Part 9

Mahomet's failure to effect a compromise with the Jews caused a reaction in his mind towards paganism, and after about a year's residence at Medina the direction of prayer, which had till then been towards Jerusalem, was turned southward to the pagan temple at Mecca. With this change we may perhaps couple the adoption of the name _Allah_ for the Deity; in the Moslem formula "in the Name of Allah the Rahman the Merciful," the translation attached to the word _Rahman_, and the prefixing to it of the name _Allah_ furnish clear evidence of theological transition, though the stages are not recorded; we know, however, that the Meccans approved of the name _Allah_, but objected to the name _Rahman_. Prayer (_salat_), said to have been prescribed on the occasion of the Prophet's ascent into heaven after a miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, began to assume a stereotyped form in the place of assembly built by Mahomet immediately after his arrival; the attitudes of prayer in use among many communities (e.g. the Jewish standing, the prostration of some Christian sects) were combined. In general it was Mahomet's principle, while taking over a practice from some other sect, to modify it so as to render the Moslem method absolutely distinct; thus when a summons to prayer became requisite, a new mode (by the voice of a crier called _muaddhin_ or _muezzin_) was preferred to the Christian hammer; a new sacred day was adopted, in lieu of the Jewish Saturday and the Christian Sunday, in the weekday on which he had safely reached Kuba, Friday; but the sanctity was reduced to the actual time occupied by public worship. On the subject of food he was satisfied with the regulations of the Council of Jerusalem, recorded in Acts xv.; which were observed by few if any Christian sects. The prohibition of wine, which was enacted in A.H. 3, is said to have been occasioned by the riotous conduct of one of his followers when under the influence of liquor; Palgrave saw in it (perhaps with justice) a deliberate attempt to prevent harmony between Moslems and Christians, in whose most sacred rite wine is used. The Fast of Ramadan, in which food both liquid and solid is forbidden from sunrise to sunset, is said to be a pagan or semi-pagan institution; its importance for military training and discipline is not likely to have been overlooked by the Prophet. When the direction of prayer was altered, it is probable that Mahomet already intended to introduce into his system the whole of the pagan pilgrimage with its antique ceremonial (with, of course, a new interpretation); before this he is supposed to have aimed at the abolition of the Ka`ba and all that appertained to it.

The difference between religious and civil law has never been recognized by Islamic jurists, whose manuals deal equally with the law of contract and the amount of the body to be washed before prayer; the Prophet's ordinances on both subjects were suggested by the occasion in each case, and it would seem that the opinions of trusted advisers were regularly heard before a revelation was issued. Even when this had been done the ordinance might be cancelled by an abrogating revelation; it being "easy for Allah" to substitute for a text already revealed another that was better or at least as good.

As Islam began to spread outside the limits of Medina both conversion to Islam and persistence therein were reduced to simple tests; the pronunciation of the double formula of belief in Allah and Mahomet was sufficient to indicate conversion, whilst payment of an income-tax, called by the Jewish names for alms (_zakat_ and _sadaqah_), was evidence of loyalty. This income-tax, of which the definite assessment perhaps belongs to a later period, was for the support of necessitous converts--an element in the community whose presence accounts for the mode in which the development of the Islamic state proceeded.

First Campaigns of Mahomet.

The industries in which the Meccan Refugees had been engaged were not of a sort which they could exercise at Medina, where the palm took the place of the camel as the basis of society. Moreover the Prophet seems to have given some disastrous advice on the subject of palmiculture, and thereby to have accentuated the poverty of the place. He had, therefore, to find some fresh source of revenue in order to deal with this difficulty, and one of the Helpers is said to have suggested the plan which he adopted, viz. of attacking the Meccan caravans. With this view he organized a series of expeditions, taking the lead himself sometimes, while at others he gave it to one of his veteran followers; and at first only Refugees took part in them. The leaders of the caravans, however, were expert in evading attacks of this sort, which were doubtless regularly attempted by the desert tribes; and in the first year of his despotism Mahomet did not score a single success of the kind intended. The attempts were not wholly fruitless; for while on the one hand he accustomed his followers to campaigning, on the other he made a series of agreements with the chieftains of the tribes through whose territory the caravans ordinarily passed. Finding continued failure intolerable, he resolved to take advantage of his power to bind and to loose by sending an expedition of seven men under his cousin `Abdallah b. Jahsh to attack a caravan at the beginning of the sacred month Rajab, when, as raiding during such a season was unknown, success was practically certain. The commander on this, the Nakhlah raid, was given sealed orders, to be opened after two days' march; the men were then to be given the option of retiring, if they disapproved. Of this no one seems definitely to have availed himself, and the raid ended successfully, for considerable booty was captured, while of the four persons who escorted the caravan two were made prisoners, one escaped, and one, `Amr b. al-Hadrami, was killed; he was the first person slain fighting against an Islamic force. The violation of the sacred month seems to have caused considerable scandal in Arabia, but led to no serious consequence; on the other hand the shedding of blood created a feud between the people of Mecca and the Refugees, with whom the Meccans long declined to identify the people of Medina. The fact that the man who had been killed was a client, not a citizen, made no difference. The circumstance that booty had been actually acquired appears to have helped the Prophet's cause very considerably.

