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After pursuing above six hundred years the fleeting Caesars
of Constantinople and Germany, I now descend, in the reign
of Heraclius, on the eastern borders of the Greek monarchy.
While the state was exhausted by the Persian war, and the
church was distracted by the Nestorian and Monophysite
sects, Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in
the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity
and of Rome. The genius of the Arabian prophet, the manners
of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involve the
causes of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire; and
our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable
revolutions, which have impressed a new and lasting
character on the nations of the globe. (1)
In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and
Aethiopia, the Arabian peninsula (2) may be conceived as a
triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions. From the
northern point of Beles (3) on the Euphrates, a line of
fifteen hundred miles is terminated by the Straits of
Bebelmandel and the land of frankincense. About half this
length may be allowed for the middle breadth, from east to
west, from Bassora to Suez, from the Persian Gulf to the Red
Sea. (4) The sides of the triangle are gradually enlarged,
and the southern basis presents a front of a thousand miles
to the Indian Ocean. The entire surface of the peninsula
exceeds in a fourfold proportion that of Germany or France;
but the far greater part has been justly stigmatized with
the epithets of the stony and the sandy. Even the wilds of
Tartary are decked, by the hand of nature, with lofty trees
and luxuriant herbage; and the lonesome traveller derives a
sort of comfort and society from the presence of vegetable
life. But in the dreary waste of Arabia, a boundless level
of sand is intersected by sharp and naked mountains; and the
face of the desert, without shade or shelter, is scorched by
the direct and intense rays of a tropical sun. Instead of
refreshing breezes, the winds, particularly from the
south-west, diffuse a noxious and even deadly vapor; the
hillocks of sand which they alternately raise and scatter,
are compared to the billows of the ocean, and whole
caravans, whole armies, have been lost and buried in the
whirlwind. The common benefits of water are an object of
desire and contest; and such is the scarcity of wood, that
some art is requisite to preserve and propagate the element
of fire. Arabia is destitute of navigable rivers, which
fertilize the soil, and convey its produce to the adjacent
regions: the torrents that fall from the hills are imbibed
by the thirsty earth: the rare and hardy plants, the
tamarind or the acacia, that strike their roots into the
clefts of the rocks, are nourished by the dews of the night:
a scanty supply of rain is collected in cisterns and
aqueducts: the wells and springs are the secret treasure of
the desert; and the pilgrim of Mecca, (5) after many a dry
and sultry march, is disgusted by the taste of the waters
which have rolled over a bed of sulphur or salt. Such is
the general and genuine picture of the climate of Arabia.
The experience of evil enhances the value of any local or
partial enjoyments. A shady grove, a green pasture, a
stream of fresh water, are sufficient to attract a colony of
sedentary Arabs to the fortunate spots which can afford food
and refreshment to themselves and their cattle, and which
encourage their industry in the cultivation of the palmtree
and the vine. The high lands that border on the Indian
Ocean are distinguished by their superior plenty of wood and
water; the air is more temperate, the fruits are more
delicious, the animals and the human race more numerous: the
fertility of the soil invites and rewards the toil of the
husbandman; and the peculiar gifts of frankincense (6) and
coffee have attracted in different ages the merchants of the
world. If it be compared with the rest of the peninsula,
this sequestered region may truly deserve the appellation of
the happy; and the splendid coloring of fancy and fiction
has been suggested by contrast, and countenanced by
distance. It was for this earthly paradise that Nature had
reserved her choicest favors and her most curious
workmanship: the incompatible blessings of luxury and
innocence were ascribed to the natives: the soil was
impregnated with gold (7) and gems, and both the land and sea
were taught to exhale the odors of aromatic sweets. This
division of the sandy, the stony, and the happy, so familiar
to the Greeks and Latins, is unknown to the Arabians
themselves; and it is singular enough, that a country, whose
language and inhabitants have ever been the same, should
scarcely retain a vestige of its ancient geography. The
maritime districts of Bahrein and Oman are opposite to the
realm of Persia. The kingdom of Yemen displays the limits,
or at least the situation, of Arabia Felix: the name of
Neged is extended over the inland space; and the birth of
Mahomet has illustrated the province of Hejaz along the
coast of the Red Sea. (8)
The measure of population is regulated by the means of
subsistence; and the inhabitants of this vast peninsula
might be outnumbered by the subjects of a fertile and
industrious province. Along the shores of the Persian Gulf,
of the ocean, and even of the Red Sea, the Icthyophagi, (9)
or fish eaters, continued to wander in quest of their
precarious food. In this primitive and abject state, which
ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without
arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly
distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
Generations and ages might roll away in silent oblivion, and
the helpless savage was restrained from multiplying his race
by the wants and pursuits which confined his existence to
the narrow margin of the seacoast. But in an early period
of antiquity the great body of the Arabs had emerged from
this scene of misery; and as the naked wilderness could not
maintain a people of hunters, they rose at once to the more
secure and plentiful condition of the pastoral life. The
same life is uniformly pursued by the roving tribes of the
desert; and in the portrait of the modern Bedoweens, we may
trace the features of their ancestors, (10) who, in the age
of Moses or Mahomet, dwelt under similar tents, and
conducted their horses, and camels, and sheep, to the same
springs and the same pastures. Our toil is lessened, and
our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful
animals; and the Arabian shepherd had acquired the absolute
possession of a faithful friend and a laborious slave. (11)
Arabia, in the opinion of the naturalist, is the genuine and
original country of the horse; the climate most propitious,
not indeed to the size, but to the spirit and swiftness, of
that generous animal. The merit of the Barb, the Spanish,
and the English breed, is derived from a mixture of Arabian
blood: (12) the Bedoweens preserve, with superstitious care,
the honors and the memory of the purest race: the males are
sold at a high price, but the females are seldom alienated;
and the birth of a noble foal was esteemed among the tribes,
as a subject of joy and mutual congratulation. These horses
are educated in the tents, among the children of the Arabs,
with a tender familiarity, which trains them in the habits
of gentleness and attachment. They are accustomed only to
walk and to gallop: their sensations are not blunted by the
incessant abuse of the spur and the whip: their powers are
reserved for the moments of flight and pursuit: but no
sooner do they feel the touch of the hand or the stirrup,
than they dart away with the swiftness of the wind; and if
their friend be dismounted in the rapid career, they
instantly stop till he has recovered his seat. In the sands
of Africa and Arabia, the camel is a sacred and precious
gift. That strong and patient beast of burden can perform,
without eating or drinking, a journey of several days; and a
reservoir of fresh water is preserved in a large bag, a
fifth stomach of the animal, whose body is imprinted with
the marks of servitude: the larger breed is capable of
transporting a weight of a thousand pounds; and the
dromedary, of a lighter and more active frame, outstrips the
fleetest courser in the race. Alive or dead, almost every
part of the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is
plentiful and nutritious: the young and tender flesh has the
taste of veal: (13) a valuable salt is extracted from the
urine: the dung supplies the deficiency of fuel; and the
long hair, which falls each year and is renewed, is coarsely
manufactured into the garments, the furniture, and the tents
of the Bedoweens. In the rainy seasons, they consume the
rare and insufficient herbage of the desert: during the
heats of summer and the scarcity of winter, they remove
their encampments to the sea-coast, the hills of Yemen, or
the neighborhood of the Euphrates, and have often extorted
the dangerous license of visiting the banks of the Nile, and
the villages of Syria and Palestine. The life of a
wandering Arab is a life of danger and distress; and though
sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may appropriate the
fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in the
possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the
proudest emir, who marches in the field at the head of ten
thousand horse.
Yet an essential difference may be found between the hordes
of Scythia and the Arabian tribes; since many of the latter
were collected into towns, and employed in the labors of
trade and agriculture. A part of their time and industry
was still devoted to the management of their cattle: they
mingled, in peace and war, with their brethren of the
desert; and the Bedoweens derived from their useful
intercourse some supply of their wants, and some rudiments
of art and knowledge. Among the forty-two cities of Arabia,
(14) enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous
were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, (15)
and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, (16) were constructed
by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was
eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina (17) and Mecca,
(18) near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of
two hundred and seventy miles. The last of these holy places
was known to the Greeks under the name of Macoraba; and the
termination of the word is expressive of its greatness,
which has not, indeed, in the most flourishing period,
exceeded the size and populousness of Marseilles. Some
latent motive, perhaps of superstition, must have impelled
the founders, in the choice of a most unpromising situation.
They erected their habitations of mud or stone, in a plain
about two miles long and one mile broad, at the foot of
three barren mountains: the soil is a rock; the water even
of the holy well of Zemzem is bitter or brackish; the
pastures are remote from the city; and grapes are
transported above seventy miles from the gardens of Tayef.
The fame and spirit of the Koreishites, who reigned in
Mecca, were conspicuous among the Arabian tribes; but their
ungrateful soil refused the labors of agriculture, and their
position was favorable to the enterprises of trade. By the
seaport of Gedda, at the distance only of forty miles, they
maintained an easy correspondence with Abyssinia; and that
Christian kingdom afforded the first refuge to the disciples
of Mahomet. The treasures of Africa were conveyed over the
Peninsula to Gerrha or Katif, in the province of Bahrein, a
city built, as it is said, of rock-salt, by the Chaldaean
exiles; (19) and from thence with the native pearls of the
Persian Gulf, they were floated on rafts to the mouth of the
Euphrates. Mecca is placed almost at an equal distance, a
month's journey, between Yemen on the right, and Syria on
the left hand. The former was the winter, the latter the
summer, station of her caravans; and their seasonable
arrival relieved the ships of India from the tedious and
troublesome navigation of the Red Sea. In the markets of
Saana and Merab, in the harbors of Oman and Aden, the camels
of the Koreishites were laden with a precious cargo of
aromatics; a supply of corn and manufactures was purchased
in the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; the lucrative exchange
diffused plenty and riches in the streets of Mecca; and the
noblest of her sons united the love of arms with the
profession of merchandise. (20)
The perpetual independence of the Arabs has been the theme
of praise among strangers and natives; and the arts of
controversy transform this singular event into a prophecy
and a miracle, in favor of the posterity of Ismael. (21) Some
exceptions, that can neither be dismissed nor eluded, render
this mode of reasoning as indiscreet as it is superfluous;
the kingdom of Yemen has been successively subdued by the
Abyssinians, the Persians, the sultans of Egypt, (22) and the
Turks; (23) the holy cities of Mecca and Medina have
repeatedly bowed under a Scythian tyrant; and the Roman
province of Arabia (24) embraced the peculiar wilderness in
which Ismael and his sons must have pitched their tents in
the face of their brethren. Yet these exceptions are
temporary or local; the body of the nation has escaped the
yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris
and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the
conquest of Arabia; the present sovereign of the Turks (25)
may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is
reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is
dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack. The obvious
causes of their freedom are inscribed on the character and
country of the Arabs. Many ages before Mahomet, (26) their
intrepid valor had been severely felt by their neighbors in
offensive and defensive war. The patient and active virtues
of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and
discipline of a pastoral life. The care of the sheep and
camels is abandoned to the women of the tribe; but the
martial youth, under the banner of the emir, is ever on
horseback, and in the field, to practise the exercise of the
bow, the javelin, and the cimeter. The long memory of their
independence is the firmest pledge of its perpetuity and
succeeding generations are animated to prove their descent,
and to maintain their inheritance. Their domestic feuds are
suspended on the approach of a common enemy; and in their
last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was
attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the
confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of
victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a
retreat. Their horses and camels, who, in eight or ten
days, can perform a march of four or five hundred miles,
disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters of the
desert elude his search, and his victorious troops are
consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of
an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes
in the heart of the burning solitude. The arms and deserts
of the Bedoweens are not only the safeguards of their own
freedom, but the barriers also of the happy Arabia, whose
inhabitants, remote from war, are enervated by the luxury of
the soil and climate. The legions of Augustus melted away
in disease and lassitude; (27) and it is only by a naval
power that the reduction of Yemen has been successfully
attempted. When Mahomet erected his holy standard, (28) that
kingdom was a province of the Persian empire; yet seven
princes of the Homerites still reigned in the mountains; and
the vicegerent of Chosroes was tempted to forget his distant
country and his unfortunate master. The historians of the
age of Justinian represent the state of the independent
Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long
quarrel of the East: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to
encamp on the Syrian territory: the princes of Hira were
permitted to form a city about forty miles to the southward
of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was
speedy and vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their
faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier
task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and,
in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see, and
to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of
Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes (29)
were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the general
appellation of Saracens, (30) a name which every Christian
mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and
abhorrence.
