Mahomet (Benson)

Category:Islam
THERE are two stories in the Old Testament which excite our sympathy by their description of purely human sorrow and suffering : the story of Hagar and Ishmael, and the story of Esau. Who has not felt for the poor bondwoman when, as the Bible tells us, * she went and sat down over against him a good way off, as 
it were a bowshot ; for she said, Let me not look on the death of the child'? The water in the bottle was spent, and they were wandering in the desert of Beersheba. Then followed the angel's miraculous aid, and the promise of God : ' I will make him a great nation - And God was with the lad, and he grew ; and he dwelt in the wilderness, and became an archer.' 
We remember, too, the story of Esau. ' When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry : " Bless me, even me 
also, O my father ! Hast thou but one blessing, my father ?" And Isaac, his father, answered and said unto him, " Behold thy dwelling shall be of the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; and by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother ; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck."' Long after, Esau married the daughter of Ishmael, and from him came the Edomites, and the 
Arnalekites, and all the people of Arabia. Ishmael 
and Esau were both, then, of the seed of Abraham, 
the Father of the Faithful, the Friend of God ; and 
as such must have taken with them into the Arabian 
wilderness the knowledge of the true God and Father 
of all. But if in Judaea itself, among the chosen race, 
where God was King, and prophecy and miracle, 
blessing and curse bore witness to His power if even 
there the people could leave His worship and go after 
strange gods Moloch, and Remphan, and Ashtaroth, 
and all the host of heaven what are we to look for 
among a people where no direct interference checked 
the yearning for idolatry, the worship of something 
that the eye could see and the hands could handle? 
Out in the open air, tending their flocks by day 
beneath the burning sun, sleeping by night beneath the 
innumerable stars of those rainless skies, watching the 
change of seasons, the ripening of fruits, the real and 
apparent influence of the host of heaven, it is little to 
be wondered at if the Arabians, like the Chaldaeans, 
worshipped the stars and planets, and worshipped 
them through idols, regarding them perhaps as inferior to God Himself, but still divine. Each tribe had 
its special divinity, each family its household gods, 
often in the form of rude, unshapen stones. The 
temple of the Kaaba at Mecca contained the great 
sacred stone then as now; and about it there is a 
legend, which is this. Adam and Eve, driven from 
Paradise, wandered long apart from each other, till at 
length, repentant and forgiven, they met on Mount 
Arafat, near Mecca. There, in answer to the prayer 
of Adam, a temple of clouds was miraculously let down from heaven, similar to that in which they had worshipped, according to the story, in the garden of Eden. 
In proof of their wandering and meeting, Adam's footprint, of gigantic size, is still shown on Adam's Peak in Ceylon, while Eve's tomb is to be seen in Arabia, 
ninety feet long and eighteen feet wide. With the death of Adam the temple of clouds passed away, but in its place Seth, his son, built one of wood and stone, 
which the flood destroyed ; but on its site Hagar's well bubbled forth, and near it Ishmael took up his abode. Here Abraham visited him, according to the 
Mahometans, who assert, by a curious doubling of the tale of Isaac, that he was ordered to offer up Ishmael, but released from the command in the same way ; and 
Abraham and Ishmael together rebuilt the temple, in which they were helped by the angel Gabriel, who brought them one of the stones of Paradise to assist 
them, which rose and fell as they progressed with their work, and was finally placed in an outer corner of the wall. It is still kissed by the pilgrims to Mecca, and it is supposed once to have been white, but to have turned black in reflection of the sins of the human race. Few Europeans have seen it, as Mecca is all but inaccessible to them, but it is described as reddish-black, with coloured crystals sprinkled on it, about six inches by eight in size, and raised four feet from the ground. Round it is a border of silver. The Kaaba was the centre of pilgrimages and of the strange mixture of ceremonies based partly on idolatry and partly on the biblical story of Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael. For more than two thousand years this simple religion sufficed the people of Arabia: all through the period of the Jewish kingdoms and captivities, the rise and fall of Persia, Greece, and Rome, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus 
Christ ; but for them, too, a prophet was to arise and 
effect a change in the destiny of the race a change 
which was to influence the whole of the civilized world, 
bringing about even in our own time wars and rumours 
of wars between the Powers of Europe, and trouble, 
danger, and disgrace in the unknown heart of Africa. 
