of the swords of God”. The prophet in the Sura proclaiming his religion pronounced force to be the instrument of spreading it, and in doing this blood was to be shed like water: and from his time his chalifs have practised the slaughter of as many as they chose. Nor is this confined to enemies, but his religion has considered his own subjects thus slaughtered as witnesses of the prophet’s claim. To be killed by order of the chalif is to the believer a title of honour, and the sacrifice of so many a day to his order a sacrifice to his religion.

The pretension put forward by Mohammed in the ninth Sura has been fully accepted by his people from the beginning. He is their apostle, and accordingly from his life they have taken and woven into their own in every age the employment of force, the imposture of a man’s invention put in an angel’s name, the right to take away life at the pleasure of the ruler, but above all, polygamy and concubinage. The sensual life of Mohammed began exactly at the time when, discarding persuasion as the instrument of converting unbelievers, he began to propagate by force his pretended mission as a prophet. The deterioration in the moral life coincides with the time when he passed from the character of one who sought to restore the religion of Abraham to the very different character of one who sought to introduce a new and universal religion. Moreover, this sensual life of the founder has likewise infected with a moral pestilence all those parts of Asia, Africa and Europe, wherein his followers have prevailed. The man who from fifty to sixty years of age was multiplying young wives, moving them to jealousy with a slave concubine, seizing the wife of an adopted son, in virtue of a feigned divine decree, and making a special license to himself as the prophet of God to marry as many wives as he pleased, and whose wives he pleased, has corrupted all the generations of those who profess his religion. But more than in any others this corruption is apparent in those who rule in the prophet’s name. Omar, Osman, and Ali, the second, third, and fourth chalifs, followed Mohammed closely in this corruption of domestic life. Ali, the husband of his favourite daughter, equalled her father in his wives, as likewise Osman, the husband of another daughter. Every Mohammedan prince, as a rule, follows the founder of his dynasty and creed, and thus, as the race of the Virgin Mother reproduces in every age the example of her whom all generations call blessed, and her Divine Son has planted in her the tree of chastity, of which He is Himself the first fruit, and which takes root in an honourable people, and as every work of superhuman charity grows upon that tree, and the sex lost in Eve is glorified by Mary, so the Mohammedan line is equally true to its origin. To the very end of the long night of heathenism, on which the coming of our Lord dawned, monogamy still survived in the noblest descendants of Eve. The German had it and the Roman, and there were ages in which those races, heathen though they were, honoured woman, and maintained the sanctity of marriage, before it was exalted into a sacrament, and before the foundation of human society was consecrated by the blessing of the Redeemer, given in the touch of His Blood. The degradation of woman in every age and every people during the 1250 years of Mohammedan domination, is the special stamp of the various peoples who have borne his name. I take the example highest in position and worst in character. To the precept of Mohammed, enforced by his own conduct, we owe it that in Constantine’s own city the very chalif who represents him continues without marriage to practise an unbounded concubinage. Thus from generation to generation the race of Othman—which can scarcely be called a family—has been continued, and enabled to reign over the fairest countries of the globe, Christian during many hundred years, for a period almost as long as the long descended lines of Capet and Hapsburg have subsisted in honourable marriage. Concubinage has provided it with children, and fratricide has prevented rivals down to the time of Sultan Mahmoud. When he succeeded to the throne, stained in every generation with such crimes, he was the only survivor of his race. Out of the previous history a Turkish annalist(100) records without astonishment, for it was an ordinary incident, that in a tumult which had taken place at the funeral of Sultan Murad III., nineteen brothers of the Sultan Mohammed III., all innocent and guiltless, were strangled and added to the company of martyrs. From the life of Mohammed himself has sprung a despotism without limit, a cruelty which scorns natural affection, and a sensuality without example.

As the personal life on earth of the Son of God is seen in the religion which He planted, and in the history of the people which He formed and maintains, so the personal life of the man Mohammed is seen in the religion which bears his name, and in the people which have carried it on. It is only to elucidate this thought that I have selected these particulars of the Arabian’s life, and as a prelude to the contrast which the religions themselves present.