Attack on Meccan Caravan.

Both these consequences, the Meccan desire to avenge the blood that had been shed and the anxiety of the Medinese to take part in a successful raid, manifested themselves a few months later, when an expedition was organized by Mahomet to attack a caravan returning from Syria, which had escaped him the previous year. Many desired to take part in the raid, and finally some 300 persons were selected, including a large number of "Helpers." The leader of the caravan learned somehow that an attack was being organized by Mahomet on a large scale, and sent to Mecca for aid, while hurrying home by forced marches. This is the first historical appearance of Abu Sofian (the leader of the caravan), who now for some years played the part of president in the Meccan opposition to Mahomet, and whose son was destined to found the second Mahommedan dynasty (see CALIPHATE, B). The day before the battle to be fought at Badr, near the point where the northern road leaves the coast to turn eastwards to Mecca, the Moslem army learned that the Meccan succour (some 1000 strong) was near, but that the caravan had escaped. The Meccans, it is asserted, would have returned home now that their object was secured, but the patrons of the man who had been killed in the former raid were compelled to strike for vengeance.

The battle (Ramadan 19, A.H. 2, usually made to synchronize with March 17, 624) ended in a complete victory for Mahomet, whose followers killed seventy of the enemy and took seventy prisoners--if we may trust what seem to be round numbers; it was attributed by him to divine co-operation, taking the form of an illusion wrought on the enemy, and the despatch of a regiment of angels to the assistance of the Believers, while on the other hand the treachery of the Devil did mischief to the Meccans. The popular tradition attributed it to the prowess of some of Mahomet's followers, especially his uncle Hamza and his cousin Ali. In the narratives which have come down and which seem to be authentic the result is amply accounted for by the excellence of the Moslem discipline and the complete absence of any on the Meccan side. Mahomet himself is said to have fainted at the first sight of blood, and to have remained during the battle in a hut built for him to which swift camels were tied, to be used in case of a defeat; yet these accounts make him responsible for the tactics, whilst assigning the credit for the strategy to one Hobab b. al-Mondhir. Several of Mahomet's old enemies and friends of Meccan days perished on this occasion; notably one Abu Jahl, his uncle, but represented as an implacable enemy; another hostile uncle, Abu Lahab, who is cursed in the Koran, was not present but died shortly after the battle.

The day is called in the Koran by a Syriac expression the "Day of Deliverance," and both for internal and external politics it was of incalculable advantage to Islam. The booty and the ransoms of the prisoners provided the means for dealing with distress; the story of supernatural aid soothed the feelings of the defeated Meccans and had a tendency to disarm resistance elsewhere; whilst Mahomet in the popularity acquired by his victory was able to strike forcibly at his enemies in Medina. One of the sequels to the victory was a series of assassinations whereby critics of his actions were removed.

The Taking of Mecca.