There was a man by name Abdallah, a descendant of Cussai, guardian of the Kaaba, and sixth in descent from Fehr Coreish, of the race of Ishmael. Abdallah 
married a wife, Amina, but shortly afterwards died, leaving behind him the moderate fortune of a flock of goats, four camels, and a slave girl. Soon after his 
death a son was born to his widow, and named Mahomet. Before his birth the oracles, they say, 
were dumb, the sacred fire of Zoroaster, guarded for 
centuries by the Magi, was extinguished, and the spirits 
of evil hid themselves in the depths of the sea. 
Eastward over Mecca rises a mountain chain, and 
under its rocks stood the old house where Mahomet 
was born. His aged grandfather bore him to the 
Kaaba in his arms, like Simeon in the temple, and 
blessed God, and called him Mohammad, or, as we 
usually spell it, Mahomet. The child, according to 
custom, was sent to be nursed among the outlying 
Bedouin tribes by a woman named Halima. There 
the flocks and herds were blessed for his sake, the 
water and grasses never failed, and the angel Gabriel 
was specially sent, says the legend, to take Mahomet's 
heart from his breast and wring from it the one black 
drop of original sin, which is in the hearts of all. so as 
to make him pure and fit to be the prophet of God. 
When four years old, he appears to have become 
subject to epileptic fits, then ascribed to the visitation 
of evil spirits. So he was then sent back to his 
mother ; but about a year afterwards she died, to the 
great grief of the sensitive child ; nor did he ever 
forget his sorrow, visiting her tomb years afterwards, 
and weeping and lamenting over it aloud. 
Probably the first exciting event in the boy's life 
was in his twelfth year, when he was allowed by his 
guardian to accompany the caravan that passed from 
the south on the way to Syria. He had never been 
far away from home before for any length of time, and 
the journey through the desert northwards must have 
strongly impressed his mind. The imagination of the 
people had filled these solitudes, as has been the case 
in all lands, with supernatural inhabitants, monstrous 
and malignant, the Genii or Djinns of the Arabian 
Nights. The horror of loneliness, either in the night 
or the equally silent noontide, found expression in 
mysterious tales and legends haunting every hill and 
vale of the regions through which he passed. Again, 
Mahomet during these journeys must have come across 
many Christians, but not Christians such as those of the West. They were strange people, these Eastern heretics ; some making the Virgin Mary their only God, others joining her in the Trinity with the Father and the Son, others with confused and confusing theories of the relations of the Three Persons of the Godhead and of the scheme of the Incarnation and the Redemption. If at this time Mahomet felt aspirations for a purer and higher religion than the star-worship of his countrymen, it need not surprise us that Christianity such as this, obscured further by the worship of saints and of images, failed completely to supply what he desired. 
Legends tell of miraculous signs manifested on this 
journey of his. At one time angels' wings shelter him 
from the noonday heat ; at another, the withered trees 
are clothed with leaves to give him shade. At Bostra, 
east of the Jordan, a strange fire is said to have shone 
round his face to mark out the future prophet of 
God. 
But for the next twelve years or so his life was uneventful. He fought in a tribal war ; he tended sheep 
on the Mecca hills like David of old, doubtless finding 
in this pursuit many opportunities for thought and 
contemplation. In his twenty-fifth year, however, he 
entered the service of a rich widow of Mecca named 
Khadija. He was employed in accompanying the 
yearly caravan in charge of the widow's merchandise, 
and by skilful trading he succeeded in doubling her 
fortune. His services, his modesty, his noble character 
won him the favour of Khadija, and he became her 
husband, thus rising at one step from the office of a 
camel-driver to the position of a wealthy chief, the 
equal of others of his house. 
About ten years after there was a serious flood 
(according to another account, a fire), and some 
damage was done to the Kaaba, which accordingly had 
to be repaired. The families in charge of it were so 
jealous of one another that they had to be divided into 
four sets, and one side of the shrine entrusted to each 
set. But a difficulty arose. Who was to set up the 
sacred black stone ? The dispute which followed 
almost led to bloodshed; but Mahomet interposed, 
and spreading his mantle on the ground, laid the stone on it, and gave a corner to the chief of each of the four parties, that each might have the same share in raising it ; but he himself guided it to its final resting-place, and fixed it there. 
But now the crisis of his life was approaching the 
period at which he came forward as the prophet of the 
one God whose existence he taught. It is hard to 
judge rightly of his motives in thus proclaiming himself. 
