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

sound. At the same time he

heard a Voice; and sometimes he saw a human figure; and sometimes he

felt a noise in his ears like the tinkling of bells, or a low, deep hum as if

bees were swarming round his head. At this period of his life every

chapter of the Koran was delivered in throes of pain. The paroxysm was

preceded by depression of spirits; his face became clouded; his

extremities turned cold; he shook like a man in an ague and called for a

covering. His face assumed an expression horrible to see; the vein

between his eyebrows became distended; his eyes were fixed; his head

moved to and fro, as if he was conversing; and then he gave forth the

oracle or sudra. Sometimes he would fall like a man intoxicated to the

ground, but the ordinary conclusion of the fit was a profuse perspiration,

by which he appeared to be relieved. His sufferings were at times

unusually severe—he used often to speak of the three terrific sudras

which had given him grey hairs.

 

His friends were alarmed at his state of mind. Some ascribed it to the

eccentricities of poetical genius; others declared that he was possessed of

an evil spirit; others said he was insane. When he began to preach against

the idols of the Caaba, the practice of female infanticide, and other evil

customs of the town; when he declared that there was no divine being but

God, and that he was the messenger of God; when he related the ancient

legends of the prophets which he said had been told him by the angel

Gabriel, there was a general outburst of merriment and scorn. They said

he had picked it all up from a Christian who kept a jeweller´s shop in the

town. They requested him to perform miracles; the poets composed

comic ballads which the people sang when he began to preach; the

women pointed at him with the finger; it became an amusement of the

children to pelt Mohammed. This was perhaps the hardest season of his

life—ridicule is the most terrible of all weapons. But his wife

encouraged him to persevere, and so did the Voice, which came to him

and sang: “By the brightness of the morn that rises, and by the darkness

of the night that descends, thy God hath not forsaken thee, Mohammed.

For know that there is a life beyond the grave, and it will be better for

thee than thy present life; and thy Lord will give thee a rich reward. Did

he not find thee an orphan, and did he not care for thee? Did he not find

thee wandering in error, and hath he not guided thee to truth? Did he not

find thee needy, and hath he not enriched thee? Wherefore oppress not

the orphan, neither repulse the beggar, but declare the goodness of the

Lord.”

 

This Voice was the echo of Mohammed’s conscience and the expression

of his ideas. Owing to his peculiar constitution his thoughts became

audible as soon as they became intense. So long as his mind remained

pure, the Voice was that of a good angel; when afterwards guilty wishes

entered his heart, the voice became that of Mephistopheles.

 

Mohammed’s family did not accept his mission: his converts were at first

chiefly made among the slaves. But soon these converts became so

numerous among all classes that the Meccans ceased to ridicule

Mohammed and began to hate him. Nor did he attempt to ingratiate

himself in their affections. “He called the living fools, the dead denizens

of hell-fire.” The heads of families took counsel together. They went to

Abu Talib, the patriarch of the house to which Mohammed belonged, and

offered the price of blood, and then double the price of blood, and then a

stalwart young man for Mohammed’s life, and then, being always

refused, went off declaring that there would be war. Abu Talib adjured

Mohammed not to ruin the family. The prophet’s lip quivered: he burst

into tears, but he said he must go on. Abu Talib hinted that his protection

might be withdrawn. Then Mohammed declared that if the sun came

down on his right hand and the moon on his left he would not swerve

from the work which God had given him to do. Abu Talib, finding him

inflexible, assured him that his protection should never be withdrawn. In

the meantime the patriarchs returned and said, “What is it that you want,

Mohammed? Do you wish for riches? We will make you rich. Do you

wish for honour? We will make you the mayor of the town.”

Mohammed replied with a chapter of the Koran. They then assembled in

the town hall and entered into a solemn league and covenant to keep apart

from the family of Abu Talib. It was sent to Coventry. None would buy

with them nor sell with them, eat with them nor drink with them. This

lasted for three years, but when as people passed by the house they heard

the cries of the starving children from behind the walls, they relented and

sold them grain. There was one member of the family, Abu Laheb, who

withdrew from it at that juncture and became Mohammed’s most

inveterate foe.

 

Each family agreed also to punish its own Mohammedans. Many were

exposed to the glow of the midday sun on the scorching gravel outside

the town, and to the torments of thirst. A mulatto slave was tortured by a

great stone being placed on his chest, the while he cried out continually,

“There is only one God! There is only one God!” Mohammed

recommended his disciples to escape to Abyssinia, “a land of

righteousness, a land where none was wronged.” They were kindly

received by the Negus, who refused to give them up in spite of the envoys

with presents of red leather who were sent to him from Mecca with that

request.