The defeat at Badr naturally led to efforts on the part of the Meccans to avenge their dead and besides to secure the commerce, by which they lived, from an enemy who was gradually getting all the seaboard that lay between Jeddah and Yanbo within his sphere of influence; and the year after Badr (A.H. 3) Abu Sofian was able to lead a force said to be three times as great as that which had been defeated, and so numbering some 3000 men, against Medina itself; part of it was under Khalid b. al-Walid, one of the greatest of Arab captains, afterwards conqueror of Syria. It is said that Mahomet's plan was to remain in Medina itself, and leave it to the Meccan commander to discover some way of taking the place; but that his hand was forced by his more ardent followers. Others, however, assign this advice to Abdallah b. Ubayy, and make the Prophet anxious to fight from the first. A battle was in consequence fought under Mt Uhud (or Ohod), north-west of Medina, wherein Khalid succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on Mahomet's forces; his uncle Hamza, hero of Badr, was killed on this occasion. Fortunately for the Moslems, the Meccans considered that they had finished their task when they discovered that they had killed a number of the former equal to those who had fallen at Badr on their own side; instead therefore of pursuing their victory they went home. The immediate effect on Arabia appears to have been to dissipate the illusion that the Prophet could count on supernatural assistance in his wars; and we hear of some blows being dealt him from outside. Meanwhile his relations towards the Medinese Jews had grown more and more hostile, and these are credited with doing their best to rouse the Meccans to a sense of the danger which threatened them in the continuance of the Prophet's power, and in general to stir up hostility against him in Arabia. Whether this part was played by them or not, in the fifth year of the Prophet's stay at Medina a fresh invasion of the territory took place by a vast confederate force of Meccans with their allies, the tribes Fazarah, Asad, Murrah, &c., to the number, it is said, of 10,000. This time the intention of the leaders was undoubtedly to stamp out Islam. For the first time in Arab warfare Mahomet resorted to the expedient of defending his city by a trench, called by a Persian name, and suggested by a Persian convert. But he also employed agents to sow dissension among the confederates, and succeeded with this no less than with the other expedient. After a brief stay, and scarcely striking a blow, the confederacy dispersed, leaving the Jews who still remained in Medina to the summary vengeance of the Prophet. The want of records written from the Meccan standpoint renders the abortiveness of this last attempt at storming the Prophet's stronghold scarcely intelligible.

From this time, however, the road towards the eventual taking of Mecca became easy, and we are told that such was the importance attached to that city throughout Arabia that its acquisition meant for the Prophet the acquisition of the whole peninsula. The next year (A.H. 6) he deemed it advisable to make a truce with the Meccans (the Truce of Hodaibiyah), whereby he secured for his followers the right of performing the pilgrimage in the following year; on this occasion he even consented to forgo his title "Prophet of Allah," when the Meccans refused to sign a deed in which it was employed, greatly to the scandal of his more earnest followers, including Omar; they were however too deeply committed to Islam to be able to defy the Prophet. When the pilgrimage was performed (A.H. 7), Mahomet not only won important converts in the persons of Khalid and the no less able `Amr b. al-`As, but in general impressed the population with the idea that his was the winning side. An excuse was easily found for invading Mecca itself in the following year, when Abu Sofian took the opportunity of embracing Islam before it was too late. Very little resistance was now made by the Meccans, whose chiefs were already in Mahomet's camp, and Mahomet used his victory with great moderation; his proscription list was finally reduced to two. The theory that all offences were cancelled by conversion was loyally observed. Moreover the Prophet incurred the displeasure of his Medinese friends by the anxiety which he displayed to soothe the feelings of his former enemies and antagonists. The Medinese, however, prevailed upon him to maintain their city as his political capital, while making Mecca the religious centre of his system; and this arrangement accounts perhaps more than anything else for the persistence of the system amid so many dynastic changes.

In the main he appears to have introduced little alteration into the government of Mecca, and it is said that he even declined to retaliate on those who had confiscated the possessions of the Refugees. Even the Ka`ba was left in the keeping of its former custodian, though of course its interior as well as its precincts were cleansed of all that could offend monotheists. In the following year the pilgrimage was for the first time conducted by a Moslem official, Abu Bekr. A proclamation was made on that occasion, forbidding idolaters in future to take part in the pilgrimage, and giving all Arabs who were not as yet converted four months' grace before force was to be brought to bear upon them. In the following year Mahomet conducted the Pilgrimage himself. This solemn occasion (the "Farewell Pilgrimage") was also employed for the delivery of an important proclamation, wherein the Prophet declared that God had completed their religion. The principle whereon he specially insisted was the brotherhood of Islam; but there is some difficulty in enucleating the original sermon from later additions.

Conquest of Arabia.