The slaves of domestic tyranny may vainly exult in their
national independence: but the Arab is personally free; and
he enjoys, in some degree, the benefits of society, without
forfeiting the prerogatives of nature. In every tribe,
superstition, or gratitude, or fortune, has exalted a
particular family above the heads of their equals. The
dignities of sheick and emir invariably descend in this
chosen race; but the order of succession is loose and
precarious; and the most worthy or aged of the noble kinsmen
are preferred to the simple, though important, office of
composing disputes by their advice, and guiding valor by
their example. Even a female of sense and spirit has been
permitted to command the countrymen of Zenobia. (31) The
momentary junction of several tribes produces an army: their
more lasting union constitutes a nation; and the supreme
chief, the emir of emirs, whose banner is displayed at their
head, may deserve, in the eyes of strangers, the honors of
the kingly name. If the Arabian princes abuse their power,
they are quickly punished by the desertion of their
subjects, who had been accustomed to a mild and parental
jurisdiction. Their spirit is free, their steps are
unconfined, the desert is open, and the tribes and families
are held together by a mutual and voluntary compact. The
softer natives of Yemen supported the pomp and majesty of a
monarch; but if he could not leave his palace without
endangering his life, (32) the active powers of government
must have been devolved on his nobles and magistrates. The
cities of Mecca and Medina present, in the heart of Asia,
the form, or rather the substance, of a commonwealth. The
grandfather of Mahomet, and his lineal ancestors, appear in
foreign and domestic transactions as the princes of their
country; but they reigned, like Pericles at Athens, or the
Medici at Florence, by the opinion of their wisdom and
integrity; their influence was divided with their patrimony;
and the sceptre was transferred from the uncles of the
prophet to a younger branch of the tribe of Koreish. On
solemn occasions they convened the assembly of the people;
and, since mankind must be either compelled or persuaded to
obey, the use and reputation of oratory among the ancient
Arabs is the clearest evidence of public freedom. (33) But
their simple freedom was of a very different cast from the
nice and artificial machinery of the Greek and Roman
republics, in which each member possessed an undivided share
of the civil and political rights of the community. In the
more simple state of the Arabs, the nation is free, because
each of her sons disdains a base submission to the will of a
master. His breast is fortified by the austere virtues of
courage, patience, and sobriety; the love of independence
prompts him to exercise the habits of self-command; and the
fear of dishonor guards him from the meaner apprehension of
pain, of danger, and of death. The gravity and firmness of
the mind is conspicuous in his outward demeanor; his speech
is low, weighty, and concise; he is seldom provoked to
laughter; his only gesture is that of stroking his beard,
the venerable symbol of manhood; and the sense of his own
importance teaches him to accost his equals without levity,
and his superiors without awe. (34) The liberty of the
Saracens survived their conquests: the first caliphs
indulged the bold and familiar language of their subjects;
they ascended the pulpit to persuade and edify the
congregation; nor was it before the seat of empire was
removed to the Tigris, that the Abbasides adopted the proud
and pompous ceremonial of the Persian and Byzantine courts.
In the study of nations and men, we may observe the causes
that render them hostile or friendly to each other, that
tend to narrow or enlarge, to mollify or exasperate, the
social character. The separation of the Arabs from the rest
of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of
stranger and enemy; and the poverty of the land has
introduced a maxim of jurisprudence, which they believe and
practise to the present hour. They pretend, that, in the
division of the earth, the rich and fertile climates were
assigned to the other branches of the human family; and that
the posterity of the outlaw Ismael might recover, by fraud
or force, the portion of inheritance of which he had been
unjustly deprived. According to the remark of Pliny, the
Arabian tribes are equally addicted to theft and
merchandise; the caravans that traverse the desert are
ransomed or pillaged; and their neighbors, since the remote
times of Job and Sesostris, (35) have been the victims of
their rapacious spirit. If a Bedoween discovers from afar a
solitary traveller, he rides furiously against him, crying,
with a loud voice, "Undress thyself, thy aunt (my wife) is
without a garment." A ready submission entitles him to
mercy; resistance will provoke the aggressor, and his own
blood must expiate the blood which he presumes to shed in
legitimate defence. A single robber, or a few associates,
are branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a
numerous band assume the character of lawful and honorable
war. The temper of a people thus armed against mankind was
doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine, murder,
and revenge. In the constitution of Europe, the right of
peace and war is now confined to a small, and the actual
exercise to a much smaller, list of respectable potentates;
but each Arab, with impunity and renown, might point his
javelin against the life of his countrymen. The union of
the nation consisted only in a vague resemblance of language
and manners; and in each community, the jurisdiction of the
magistrate was mute and impotent. Of the time of ignorance
which preceded Mahomet, seventeen hundred battles (36) are
recorded by tradition: hostility was imbittered with the
rancor of civil faction; and the recital, in prose or verse,
of an obsolete feud, was sufficient to rekindle the same
passions among the descendants of the hostile tribes. In
private life every man, at least every family, was the judge
and avenger of his own cause. The nice sensibility of
honor, which weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds
its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs: the honor of
their women, and of their beards, is most easily wounded; an
indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only
by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient
inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the
opportunity of revenge. A fine or compensation for murder
is familiar to the Barbarians of every age: but in Arabia
the kinsmen of the dead are at liberty to accept the
atonement, or to exercise with their own hands the law of
retaliation. The refined malice of the Arabs refuses even
the head of the murderer, substitutes an innocent for the
guilty person, and transfers the penalty to the best and
most considerable of the race by whom they have been
injured. If he falls by their hands, they are exposed, in
their turn, to the danger of reprisals, the interest and
principal of the bloody debt are accumulated: the
individuals of either family lead a life of malice and
suspicion, and fifty years may sometimes elapse before the
account of vengeance be finally settled. (37) This sanguinary
spirit, ignorant of pity or forgiveness, has been moderated,
however, by the maxims of honor, which require in every
private encounter some decent equality of age and strength,
of numbers and weapons. An annual festival of two, perhaps
of four, months, was observed by the Arabs before the time
of Mahomet, during which their swords were religiously
sheathed both in foreign and domestic hostility; and this
partial truce is more strongly expressive of the habits of
anarchy and warfare. (38)
But the spirit of rapine and revenge was attempered by the
milder influence of trade and literature. The solitary
peninsula is encompassed by the most civilized nations of
the ancient world; the merchant is the friend of mankind;
and the annual caravans imported the first seeds of
knowledge and politeness into the cities, and even the camps
of the desert. Whatever may be the pedigree of the Arabs,
their language is derived from the same original stock with
the Hebrew, the Syriac, and the Chaldaean tongues; the
independence of the tribes was marked by their peculiar
dialects; (39) but each, after their own, allowed a just
preference to the pure and perspicuous idiom of Mecca. In
Arabia, as well as in Greece, the perfection of language
outstripped the refinement of manners; and her speech could
diversify the fourscore names of honey, the two hundred of a
serpent, the five hundred of a lion, the thousand of a
sword, at a time when this copious dictionary was intrusted
to the memory of an illiterate people. The monuments of the
Homerites were inscribed with an obsolete and mysterious
character; but the Cufic letters, the groundwork of the
present alphabet, were invented on the banks of the
Euphrates; and the recent invention was taught at Mecca by a
stranger who settled in that city after the birth of
Mahomet. The arts of grammar, of metre, and of rhetoric,
were unknown to the freeborn eloquence of the Arabians; but
their penetration was sharp, their fancy luxuriant, their
wit strong and sententious, (40) and their more elaborate
compositions were addressed with energy and effect to the
minds of their hearers. The genius and merit of a rising
poet was celebrated by the applause of his own and the
kindred tribes. A solemn banquet was prepared, and a chorus
of women, striking their tymbals, and displaying the pomp of
their nuptials, sung in the presence of their sons and
husbands the felicity of their native tribe; that a champion
had now appeared to vindicate their rights; that a herald
had raised his voice to immortalize their renown. The
distant or hostile tribes resorted to an annual fair, which
was abolished by the fanaticism of the first Moslems; a
national assembly that must have contributed to refine and
harmonize the Barbarians. Thirty days were employed in the
exchange, not only of corn and wine, but of eloquence and
poetry. The prize was disputed by the generous emulation of
the bards; the victorious performance was deposited in the
archives of princes and emirs; and we may read in our own
language, the seven original poems which were inscribed in
letters of gold, and suspended in the temple of Mecca. (41)
The Arabian poets were the historians and moralists of the
age; and if they sympathized with the prejudices, they
inspired and crowned the virtues, of their countrymen. The
indissoluble union of generosity and valor was the darling
theme of their song; and when they pointed their keenest
satire against a despicable race, they affirmed, in the
bitterness of reproach, that the men knew not how to give,
nor the women to deny. (42) The same hospitality, which was
practised by Abraham, and celebrated by Homer, is still
renewed in the camps of the Arabs. The ferocious Bedoweens,
the terror of the desert, embrace, without inquiry or
hesitation, the stranger who dares to confide in their honor
and to enter their tent. His treatment is kind and
respectful: he shares the wealth, or the poverty, of his
host; and, after a needful repose, he is dismissed on his
way, with thanks, with blessings, and perhaps with gifts.
The heart and hand are more largely expanded by the wants of
a brother or a friend; but the heroic acts that could
deserve the public applause, must have surpassed the narrow
measure of discretion and experience. A dispute had arisen,
who, among the citizens of Mecca, was entitled to the prize
of generosity; and a successive application was made to the
three who were deemed most worthy of the trial. Abdallah,
the son of Abbas, had undertaken a distant journey, and his
foot was in the stirrup when he heard the voice of a
suppliant, "O son of the uncle of the apostle of God, I am a
traveller, and in distress!" He instantly dismounted to
present the pilgrim with his camel, her rich caparison, and
a purse of four thousand pieces of gold, excepting only the
sword, either for its intrinsic value, or as the gift of an
honored kinsman. The servant of Kais informed the second
suppliant that his master was asleep: but he immediately
added, "Here is a purse of seven thousand pieces of gold,
(it is all we have in the house,) and here is an order, that
will entitle you to a camel and a slave;" the master, as
soon as he awoke, praised and enfranchised his faithful
steward, with a gentle reproof, that by respecting his
slumbers he had stinted his bounty. The third of these
heroes, the blind Arabah, at the hour of prayer, was
supporting his steps on the shoulders of two slaves.
"Alas!" he replied, "my coffers are empty! but these you may
sell; if you refuse, I renounce them." At these words,
pushing away the youths, he groped along the wall with his
staff. The character of Hatem is the perfect model of
Arabian virtue: (43) he was brave and liberal, an eloquent
poet, and a successful robber; forty camels were roasted at
his hospitable feast; and at the prayer of a suppliant enemy
he restored both the captives and the spoil. The freedom of
his countrymen disdained the laws of justice; they proudly
indulged the spontaneous impulse of pity and benevolence.
The religion of the Arabs, (44) as well as of the Indians,
consisted in the worship of the sun, the moon, and the fixed
stars; a primitive and specious mode of superstition. The
bright luminaries of the sky display the visible image of a
Deity: their number and distance convey to a philosophic, or
even a vulgar, eye, the idea of boundless space: the
character of eternity is marked on these solid globes, that
seem incapable of corruption or decay: the regularity of
their motions may be ascribed to a principle of reason or
instinct; and their real, or imaginary, influence encourages
the vain belief that the earth and its inhabitants are the
object of their peculiar care. The science of astronomy was
cultivated at Babylon; but the school of the Arabs was a
clear firmament and a naked plain. In their nocturnal
marches, they steered by the guidance of the stars: their
names, and order, and daily station, were familiar to the
curiosity and devotion of the Bedoween; and he was taught by
experience to divide, in twenty-eight parts, the zodiac of
the moon, and to bless the constellations who refreshed,
with salutary rains, the thirst of the desert. The reign of
the heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible
sphere; and some metaphysical powers were necessary to
sustain the transmigration of souls and the resurrection of
bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave, that he
might serve his master in another life; and the invocation
of departed spirits implies that they were still endowed
with consciousness and power. I am ignorant, and I am
careless, of the blind mythology of the Barbarians; of the
local deities, of the stars, the air, and the earth, of
their sex or titles, their attributes or subordination. Each
tribe, each family, each independent warrior, created and
changed the rites and the object of his fantastic worship;
but the nation, in every age, has bowed to the religion, as
well as to the language, of Mecca. The genuine antiquity of
the Caaba ascends beyond the Christian aera; in describing
the coast of the Red Sea, the Greek historian Diodorus (45)
has remarked, between the Thamudites and the Sabaeans, a
famous temple, whose superior sanctity was revered by all
the Arabians; the linen or silken veil, which is annually
renewed by the Turkish emperor, was first offered by a pious
king of the Homerites, who reigned seven hundred years
before the time of Mahomet. (46) A tent, or a cavern, might
suffice for the worship of the savages, but an edifice of
stone and clay has been erected in its place; and the art
and power of the monarchs of the East have been confined to
the simplicity of the original model. (47) A spacious portico
encloses the quadrangle of the Caaba; a square chapel,
twenty-four cubits long, twenty-three broad, and
twenty-seven high: a door and a window admit the light; the
double roof is supported by three pillars of wood; a spout
(now of gold) discharges the rain-water, and the well Zemzen
is protected by a dome from accidental pollution. The tribe
of Koreish, by fraud and force, had acquired the custody of
the Caaba: the sacerdotal office devolved through four
lineal descents to the grandfather of Mahomet; and the
family of the Hashemites, from whence he sprung, was the
most respectable and sacred in the eyes of their country.
