Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants.—Part VII

The good sense of Mahomet 158 despised the pomp of royalty: the
apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family: he
kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the ewes, and mended
with his own hands his shoes and his woollen garment. Disdaining
the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed, without effort or
vanity, the abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn
occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and hospitable
plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks would elapse without
a fire being kindled on the hearth of the prophet. The
interdiction of wine was confirmed by his example; his hunger was
appeased with a sparing allowance of barley-bread: he delighted
in the taste of milk and honey; but his ordinary food consisted
of dates and water. Perfumes and women were the two sensual
enjoyments which his nature required, and his religion did not
forbid; and Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was
increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the climate
inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their libidinous complexion
has been noticed by the writers of antiquity. 159 Their
incontinence was regulated by the civil and religious laws of the
Koran: their incestuous alliances were blamed; the boundless
license of polygamy was reduced to four legitimate wives or
concubines; their rights both of bed and of dowry were equitably
determined; the freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was
condemned as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex,
was punished with a hundred stripes. 160 Such were the calm and
rational precepts of the legislator: but in his private conduct,
Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of
a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him from the laws which
he had imposed on his nation: the female sex, without reserve,
was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative
excited the envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather
than the envy, of the devout Mussulmans. If we remember the seven
hundred wives and three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon,
we shall applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more
than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who
occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house of
the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his conjugal
society. What is singular enough, they were all widows, excepting
only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker. She was doubtless a
virgin, since Mahomet consummated his nuptials (such is the
premature ripeness of the climate) when she was only nine years
of age. The youth, the beauty, the spirit of Ayesha, gave her a
superior ascendant: she was beloved and trusted by the prophet;
and, after his death, the daughter of Abubeker was long revered
as the mother of the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous
and indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left
behind; and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with a
man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but a divine
revelation assured him of her innocence: he chastised her
accusers, and published a law of domestic peace, that no woman
should be condemned unless four male witnesses had seen her in
the act of adultery. 161 In his adventures with Zeineb, the wife
of Zeid, and with Mary, an Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet
forgot the interest of his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his
freedman and adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the
beauty of Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion
and desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the
hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his
benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some doubt and
scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven to ratify the
deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to reprove the apostle
for distrusting the indulgence of his God. One of his wives,
Hafna, the daughter of Omar, surprised him on her own bed, in the
embraces of his Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and
forgiveness, he swore that he would renounce the possession of
Mary. Both parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again
descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from his
oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and
concubines, without listening to the clamors of his wives. In a
solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with Mary, to
fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love and revenge were
satiated, he summoned to his presence his eleven wives,
reproached their disobedience and indiscretion, and threatened
them with a sentence of divorce, both in this world and in the
next; a dreadful sentence, since those who had ascended the bed
of the prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second
marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be palliated by
the tradition of his natural or preternatural gifts; 162 he
united the manly virtue of thirty of the children of Adam: and
the apostle might rival the thirteenth labor 163 of the Grecian
Hercules. 164 A more serious and decent excuse may be drawn from
his fidelity to Cadijah. During the twenty-four years of their
marriage, her youthful husband abstained from the right of
polygamy, and the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was
never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death, he
placed her in the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister
of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of
his daughters. “Was she not old?” said Ayesha, with the insolence
of a blooming beauty; “has not God given you a better in her
place?” “No, by God,” said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest
gratitude, “there never can be a better! She believed in me when
men despised me; she relieved my wants, when I was poor and
persecuted by the world.” 165

158 (return) [ For the domestic life of Mahomet, consult Gagnier,
and the corresponding chapters of Abulfeda; for his diet, (tom.
iii. p. 285-288;) his children, (p. 189, 289;) his wives, (p.
290-303;) his marriage with Zeineb, (tom. ii. p. 152-160;) his
amour with Mary, (p. 303-309;) the false accusation of Ayesha,
(p. 186-199.) The most original evidence of the three last
transactions is contained in the xxivth, xxxiiid, and lxvith
chapters of the Koran, with Sale’s Commentary. Prideaux (Life of
Mahomet, p. 80-90) and Maracci (Prodrom. Alcoran, part iv. p.
49-59) have maliciously exaggerated the frailties of Mahomet.]

159 (return) [ Incredibile est quo ardore apud eos in Venerem
uterque solvitur sexus, (Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 4.)]

160 (return) [ Sale (Preliminary Discourse, p. 133-137) has
recapitulated the laws of marriage, divorce, &c.; and the curious
reader of Selden’s Uror Hebraica will recognize many Jewish
ordinances.]

