The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

used them in pageantry and war long after the days of the

Ptolemies, who had first shown them how the huge beasts might be

entrapped. Hindus were probably employed by the Ptolemies, as they

were by the Carthaginians, for the management of the elephantine stud.

In the fourth century two shipwrecked Christians converted the king and

his people to the new religion—a beneficial event, for thus they were

brought into connection with the Roman Empire. The Patriarch of

Alexandria was the Abyssinian pope, as he is at the present day, and

during all these years he has never ceased to send them their aboona or

archbishop. This ecclesiastic is regarded with much reverence; he costs

six thousand dollars; he is never allowed to smoke; and by way of

blessing he spits upon his congregation, who believe that the episcopal

virtue resides in the saliva, and not, as we think, in the fingers´ends.

 

Abyssinia had still its ancient seaport in Annesley Bay, and sent trading

vessels to the India coast. The Byzantine emperor, having made his

proposals through the Patriarch of Alexandria, and having received from

the Negus a favourable reply, dispatched a fleet of transports down the

Red Sea; the king filled them with his brigand troops; Yemen was

invaded and subdued, and now it was the Christians who began to

persecute. Another Arab prince ran off for help, and he went to the

Persian king, who at first refused to take the country as a gift, saying it

was too distant and too poor. However, at last he ordered the prisons to

be opened, and placed all the able-bodied convicts they contained at the

disposal of the prince. The Abyssinians were driven out, but they

returned and reconquered the land. Chosroes then sent a regular army

with orders to kill all the men with black skins and curly hair. Thus

Yemen became a Persian province, and no less than three great

religions—that of Zoroaster, that of Moses, and that of Jesus—were

represented in Arabia.

 

Midway between Yemen and Egypt is a sandy valley two miles in length,

surrounded on all sides by naked hills. No gardens or fields are to be

seen; no trees except some low brushwood and the acacia of the desert.

On all sides are barren and sunburnt rocks. But in the midst of this valley

is a wonderful well. It is not that the water is unusually cool and sweet—

connoisseurs pronounce it “heavy” to the taste—but it affords an

inexhaustible supply. No matter what quantity may be drawn up, the

water in the well remains always at the same height. It is probably fed by

a perennial stream below.

 

This valley, on account of its well, was made the halting-place of the

India caravans, and there the goods changed carriers—the south delivered

them over to the north. As the north and south were frequently at war,

the valley was hallowed with solemn oaths for the protection of the trade.

A sanctuary was established; the well Zemzem became sacred; its fame

spread, and it was visited from all parts of the land by the diseased and

the devout. The tents of the valley tribe became a city of importance,

enriched by the customs receipts and dues of protection, and by the

carrier hire of the caravans. When the navigation of the Red Sea put an

end to the carrying trade by land the city was deserted; its inhabitants

returned to the wandering Bedouin life. In the fifth century, however, it

was restored by an enterprising man, and the shrine was rebuilt. Mecca

was no longer a wealthy town; it was no longer situated on one of the

highways of the world; but it manufactured a celebrated leather, and sent

out two caravans a year—one to Syria and one to Abyssinia. Some of the

Meccans were rich men; Byzantine gold pieces and Persian copper coins

circulated in abundance; the ladies dressed themselves in silk, had

Chinese looking-glasses, wore shoes of perfumed leather, and made

themselves odorous of musk. It was the fame of Mecca as a holy place

which brought this wealth into the town. The citizens lived upon the

pilgrims. However, they esteemed it a pious duty to give hospitality if it

was required to the “guests of God, who came from distant cities on their

lean and jaded camels, fatigued and harassed with the dirt and squalor of

the way.” The poor pilgrims were provided during six days with pottage

of meat and bread and dates; leather cisterns filled with water were also

placed at their disposal.

 

During four months of the year there was a Truce of God, and the Arab

tribes, suspending their hostilities, journeyed towards Mecca. As soon as

they entered the Sacred Valley they put on their palmers´weeds,

proceeded at once to the Caaba or house of God, walked round it naked

seven times, kissed the black stone and drank of the waters of the famous

well. Then a kind of Eisteddfod was held. The young men combated in

martial games; poems were recited, and those which gained the prize

were copied with illuminated characters and hung up on the Caaba before

the golden-plated door.

 

There was no regular government in the holy city, no laws that could be

enforced, no compulsory courts of justice, and no public treasury. The

city was composed of several families or clans belonging to the tribe of

the Corayshites, by whom New Mecca had been founded. Each family

inhabited a cluster of houses surrounding a courtyard and well, the whole

enclosed by solid walls. Each family was able to go to war and to sustain

a siege. If a murder was committed the injured family took the law into

its own hands; sometimes it would accept a pecuniary compensation—

there was a regular tariff—but more frequently the money was refused.