(48) The precincts of Mecca enjoyed the rights of sanctuary;
and, in the last month of each year, the city and the temple
were crowded with a long train of pilgrims, who presented
their vows and offerings in the house of God. The same
rites which are now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman,
were invented and practised by the superstition of the
idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their
garments: seven times, with hasty steps, they encircled the
Caaba, and kissed the black stone: seven times they visited
and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw
stones into the valley of Mina; and the pilgrimage was
achieved, as at the present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep
and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails in the
consecrated ground. Each tribe either found or introduced
in the Caaba their domestic worship: the temple was adorned,
or defiled, with three hundred and sixty idols of men,
eagles, lions, and antelopes; and most conspicuous was the
statue of Hebal, of red agate, holding in his hand seven
arrows, without heads or feathers, the instruments and
symbols of profane divination. But this statue was a
monument of Syrian arts: the devotion of the ruder ages was
content with a pillar or a tablet; and the rocks of the
desert were hewn into gods or altars, in imitation of the
black stone (49) of Mecca, which is deeply tainted with the
reproach of an idolatrous origin. From Japan to Peru, the
use of sacrifice has universally prevailed; and the votary
has expressed his gratitude, or fear, by destroying or
consuming, in honor of the gods, the dearest and most
precious of their gifts. The life of a man (50) is the most
precious oblation to deprecate a public calamity: the altars
of Phoenicia and Egypt, of Rome and Carthage, have been
polluted with human gore: the cruel practice was long
preserved among the Arabs; in the third century, a boy was
annually sacrificed by the tribe of the Dumatians; (51) and a
royal captive was piously slaughtered by the prince of the
Saracens, the ally and soldier of the emperor Justinian. (52)
A parent who drags his son to the altar, exhibits the most
painful and sublime effort of fanaticism: the deed, or the
intention, was sanctified by the example of saints and
heroes; and the father of Mahomet himself was devoted by a
rash vow, and hardly ransomed for the equivalent of a
hundred camels. In the time of ignorance, the Arabs, like
the Jews and Egyptians, abstained from the taste of swine's
flesh; (53) they circumcised (54) their children at the age of
puberty: the same customs, without the censure or the
precept of the Koran, have been silently transmitted to
their posterity and proselytes. It has been sagaciously
conjectured, that the artful legislator indulged the
stubborn prejudices of his countrymen. It is more simple to
believe that he adhered to the habits and opinions of his
youth, without foreseeing that a practice congenial to the
climate of Mecca might become useless or inconvenient on the
banks of the Danube or the Volga.
Arabia was free: the adjacent kingdoms were shaken by the
storms of conquest and tyranny, and the persecuted sects
fled to the happy land where they might profess what they
thought, and practise what they professed. The religions of
the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and Christians, were
disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In a
remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia
by the science of the Chaldaeans (55) and the arms of the
Assyrians. From the observations of two thousand years, the
priests and astronomers of Babylon (56) deduced the eternal
laws of nature and providence. They adored the seven gods
or angels, who directed the course of the seven planets, and
shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The
attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of
the zodiac, and the twenty-four constellations of the
northern and southern hemisphere, were represented by images
and talismans; the seven days of the week were dedicated to
their respective deities; the Sabians prayed thrice each
day; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of
their pilgrimage. (57) But the flexible genius of their faith
was always ready either to teach or to learn: in the
tradition of the creation, the deluge, and the patriarchs,
they held a singular agreement with their Jewish captives;
they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and Enoch;
and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last
remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John,
in the territory of Bassora. (58) The altars of Babylon were
overturned by the Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians
were revenged by the sword of Alexander; Persia groaned
above five hundred years under a foreign yoke; and the
purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of
idolatry, and breathed with their adversaries the freedom of
the desert. (59) Seven hundred years before the death of
Mahomet, the Jews were settled in Arabia; and a far greater
multitude was expelled from the Holy Land in the wars of
Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles aspired to
liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the cities,
and castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts
were confounded with the children of Israel, whom they
resembled in the outward mark of circumcision. The
Christian missionaries were still more active and
successful: the Catholics asserted their universal reign;
the sects whom they oppressed, successively retired beyond
the limits of the Roman empire; the Marcionites and
Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic opinions and
apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes
of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in a purer creed by the
Jacobite and Nestorian bishops. (60) The liberty of choice
was presented to the tribes: each Arab was free to elect or
to compose his private religion: and the rude superstition
of his house was mingled with the sublime theology of saints
and philosophers. A fundamental article of faith was
inculcated by the consent of the learned strangers; the
existence of one supreme God who is exalted above the powers
of heaven and earth, but who has often revealed himself to
mankind by the ministry of his angels and prophets, and
whose grace or justice has interrupted, by seasonable
miracles, the order of nature. The most rational of the
Arabs acknowledged his power, though they neglected his
worship; (61) and it was habit rather than conviction that
still attached them to the relics of idolatry. The Jews and
Christians were the people of the Book; the Bible was
already translated into the Arabic language, (62) and the
volume of the Old Testament was accepted by the concord of
these implacable enemies. In the story of the Hebrew
patriarchs, the Arabs were pleased to discover the fathers
of their nation. They applauded the birth and promises of
Ismael; revered the faith and virtue of Abraham; traced his
pedigree and their own to the creation of the first man, and
imbibed, with equal credulity, the prodigies of the holy
text, and the dreams and traditions of the Jewish rabbis.
The base and plebeian origin of Mahomet is an unskilful
calumny of the Christians, (63) who exalt instead of
degrading the merit of their adversary. His descent from
Ismael was a national privilege or fable; but if the first
steps of the pedigree (64) are dark and doubtful, he could
produce many generations of pure and genuine nobility: he
sprung from the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashem,
the most illustrious of the Arabs, the princes of Mecca, and
the hereditary guardians of the Caaba. The grandfather of
Mahomet was Abdol Motalleb, the son of Hashem, a wealthy and
generous citizen, who relieved the distress of famine with
the supplies of commerce. Mecca, which had been fed by the
liberality of the father, was saved by the courage of the
son. The kingdom of Yemen was subject to the Christian
princes of Abyssinia; their vassal Abrahah was provoked by
an insult to avenge the honor of the cross; and the holy
city was invested by a train of elephants and an army of
Africans. A treaty was proposed; and, in the first
audience, the grandfather of Mahomet demanded the
restitution of his cattle. "And why," said Abrahah, "do you
not rather implore my clemency in favor of your temple,
which I have threatened to destroy?" "Because," replied the
intrepid chief, "the cattle is my own; the Caaba belongs to
the gods, and they will defend their house from injury and
sacrilege." The want of provisions, or the valor of the
Koreish, compelled the Abyssinians to a disgraceful retreat:
their discomfiture has been adorned with a miraculous flight
of birds, who showered down stones on the heads of the
infidels; and the deliverance was long commemorated by the
aera of the elephant. (65) The glory of Abdol Motalleb was
crowned with domestic happiness; his life was prolonged to
the age of one hundred and ten years; and he became the
father of six daughters and thirteen sons. His best beloved
Abdallah was the most beautiful and modest of the Arabian
youth; and in the first night, when he consummated his
marriage with Amina, (A) of the noble race of the Zahrites,
two hundred virgins are said to have expired of jealousy and
despair. Mahomet, or more properly Mohammed, the only son
of Abdallah and Amina, was born at Mecca, four years after
the death of Justinian, and two months after the defeat of
the Abyssinians, (66) whose victory would have introduced
into the Caaba the religion of the Christians. In his early
infancy, he was deprived of his father, his mother, and his
grandfather; his uncles were strong and numerous; and, in
the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was
reduced to five camels and an Aethiopian maid-servant. At
home and abroad, in peace and war, Abu Taleb, the most
respectable of his uncles, was the guide and guardian of his
youth; in his twenty-fifth year, he entered into the service
of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon
rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune.
The marriage contract, in the simple style of antiquity,
recites the mutual love of Mahomet and Cadijah; describes
him as the most accomplished of the tribe of Koreish; and
stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty
camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle.
(67) By this alliance, the son of Abdallah was restored to
the station of his ancestors; and the judicious matron was
content with his domestic virtues, till, in the fortieth
year of his age, (68) he assumed the title of a prophet, and
proclaimed the religion of the Koran.
According to the tradition of his companions, Mahomet (69)
was distinguished by the beauty of his person, an outward
gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it
has been refused. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on
his side the affections of a public or private audience.
They applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect,
his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his
countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and
his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue.
In the familiar offices of life he scrupulously adhered to
the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country: his
respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified
by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens
of Mecca: the frankness of his manner concealed the artifice
of his views; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to
personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was
capacious and retentive; his wit easy and social; his
imagination sublime; his judgment clear, rapid, and
decisive. He possessed the courage both of thought and
action; and, although his designs might gradually expand
with his success, the first idea which he entertained of his
divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior
genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of
the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect of
Arabia; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and
enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence.
With these powers of eloquence, Mahomet was an illiterate
Barbarian: his youth had never been instructed in the arts
of reading and writing; (70) the common ignorance exempted
him from shame or reproach, but he was reduced to a narrow
circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors,
which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
Yet the book of nature and of man was open to his view; and
some fancy has been indulged in the political and
philosophical observations which are ascribed to the Arabian
traveller. (71) He compares the nations and the regions of
the earth; discovers the weakness of the Persian and Roman
monarchies; beholds, with pity and indignation, the
degeneracy of the times; and resolves to unite under one God
and one king the invincible spirit and primitive virtues of
the Arabs. Our more accurate inquiry will suggest, that,
instead of visiting the courts, the camps, the temples, of
the East, the two journeys of Mahomet into Syria were
confined to the fairs of Bostra and Damascus; that he was
only thirteen years of age when he accompanied the caravan
of his uncle; and that his duty compelled him to return as
soon as he had disposed of the merchandise of Cadijah. In
these hasty and superficial excursions, the eye of genius
might discern some objects invisible to his grosser
companions; some seeds of knowledge might be cast upon a
fruitful soil; but his ignorance of the Syriac language must
have checked his curiosity; and I cannot perceive, in the
life or writings of Mahomet, that his prospect was far
extended beyond the limits of the Arabian world. From every
region of that solitary world, the pilgrims of Mecca were
annually assembled, by the calls of devotion and commerce:
in the free concourse of multitudes, a simple citizen, in
his native tongue, might study the political state and
character of the tribes, the theory and practice of the Jews
and Christians. Some useful strangers might be tempted, or
forced, to implore the rights of hospitality; and the
enemies of Mahomet have named the Jew, the Persian, and the
Syrian monk, whom they accuse of lending their secret aid to
the composition of the Koran. (72) Conversation enriches the
understanding, but solitude is the school of genius; and the
uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist.
From his earliest youth Mahomet was addicted to religious
contemplation; each year, during the month of Ramadan, he
withdrew from the world, and from the arms of Cadijah: in
the cave of Hera, three miles from Mecca, (73) he consulted
the spirit of fraud or enthusiasm, whose abode is not in the
heavens, but in the mind of the prophet. The faith which,
under the name of Islam, he preached to his family and
nation, is compounded of an eternal truth, and a necessary
fiction, That there is only one God, and that Mahomet is the
apostle of God.
It is the boast of the Jewish apologists, that while the
learned nations of antiquity were deluded by the fables of
polytheism, their simple ancestors of Palestine preserved
the knowledge and worship of the true God. The moral
attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the
standard of human virtue: his metaphysical qualities are
darkly expressed; but each page of the Pentateuch and the
Prophets is an evidence of his power: the unity of his name
is inscribed on the first table of the law; and his
sanctuary was never defiled by any visible image of the
invisible essence. After the ruin of the temple, the faith
of the Hebrew exiles was purified, fixed, and enlightened,
by the spiritual devotion of the synagogue; and the
authority of Mahomet will not justify his perpetual
reproach, that the Jews of Mecca or Medina adored Ezra as
the son of God. (74) But the children of Israel had ceased to
be a people; and the religions of the world were guilty, at
least in the eyes of the prophet, of giving sons, or
daughters, or companions, to the supreme God. In the rude
idolatry of the Arabs, the crime is manifest and audacious:
the Sabians are poorly excused by the preeminence of the
first planet, or intelligence, in their celestial hierarchy;
and in the Magian system the conflict of the two principles
betrays the imperfection of the conqueror. The Christians
of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a
semblance of Paganism: their public and private vows were
addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the
temples of the East: the throne of the Almighty was darkened
by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects
of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who
flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the
Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess. (75) The
mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation appear to
contradict the principle of the divine unity. In their
obvious sense, they introduce three equal deities, and
transform the man Jesus into the substance of the Son of
God: (76) an orthodox commentary will satisfy only a
believing mind: intemperate curiosity and zeal had torn the
veil of the sanctuary; and each of the Oriental sects was
eager to confess that all, except themselves, deserved the
reproach of idolatry and polytheism. The creed of Mahomet
is free from suspicion or ambiguity; and the Koran is a
glorious testimony to the unity of God. The prophet of
Mecca rejected the worship of idols and men, of stars and
planets, on the rational principle that whatever rises must
set, that whatever is born must die, that whatever is
corruptible must decay and perish. (77) In the Author of the
universe, his rational enthusiasm confessed and adored an
infinite and eternal being, without form or place, without
issue or similitude, present to our most secret thoughts,
existing by the necessity of his own nature, and deriving
from himself all moral and intellectual perfection. These
sublime truths, thus announced in the language of the
prophet, (78) are firmly held by his disciples, and defined
with metaphysical precision by the interpreters of the
Koran. A philosophic theist might subscribe the popular
creed of the Mahometans; (79) a creed too sublime, perhaps,
for our present faculties. What object remains for the
fancy, or even the understanding, when we have abstracted
from the unknown substance all ideas of time and space, of
motion and matter, of sensation and reflection? The first
principle of reason and revolution was confirmed by the
voice of Mahomet: his proselytes, from India to Morocco, are
distinguished by the name of Unitarians; and the danger of
idolatry has been prevented by the interdiction of images.