161 (return) [ In a memorable case, the Caliph Omar decided that
all presumptive evidence was of no avail; and that all the four
witnesses must have actually seen stylum in pyxide, (Abulfedae
Annales Moslemici, p. 71, vers. Reiske.)]

162 (return) [ Sibi robur ad generationem, quantum triginta viri
habent, inesse jacteret: ita ut unica hora posset undecim
foeminis satisfacere, ut ex Arabum libris refert Stus. Petrus
Paschasius, c. 2., (Maracci, Prodromus Alcoran, p. iv. p. 55. See
likewise Observations de Belon, l. iii. c. 10, fol. 179, recto.)
Al Jannabi (Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 287) records his own testimony,
that he surpassed all men in conjugal vigor; and Abulfeda
mentions the exclamation of Ali, who washed the body after his
death, “O propheta, certe penis tuus coelum versus erectus est,”
in Vit. Mohammed, p. 140.]

163 (return) [ I borrow the style of a father of the church,
(Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 108.)]

164 (return) [ The common and most glorious legend includes, in a
single night the fifty victories of Hercules over the virgin
daughters of Thestius, (Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iv. p. 274.
Pausanias, l. ix. p. 763. Statius Sylv. l. i. eleg. iii. v. 42.)
But Athenaeus allows seven nights, (Deipnosophist, l. xiii. p.
556,) and Apollodorus fifty, for this arduous achievement of
Hercules, who was then no more than eighteen years of age,
(Bibliot. l. ii. c. 4, p. 111, cum notis Heyne, part i. p. 332.)]

165 (return) [ Abulfeda in Vit. Moham. p. 12, 13, 16, 17, cum
Notis Gagnier]

In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a religion
and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of a numerous
posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of Mahomet were
fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and his ten widows of
mature age and approved fertility, were barren in his potent
embraces. The four sons of Cadijah died in their infancy. Mary,
his Egyptian concubine, was endeared to him by the birth of
Ibrahim. At the end of fifteen months the prophet wept over his
grave; but he sustained with firmness the raillery of his
enemies, and checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems,
by the assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by
the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him four
daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his
disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but Fatima,
who possessed his confidence and love, became the wife of her
cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious progeny. The merit
and misfortunes of Ali and his descendants will lead me to
anticipate, in this place, the series of the Saracen caliphs, a
title which describes the commanders of the faithful as the
vicars and successors of the apostle of God. 166

166 (return) [ This outline of the Arabian history is drawn from
the Bibliotheque Orientale of D’Herbelot, (under the names of
Aboubecre, Omar Othman, Ali, &c.;) from the Annals of Abulfeda,
Abulpharagius, and Elmacin, (under the proper years of the
Hegira,) and especially from Ockley’s History of the Saracens,
(vol. i. p. 1-10, 115-122, 229, 249, 363-372, 378-391, and almost
the whole of the second volume.) Yet we should weigh with caution
the traditions of the hostile sects; a stream which becomes still
more muddy as it flows farther from the source. Sir John Chardin
has too faithfully copied the fables and errors of the modern
Persians, (Voyages, tom. ii. p. 235-250, &c.)]

The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted him
above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his claim to the
vacant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb was, in his own
right, the chief of the family of Hashem, and the hereditary
prince or guardian of the city and temple of Mecca. The light of
prophecy was extinct; but the husband of Fatima might expect the
inheritance and blessing of her father: the Arabs had sometimes
been patient of a female reign; and the two grandsons of the
prophet had often been fondled in his lap, and shown in his
pulpit as the hope of his age, and the chief of the youth of
paradise. The first of the true believers might aspire to march
before them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a
graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were never
outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the qualifications
of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom still breathes in a
collection of moral and religious sayings; 167 and every
antagonist, in the combats of the tongue or of the sword, was
subdued by his eloquence and valor. From the first hour of his
mission to the last rites of his funeral, the apostle was never
forsaken by a generous friend, whom he delighted to name his
brother, his vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second
Moses. The son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for
neglecting to secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his
right, which would have silenced all competition, and sealed his
succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting hero
confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and perhaps the fear
of opposition, might suspend the resolutions of Mahomet; and the
bed of sickness was besieged by the artful Ayesha, the daughter
of Abubeker, and the enemy of Ali. 1671

167 (return) [ Ockley (at the end of his second volume) has given
an English version of 169 sentences, which he ascribes, with some
hesitation, to Ali, the son of Abu Taleb. His preface is colored
by the enthusiasm of a translator; yet these sentences delineate
a characteristic, though dark, picture of human life.]