 

During the period of the sacred months Mohammed used often to visit the

encampments of the pilgrims outside the town. He announced to them

his mission; he preached on the unity of God and on the terrors of the

judgment-day. “God has no daughters,” said he, “for how can he have

daughters when he has no spouse? He begetteth not, neither is he

begotten. There is none but he. O beware, ye idolators, of the time that is

to come, when the sun shall be folded up, when the stars shall fall, when

the mountains shall be made to pass away, when the children’s hair shall

grow white with anguish, when souls like locust swarms shall rise from

their graves, when the girl who hath been buried alive shall be asked for

what crime she was put to death, when the books shall be laid open, when

every soul shall know what it hath wrought! O the striking, the striking,

when men shall be scattered as moths in the wind! And then Allah shall

cry to Hell, Art thou filled full? And Hell shall cry to Allah, More, give

me more!”

 

But there followed him everywhere a squint eyed man, fat, with flowing

locks on both sides of his head, and clothed in raiment of fine Aden stuff.

When Mohammed had finished his sermon he would say, “This fellow’s

object is to draw you away from the gods to his fanciful ideas; wherefore

follow him not, O my brothers, neither listen to him.” And who should

this be but his uncle, Abu Laheb! Whereupon the strangers would reply,

“Your own kinsmen ought to know you best. Why do they not believe

you if what you say is true?” In return for these kind offices Mohammed

promised his uncle that he should go down to be burned in flaming fire,

and that his wife should go too, bearing a load of wood, with a cord of

twisted palm fibres round her neck.

 

And now two great sorrows fell upon Mohammed. He lost almost at the

same time his beloved wife and the noble-hearted parent of his clan. The

successor of Abu Talib continued the protection, yet Mohammed felt

insecure. His religion also made but small progress. The fact is that he

failed at Mecca as Jesus had failed at Jerusalem. He had made a few

ardent disciples who spent the day at his feet, or in reading snatches of

the Koran scrawled on date leaves, shoulder-blades of sheep, camel

bones, scraps of parchment, or tablets of smooth white stone. But he had

not so much as shaken the ruling idolatry, which was firmly based on

custom and self-interest. No doubt his disciples would in course of time

have diffused his religion throughout Arabia. Islam was formed; Islam

was alive; but Mohammed himself would never have witnessed its

triumph had it not been for a curious accident which now occurred. The

Arabs belonging to that city which was afterwards called Medina had

conquered a tribe of Jews. These had consoled themselves for the

bitterness of their defeat by declaring that a great prophet, the Messiah,

would soon appear, and would avenge them upon all their foes. The

Arabs believed them and trembled, for they stood in great dread of the

book which the Jews possessed, and which they supposed to be a magical

composition. So, when certain pilgrims from Medina heard Mohammed

announce that he was a messenger from God, they took it for granted that

he was the man, and determined to steal a march upon the Jews by

securing him for themselves. At their request he sent a missionary to

Medina; the townsmen were converted, and invited him to come and live

among them. In a dark ravine near Mecca, at the midnight hour, his

patriarch or father delivered him solemnly into their hands. Mohammed

was now no longer a citizen of Mecca; he was no longer “protected”; he

had changed his nationality, and he was hunted like a deer before he

arrived safely in his new home.

 

Had Mohammed been killed in that celebrated flight he would have been

classed by historians among the glorious martyrs and the gentle saints.

His character before the Hegira resembled the character of Jesus. In both

of them we find the same sublime insanity, compounded of loyalty to

God, love for man, and inordinate self-conceit; both were subject to

savage fits of wrath, and having no weapons but their tongues, consigned

souls by wholesale to hell-fire. Both also humbled themselves before

God, preaching the religion of the heart, led pure, unblemished lives,

devoted themselves to a noble cause, and uttered maxims of charity and

love at strange variance with their occasional invectives. Of the life of

Jesus it is needless to speak; if he had any vices they have not been

recorded. But the conduct of Mohammed at Mecca was apparently not

less pure. He was married to an old woman; polygamy was a custom of

the land; his passions were strong, as was afterwards too plainly shown;

yet he did not take a second wife as long as his dear Khadijah was alive.

He never frequented the wine-shop or looked at the dancing girls or

talked abroad in the bazaars. He was more modest than a virgin behind

the curtain. When he met children he would stop and pat their cheeks; he

followed the bier that passed him in the street; he visited the sick; he was

kind to his inferiors; he would accept the invitation of a slave to dinner;

he was never the first to withdraw his hand when he shook hands; he was

humble, gentle, and kind; he waited always on himself, mending his own

clothes, milking his own goats; he never struck any one in his life. When

once asked to curse someone he said, “I have not been sent to curse but to

be a mercy to mankind.” He reproached himself in the