The doctrine of eternal decrees and absolute predestination
is strictly embraced by the Mahometans; and they struggle,
with the common difficulties, how to reconcile the
prescience of God with the freedom and responsibility of
man; how to explain the permission of evil under the reign
of infinite power and infinite goodness.
The God of nature has written his existence on all his
works, and his law in the heart of man. To restore the
knowledge of the one, and the practice of the other, has
been the real or pretended aim of the prophets of every age:
the liberality of Mahomet allowed to his predecessors the
same credit which he claimed for himself; and the chain of
inspiration was prolonged from the fall of Adam to the
promulgation of the Koran. (80) During that period, some rays
of prophetic light had been imparted to one hundred and
twenty-four thousand of the elect, discriminated by their
respective measure of virtue and grace; three hundred and
thirteen apostles were sent with a special commission to
recall their country from idolatry and vice; one hundred and
four volumes have been dictated by the Holy Spirit; and six
legislators of transcendent brightness have announced to
mankind the six successive revelations of various rites, but
of one immutable religion. The authority and station of
Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, rise in
just gradation above each other; but whosoever hates or
rejects any one of the prophets is numbered with the
infidels. The writings of the patriarchs were extant only
in the apocryphal copies of the Greeks and Syrians: (81) the
conduct of Adam had not entitled him to the gratitude or
respect of his children; the seven precepts of Noah were
observed by an inferior and imperfect class of the
proselytes of the synagogue; (82) and the memory of Abraham
was obscurely revered by the Sabians in his native land of
Chaldaea: of the myriads of prophets, Moses and Christ alone
lived and reigned; and the remnant of the inspired writings
was comprised in the books of the Old and the New Testament.
The miraculous story of Moses is consecrated and embellished
in the Koran; (83) and the captive Jews enjoy the secret
revenge of imposing their own belief on the nations whose
recent creeds they deride. For the author of Christianity,
the Mahometans are taught by the prophet to entertain a high
and mysterious reverence. (84) "Verily, Christ Jesus, the son
of Mary, is the apostle of God, and his word, which he
conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him;
honorable in this world, and in the world to come, and one
of those who approach near to the presence of God." (85) The
wonders of the genuine and apocryphal gospels (86) are
profusely heaped on his head; and the Latin church has not
disdained to borrow from the Koran the immaculate conception
(87) of his virgin mother. Yet Jesus was a mere mortal; and,
at the day of judgment, his testimony will serve to condemn
both the Jews, who reject him as a prophet, and the
Christians, who adore him as the Son of God. The malice of
his enemies aspersed his reputation, and conspired against
his life; but their intention only was guilty; a phantom or
a criminal was substituted on the cross; and the innocent
saint was translated to the seventh heaven. (88) During six
hundred years the gospel was the way of truth and salvation;
but the Christians insensibly forgot both the laws and
example of their founder; and Mahomet was instructed by the
Gnostics to accuse the church, as well as the synagogue, of
corrupting the integrity of the sacred text. (89) The piety
of Moses and of Christ rejoiced in the assurance of a future
prophet, more illustrious than themselves: the evangelical
promise of the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, was prefigured in
the name, and accomplished in the person, of Mahomet, (90)
the greatest and the last of the apostles of God.
The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought
and language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate
without effect on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is
the distance of their understandings, if it be compared with
the contact of an infinite and a finite mind, with the word
of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal! The
inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and
evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the
exercise of their reason and memory; and the diversity of
their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition
of the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was
content with a character, more humble, yet more sublime, of
a simple editor; the substance of the Koran, (91) according
to himself or his disciples, is uncreated and eternal;
subsisting in the essence of the Deity, and inscribed with a
pen of light on the table of his everlasting decrees. A
paper copy, in a volume of silk and gems, was brought down
to the lowest heaven by the angel Gabriel, who, under the
Jewish economy, had indeed been despatched on the most
important errands; and this trusty messenger successively
revealed the chapters and verses to the Arabian prophet.
Instead of a perpetual and perfect measure of the divine
will, the fragments of the Koran were produced at the
discretion of Mahomet; each revelation is suited to the
emergencies of his policy or passion; and all contradiction
is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of Scripture
is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The
word of God, and of the apostle, was diligently recorded by
his disciples on palm-leaves and the shoulder-bones of
mutton; and the pages, without order or connection, were
cast into a domestic chest, in the custody of one of his
wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred
volume was collected and published by his friend and
successor Abubeker: the work was revised by the caliph
Othman, in the thirtieth year of the Hegira; and the various
editions of the Koran assert the same miraculous privilege
of a uniform and incorruptible text. In the spirit of
enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his
mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges
both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single
page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate
this incomparable performance. (92) This argument is most
powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is
attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the
music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of
comparing the productions of human genius. (93) The harmony
and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the
European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless
incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation,
which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes
crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds.
The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian
missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the
sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote
age, in the same country, and in the same language. (94) If
the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man
to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of
Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes? In all religions,
the life of the founder supplies the silence of his written
revelation: the sayings of Mahomet were so many lessons of
truth; his actions so many examples of virtue; and the
public and private memorials were preserved by his wives and
companions. At the end of two hundred years, the Sonna, or
oral law, was fixed and consecrated by the labors of Al
Bochari, who discriminated seven thousand two hundred and
seventy-five genuine traditions, from a mass of three
hundred thousand reports, of a more doubtful or spurious
character. Each day the pious author prayed in the temple
of Mecca, and performed his ablutions with the water of
Zemzem: the pages were successively deposited on the pulpit
and the sepulchre of the apostle; and the work has been
approved by the four orthodox sects of the Sonnites. (95)
The mission of the ancient prophets, of Moses and of Jesus
had been confirmed by many splendid prodigies; and Mahomet
was repeatedly urged, by the inhabitants of Mecca and
Medina, to produce a similar evidence of his divine
legation; to call down from heaven the angel or the volume
of his revelation, to create a garden in the desert, or to
kindle a conflagration in the unbelieving city. As often as
he is pressed by the demands of the Koreish, he involves
himself in the obscure boast of vision and prophecy, appeals
to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself
behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs and
wonders that would depreciate the merit of faith, and
aggravate the guilt of infidelity But the modest or angry
tone of his apologies betrays his weakness and vexation; and
these passages of scandal established, beyond suspicion, the
integrity of the Koran. (96) The votaries of Mahomet are more
assured than himself of his miraculous gifts; and their
confidence and credulity increase as they are farther
removed from the time and place of his spiritual exploits.
They believe or affirm that trees went forth to meet him;
that he was saluted by stones; that water gushed from his
fingers; that he fed the hungry, cured the sick, and raised
the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a camel
complained to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of
its being poisoned; and that both animate and inanimate
nature were equally subject to the apostle of God. (97) His
dream of a nocturnal journey is seriously described as a
real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious animal, the
Borak, conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of
Jerusalem: with his companion Gabriel he successively
ascended the seven heavens, and received and repaid the
salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the angels,
in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh heaven,
Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the veil
of unity, approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and
felt a cold that pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder
was touched by the hand of God. After this familiar, though
important conversation, he again descended to Jerusalem,
remounted the Borak, returned to Mecca, and performed in the
tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand years.
(98) According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a
national assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish.
His resistless word split asunder the orb of the moon: the
obedient planet stooped from her station in the sky,
accomplished the seven revolutions round the Caaba, saluted
Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly contracting her
dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued forth through
the sleeve, of his shirt. (99) The vulgar are amused with
these marvellous tales; but the gravest of the Mussulman
doctors imitate the modesty of their master, and indulge a
latitude of faith or interpretation. (100) They might
speciously allege, that in preaching the religion it was
needless to violate the harmony of nature; that a creed
unclouded with mystery may be excused from miracles; and
that the sword of Mahomet was not less potent than the rod
of Moses.
The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of
superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were
interwoven with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the
spirit of the gospel had evaporated in the pageantry of the
church. The prophet of Mecca was tempted by prejudice, or
policy, or patriotism, to sanctify the rites of the
Arabians, and the custom of visiting the holy stone of the
Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself inculcates a
more simple and rational piety: prayer, fasting, and alms,
are the religious duties of a Mussulman; and he is
encouraged to hope, that prayer will carry him half way to
God, fasting will bring him to the door of his palace, and
alms will gain him admittance. (101) I. According to the
tradition of the nocturnal journey, the apostle, in his
personal conference with the Deity, was commanded to impose
on his disciples the daily obligation of fifty prayers. By
the advice of Moses, he applied for an alleviation of this
intolerable burden; the number was gradually reduced to
five; without any dispensation of business or pleasure, or
time or place: the devotion of the faithful is repeated at
daybreak, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening, and at
the first watch of the night; and in the present decay of
religious fervor, our travellers are edified by the profound
humility and attention of the Turks and Persians.
Cleanliness is the key of prayer: the frequent lustration of
the hands, the face, and the body, which was practised of
old by the Arabs, is solemnly enjoined by the Koran; and a
permission is formally granted to supply with sand the
scarcity of water. The words and attitudes of supplication,
as it is performed either sitting, or standing, or prostrate
on the ground, are prescribed by custom or authority; but
the prayer is poured forth in short and fervent
ejaculations; the measure of zeal is not exhausted by a
tedious liturgy; and each Mussulman for his own person is
invested with the character of a priest. Among the theists,
who reject the use of images, it has been found necessary to
restrain the wanderings of the fancy, by directing the eye
and the thought towards a kebla, or visible point of the
horizon. The prophet was at first inclined to gratify the
Jews by the choice of Jerusalem; but he soon returned to a
more natural partiality; and five times every day the eyes
of the nations at Astracan, at Fez, at Delhi, are devoutly
turned to the holy temple of Mecca. Yet every spot for the
service of God is equally pure: the Mahometans indifferently
pray in their chamber or in the street. As a distinction
from the Jews and Christians, the Friday in each week is set
apart for the useful institution of public worship: the
people is assembled in the mosch; and the imam, some
respectable elder, ascends the pulpit, to begin the prayer
and pronounce the sermon. But the Mahometan religion is
destitute of priesthood or sacrifice; and the independent
spirit of fanaticism looks down with contempt on the
ministers and the slaves of superstition. (B) II. The
voluntary (102) penance of the ascetics, the torment and
glory of their lives, was odious to a prophet who censured
in his companions a rash vow of abstaining from flesh, and
women, and sleep; and firmly declared, that he would suffer
no monks in his religion. (103) Yet he instituted, in each
year, a fast of thirty days; and strenuously recommended the
observance as a discipline which purifies the soul and
subdues the body, as a salutary exercise of obedience to the
will of God and his apostle. During the month of Ramadan,
from the rising to the setting of the sun, the Mussulman
abstains from eating, and drinking, and women, and baths,
and perfumes; from all nourishment that can restore his
strength, from all pleasure that can gratify his senses. In
the revolution of the lunar year, the Ramadan coincides, by
turns, with the winter cold and the summer heat; and the
patient martyr, without assuaging his thirst with a drop of
water, must expect the close of a tedious and sultry day.
The interdiction of wine, peculiar to some orders of priests
or hermits, is converted by Mahomet alone into a positive
and general law; (104) and a considerable portion of the
globe has abjured, at his command, the use of that salutary,
though dangerous, liquor. These painful restraints are,
doubtless, infringed by the libertine, and eluded by the
hypocrite; but the legislator, by whom they are enacted,
cannot surely be accused of alluring his proselytes by the
indulgence of their sensual appetites. III. The charity of
the Mahometans descends to the animal creation; and the
Koran repeatedly inculcates, not as a merit, but as a strict
and indispensable duty, the relief of the indigent and
unfortunate. Mahomet, perhaps, is the only lawgiver who has
defined the precise measure of charity: the standard may
vary with the degree and nature of property, as it consists
either in money, in corn or cattle, in fruits or
merchandise; but the Mussulman does not accomplish the law,
unless he bestows a tenth of his revenue; and if his
conscience accuses him of fraud or extortion, the tenth,
under the idea of restitution, is enlarged to a fifth. (105)
Benevolence is the foundation of justice, since we are
forbid to injure those whom we are bound to assist. A
prophet may reveal the secrets of heaven and of futurity;
but in his moral precepts he can only repeat the lessons of
our own hearts.
The two articles of belief, and the four practical duties,
of Islam, are guarded by rewards and punishments; and the
faith of the Mussulman is devoutly fixed on the event of the
judgment and the last day. The prophet has not presumed to
determine the moment of that awful catastrophe, though he
darkly announces the signs, both in heaven and earth, which
will precede the universal dissolution, when life shall be
destroyed, and the order of creation shall be confounded in
the primitive chaos. At the blast of the trumpet, new
worlds will start into being: angels, genii, and men will
arise from the dead, and the human soul will again be united
to the body. The doctrine of the resurrection was first
entertained by the Egyptians; (106) and their mummies were
embalmed, their pyramids were constructed, to preserve the
ancient mansion of the soul, during a period of three
thousand years. But the attempt is partial and unavailing;
and it is with a more philosophic spirit that Mahomet relies
on the omnipotence of the Creator, whose word can reanimate
the breathless clay, and collect the innumerable atoms, that
no longer retain their form or substance. (107) The
intermediate state of the soul it is hard to decide; and
those who most firmly believe her immaterial nature, are at
a loss to understand how she can think or act without the
agency of the organs of sense.
