Chapter V: The Unsheathing of the Sword

'Too oft religion has the mother been,
Of impious act and criminal.'
LUCRITIUS.

As Al Caswa, the favourite camel, swung slowly with loose rein through the streets of Medina, allowed by her master to choose the place where he should alight, she bore him not only to a new home but to new circumstances, and to a new act in the drama of his life.

[Sidenote: Mohammed's Claim.]

There is nothing to show that Mohammed was ever a man of great foresight, or that he saw in the distance a clear, guiding star towards which he shaped his course. Indeed, the constantly changing and contradicting suras of the Korân show how his views were altered and modified from time to time. He was pre-eminently a man of the present, who understood how to deal with present circumstances and make them serve his ends. How would he act now {67} that his chance had come? He had claimed to be a Prophet, nay _The Prophet of God_. In Mecca he had been a preacher and a warner only. Was that all it meant? The new opportunities of Medina made him face the claim.

He had started with a two-clause creed, 'There is no God but God: Mohammed is the Prophet of God.' But he lost the emphasis on God, and with that he lost his balance. 'Mohammed is the Prophet of God'--that was the clause men resisted most. That was what drove him to persecute the Jews--when he no longer needed their friendship--more harshly than he persecuted others.

Moreover, what did this claim involve? What did it mean in Medina--this city without a visible head or any central authority--to be _the Prophet_ of God? What was its meaning for Mecca, where he had defied the many idols of the Kaaba? What was his relation to Arabia? What was Arabia's relation to him? Obviously 'the man who determined the fate of the Kaaba must _ipso facto_ be the chief of the nation and remodel its entire structure.' Who would gainsay the Prophet of God?

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[Sidenote: First Year in Medina: Institution of Religious Observances.]

Meanwhile he must not go too fast, and so Mohammed 'with the stolid patience which in Europe belongs only to the greatest, and in Asia to everybody,' waited the year in peace--he spent it, in fact, making his own domestic arrangements, strengthening his own position, organizing the practice of the Faith. The empty plot of ground at which Al Caswa halted was bought, and upon it arose the first Mohammedan mosque. Beside it were built two cottages, one for Saudah, the wife whom he had married within a few weeks of Khadîjah's death, and the other for Ayesha, the child of Abu Bakr, only nine years of age, whom he now took as a second wife.

The mosque was the first visible centre of Islam. As it rose he built, too, the pillars of Mohammedan religious practice, on which Islam has rested ever since. Friday was established as the day of assembly when he preached himself to the people of Medina from a pulpit built of tamarisk trees, by the outside wall of the mosque. The duty of ceremonial washing (lustration as it was called) as a preliminary to prayer was enjoined, and {69} most typical of Mohammedanism in every century and in every clime, the observance of prayer at five stated times in the day. The prayers, accompanied by a series of four genuflections, were to be said facing originally towards Jerusalem and later towards Mecca. These prayers soon became the habit of 'the faithful.' To-day they are said in all the great mosques of the East. They are recited along every trade route of the Sahara and Soudan where the Arab drives his lonely caravan; they are used by saint and ascetic, brigand and slave-dealer alike--wherever men call themselves after the name of the Prophet.

But none of these provisions so well illustrate Mohammed's judgment and his æsthetic sense as his institution of the call to prayer by the human voice, and not by Jewish trumpet or Christian bell. It is said that the suggestion came from Omar. He communicated it to the Prophet, who cleverly replied that a special revelation to that effect had just been given him. Anyhow, the negro slave, Bilâl, was soon shouting the call from the highest turret in Medina, and the weird music of the muezzin's voice from myriads of minarets {70} still floats across the air from Cape Verde to Muscat, from Suez to Nankin, summoning one out of every seven of the entire human race to worship five times a day. _'God is most great! I witness that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is the Apostle of God! Come to prayer! Come to salvation! God is most great! There is no God but God!'_ At dawn is added the very human reminder, '_Prayer is better than sleep!_'

[Sidenote: Mohammed's Followers in Mecca.]