Nowadays, of course, we do not necessarily regard the 
founder of a religion different from our own as a wilful 
impostor, much less as one inspired by Satan. But 
such was once the opinion Christians held of Mahomet. 
The Protestant Luther said he was ' a devil.' His 
Roman Catholic opponents could find nothing worse 
to say of Mahomet than that he was like Luther. But 
for us it is no longer necessary to recognise only 
wickedness or imposture in Mahomet. We may well 
see in him at first an honest seeker after God, 
convinced of His unity, His mercy, His justice ; and if he turned aside from the straight path, if he allowed pride and ambition to blind him to the true light, and came to believe that his bodily seizures and mental paroxysms were the true workings of God in him, we need not therefore regard him as insincere, though he was no doubt the victim of a self-delusion, which led him, in the end, to consider even the sinful impulses of his heart manifestations of the direct will of Heaven. 
In the fortieth year of his life, the year of our Lord 610, he was, according to the story, meditating at night in the cave of Hira, on a mountain three miles north of Mecca. There, in the highest part of the horizon, there appeared to him an angel, mighty in power, endowed with understanding, who drew near to the prophet, till he was within two bows' length of him; and he revealed,' says the Koran, ' unto his servant, that which he revealed.' The angel Gabriel 
for it was he held in his hand a silken cloth covered with writing, and bade Mahomet read ; but he 
replied that he could not. Then the angel spoke as 
follows : ' Read in the name of the Lord, who hath 
created all things. Read by the most beneficent Lord, 
who taught the use of the pen ; who teacheth man 
that which he knoweth not.' Then the angel left him, 
with the words graven in his heart, but his mind sunk 
in doubt and despondency. But a second vision 
followed, and then the words were clearer: 'Oh, 
Mahomet, of a truth thou art the apostle of God, and I am Gabriel.' Then he no longer doubted, nor did those to whom he told the glad tidings. His wife 
Khadija, his adopted sons Ali and Zeid, his friend 
Abu Bekr, were his earliest converts. Others soon 
followed ; and in the first three or four years, when his 
preaching was secret, probably the number of his 
followers increased to thirty or forty. Then came the 
command to preach his doctrines openly. 
But let us wait for a moment to see what manner of man this was in outward appearance, who was to work so great a change in the world. Mahomet was of 
middling size, broad-shouldered and large-boned, 
fleshy but not fat. His head was immoderately large, 
and his hair hung in curls on either side of his face, 
almost to the lobes of his ears. His face was fair for 
an Arab, his forehead broad, his eyes black and blood- 
shot. Between them was a prominent vein which 
throbbed when he was angry. His nose was large and 
hooked, his mouth wide, his teeth good, but set wide apart in front.
[pages 26 and 27 missing]
they lay for three days, fed by faithful relations and 
shepherds. Abu Bekr was afraid, perhaps more for his 
friend than for himself. Their pursuers were on all 
sides, and they might be discovered at any moment. "There be many that fight against us," said he, "and 
we are but two." ' Not so,' replied Mahomet, ' we are 
but two, but God is in the midst a third.' Legend 
states that a spider spun her web over the cave's 
mouth, and that a tree grew there miraculously, on 
which the brooding wood-pigeons sat undisturbed, to 
show to the pursuers that no one could be hiding 
within. 
On the fourth day they mounted two camels which had been provided, and in four days more looked down from a ridge of rocks upon Medina, lying amid palm-groves and orchards, with its promise of safety and peace. There the new converts received them with joy; and so ended the Hejira, or Flight of Mahomet, from which the Mahometans reckon their years, as we do from the Nativity. The date was June 28, in the year of our Lord 622. 
And here, before relating the story of the last years 
of Mahomet's life, spent mainly at Medina, it may be 
as well to explain a little more fully the religion which 
he taught and the method by which it was made 
known to the world. The inspired book of the 
Mahometans is called the Koran, containing 114 
chapters of different lengths. It is supposed to consist 
of revelations made direct to Mahomet, and written 
down by his followers on palm-leaves, white stones, 
pieces of leather, shoulder-blades of animals ; all being 
subsequently collected and preserved in a chest. 
The unity of God is clearly asserted in the Koran in the following words : ' In the name of the most merciful God. Say, God is one God, the eternal God ; 
He begetteth not, neither is He begotten, and there is not any one like unto him.' This doctrine is the foundation of the belief of the Mahometans, whose 
creed is : ' There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God.' 