The reunion of the soul and body will be followed by the
final judgment of mankind; and in his copy of the Magian
picture, the prophet has too faithfully represented the
forms of proceeding, and even the slow and successive
operations, of an earthly tribunal. By his intolerant
adversaries he is upbraided for extending, even to
themselves, the hope of salvation, for asserting the
blackest heresy, that every man who believes in God, and
accomplishes good works, may expect in the last day a
favorable sentence. Such rational indifference is ill
adapted to the character of a fanatic; nor is it probable
that a messenger from heaven should depreciate the value and
necessity of his own revelation. In the idiom of the Koran,
(108) the belief of God is inseparable from that of Mahomet:
the good works are those which he has enjoined, and the two
qualifications imply the profession of Islam, to which all
nations and all sects are equally invited. Their spiritual
blindness, though excused by ignorance and crowned with
virtue, will be scourged with everlasting torments; and the
tears which Mahomet shed over the tomb of his mother for
whom he was forbidden to pray, display a striking contrast
of humanity and enthusiasm. (109) The doom of the infidels is
common: the measure of their guilt and punishment is
determined by the degree of evidence which they have
rejected, by the magnitude of the errors which they have
entertained: the eternal mansions of the Christians, the
Jews, the Sabians, the Magians, and idolaters, are sunk
below each other in the abyss; and the lowest hell is
reserved for the faithless hypocrites who have assumed the
mask of religion. After the greater part of mankind has
been condemned for their opinions, the true believers only
will be judged by their actions. The good and evil of each
Mussulman will be accurately weighed in a real or
allegorical balance; and a singular mode of compensation
will be allowed for the payment of injuries: the aggressor
will refund an equivalent of his own good actions, for the
benefit of the person whom he has wronged; and if he should
be destitute of any moral property, the weight of his sins
will be loaded with an adequate share of the demerits of the
sufferer. According as the shares of guilt or virtue shall
preponderate, the sentence will be pronounced, and all,
without distinction, will pass over the sharp and perilous
bridge of the abyss; but the innocent, treading in the
footsteps of Mahomet, will gloriously enter the gates of
paradise, while the guilty will fall into the first and
mildest of the seven hells. The term of expiation will vary
from nine hundred to seven thousand years; but the prophet
has judiciously promised, that all his disciples, whatever
may be their sins, shall be saved, by their own faith and
his intercession from eternal damnation. It is not
surprising that superstition should act most powerfully on
the fears of her votaries, since the human fancy can paint
with more energy the misery than the bliss of a future life.
With the two simple elements of darkness and fire, we create
a sensation of pain, which may be aggravated to an infinite
degree by the idea of endless duration. But the same idea
operates with an opposite effect on the continuity of
pleasure; and too much of our present enjoyments is obtained
from the relief, or the comparison, of evil. It is natural
enough that an Arabian prophet should dwell with rapture on
the groves, the fountains, and the rivers of paradise; but
instead of inspiring the blessed inhabitants with a liberal
taste for harmony and science, conversation and friendship,
he idly celebrates the pearls and diamonds, the robes of
silk, palaces of marble, dishes of gold, rich wines,
artificial dainties, numerous attendants, and the whole
train of sensual and costly luxury, which becomes insipid to
the owner, even in the short period of this mortal life.
Seventy-two Houris, or black-eyed girls, of resplendent
beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite
sensibility, will be created for the use of the meanest
believer; a moment of pleasure will be prolonged to a
thousand years; and his faculties will be increased a
hundred fold, to render him worthy of his felicity.
Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the gates of heaven will
be open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the
male companions of the female elect, lest he should either
alarm the jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb
their felicity, by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage.
This image of a carnal paradise has provoked the
indignation, perhaps the envy, of the monks: they declaim
against the impure religion of Mahomet; and his modest
apologists are driven to the poor excuse of figures and
allegories. But the sounder and more consistent party
adhere without shame, to the literal interpretation of the
Koran: useless would be the resurrection of the body, unless
it were restored to the possession and exercise of its
worthiest faculties; and the union of sensual and
intellectual enjoyment is requisite to complete the
happiness of the double animal, the perfect man. Yet the
joys of the Mahometan paradise will not be confined to the
indulgence of luxury and appetite; and the prophet has
expressly declared that all meaner happiness will be
forgotten and despised by the saints and martyrs, who shall
be admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. (110)
The first and most arduous conquests of Mahomet (111) were
those of his wife, his servant, his pupil, and his friend;
(112) since he presented himself as a prophet to those who
were most conversant with his infirmities as a man. Yet
Cadijah believed the words, and cherished the glory, of her
husband; the obsequious and affectionate Zeid was tempted by
the prospect of freedom; the illustrious Ali, the son of Abu
Taleb, embraced the sentiments of his cousin with the spirit
of a youthful hero; and the wealth, the moderation, the
veracity of Abubeker confirmed the religion of the prophet
whom he was destined to succeed. By his persuasion, ten of
the most respectable citizens of Mecca were introduced to
the private lessons of Islam; they yielded to the voice of
reason and enthusiasm; they repeated the fundamental creed,
"There is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God;"
and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded with riches
and honors, with the command of armies and the government of
kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the
conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his
mission; but in the fourth year he assumed the prophetic
office, and resolving to impart to his family the light of
divine truth, he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it is said,
and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of
the race of Hashem. "Friends and kinsmen," said Mahomet to
the assembly, "I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most
precious of gifts, the treasures of this world and of the
world to come. God has commanded me to call you to his
service. Who among you will support my burden? Who among
you will be my companion and my vizier?" (113) No answer was
returned, till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and
contempt, was at length broken by the impatient courage of
Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year of his age. "O prophet,
I am the man: whosoever rises against thee, I will dash out
his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his
belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizier over them." Mahomet
accepted his offer with transport, and Abu Taled was
ironically exhorted to respect the superior dignity of his
son. In a more serious tone, the father of Ali advised his
nephew to relinquish his impracticable design. "Spare your
remonstrances," replied the intrepid fanatic to his uncle
and benefactor; "if they should place the sun on my right
hand, and the moon on my left, they should not divert me
from my course." He persevered ten years in the exercise of
his mission; and the religion which has overspread the East
and the West advanced with a slow and painful progress
within the walls of Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the
satisfaction of beholding the increase of his infant
congregation of Unitarians, who revered him as a prophet,
and to whom he seasonably dispensed the spiritual
nourishment of the Koran. The number of proselytes may be
esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen
women, who retired to Aethiopia in the seventh year of his
mission; and his party was fortified by the timely
conversion of his uncle Hamza, and of the fierce and
inflexible Omar, who signalized in the cause of Islam the
same zeal, which he had exerted for its destruction. Nor
was the charity of Mahomet confined to the tribe of Koreish,
or the precincts of Mecca: on solemn festivals, in the days
of pilgrimage, he frequented the Caaba, accosted the
strangers of every tribe, and urged, both in private
converse and public discourse, the belief and worship of a
sole Deity. Conscious of his reason and of his weakness, he
asserted the liberty of conscience, and disclaimed the use
of religious violence: (114) but he called the Arabs to
repentance, and conjured them to remember the ancient
idolaters of Ad and Thamud, whom the divine justice had
swept away from the face of the earth. (115)
The people of Mecca were hardened in their unbelief by
superstition and envy. The elders of the city, the uncles
of the prophet, affected to despise the presumption of an
orphan, the reformer of his country: the pious orations of
Mahomet in the Caaba were answered by the clamors of Abu
Taleb. "Citizens and pilgrims, listen not to the tempter,
hearken not to his impious novelties. Stand fast in the
worship of Al Lata and Al Uzzah." Yet the son of Abdallah
was ever dear to the aged chief: and he protected the fame
and person of his nephew against the assaults of the
Koreishites, who had long been jealous of the preeminence of
the family of Hashem. Their malice was colored with the
pretence of religion: in the age of Job, the crime of
impiety was punished by the Arabian magistrate; (116) and
Mahomet was guilty of deserting and denying the national
deities. But so loose was the policy of Mecca, that the
leaders of the Koreish, instead of accusing a criminal, were
compelled to employ the measures of persuasion or violence.
They repeatedly addressed Abu Taleb in the style of reproach
and menace. "Thy nephew reviles our religion; he accuses
our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly; silence him
quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the city. If
he persevere, we shall draw our swords against him and his
adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for the blood of thy
fellow-citizens." The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb
eluded the violence of religious faction; the most helpless
or timid of the disciples retired to Aethiopia, and the
prophet withdrew himself to various places of strength in
the town and country. As he was still supported by his
family, the rest of the tribe of Koreish engaged themselves
to renounce all intercourse with the children of Hashem,
neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry not to give in
marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity, till
they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the justice of
the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the
eyes of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued
the Mussulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged
the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted
their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the
retaliation of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce
restored the appearances of concord till the death of Abu
Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his enemies, at the
moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts by the
loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the
chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the
principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of
the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he convened
an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide
the fate of the apostle. His imprisonment might provoke the
despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and
popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the
provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed
that a sword from each tribe should be buried in his heart,
to divide the guilt of his blood, and baffle the vengeance
of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy revealed their
conspiracy; and flight was the only resource of Mahomet.
(117) At the dead of night, accompanied by his friend
Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the assassins
watched at the door; but they were deceived by the figure of
Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the green
vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of
the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still
extant, exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his
tenderness, and his religious confidence. Three days
Mahomet and his companion were concealed in the cave of
Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and in the
close of each evening, they received from the son and
daughter of Abubeker a secret supply of intelligence and
food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in
the neighborhood of the city: they arrived at the entrance
of the cavern; but the providential deceit of a spider's web
and a pigeon's nest is supposed to convince them that the
place was solitary and inviolate. "We are only two," said
the trembling Abubeker. "There is a third," replied the
prophet; "it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit
abated than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and
mounted their camels: on the road to Medina, they were
overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed
themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In
this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have
changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet
from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable aera of the
Hegira, (118) which, at the end of twelve centuries, still
discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations. (119)
The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cradle,
had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the holy
outcasts of Mecca. Medina, or the city, known under the name
of Yathreb, before it was sanctified by the throne of the
prophet, was divided between the tribes of the Charegites
and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the
slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews, who boasted a
sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and without
converting the Arabs, they introduced the taste of science
and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city of the
Book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage to the
Canaba, were converted by the preaching of Mahomet; on their
return, they diffused the belief of God and his prophet, and
the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in two
secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs of
Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites united
in faith and love, protested, in the name of their wives,
their children, and their absent brethren, that they would
forever profess the creed, and observe the precepts, of the
Koran. The second was a political association, the first
vital spark of the empire of the Saracens. (120)
Seventy-three men and two women of Medina held a solemn
conference with Mahomet, his kinsman, and his disciples; and
pledged themselves to each other by a mutual oath of
fidelity. They promised, in the name of the city, that if
he should be banished, they would receive him as a
confederate, obey him as a leader, and defend him to the
last extremity, like their wives and children. "But if you
are recalled by your country," they asked with a flattering
anxiety, "will you not abandon your new allies?" "All
things," replied Mahomet with a smile, "are now common
between us your blood is as my blood, your ruin as my ruin.
We are bound to each other by the ties of honor and
interest. I am your friend, and the enemy of your foes."
"But if we are killed in your service, what," exclaimed the
deputies of Medina, "will be our reward?" "Paradise,"
replied the prophet. "Stretch forth thy hand." He stretched
it forth, and they reiterated the oath of allegiance and
fidelity. Their treaty was ratified by the people, who
unanimously embraced the profession of Islam; they rejoiced
in the exile of the apostle, but they trembled for his
safety, and impatiently expected his arrival. After a
perilous and rapid journey along the sea-coast, he halted at
Koba, two miles from the city, and made his public entry
into Medina, sixteen days after his flight from Mecca. Five
hundred of the citizens advanced to meet him; he was hailed
with acclamations of loyalty and devotion; Mahomet was
mounted on a she-camel, an umbrella shaded his head, and a
turban was unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a
standard. His bravest disciples, who had been scattered by
the storm, assembled round his person; and the equal, though
various, merit of the Moslems was distinguished by the names
of Mohagerians and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and the
auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy,
Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the
rights and obligations of brethren; and when Ali found
himself without a peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that
he would be the companion and brother of the noble youth.
The expedient was crowned with success; the holy fraternity
was respected in peace and war, and the two parties vied
with each other in a generous emulation of courage and
fidelity. Once only the concord was slightly ruffled by an
accidental quarrel: a patriot of Medina arraigned the
insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their expulsion
was heard with abhorrence; and his own son most eagerly
offered to lay at the apostle's feet the head of his father.
From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed the
exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was
impious to appeal from a judge whose decrees were inspired
by the divine wisdom. A small portion of ground, the
patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase;
(121) on that chosen spot he built a house and a mosch, more
venerable in their rude simplicity than the palaces and
temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of gold, or
silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he
prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned
against the trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he
indulged himself in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough
timber. (122) After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred
Moslems, in arms and in the field, renewed their oath of
allegiance; and their chief repeated the assurance of
protection till the death of the last member, or the final
dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that the
deputy of Mecca was astonished by the attention of the
faithful to the words and looks of the prophet, by the
eagerness with which they collected his spittle, a hair that
dropped on the ground, the refuse water of his lustrations,
as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic
virtue. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia and
the Caesar of Rome, but never did I behold a king among his
subjects like Mahomet among his companions." The devout
fervor of enthusiasm acts with more energy and truth than
the cold and formal servility of courts.