Such were the religious observances of Islam, together with legal almsgiving, the duty of the jihad, or holy war, the reconsecrating of the old Arab fasting month of Ramadân, and a few solemn feasts. Mohammed added nothing in later years except that most meritorious of acts--a pilgrimage to Mecca.

By these religious enactments the Prophet drew the faithful closer to him, and separated them from the 'unbelievers' and the 'disaffected' of Medina. Their enthusiasm for him knew no bounds. Converts struggled for the honour of washing in the water which the Prophet had used for his ablutions, and then drank it up. It was bottled and sent to new {71} adherents as precious liquid, after the style of the relics of saints. His barber was surrounded by a crowd of eager Moslems who scrambled for Mohammed's hair and nail parings, which they preserved as charms and relics. They accepted every word of his, as he affirmed they should, as the veritable words of God. So much for the inner circle, the 'believers' in Medina.

The great majority of the people, if not actively opposed, were far from being his allies. With great astuteness and cleverness Mohammed sought to gain first one party, then another. He instituted a new kind of brotherhood, binding, with oaths of the most complete mutual allegiance, a Medinese to one of the followers who had joined him from Mecca. The tie was to supersede even the ties of kindred; one man was even to inherit from the other. The system did not last long, but it did its work by tiding over many of the difficulties of the first twelve months.

[Sidenote: The Jews.]

The Jews, as we have said, formed a large colony in Medina, all the more influential because they were--as they have ever been--homogeneous. One of {72} Mohammed's first steps was to make overtures to them.

They worshipped the same God, he said, and it was 'quite simple for a Jew to obey the law of Moses and yet owe his allegiance to Mohammed!' So he poured forth suras in their favour, quoted--or misquoted--the Old Testament in his sermons, and even adopted some of their ceremonial. He finally made a formal treaty with them, declaring common cause against idolaters, and, in particular, against the Koreish of Mecca, permitting to the Jews their own religion, but insisting 'None shall go forth but with the permission of Mohammed.'

The treaty was short-lived. It was soon plain that Judaism and Islam could not go hand in hand. The Prophet rested his claims on the predictions of the Jewish Scriptures: yet he did not profess to be the Messiah;--the Messiah, he held, had already appeared in the person of Jesus, and had been rejected. He was himself another and a greater prophet also foretold in their Book. The Jews, he said, knew this; they recognized in him the promised Prophet 'as they recognized their own sons,' yet, out of jealousy and spite, {73} from wilful blindness, they rejected him, as they had rejected their own Messiah. This was the position which Mohammed held. How could the Jews accept it? In a body, with but few exceptions, they rejected it. Henceforth, Islam and Judaism were no more allies. The suras suddenly changed their tone; each new revelation poured forth fresh invectives upon Israel. Jewish customs were discarded, and 'the faithful' were bidden to turn no longer to Jerusalem but to Mecca for their prayers. The rupture was a severe blow to Mohammed at the time; but he consoled himself, inasmuch as the Jews had always been a stubborn race, given to rejecting their prophets.

[Sidenote: The Heathen.]

The first impetus had begun to expend itself. Progress was slow, though in Medina converts were still many. Indifference dulled the mass of the people; rival chieftains asserted their claims over the clans. Mohammed and his followers were often in want. Mecca, too, had settled down to its life without a regret for the one man singled out as the chosen of God. The position was not consistent with the dignity of the Prophet of God. {74} Circumstances converged to show that in force lay the only remedy. Mecca must be punished, and Medina should learn that the hand of God is with His Prophet.

[Sidenote: Marauding Expeditions.]

The commerce of Mecca depended very largely upon the caravan expeditions which travelled twice a year to Syria, passing on their way along the Red Sea shore, not far from Medina. To break up and plunder the caravan was not a difficult and certainly was an effective way of punishing Mecca, and, incidentally, of replenishing the dwindling resources of the 'brotherhood' of believers. Some of them did, indeed, revolt against such a step, remembering how they had been taught more merciful practices at Mecca, but Mohammed was ready for them with a new revelation, reminding them that to punish those who had driven out God's Prophet was to defend the honour of God.