They had a belief that if blood was not avenged by blood a small winged

insect issued from the skull of the murdered person and fled screeching

through the sky. It was also a point of honour on the part of the guilty

clan to protect the murderer and to adopt his cause. Thus blood feuds

rose easily and died hard.

 

The head of the family was a despot, and enjoyed the power of life and

death over the members of his own house. But he had also severe

responsibilities. It was his duty to protect those who dwelt within the

circle of his yard; all its inmates called him father; to all of them he owed

the duties of a parent. If his son was little better than a slave, on the other

hand his slave was almost equal to a son. It sometimes happened that

masterless men, travellers, or outcasts required his protection. If it was

granted, the stranger entered the family, and the father was accountable

for his debts, delicts, and torts. The body of the delinquent might be

tendered in lieu of fine or feud, but this practice was condemned by

public opinion, and in all semi-savage communities public opinion has

considerable power.

 

There was a town-hall in which councils were held to discuss questions

relating to the common welfare of the federated families, but the minority

were not bound by the voice of the majority. If, for instance, it was

decided to make war, a single family could hold aloof. In this town-hall

marriages were celebrated, circumcisions were performed, and young

girls were invested with the dress of womanhood. It was the starting

place of the militia and the caravans. It was near the Caaba and opened

towards it: in Mecca the Church was closely united to the state.

 

Throughout all time Mecca had preserved its independence and its

religion; the ancient idolatry had there a sacred home. The Meccans

recognised a single creator, Allah Taala, the Most High God, who

Abraham, and others before Abraham, had adored. But they believed that

the stars were live beings, daughters of the Deity, who acted as

intercessors on behalf of men; and to propitiate their favour idols were

made to represent them. Within the Caaba or around it were also images

of foreign deities and of celebrated men; a picture of Mary with the child

Jesus in her lap was painted on a column, and a portrait of Abraham with

a bundle of divining arrows in his hands upon the wall.

 

Among the Meccans there were many who regarded that idolatry with

abhorrence and contempt; yet to that idolatry their town owed all that it

possessed, its wealth and its glory, which extended round a crescent of a

thousand miles. They were therefore obliged as good citizens to content

themselves with seeking a simpler religion for themselves, and those who

did protest against the Caaba gods were persuaded to silence by their

families, or, if they would not be silent, were banished from the town

under penalty of death if they returned.

 

But there rose up a man whose convictions were too strong to be hushed

by the love of family or to be quelled by the fear of death. Partly owing

to his age and dignified position and unblemished name, partly owing to

the chivalrous nature of his patriarch or patron, he was protected against

his enemies, his life was saved. Had there been a government at Mecca,

he would unquestionably have been put to death, and as it was he

narrowly escaped.

 

Mohammed was a poor lad subject to a nervous disease which made him

at first unfit for anything except the despised occupation of the shepherd.

 

When he grew up he became a commercial traveller, acted as agent for a

rich widow twenty-five years older than himself, and obtained her hand.

They lived happily together for many years. They were both of them

exceedingly religious people, and in the Ramadan, a month held sacred

by the ancient Arabs, they used to live in a cave outside the town, passing

the time in prayer and meditation.

 

The disease of his childhood returned upon him in his middle age; it

affected his mind in a strange manner, and produced illusions of his

senses. He thought that he was haunted, that his body was the house of

an evil spirit. “I see a light,” he said to his wife, “and I hear a sound. I

fear that I am one of the possessed.” This idea was most distressing to a

pious man. He became pale and haggard; he wandered about on the hill

near Mecca, crying out to God for help. More than once he drew near the

edge of a cliff, and was tempted to hurl himself down and so put an end

to his misery at once.

 

And then a new idea possessed his mind. He lived much in the open air,

gazing on the stars, watching the dry ground grown green beneath the

gentle rain, surveying the firmly rooted mountains and the broad

expanded plain. He pondered also on the religious legends of the Jews

which he had heard related on his journeys, at noonday beneath the palm-tree by the well mouth, at night by the camp fire; and as he looked and

thought, the darkness was dispelled, the clouds dispersed, and the vision

of God in solitary grandeur rose up within his mind. And there came

upon him an impulse to speak of God; there came upon him a belief that

he was a messenger of God sent on earth to restore the religion of

Abraham which the pagan Arabs had polluted with their idolatry, the

Christians in making Jesus a divinity, the Jews in corrupting their holy

books.

 

In the brain of a poet stanzas will sometimes arise fully formed without a

conscious effort of the will, as once happened to Coleridge in a dream;

and so into Mohammed´s half-dreaming mind there flew golden-winged

verses echoing to one another in harmonious