The heaven and hell of the Moslems is also described. The former is a place of purely material and sensual delights, full of soft couches, shady 
gardens, and murmuring streams, doubtless attractive enough to the dwellers in a burning desert : while of hell the Koran says : ' The wicked shall be cast into scorching fire ; they shall have no food but dry thorns and thistles They shall dwell amidst burning winds and scalding water, under the shadow of a black 
smoke.' 
Heaven is only for true believers, and not at once even for them. Christians, Jews, idolaters, are all sunk into one or other of the seven hells ; the lowest of all being reserved for hypocrites. Then the believers will be judged by their actions. All must pass over the bridge, sharper than a sword edge, finer than a hair, which, spanning the abyss of hell, leads to Paradise beyond. The innocent, treading in the footsteps of Mahomet, will pass over in safety, while the guilty will fall into the first and mildest of the seven hells, which is a purgatory where their sins are expiated by suffering for periods varying from 900 to 7,000 years. 
The Koran recognises four chief angels or archangels : Gabriel, the Angel of Revelation ; Michael, the champion of the faith, and the friend of the Jews ; Azrael, the angel of death, and Israfil, who is to sound the trumpet at the last day. The devil is called Eblis, 
and he is said to have fallen because he refused to 
worship Adam. 
The book deals both with the Jewish and the Christian religions. But it mingles the Old Testament narrative with absurd stories, such as that in which 
the Seven Sleepers remain in a cave for 309 years ; or the people of the city of the sea are turned into apes 
for fishing on the Sabbath, or Solomon talks with a 
lapwing, and commands the winds and the Genii, one 
of whom brings him the Queen of Sheba's throne in 
the twinkling of an eye. 
The story of Christ Mahomet appears to have 
derived chiefly from Jewish authorities, from heretical 
Christian sects, and the Apocryphal Gospels. Thus 
the Holy Child speaks in its cradle, makes clay birds 
fly, and performs miracles while still quite young ; all 
of which, it is carefully added, is done only by per- 
mission of God. Then the institution of the Lord's 
Supper and the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 
are confused. Again, about the death of Christ the 
Koran says : ' The Jews say, Verily we have slain 
Christ Jesus the Son of Mary, the Apostle of God. 
Yet they slew Him not, neither crucified Him, but He 
was represented by one in His likeness ; they did not 
really kill Him, but God took Him up unto Himself, 
and God is mighty and wise.' Then, according to the 
Koran, the Saviour was allowed to descend for a while 
to comfort His mother and disciples. It must be 
remembered that certain early Christian heretics also 
maintained that our Lord never suffered Himself, but 
that Simon of Cyrene, or even Judas Iscariot, was 
crucified in His place. Finally the Koran, while acknowledging Christ Jesus to be ' honourable and one 
of those who approached near to the presence of God,' 
declares that ' He is no other than a servant, whom 
God favoured with the gift of prophecy, but not to be 
associated with the worship of God ;' and when He 
comes again at the last day it will be to confute 
the Christians who believed on Him as God, no less 
than the Jews who rejected and crucified Him. 
Of course, the Koran is full of moral precepts, to 
many of which no one could take exception. Wine 
and gambling are forbidden. Crimes are to be 
punished on the principle of retaliation an eye for an 
eye, a tooth for a tooth. Prayer, fasting, almsgiving, 
are all duties to be carefully observed. War against 
infidels is expressly commanded ; the warrior who dies 
in such battle passes straight to heaven a belief 
which, combined with their idea of inevitable fate, 
renders the Moslems desperately brave and careless of 
death, as our soldiers found in the recent battles in the 
Soudan. But there are two special faults in the 
Mahometan system it degrades women to an inferior 
level, and it encourages slavery. 
Such, in outline, was the faith which has spread over 
a great part of Asia and Africa, and at one time 
threatened to contend successfully with Christianity in 
Europe. Even now it dominates Egypt, the Turkish 
Empire, Arabia, Persia, and Turkestan, prevails along 
the north coast of Africa and irregularly southward to 
the equator, has great influence in India and among 
the Malays, and has found a footing in China. Its 
followers number 100 millions, or one-thirteenth of the 
inhabitants of the world, against 490 million Buddhists 
and 360 million Christians, But now that external conquest has ceased to supply the Moslem powers 
with a motive for energy, they have sunk lower and 
lower, neglecting all reform and attempt at political 
progress. ' It is Kismet, or Fate,' they say ; it is no 
use struggling against the inevitable. Nor is it possible 
for them ever to govern nations subject to them with 
justice, so long as they obey the Koran, which com- 
mands them to hold unbelievers under tribute, and to 
bring them down in every possible way. 