The earlier marauding expeditions came back with empty bags. The first found the Meccans too carefully and strongly guarded. The second, though stronger in numbers, shot one arrow and turned tail. The third was to catch a caravan at a place where the roads from Syria and {75} Egypt meet, five days from Medina; it arrived a day too late. Mohammed decided to lead the fourth himself, but again the Meccans, knowing no doubt by this time what to expect, gave them the slip. Mohammed, however, succeeded in forming an alliance with a heathen tribe not disinclined to similar enterprise, and through whose territory the caravan route ran.

A month later news reached Mohammed that along this road would pass a very rich burden, laden on 2,500 camels, and protected by 100 armed men. This time he summoned the Medinese to his white standard, and marched forth at the head of 200 followers. But the safety of a desert caravan lies not so much in numbers as in cunning, and even this huge unwieldy caravan outwitted the highwaymen and passed on its way in safety.

It was not an encouraging beginning for Moslem arms, but it brought men under the magnetic sway of Mohammed's leadership; it established Mohammed's right to drill and command the believers, and it whetted their Arabian appetites for blood and plunder.

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When a man has once justified himself for highway robbery--and this was not hard for one who claimed to be the Prophet of God in Arabia in the seventh century--it was easy for him to justify worse methods. Mohammed's followers had failed before armed troops--there was still another way.

[Sidenote: The 'Believers' break the Sacred Truce.]

During the month Rejeb, all Arabia acknowledged a sacred truce, so fully recognized that caravans travelled unarmed. One of Mohammed's followers, Abdallah, was known as a desperate fanatic, who was said to have prayed that he might die fighting and be mutilated. Mohammed put this man in charge of a small force, and sent him forth during the month of Rejeb with sealed orders. These were to take no men who shrank from such a job, but with the others to lie in ambush in the gorge of Nakhla for a small, unprotected caravan of rich merchandise which was travelling without escort under cover of the sacred month. On reaching Nakhla they had not long to wait. In a short time a caravan, richly laden with wine, raisins, and leather, came through the defile. It was driven by {77} four men of the Koreish, who grew alarmed and halted at the sight of armed strangers. To disperse their fears, one of Abdallah's followers shaved his head in token that they were peaceful travellers returning from a pilgrimage. The men of the caravan, at once reassured, unloaded their camels and began to prepare their evening meal. While they were doing so, Abdallah and his five stalwarts set upon them. Of those in charge of the caravan one was killed, two taken prisoners, and the fourth, leaping on his horse, escaped to Mecca. Abdallah returned with the two captives and the loot to Mohammed, who at first professed reluctance at accepting booty won by such a sacrilegious act, but soon got over his own scruples and satisfied those of the believers by distributing the booty and by giving forth a fresh revelation declaring 'it is less evil to break the sacred truce than to expel God's Prophet.'

It was a desperate business indeed, for it was a violation of the conscience of all Arabia, but it was successful. It was sanctioned by Mohammed, and it set the example and kindled the 'fire' of Islam {78} all down the centuries. If the truce held sacred from time immemorial by all Arabia might be violated in the name of the Prophet of God, and be so obviously successful, what might not be done? Moreover, Mohammed promptly poured forth fresh suras, promising Paradise to all who fell in war 'for God and His Prophet,' and declaring war against the infidel a main duty of the faithful. The rich spoil and splendid future were too much for the men of Medina; open opposition disappeared, the Medinese were Mohammed's followers.

The war-dogs of Islam were unloosed.

QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER V

1. What was a sura? Were they unalterable? Should they have been unalterable? Give examples.

2. What religious observances did Mohammed institute at Medina?

3. Describe his rules for prayer. Would it be well to have rules for prayer in the Christian religion? Give reasons.

4. How did Mohammed behave to the Jews? Why have they so often been badly treated by other nations?

5. Describe one early marauding expedition. How far were such justified?

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