In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by
force of arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or
even to prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend
his hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and
retaliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties
of subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and
Mahomet, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent
mission, had been despoiled and banished by the injustice of
his countrymen. The choice of an independent people had
exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of a sovereign;
and he was invested with the just prerogative of forming
alliances, and of waging offensive or defensive war. The
imperfection of human rights was supplied and armed by the
plenitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina assumed, in
his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary tone,
which proves that his former moderation was the effect of
weakness: (123) the means of persuasion had been tried, the
season of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now commanded
to propagate his religion by the sword, to destroy the
monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding the sanctity
of days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of the
earth. The same bloody precepts, so repeatedly inculcated
in the Koran, are ascribed by the author to the Pentateuch
and the Gospel. But the mild tenor of the evangelic style
may explain an ambiguous text, that Jesus did not bring
peace on the earth, but a sword: his patient and humble
virtues should not be confounded with the intolerant zeal of
princes and bishops, who have disgraced the name of his
disciples. In the prosecution of religious war, Mahomet
might appeal with more propriety to the example of Moses, of
the Judges, and the kings of Israel. The military laws of
the Hebrews are still more rigid than those of the Arabian
legislator. (124) The Lord of hosts marched in person before
the Jews: if a city resisted their summons, the males,
without distinction, were put to the sword: the seven
nations of Canaan were devoted to destruction; and neither
repentance nor conversion, could shield them from the
inevitable doom, that no creature within their precincts
should be left alive. (C) The fair option of friendship, or
submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies of
Mahomet. If they professed the creed of Islam, they were
admitted to all the temporal and spiritual benefits of his
primitive disciples, and marched under the same banner to
extend the religion which they had embraced. The clemency
of the prophet was decided by his interest: yet he seldom
trampled on a prostrate enemy; and he seems to promise, that
on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his
unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their worship, or
at least in their imperfect faith. In the first months of
his reign he practised the lessons of holy warfare, and
displayed his white banner before the gates of Medina: the
martial apostle fought in person at nine battles or sieges;
(125) and fifty enterprises of war were achieved in ten years
by himself or his lieutenants. The Arab continued to unite
the professions of a merchant and a robber; and his petty
excursions for the defence or the attack of a caravan
insensibly prepared his troops for the conquest of Arabia.
The distribution of the spoil was regulated by a divine law:
(126) the whole was faithfully collected in one common mass:
a fifth of the gold and silver, the prisoners and cattle,
the movables and immovables, was reserved by the prophet for
pious and charitable uses; the remainder was shared in
adequate portions by the soldiers who had obtained the
victory or guarded the camp: the rewards of the slain
devolved to their widows and orphans; and the increase of
cavalry was encouraged by the allotment of a double share to
the horse and to the man. From all sides the roving Arabs
were allured to the standard of religion and plunder: the
apostle sanctified the license of embracing the female
captives as their wives or concubines, and the enjoyment of
wealth and beauty was a feeble type of the joys of paradise
prepared for the valiant martyrs of the faith. "The sword,"
says Mahomet, "is the key of heaven and of hell; a drop of
blood shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of
more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: whosoever
falls in battle, his sins are forgiven: at the day of
judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and
odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be
supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim." The intrepid
souls of the Arabs were fired with enthusiasm: the picture
of the invisible world was strongly painted on their
imagination; and the death which they had always despised
became an object of hope and desire. The Koran inculcates,
in the most absolute sense, the tenets of fate and
predestination, which would extinguish both industry and
virtue, if the actions of man were governed by his
speculative belief. Yet their influence in every age has
exalted the courage of the Saracens and Turks. The first
companions of Mahomet advanced to battle with a fearless
confidence: there is no danger where there is no chance:
they were ordained to perish in their beds; or they were
safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. (127)
Perhaps the Koreish would have been content with the dight
of Mahomet, had they not been provoked and alarmed by the
vengeance of an enemy, who could intercept their Syrian
trade as it passed and repassed through the territory of
Medina. Abu Sophian himself, with only thirty or forty
followers, conducted a wealthy caravan of a thousand camels;
the fortune or dexterity of his march escaped the vigilance
of Mahomet; but the chief of the Koreish was informed that
the holy robbers were placed in ambush to await his return.
He despatched a messenger to his brethren of Mecca, and they
were roused, by the fear of losing their merchandise and
their provisions, unless they hastened to his relief with
the military force of the city. The sacred band of Mahomet
was formed of three hundred and thirteen Moslems, of whom
seventy-seven were fugitives, and the rest auxiliaries; they
mounted by turns a train of seventy camels, (the camels of
Yathreb were formidable in war;) but such was the poverty of
his first disciples, that only two could appear on horseback
in the field. (128) In the fertile and famous vale of Beder,
(129) three stations from Medina, he was informed by his
scouts of the caravan that approached on one side; of the
Koreish, one hundred horse, eight hundred and fifty foot,
who advanced on the other. After a short debate, he
sacrificed the prospect of wealth to the pursuit of glory
and revenge, and a slight intrenchment was formed, to cover
his troops, and a stream of fresh water, that glided through
the valley. "O God," he exclaimed, as the numbers of the
Koreish descended from the hills, "O God, if these are
destroyed, by whom wilt thou be worshipped on the earth? -
Courage, my children; close your ranks; discharge your
arrows, and the day is your own." At these words he placed
himself, with Abubeker, on a throne or pulpit, (130) and
instantly demanded the succor of Gabriel and three thousand
angels. His eye was fixed on the field of battle: the
Mussulmans fainted and were pressed: in that decisive moment
the prophet started from his throne, mounted his horse, and
cast a handful of sand into the air: "Let their faces be
covered with confusion." Both armies heard the thunder of
his voice: their fancy beheld the angelic warriors: (131) the
Koreish trembled and fled: seventy of the bravest were
slain; and seventy captives adorned the first victory of the
faithful. The dead bodies of the Koreish were despoiled and
insulted: two of the most obnoxious prisoners were punished
with death; and the ransom of the others, four thousand
drams of silver, compensated in some degree the escape of
the caravan. But it was in vain that the camels of Abu
Sophian explored a new road through the desert and along the
Euphrates: they were overtaken by the diligence of the
Mussulmans; and wealthy must have been the prize, if twenty
thousand drams could be set apart for the fifth of the
apostle. The resentment of the public and private loss
stimulated Abu Sophian to collect a body of three thousand
men, seven hundred of whom were armed with cuirasses, and
two hundred were mounted on horseback; three thousand camels
attended his march; and his wife Henda, with fifteen matrons
of Mecca, incessantly sounded their timbrels to animate the
troops, and to magnify the greatness of Hobal, the most
popular deity of the Caaba. The standard of God and Mahomet
was upheld by nine hundred and fifty believers: the
disproportion of numbers was not more alarming than in the
field of Beder; and their presumption of victory prevailed
against the divine and human sense of the apostle. The
second battle was fought on Mount Ohud, six miles to the
north of Medina; (132) the Koreish advanced in the form of a
crescent; and the right wing of cavalry was led by Caled,
the fiercest and most successful of the Arabian warriors.
The troops of Mahomet were skilfully posted on the declivity
of the hill; and their rear was guarded by a detachment of
fifty archers. The weight of their charge impelled and
broke the centre of the idolaters: but in the pursuit they
lost the advantage of their ground: the archers deserted
their station: the Mussulmans were tempted by the spoil,
disobeyed their general, and disordered their ranks. The
intrepid Caled, wheeling his cavalry on their flank and
rear, exclaimed, with a loud voice, that Mahomet was slain.
He was indeed wounded in the face with a javelin: two of his
teeth were shattered with a stone; yet, in the midst of
tumult and dismay, he reproached the infidels with the
murder of a prophet; and blessed the friendly hand that
stanched his blood, and conveyed him to a place of safety
Seventy martyrs died for the sins of the people; they fell,
said the apostle, in pairs, each brother embracing his
lifeless companion; (133) their bodies were mangled by the
inhuman females of Mecca; and the wife of Abu Sophian tasted
the entrails of Hamza, the uncle of Mahomet. They might
applaud their superstition, and satiate their fury; but the
Mussulmans soon rallied in the field, and the Koreish wanted
strength or courage to undertake the siege of Medina. It
was attacked the ensuing year by an army of ten thousand
enemies; and this third expedition is variously named from
the nations, which marched under the banner of Abu Sophian,
from the ditch which was drawn before the city, and a camp
of three thousand Mussulmans. The prudence of Mahomet
declined a general engagement: the valor of Ali was
signalized in single combat; and the war was protracted
twenty days, till the final separation of the confederates.
A tempest of wind, rain, and hail, overturned their tents:
their private quarrels were fomented by an insidious
adversary; and the Koreish, deserted by their allies, no
longer hoped to subvert the throne, or to check the
conquests, of their invincible exile. (134)
The choice of Jerusalem for the first kebla of prayer
discovers the early propensity of Mahomet in favor of the
Jews; and happy would it have been for their temporal
interest, had they recognized, in the Arabian prophet, the
hope of Israel and the promised Messiah. Their obstinacy
converted his friendship into implacable hatred, with which
he pursued that unfortunate people to the last moment of his
life; and in the double character of an apostle and a
conqueror, his persecution was extended to both worlds. (135)
The Kainoka dwelt at Medina under the protection of the
city; he seized the occasion of an accidental tumult, and
summoned them to embrace his religion, or contend with him
in battle. "Alas!" replied the trembling Jews, "we are
ignorant of the use of arms, but we persevere in the faith
and worship of our fathers; why wilt thou reduce us to the
necessity of a just defence?" The unequal conflict was
terminated in fifteen days; and it was with extreme
reluctance that Mahomet yielded to the importunity of his
allies, and consented to spare the lives of the captives.
But their riches were confiscated, their arms became more
effectual in the hands of the Mussulmans; and a wretched
colony of seven hundred exiles was driven, with their wives
and children, to implore a refuge on the confines of Syria.
The Nadhirites were more guilty, since they conspired, in a
friendly interview, to assassinate the prophet. He besieged
their castle, three miles from Medina; but their resolute
defence obtained an honorable capitulation; and the
garrison, sounding their trumpets and beating their drums,
was permitted to depart with the honors of war. The Jews
had excited and joined the war of the Koreish: no sooner had
the nations retired from the ditch, than Mahomet, without
laying aside his armor, marched on the same day to extirpate
the hostile race of the children of Koraidha. After a
resistance of twenty-five days, they surrendered at
discretion. They trusted to the intercession of their old
allies of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism
obliterates the feelings of humanity. A venerable elder, to
whose judgment they appealed, pronounced the sentence of
their death; seven hundred Jews were dragged in chains to
the market-place of the city; they descended alive into the
grave prepared for their execution and burial; and the
apostle beheld with an inflexible eye the slaughter of his
helpless enemies. Their sheep and camels were inherited by
the Mussulmans: three hundred cuirasses, five hundred piles,
a thousand lances, composed the most useful portion of the
spoil. Six days' journey to the north-east of Medina, the
ancient and wealthy town of Chaibar was the seat of the
Jewish power in Arabia: the territory, a fertile spot in the
desert, was covered with plantations and cattle, and
protected by eight castles, some of which were esteemed of
impregnable strength. The forces of Mahomet consisted of
two hundred horse and fourteen hundred foot: in the
succession of eight regular and painful sieges they were
exposed to danger, and fatigue, and hunger; and the most
undaunted chiefs despaired of the event. The apostle revived
their faith and courage by the example of Ali, on whom he
bestowed the surname of the Lion of God: perhaps we may
believe that a Hebrew champion of gigantic stature was
cloven to the chest by his irresistible cimeter; but we
cannot praise the modesty of romance, which represents him
as tearing from its hinges the gate of a fortress and
wielding the ponderous buckler in his left hand. (136) After
the reduction of the castles, the town of Chaibar submitted
to the yoke. The chief of the tribe was tortured, in the
presence of Mahomet, to force a confession of his hidden
treasure: the industry of the shepherds and husbandmen was
rewarded with a precarious toleration: they were permitted,
so long as it should please the conqueror, to improve their
patrimony, in equal shares, for his emolument and their own.