But we must return to Mahomet at Medina. He 
entered the city in triumph, and allowed his camel 
unchecked to choose a spot for his future home. It 
stopped near the east side of the city, and there houses 
for Mahomet and his family, and a temple, in which 
regular services were conducted, were built. 
He was now secure, and in his turn wished to attack 
his enemies at Mecca. He plundered the caravans 
that came thence, and in November, 623, eight of his 
men surprised a Meccan convoy, and a fight took place, 
in which one man of the Coreish was killed, and two 
were taken prisoners. This was the first blood shed by 
the Mahometans. But soon after Mahomet, with 300 
followers, encountered and routed nearly a thousand of 
his enemies at Badr, killing and taking prisoners over 
100 men, and losing only fourteen. Two of the 
prisoners were put to death in cold blood, and the rest 
released for a heavy ransom. The sword was now 
fairly drawn. 
The Meccans determined on revenge ; 3,000 strong, 
they advanced within four miles of Medina. Mahomet 
took up a position at Ohod, with 1,000 men, weakened 
by a desertion to 700. Nevertheless, at first, the fiery 
valour of the Moslems carried all before them ; but pursuing too hotly, they fell into confusion, and Khalid, 
the champion of the other side, restored the, fight. 
Mahomet was wounded in the mouth, and his men 
were driven from the field. The brave Hamza, the 
Lion of God, was slain by a negro, and the savage wife 
of one of the enemy's leaders tore his heart from his 
breast and gnawed it with her teeth. 
Yet the battle had no decided results. The Coreish 
withdrew to Mecca; and some smaller expeditions 
sent out by Mahomet were successful. Two years 
after, 10,000 Meccans were repulsed from the walls 
of Medina, and in the subsequent year Mahomet 
attempted to lead his followers, to the number of 1,500, 
on a pilgrimage to the Kaaba at Mecca. They encountered the enemy, but instead of fighting, a treaty 
for ten years was concluded, by which the Moslems 
were allowed a yearly visit of three days to the holy 
shrine. 
The next year they performed their pilgrimage in 
peace, and Mahomet gained some converts at Mecca ; 
but he had not forgotten his revenge, and in 630 some 
quarrels among the neighbouring tribes gave him an 
excuse for interfering and attacking Mecca at the head 
of 10,000 men. He entered unopposed, cleansed the 
temple, and touched the Black Stone. In the hour of 
his triumph he was merciful to his fallen enemies. 
Then all Arabia submitted to him, and he announced 
that there must be no league with idolaters; no 
unbelievers must visit the holy place; war must be 
waged on them, they must be besieged, killed, or 
compelled to pay tribute if they were Jews or 
Christians. 
In the hour of his success he suffered a heavy loss in the death of his little son, fifteen months old. This was a blow from which he never recovered, and about a year afterwards, at Medina, in May, 632, he was seized with a violent fever. On the 8th of June he recovered sufficiently to attend at the mosque. But 
the effort was too great for him, and he returned 
exhausted and fainting to the room of his faithful wife 
Ayesha. In great pain he lay with his head in her lap to 
wait for the approach of death. At last he fainted with 
the intensity of the agony ; but recovering again, he 
opened his eyes, and raising them upwards saw, or 
seemed to see, some vision of heaven ; then, in a broken 
voice : ' O God,' he cried, ' pardon my sins ! Yes, I 
come among my fellow-citizens on high !' And so he 
died, and the wild, untaught soul went out to learn the 
truth. 
A strange man surely, but not uninspired, not without some spark of fire from heaven ; else how can we explain his influence during life, and still more the influence of his religion after his death ? For he who was once the camel-driver of Mecca is now the prophet, almost the Messiah of millions, standing before their God to intercede for their sins. He fell before the 
temptation which Christ resisted in the wilderness 
the temptation to make all the kingdoms of the world 
his own, by worldly power and force of arms ; and in 
this lies the weak point of his religion. But he was 
not an impostor, he was not a hypocrite. 
"I have many sheep" said Our Lord, "which are not of this fold ; and them also I will call, and they shall hear My voice, and there si all be one fold and One Shepherd."