1671 (return) [ Gibbon wrote chiefly from the Arabic or Sunnite
account of these transactions, the only sources accessible at the
time when he composed his History. Major Price, writing from
Persian authorities, affords us the advantage of comparing
throughout what may be fairly considered the Shiite Version. The
glory of Ali is the constant burden of their strain. He was
destined, and, according to some accounts, designated, for the
caliphate by the prophet; but while the others were fiercely
pushing their own interests, Ali was watching the remains of
Mahomet with pious fidelity. His disinterested magnanimity, on
each separate occasion, declined the sceptre, and gave the noble
example of obedience to the appointed caliph. He is described, in
retirement, on the throne, and in the field of battle, as
transcendently pious, magnanimous, valiant, and humane. He lost
his empire through his excess of virtue and love for the faithful
his life through his confidence in God, and submission to the
decrees of fate. Compare the curious account of this apathy in
Price, chapter ii. It is to be regretted, I must add, that Major
Price has contented himself with quoting the names of the Persian
works which he follows, without any account of their character,
age, and authority.—M.]

The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of the
people; and his companions convened an assembly to deliberate on
the choice of his successor. The hereditary claim and lofty
spirit of Ali were offensive to an aristocracy of elders,
desirous of bestowing and resuming the sceptre by a free and
frequent election: the Koreish could never be reconciled to the
proud preeminence of the line of Hashem; the ancient discord of
the tribes was rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the
auxiliaries of Medina asserted their respective merits; and the
rash proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have
crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the Saracens.
The tumult was appeased by the disinterested resolution of Omar,
who, suddenly renouncing his own pretensions, stretched forth his
hand, and declared himself the first subject of the mild and
venerable Abubeker. 1672 The urgency of the moment, and the
acquiescence of the people, might excuse this illegal and
precipitate measure; but Omar himself confessed from the pulpit,
that if any Mulsulman should hereafter presume to anticipate the
suffrage of his brethren, both the elector and the elected would
be worthy of death. 168 After the simple inauguration of
Abubeker, he was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of
Arabia: the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and
their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months, a
sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the threats
of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the habitation of the
daughter of the apostle. The death of Fatima, and the decline of
his party, subdued the indignant spirit of Ali: he condescended
to salute the commander of the faithful, accepted his excuse of
the necessity of preventing their common enemies, and wisely
rejected his courteous offer of abdicating the government of the
Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was
summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the tacit
approbation of his companions, he bequeathed the sceptre to the
firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. “I have no occasion,” said the
modest candidate, “for the place.” “But the place has occasion
for you,” replied Abubeker; who expired with a fervent prayer,
that the God of Mahomet would ratify his choice, and direct the
Mussulmans in the way of concord and obedience. The prayer was
not ineffectual, since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and
prayer, professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his
rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most
flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth year of
his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the hand of an
assassin: he rejected with equal impartiality the names of his
son and of Ali, refused to load his conscience with the sins of
his successor, and devolved on six of the most respectable
companions the arduous task of electing a commander of the
faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again blamed by his friends
169 for submitting his right to the judgment of men, for
recognizing their jurisdiction by accepting a place among the six
electors. He might have obtained their suffrage, had he deigned
to promise a strict and servile conformity, not only to the Koran
and tradition, but likewise to the determinations of two seniors.
170 With these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet,
accepted the government; nor was it till after the third caliph,
twenty-four years after the death of the prophet, that Ali was
invested, by the popular choice, with the regal and sacerdotal
office. The manners of the Arabians retained their primitive
simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb despised the pomp and vanity
of this world. At the hour of prayer, he repaired to the mosch of
Medina, clothed in a thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his
head, his slippers in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead
of a walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the chiefs
of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave him their
right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.

1672 (return) [ Abubeker, the father of the virgin Ayesha. St.
Martin, vol. XL, p. 88—M.]

168 (return) [ Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 5, 6,)
from an Arabian Ms., represents Ayesha as adverse to the
substitution of her father in the place of the apostle. This
fact, so improbable in itself, is unnoticed by Abulfeda, Al
Jannabi, and Al Bochari, the last of whom quotes the tradition of
Ayesha herself, (Vit. Mohammed, p. 136 Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii.
p. 236.)]