Under the reign of Omar, the Jews of Chaibar were
transported to Syria; and the caliph alleged the injunction
of his dying master; that one and the true religion should
be professed in his native land of Arabia. (137)
Five times each day the eyes of Mahomet were turned towards
Mecca, (138) and he was urged by the most sacred and powerful
motives to revisit, as a conqueror, the city and the temple
from whence he had been driven as an exile. The Caaba was
present to his waking and sleeping fancy: an idle dream was
translated into vision and prophecy; he unfurled the holy
banner; and a rash promise of success too hastily dropped
from the lips of the apostle. His march from Medina to
Mecca displayed the peaceful and solemn pomp of a
pilgrimage: seventy camels, chosen and bedecked for
sacrifice, preceded the van; the sacred territory was
respected; and the captives were dismissed without ransom to
proclaim his clemency and devotion. But no sooner did
Mahomet descend into the plain, within a day's journey of
the city, than he exclaimed, "They have clothed themselves
with the skins of tigers: " the numbers and resolution of
the Koreish opposed his progress; and the roving Arabs of
the desert might desert or betray a leader whom they had
followed for the hopes of spoil. The intrepid fanatic sunk
into a cool and cautious politician: he waived in the treaty
his title of apostle of God; concluded with the Koreish and
their allies a truce of ten years; engaged to restore the
fugitives of Mecca who should embrace his religion; and
stipulated only, for the ensuing year, the humble privilege
of entering the city as a friend, and of remaining three
days to accomplish the rites of the pilgrimage. A cloud of
shame and sorrow hung on the retreat of the Mussulmans, and
their disappointment might justly accuse the failure of a
prophet who had so often appealed to the evidence of
success. The faith and hope of the pilgrims were rekindled
by the prospect of Mecca: their swords were sheathed; (D)
seven times in the footsteps of the apostle they encompassed
the Caaba: the Koreish had retired to the hills, and
Mahomet, after the customary sacrifice, evacuated the city
on the fourth day. The people was edified by his devotion;
the hostile chiefs were awed, or divided, or seduced; and
both Kaled and Amrou, the future conquerors of Syria and
Egypt, most seasonably deserted the sinking cause of
idolatry. The power of Mahomet was increased by the
submission of the Arabian tribes; ten thousand soldiers were
assembled for the conquest of Mecca; and the idolaters, the
weaker party, were easily convicted of violating the truce.
Enthusiasm and discipline impelled the march, and preserved
the secret till the blaze of ten thousand fires proclaimed
to the astonished Koreish the design, the approach, and the
irresistible force of the enemy. The haughty Abu Sophian
presented the keys of the city, admired the variety of arms
and ensigns that passed before him in review; observed that
the son of Abdallah had acquired a mighty kingdom, and
confessed, under the cimeter of Omar, that he was the
apostle of the true God. The return of Marius and Scylla
was stained with the blood of the Romans: the revenge of
Mahomet was stimulated by religious zeal, and his injured
followers were eager to execute or to prevent the order of a
massacre. Instead of indulging their passions and his own,
(139) the victorious exile forgave the guilt, and united the
factions, of Mecca. His troops, in three divisions, marched
into the city: eight-and-twenty of the inhabitants were
slain by the sword of Caled; eleven men and six women were
proscribed by the sentence of Mahomet; but he blamed the
cruelty of his lieutenant; and several of the most obnoxious
victims were indebted for their lives to his clemency or
contempt. The chiefs of the Koreish were prostrate at his
feet. "What mercy can you expect from the man whom you have
wronged?" "We confide in the generosity of our kinsman."
"And you shall not confide in vain: begone! you are safe,
you are free" The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by
the profession of Islam; and after an exile of seven years,
the fugitive missionary was enthroned as the prince and
prophet of his native country. (140) But the three hundred
and sixty idols of the Caaba were ignominiously broken: the
house of God was purified and adorned: as an example to
future times, the apostle again fulfilled the duties of a
pilgrim; and a perpetual law was enacted that no unbeliever
should dare to set his foot on the territory of the holy
city. (141)
The conquest of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of
the Arabian tribes; (142) who, according to the vicissitudes
of fortune, had obeyed, or disregarded, the eloquence or the
arms of the prophet. Indifference for rites and opinions
still marks the character of the Bedoweens; and they might
accept, as loosely as they hold, the doctrine of the Koran.
Yet an obstinate remnant still adhered to the religion and
liberty of their ancestors, and the war of Honain derived a
proper appellation from the idols, whom Mahomet had vowed to
destroy, and whom the confederates of Tayef had sworn to
defend. (143) Four thousand Pagans advanced with secrecy and
speed to surprise the conqueror: they pitied and despised
the supine negligence of the Koreish, but they depended on
the wishes, and perhaps the aid, of a people who had so
lately renounced their gods, and bowed beneath the yoke of
their enemy. The banners of Medina and Mecca were displayed
by the prophet; a crowd of Bedoweens increased the strength
or numbers of the army, and twelve thousand Mussulmans
entertained a rash and sinful presumption of their
invincible strength. They descended without precaution into
the valley of Honain: the heights had been occupied by the
archers and slingers of the confederates; their numbers were
oppressed, their discipline was confounded, their courage
was appalled, and the Koreish smiled at their impending
destruction. The prophet, on his white mule, was
encompassed by the enemies: he attempted to rush against
their spears in search of a glorious death: ten of his
faithful companions interposed their weapons and their
breasts; three of these fell dead at his feet: "O my
brethren," he repeatedly cried, with sorrow and indignation,
"I am the son of Abdallah, I am the apostle of truth! O man,
stand fast in the faith! O God, send down thy succor!" His
uncle Abbas, who, like the heroes of Homer, excelled in the
loudness of his voice, made the valley resound with the
recital of the gifts and promises of God: the flying Moslems
returned from all sides to the holy standard; and Mahomet
observed with pleasure that the furnace was again rekindled:
his conduct and example restored the battle, and he animated
his victorious troops to inflict a merciless revenge on the
authors of their shame. From the field of Honain, he
marched without delay to the siege of Tayef, sixty miles to
the south- east of Mecca, a fortress of strength, whose
fertile lands produce the fruits of Syria in the midst of
the Arabian desert. A friendly tribe, instructed (I know
not how) in the art of sieges, supplied him with a train of
battering-rams and military engines, with a body of five
hundred artificers. But it was in vain that he offered
freedom to the slaves of Tayef; that he violated his own
laws by the extirpation of the fruit-trees; that the ground
was opened by the miners; that the breach was assaulted by
the troops. After a siege of twenty-days, the prophet
sounded a retreat; but he retreated with a song of devout
triumph, and affected to pray for the repentance and safety
of the unbelieving city. The spoils of this fortunate
expedition amounted to six thousand captives, twenty-four
thousand camels, forty thousand sheep, and four thousand
ounces of silver: a tribe who had fought at Hoinan redeemed
their prisoners by the sacrifice of their idols; but Mahomet
compensated the loss, by resigning to the soldiers his fifth
of the plunder, and wished, for their sake, that he
possessed as many head of cattle as there were trees in the
province of Tehama. Instead of chastising the disaffection
of the Koreish, he endeavored to cut out their tongues, (his
own expression,) and to secure their attachment by a
superior measure of liberality: Abu Sophian alone was
presented with three hundred camels and twenty ounces of
silver; and Mecca was sincerely converted to the profitable
religion of the Koran.
The fugitives and auxiliaries complained, that they who had
borne the burden were neglected in the season of victory
"Alas!" replied their artful leader, "suffer me to
conciliate these recent enemies, these doubtful proselytes,
by the gift of some perishable goods. To your guard I
intrust my life and fortunes. You are the companions of my
exile, of my kingdom, of my paradise." He was followed by
the deputies of Tayef, who dreaded the repetition of a
siege. "Grant us, O apostle of God! a truce of three years,
with the toleration of our ancient worship." "Not a month,
not an hour." "Excuse us at least from the obligation of
prayer." "Without prayer religion is of no avail." They
submitted in silence: their temples were demolished, and the
same sentence of destruction was executed on all the idols
of Arabia. His lieutenants, on the shores of the Red Sea,
the Ocean, and the Gulf of Persia, were saluted by the
acclamations of a faithful people; and the ambassadors, who
knelt before the throne of Medina, were as numerous (says
the Arabian proverb) as the dates that fall from the
maturity of a palm-tree. The nation submitted to the God
and the sceptre of Mahomet: the opprobrious name of tribute
was abolished: the spontaneous or reluctant oblations of
arms and tithes were applied to the service of religion; and
one hundred and fourteen thousand Moslems accompanied the
last pilgrimage of the apostle. (144)
When Heraclius returned in triumph from the Persian war, he
entertained, at Emesa, one of the ambassadors of Mahomet,
who invited the princes and nations of the earth to the
profession of Islam. On this foundation the zeal of the
Arabians has supposed the secret conversion of the Christian
emperor: the vanity of the Greeks has feigned a personal
visit of the prince of Medina, who accepted from the royal
bounty a rich domain, and a secure retreat, in the province
of Syria. (145) But the friendship of Heraclius and Mahomet
was of short continuance: the new religion had inflamed
rather than assuaged the rapacious spirit of the Saracens,
and the murder of an envoy afforded a decent pretence for
invading, with three thousand soldiers, the territory of
Palestine, that extends to the eastward of the Jordan. The
holy banner was intrusted to Zeid; and such was the
discipline or enthusiasm of the rising sect, that the
noblest chiefs served without reluctance under the slave of
the prophet. On the event of his decease, Jaafar and
Abdallah were successively substituted to the command; and
if the three should perish in the war, the troops were
authorized to elect their general. The three leaders were
slain in the battle of Muta, (146) the first military action,
which tried the valor of the Moslems against a foreign
enemy. Zeid fell, like a soldier, in the foremost ranks: the
death of Jaafar was heroic and memorable: he lost his right
hand: he shifted the standard to his left: the left was
severed from his body: he embraced the standard with his
bleeding stumps, till he was transfixed to the ground with
fifty honorable wounds. (E) "Advance," cried Abdallah, who
stepped into the vacant place, "advance with confidence:
either victory or paradise is our own." The lance of a Roman
decided the alternative; but the falling standard was
rescued by Caled, the proselyte of Mecca: nine swords were
broken in his hand; and his valor withstood and repulsed the
superior numbers of the Christians. In the nocturnal
council of the camp he was chosen to command: his skilful
evolutions of the ensuing day secured either the victory or
the retreat of the Saracens; and Caled is renowned among his
brethren and his enemies by the glorious appellation of the
Sword of God. In the pulpit, Mahomet described, with
prophetic rapture, the crowns of the blessed martyrs; but in
private he betrayed the feelings of human nature: he was
surprised as he wept over the daughter of Zeid: "What do I
see?" said the astonished votary. "You see," replied the
apostle, "a friend who is deploring the loss of his most
faithful friend." After the conquest of Mecca, the sovereign
of Arabia affected to prevent the hostile preparations of
Heraclius; and solemnly proclaimed war against the Romans,
without attempting to disguise the hardships and dangers of
the enterprise. (147) The Moslems were discouraged: they
alleged the want of money, or horses, or provisions; the
season of harvest, and the intolerable heat of the summer:
"Hell is much hotter," said the indignant prophet. He
disdained to compel their service: but on his return he
admonished the most guilty, by an excommunication of fifty
days. Their desertion enhanced the merit of Abubeker,
Othman, and the faithful companions who devoted their lives
and fortunes; and Mahomet displayed his banner at the head
of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. Painful
indeed was the distress of the march: lassitude and thirst
were aggravated by the scorching and pestilential winds of
the desert: ten men rode by turns on one camel; and they
were reduced to the shameful necessity of drinking the water
from the belly of that useful animal. In the mid-way, ten
days' journey from Medina and Damascus, they reposed near
the grove and fountain of Tabuc. Beyond that place Mahomet
declined the prosecution of the war: he declared himself
satisfied with the peaceful intentions, he was more probably
daunted by the martial array, of the emperor of the East.
But the active and intrepid Caled spread around the terror
of his name; and the prophet received the submission of the
tribes and cities, from the Euphrates to Ailah, at the head
of the Red Sea. To his Christian subjects, Mahomet readily
granted the security of their persons, the freedom of their
trade, the property of their goods, and the toleration of
their worship. (148) The weakness of their Arabian brethren
had restrained them from opposing his ambition; the
disciples of Jesus were endeared to the enemy of the Jews;
and it was the interest of a conqueror to propose a fair
capitulation to the most powerful religion of the earth.
Till the age of sixty-three years, the strength of Mahomet
was equal to the temporal and spiritual fatigues of his
mission. His epileptic fits, an absurd calumny of the
Greeks, would be an object of pity rather than abhorrence;
(149) but he seriously believed that he was poisoned at
Chaibar by the revenge of a Jewish female. (150) During four
years, the health of the prophet declined; his infirmities
increased; but his mortal disease was a fever of fourteen
days, which deprived him by intervals of the use of reason.