It would seem that Mahomet's enterprise originally comprised the conversion of Mecca only, and that he thought of himself as sent to his fellow-citizens only, as had been the case with earlier prophets, whose message was for their "brethren." His views took a somewhat different direction after his brief exile to Taif, and the conquest of Arabia was in a way forced upon him in the course of his struggle with the Meccans. It is not indeed perfectly clear by what process he arrived at the resolution to exclude paganism from Arabia; at first he appears to have tolerated it at Medina, and in some of his earlier contracts with neighbouring tribes he is represented as allowing it, though some of our texts make him reserve to himself the right of enforcing Islam if he chose; only the Meccans were at first, according to the most authentic documents, excluded from all truce or treaty. At the battle of Badr he appears to have formulated the rule that no one might fight on his side who had not embraced Islam; and when once he had won fame as a successful campaigner, those who wished to share his adventures had to pass the Islamic test. After the battle of Uhud (Ohod) we hear of a tribe demanding missionaries to instruct them in Islamic principles; and though in the case recorded the demand was treacherous, the idea of sending missionaries appears not to have been unfamiliar even then, albeit the number sent (70), if rightly recorded, implies that the Prophet suspected the good faith of the applicants. After the taking of Mecca, whereby the chief sanctuary at any rate of north Arabia had been cleared of all idolatrous associations, and consecrated to monotheism, paganism in general was conscious of being attacked; and the city had scarcely been brought under the new régime before the Prophet had to face a confederation of tribes called Hawazin and Thaqif. The battle which ensued, known as the Day of Honain, was near ending disastrously for Islam; some of Mahomet's sturdiest followers fled; but the terrible danger of a defeat in the neighbourhood of recently conquered Mecca roused the Prophet and Ali to heroism, and they saved the day. Emissaries were now sent far and wide demanding the destruction of idols, and only Taif appears to have made any considerable resistance; against this place for the first time the Prophet made use of siege artillery, such as was employed by the Byzantines; though compelled by the bravery of the inhabitants to raise the siege, he was afterwards able to take the city by capitulation. It has been observed that here only do we read of much attachment to the old deities; in most places they were discarded with few regrets when once their impotence had been found out. After the taking of Mecca and the victory of Honain there appears to have been a general desire, extending even to the extreme south of Arabia, to make the best terms with the conqueror so soon as possible; iconoclasm became general. Flatterers of various kinds, including poets, came to seek the favour of the sovereign; and a mock war of words appears to have been substituted by some tribes for more serious fighting, to terminate in surrender. For warfare of his sort Mahomet had a powerful helper in the poet Hassan b. Thabit, for whose effusions a pulpit was erected in the Medina mosque, and whose verses were said to be inspired by the Holy Spirit; though, as has been seen, Mahomet was not himself able to judge of their artistic merit. It was not, however, found easy to enforce the payment of the alms on these new converts; and this taxation caused an almost general revolt so soon as Mahomet's death had been ascertained.

Plan of World-conquest.

Although the central portions of the peninsula in Mahomet's time were practically independent, large portions of the north-west and south-east were provinces of the Byzantine and Persian empires respectively, whence any scheme for the conquest of Arabia would necessarily involve the conqueror in war with these great powers. The conquest of Persia is said to have been contemplated by the Prophet as early as A.H. 5, when the famous Trench was being dug; but it was not till the year A.H. 7, on the eve of the taking of Mecca, that the Prophet conceived the idea of sending missives to all known sovereigns and potentates, promising them safety if, but only if, they embraced Islam. The text of these letters, which only varied in the name of the person addressed, is preserved (doubtless faithfully) by the Moslem Oral Tradition; in the middle of the last century a French explorer professed to discover in Egypt the original of one of them--addressed to the mysterious personage called the Muqauqis (Mukaukis) of Egypt--and this, it appears, is still preserved amid other supposed relics of the Prophet in Constantinople, though there is little reason for believing it to be genuine. The anecdotes dealing with the reception of these letters by their addressees are all fabulous in character. Two appear to have sent favourable replies: the king of Axum, who now could send the exiles whom he had so long harboured to their successful master; and the Egyptian governor, who sent Mahomet a valuable present, including two Coptic women for his harem. The emperor Heraclius is claimed as a secret convert to Islam, on whom pressure had to be put by his advisers to conceal his convictions. The Persian king is said to have sent orders to have Mahomet arrested; his messengers arrived in Medina, but were unable to carry out the commands of their master, who died while they were there. Two of the letters are said to have had important results. One was addressed to the Himyarite chiefs (called by the south Arabian appellation _qail_) in Yemen, and effected their conversion; another to the governor of Bostra in Roman Arabia, who put the bearer of this insolent message to death; a force was despatched by Mahomet immediately afterwards (beginning of A.H. 8) to avenge this outrage; and though the Moslems were defeated in their first encounter with the Byzantine forces at Mutah, they appear to have given a good account of themselves; it was here that Ja`far, cousin of the Prophet, met his death. In A.H. 9 a successful expedition was led by the Prophet himself northward, in which, though no Byzantine force was encountered, a considerable region was withdrawn from the Byzantine sphere of influence, and made either Islamic or tributary to Islam. At the time of his death (of fever, after a short illness) he was organizing an expedition for the conquest of Syria.

Jewish and Christian Communities.