169 (return) [ Particularly by his friend and cousin Abdallah,
the son of Abbas, who died A.D. 687, with the title of grand
doctor of the Moslems. In Abulfeda he recapitulates the important
occasions in which Ali had neglected his salutary advice, (p. 76,
vers. Reiske;) and concludes, (p. 85,) O princeps fidelium,
absque controversia tu quidem vere fortis es, at inops boni
consilii, et rerum gerendarum parum callens.]

170 (return) [ I suspect that the two seniors (Abulpharagius, p.
115. Ockley, tom. i. p. 371,) may signify not two actual
counsellors, but his two predecessors, Abubeker and Omar.]

The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are usually
confined to the times and countries in which they have been
agitated. But the religious discord of the friends and enemies of
Ali has been renewed in every age of the Hegira, and is still
maintained in the immortal hatred of the Persians and Turks. 171
The former, who are branded with the appellation of Shiites or
sectaries, have enriched the Mahometan creed with a new article
of faith; and if Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the
vicar, of God. In their private converse, in their public
worship, they bitterly execrate the three usurpers who
intercepted his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and
Caliph; and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the
perfect accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. 172 The
Sonnites, who are supported by the general consent and orthodox
tradition of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or at
least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of
Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate
successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and most
humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the persuasion that the
order of succession was determined by the decrees of sanctity.
173 An historian who balances the four caliphs with a hand
unshaken by superstition, will calmly pronounce that their
manners were alike pure and exemplary; that their zeal was
fervent, and probably sincere; and that, in the midst of riches
and power, their lives were devoted to the practice of moral and
religious duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar,
the prudence of the first, the severity of the second, maintained
the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The feeble temper and
declining age of Othman were incapable of sustaining the weight
of conquest and empire. He chose, and he was deceived; he
trusted, and he was betrayed: the most deserving of the faithful
became useless or hostile to his government, and his lavish
bounty was productive only of ingratitude and discontent. The
spirit of discord went forth in the provinces: their deputies
assembled at Medina; and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics
who disclaimed the yoke of subordination and reason, were
confounded among the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of
their wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa,
from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert, they
rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and despatched
a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring him to execute
justice, or to descend from the throne. His repentance began to
disarm and disperse the insurgents; but their fury was rekindled
by the arts of his enemies; and the forgery of a perfidious
secretary was contrived to blast his reputation and precipitate
his fall. The caliph had lost the only guard of his predecessors,
the esteem and confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of six
weeks his water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble
gates of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the
more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his
simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the
approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head of
the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was pierced
with a multitude of wounds. 1731 A tumultuous anarchy of five
days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his refusal would
have provoked a general massacre. In this painful situation he
supported the becoming pride of the chief of the Hashemites;
declared that he had rather serve than reign; rebuked the
presumption of the strangers; and required the formal, if not the
voluntary, assent of the chiefs of the nation. He has never been
accused of prompting the assassin of Omar; though Persia
indiscreetly celebrates the festival of that holy martyr. The
quarrel between Othman and his subjects was assuaged by the early
mediation of Ali; and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was
insulted and wounded in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is
doubtful whether the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere
in his opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he
enjoyed the benefit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of
such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most obdurate
virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired to the barren
sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been victorious in the East
and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of Persia, Syria, and Egypt
were the patrimony of the commander of the faithful.

171 (return) [ The schism of the Persians is explained by all our
travellers of the last century, especially in the iid and ivth
volumes of their master, Chardin. Niebuhr, though of inferior
merit, has the advantage of writing so late as the year 1764,
(Voyages en Arabie, &c., tom. ii. p. 208-233,) since the
ineffectual attempt of Nadir Shah to change the religion of the
nation, (see his Persian History translated into French by Sir
William Jones, tom. ii. p. 5, 6, 47, 48, 144-155.)]

172 (return) [ Omar is the name of the devil; his murderer is a
saint. When the Persians shoot with the bow, they frequently cry,
“May this arrow go to the heart of Omar!” (Voyages de Chardin,
tom. ii. p 239, 240, 259, &c.)]

173 (return) [ This gradation of merit is distinctly marked in a
creed illustrated by Reland, (de Relig. Mohamm. l. i. p. 37;) and
a Sonnite argument inserted by Ockley, (Hist. of the Saracens,
tom. ii. p. 230.) The practice of cursing the memory of Ali was
abolished, after forty years, by the Ommiades themselves,
(D’Herbelot, p. 690;) and there are few among the Turks who
presume to revile him as an infidel, (Voyages de Chardin, tom.
iv. p. 46.)]

1731 (return) [ Compare Price, p. 180.—M.]