A few months after his return from the great pilgrimage to Mecca in 632, Mohammed was preparing a third campaign against the Byzantines, which however could only be executed after his death. A word must be said as to his exact position at the moment of his death. In the ten years which follow immediately the Hegira, the original camel driver, who became husband of Chadidja, and lived with her virtuously to her death, pursued the life of a freebooter, which had many alternations of failure and success. In his character of prophet, “the apostle of God,” he aimed at material power, and scrupled not to pursue it by deceit, robbery, and murder, all exercised as means of converting men to the worship of one God, the almighty and “most merciful”. He had fifteen months before his death so far prevailed as to obtain mastery over the city which he had left as a fugitive. It was in a certain sense the capital of Arabia, and he was claiming and in a great degree receiving the homage of all Arabians. But other men who also called themselves prophets, such as Moseilama, were his rivals. The subjection of Arabia was by no means complete at the time of his death. The German historian—himself of the Jewish race and religion—from whose careful study of Mohammedan writers I have taken many of the incidents above recorded, says that with the exception of his weakness in his relations to the female sex, in regard to which he claimed the privileges allowed to him as a special favour from God, he gave a fair example to his people. There was the greatest simplicity as to his dwelling, his clothing, and his food. He was so unassuming that he not only refused every external mark of honour from his companions, but declined every service even from his slaves which he could perform himself. He was often seen in the market place buying food, mending his clothes in a miserable little room, or milking a goat in his court. Every one could approach him at all hours, whether in the street or in his dwelling. He visited all the sick, and showed sympathy to every sufferer, and was also magnanimous and indulgent where policy did not otherwise require. His generosity and benevolence, and also his care for the common good were boundless, so that in spite of the many presents which he received from all sides, and the rich plunder which came to him from his wars, he left little property behind him, and treated even this as belonging to the State. After his death it was not given to his daughter Fatima, his only heiress, the wife of Ali. He had other sons and daughters besides Fatima, on the number of whom tradition varies. They all died before him. We may name only Rukejja and Umm Kolthum, whom the future Chalif Osman successively espoused, both by his first wife Chadidja; and also Ibrahim son of the Coptic slave Mariam, whose early death the prophet sorely lamented. But this historian treats the bringing in the Angel Gabriel as the bearer of his revelations to have been a deceit throughout.

The power which Mohammed claimed rested entirely on the truth of his assertion that God had committed to him a prophetical office, carrying with it the promulgation of a new and universal religion. The absolute falsehood of this assertion is contained in the invention of the Angel Gabriel. The Jewish historian whom I have quoted fully admits this imposture, just as St. John Damascene made it a reproach a hundred years after Mohammed’s time. The virtues above mentioned, what are they but the beautiful spots of the tiger’s skin veiling the ferocity of the beast? Mohammed by the confession of his friends would appear to have had two intense passions, one for sweet odours, the other for women. Thalebi commenting on the 5th Sura records how ten zealous disciples used often to meet and pray in the house of Osman.(101) They watched through the night and had resolved to prepare themselves for paradise by chastity and mortification. Mohammed did not approve of it, and preached to the people that it was no way his mind that those who professed Islam should abstain, like Christian priests and religious, from women and from eating flesh, and from sweet odours; should debar themselves from sleep, and practice hardships. Fighting was his monkhood. Abulfeda says he openly confessed as to himself, “Two things attract me and carry me away: women and sweet odours. My joy is in these two pleasures, and they make me more prayerful.” In fact Mohammed was never so pious as when he took a new wife; while he deserted them all for the Coptic slave-girl Mariam. And the Koran told him that he was right.

What were pharisaic prayings in the market place to the devotions of Mohammed? He called upon all with whom he came in contact to accept the one God, and Mohammed as his prophet, on pain of being exterminated, and he delivered up to the pleasure of the Mohammedan fighter as many female captives as any one could take, over and above the four wives whom he allowed to all. These captives were not the victims of angry passions in men maddened by a furious conflict, but the avowed and justified reward of those who might, if slain in battle, have been martyrs, but instead were victorious. The very worst corruption(102) which we meet with in the idol worship and demon worship of Greeks and Romans was the shamelessness which pandered to all lusts of the flesh under cover of religion. But Mohammed added to this corruption. In virtue of his Koran the most infamous passions were allowed not in belief of false gods, themselves models of impurity, but in worshipping the one holy God. In all this the example as well as the word of the religious founder had gone before, and his people followed it from age to age.

Mohammed then at the time of his death was a successful robber in a country wherein the tribal life was in a state of great confusion and incessant changes, and the ancestral religion had degenerated into a rude and senseless idolatry. The race which occupied Arabia—the whole people which claimed Ishmael the son of Abraham for their ancestor—was devoid of order and of culture, of art or science, and had not affected the history of the world beyond its own boundaries. That the lord of Byzantium on the one hand or the lord of Ctesiphon on the other contemplated permanent danger to their realms from the incursions of such a race can as little be supposed as that Europe now is in fear of subjugation from a host of Caffres or Zulus, people, in personal bravery, resolution and bodily strength, equal probably to what the Saracens then were.