As soon as he was conscious of his danger, he edified his
brethren by the humility of his virtue or penitence. "If
there be any man," said the apostle from the pulpit, "whom I
have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of
retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of a Mussulman?
let him proclaim my thoughts in the face of the
congregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the
little that I possess shall compensate the principal and the
interest of the debt." "Yes," replied a voice from the
crowd, "I am entitled to three drams of silver." Mahomet
heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his
creditor for accusing him in this world rather than at the
day of judgment. He beheld with temperate firmness the
approach of death; enfranchised his slaves (seventeen men,
as they are named, and eleven women;) minutely directed the
order of his funeral, and moderated the lamentations of his
weeping friends, on whom he bestowed the benediction of
peace. Till the third day before his death, he regularly
performed the function of public prayer: the choice of
Abubeker to supply his place, appeared to mark that ancient
and faithful friend as his successor in the sacerdotal and
regal office; but he prudently declined the risk and envy of
a more explicit nomination. At a moment when his faculties
were visibly impaired, he called for pen and ink to write,
or, more properly, to dictate, a divine book, the sum and
accomplishment of all his revelations: a dispute arose in
the chamber, whether he should be allowed to supersede the
authority of the Koran; and the prophet was forced to
reprove the indecent vehemence of his disciples. If the
slightest credit may be afforded to the traditions of his
wives and companions, he maintained, in the bosom of his
family, and to the last moments of his life, the dignity (F)
of an apostle, and the faith of an enthusiast; described the
visits of Gabriel, who bade an everlasting farewell to the
earth, and expressed his lively confidence, not only of the
mercy, but of the favor, of the Supreme Being. In a
familiar discourse he had mentioned his special prerogative,
that the angel of death was not allowed to take his soul
till he had respectfully asked the permission of the
prophet. The request was granted; and Mahomet immediately
fell into the agony of his dissolution: his head was
reclined on the lap of Ayesha, the best beloved of all his
wives; he fainted with the violence of pain; recovering his
spirits, he raised his eyes towards the roof of the house,
and, with a steady look, though a faltering voice, uttered
the last broken, though articulate, words: "O God! .....
pardon my sins....... Yes, ...... I come, ...... among my
fellow-citizens on high;" and thus peaceably expired on a
carpet spread upon the floor. An expedition for the
conquest of Syria was stopped by this mournful event; the
army halted at the gates of Medina; the chiefs were
assembled round their dying master. The city, more
especially the house, of the prophet, was a scene of
clamorous sorrow of silent despair: fanaticism alone could
suggest a ray of hope and consolation. "How can he be dead,
our witness, our intercessor, our mediator, with God? By God
he is not dead: like Moses and Jesus, he is wrapped in a
holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful
people." The evidence of sense was disregarded; and Omar,
unsheathing his cimeter, threatened to strike off the heads
of the infidels, who should dare to affirm that the prophet
was no more. The tumult was appeased by the weight and
moderation of Abubeker. "Is it Mahomet," said he to Omar
and the multitude, "or the God of Mahomet, whom you worship?
The God of Mahomet liveth forever; but the apostle was a
mortal like ourselves, and according to his own prediction,
he has experienced the common fate of mortality." He was
piously interred by the hands of his nearest kinsman, on the
same spot on which he expired: (151) Medina has been
sanctified by the death and burial of Mahomet; and the
innumerable pilgrims of Mecca often turn aside from the way,
to bow, in voluntary devotion, (152) before the simple tomb
of the prophet. (153)
At the conclusion of the life of Mahomet, it may perhaps be
expected, that I should balance his faults and virtues, that
I should decide whether the title of enthusiast or impostor
more properly belongs to that extraordinary man. Had I been
intimately conversant with the son of Abdallah, the task
would still be difficult, and the success uncertain: at the
distance of twelve centuries, I darkly contemplate his shade
through a cloud of religious incense; and could I truly
delineate the portrait of an hour, the fleeting resemblance
would not equally apply to the solitary of Mount Hera, to
the preacher of Mecca, and to the conqueror of Arabia. The
author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed
with a pious and contemplative disposition: so soon as
marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he
avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age
of forty he lived with innocence, and would have died
without a name. The unity of God is an idea most congenial
to nature and reason; and a slight conversation with the
Jews and Christians would teach him to despise and detest
the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a
citizen to impart the doctrine of salvation, to rescue his
country from the dominion of sin and error. The energy of a
mind incessantly bent on the same object, would convert a
general obligation into a particular call; the warm
suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt
as the inspirations of Heaven; the labor of thought would
expire in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the
invisible monitor, would be described with the form and
attributes of an angel of God. (154) From enthusiasm to
imposture, the step is perilous and slippery: the daemon of
Socrates (155) affords a memorable instance, how a wise man
may deceive himself, how a good man may deceive others, how
the conscience may slumber in a mixed and middle state
between self-illusion and voluntary fraud. Charity may
believe that the original motives of Mahomet were those of
pure and genuine benevolence; but a human missionary is
incapable of cherishing the obstinate unbelievers who reject
his claims despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he
might forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate
the enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge
were kindled in the bosom of Mahomet, and he sighed, like
the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels
whom he had condemned. The injustice of Mecca and the
choice of Medina, transformed the citizen into a prince, the
humble preacher into the leader of armies; but his sword was
consecrated by the example of the saints; and the same God
who afflicts a sinful world with pestilence and earthquakes,
might inspire for their conversion or chastisement the valor
of his servants. In the exercise of political government,
he was compelled to abate of the stern rigor of fanaticism,
to comply in some measure with the prejudices and passions
of his followers, and to employ even the vices of mankind as
the instruments of their salvation. The use of fraud and
perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, were often subservient to
the propagation of the faith; and Mahomet commanded or
approved the assassination of the Jews and idolaters who had
escaped from the field of battle. By the repetition of such
acts, the character of Mahomet must have been gradually
stained; and the influence of such pernicious habits would
be poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and
social virtues which are necessary to maintain the
reputation of a prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of
his last years, ambition was the ruling passion; and a
politician will suspect, that he secretly smiled (the
victorious impostor!) at the enthusiasm of his youth, and
the credulity of his proselytes. (156) A philosopher will
observe, that their credulity and his success would tend
more strongly to fortify the assurance of his divine
mission, that his interest and religion were inseparably
connected, and that his conscience would be soothed by the
persuasion, that he alone was absolved by the Deity from the
obligation of positive and moral laws. If he retained any
vestige of his native innocence, the sins of Mahomet may be
allowed as an evidence of his sincerity. In the support of
truth, the arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less
criminal; and he would have started at the foulness of the
means, had he not been satisfied of the importance and
justice of the end. Even in a conqueror or a priest, I can
surprise a word or action of unaffected humanity; and the
decree of Mahomet, that, in the sale of captives, the
mothers should never be separated from their children, may
suspend, or moderate, the censure of the historian. (157)
The good sense of Mahomet (158) despised the pomp of royalty:
the apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the
family: he kindled the fire, swept the floor, milked the
ewes, and mended with his own hands his shoes and his
woollen garment. Disdaining the penance and merit of a
hermit, he observed, without effort or vanity, the
abstemious diet of an Arab and a soldier. On solemn
occasions he feasted his companions with rustic and
hospitable plenty; but in his domestic life, many weeks
would elapse without a tire being kindled on the hearth of
the prophet. The interdiction of wine was confirmed by his
example; his hunger was appeased with a sparing allowance of
barley-bread: he delighted in the taste of milk and honey;
but his ordinary food consisted of dates and water.
Perfumes and women were the two sensual enjoyments which his
nature required, and his religion did not forbid; and
Mahomet affirmed, that the fervor of his devotion was
increased by these innocent pleasures. The heat of the
climate inflames the blood of the Arabs; and their
libidinous complexion has been noticed by the writers of
antiquity. (159) Their incontinence was regulated by the
civil and religious laws of the Koran: their incestuous
alliances were blamed; the boundless license of polygamy was
reduced to four legitimate wives or concubines; their rights
both of bed and of dowry were equitably determined; the
freedom of divorce was discouraged, adultery was condemned
as a capital offence; and fornication, in either sex, was
punished with a hundred stripes. (160) Such were the calm and
rational precepts of the legislator: but in his private
conduct, Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused
the claims of a prophet. A special revelation dispensed him
from the laws which he had imposed on his nation: the female
sex, without reserve, was abandoned to his desires; and this
singular prerogative excited the envy, rather than the
scandal, the veneration, rather than the envy, of the devout
Mussulmans. If we remember the seven hundred wives and
three hundred concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall
applaud the modesty of the Arabian, who espoused no more
than seventeen or fifteen wives; eleven are enumerated who
occupied at Medina their separate apartments round the house
of the apostle, and enjoyed in their turns the favor of his
conjugal society. What is singular enough, they were all
widows, excepting only Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker.
She was doubtless a virgin, since Mahomet consummated his
nuptials (such is the premature ripeness of the climate)
when she was only nine years of age. The youth, the beauty,
the spirit of Ayesha, gave her a superior ascendant: she was
beloved and trusted by the prophet; and, after his death,
the daughter of Abubeker was long revered as the mother of
the faithful. Her behavior had been ambiguous and
indiscreet: in a nocturnal march she was accidentally left
behind; and in the morning Ayesha returned to the camp with
a man. The temper of Mahomet was inclined to jealousy; but
a divine revelation assured him of her innocence: he
chastised her accusers, and published a law of domestic
peace, that no woman should be condemned unless four male
witnesses had seen her in the act of adultery. (161) In his
adventures with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, and with Mary, an
Egyptian captive, the amorous prophet forgot the interest of
his reputation. At the house of Zeid, his freedman and
adopted son, he beheld, in a loose undress, the beauty of
Zeineb, and burst forth into an ejaculation of devotion and
desire. The servile, or grateful, freedman understood the
hint, and yielded without hesitation to the love of his
benefactor. But as the filial relation had excited some
doubt and scandal, the angel Gabriel descended from heaven
to ratify the deed, to annul the adoption, and gently to
reprove the apostle for distrusting the indulgence of his
God. One of his wives, Hafna, the daughter of Omar,
surprised him on her own bed, in the embraces of his
Egyptian captive: she promised secrecy and forgiveness, he
swore that he would renounce the possession of Mary. Both
parties forgot their engagements; and Gabriel again
descended with a chapter of the Koran, to absolve him from
his oath, and to exhort him freely to enjoy his captives and
concubines, without listening to the clamors of his wives.
In a solitary retreat of thirty days, he labored, alone with
Mary, to fulfil the commands of the angel. When his love
and revenge were satiated, he summoned to his presence his
eleven wives, reproached their disobedience and
indiscretion, and threatened them with a sentence of
divorce, both in this world and in the next; a dreadful
sentence, since those who had ascended the bed of the
prophet were forever excluded from the hope of a second
marriage. Perhaps the incontinence of Mahomet may be
palliated by the tradition of his natural or preternatural
gifts; (162) he united the manly virtue of thirty of the
children of Adam: and the apostle might rival the thirteenth
labor (163) of the Grecian Hercules. (164) A more serious and
decent excuse may be drawn from his fidelity to Cadijah.
During the twenty-four years of their marriage, her youthful
husband abstained from the right of polygamy, and the pride
or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by
the society of a rival. After her death, he placed her in
the rank of the four perfect women, with the sister of
Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of
his daughters. "Was she not old?" said Ayesha, with the
insolence of a blooming beauty; "has not God given you a
better in her place?" "No, by God," said Mahomet, with an
effusion of honest gratitude, "there never can be a better!
She believed in me when men despised me; she relieved my
wants, when I was poor and persecuted by the world." (165)
In the largest indulgence of polygamy, the founder of a
religion and empire might aspire to multiply the chances of
a numerous posterity and a lineal succession. The hopes of
Mahomet were fatally disappointed. The virgin Ayesha, and
his ten widows of mature age and approved fertility, were
barren in his potent embraces. The four sons of Cadijah
died in their infancy. Mary, his Egyptian concubine, was
endeared to him by the birth of Ibrahim. At the end of
fifteen months the prophet wept over his grave; but he
sustained with firmness the raillery of his enemies, and
checked the adulation or credulity of the Moslems, by the
assurance that an eclipse of the sun was not occasioned by
the death of the infant. Cadijah had likewise given him
four daughters, who were married to the most faithful of his
disciples: the three eldest died before their father; but
Fatima, who possessed his confidence and love, became the
wife of her cousin Ali, and the mother of an illustrious
progeny. The merit and misfortunes of Ali and his
descendants will lead me to anticipate, in this place, the
series of the Saracen caliphs, a title which describes the
commanders of the faithful as the vicars and successors of
the apostle of God. (166)
The birth, the alliance, the character of Ali, which exalted
him above the rest of his countrymen, might justify his
claim to the vacant throne of Arabia. The son of Abu Taleb
was, in his own right, the chief of the family of Hashem,
and the hereditary prince or guardian of the city and temple
of Mecca. The light of prophecy was extinct; but the
husband of Fatima might expect the inheritance and blessing
of her father: the Arabs had sometimes been patient of a
female reign; and the two grandsons of the prophet had often
been fondled in his lap, and shown in his pulpit as the hope
of his age, and the chief of the youth of paradise. The
first of the true believers might aspire to march before
them in this world and in the next; and if some were of a
graver and more rigid cast, the zeal and virtue of Ali were
never outstripped by any recent proselyte. He united the
qualifications of a poet, a soldier, and a saint: his wisdom
still breathes in a collection of moral and religious
sayings; (167) and every antagonist, in the combats of the
tongue or of the sword, was subdued by his eloquence and
valor. From the first hour of his mission to the last rites
of his funeral, the apostle was never forsaken by a generous
friend, whom he delighted to name his brother, his
vicegerent, and the faithful Aaron of a second Moses. The
son of Abu Taleb was afterwards reproached for neglecting to
secure his interest by a solemn declaration of his right,
which would have silenced all competition, and sealed his
succession by the decrees of Heaven. But the unsuspecting
hero confided in himself: the jealousy of empire, and
perhaps the fear of opposition, might suspend the
resolutions of Mahomet; and the bed of sickness was besieged
by the artful Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker, and the
enemy of Ali. (G)
The silence and death of the prophet restored the liberty of
the people; and his companions convened an assembly to
deliberate on the choice of his successor. The hereditary
claim and lofty spirit of Ali were offensive to an
aristocracy of elders, desirous of bestowing and resuming
the sceptre by a free and frequent election: the Koreish
could never be reconciled to the proud preeminence of the
line of Hashem; the ancient discord of the tribes was
rekindled, the fugitives of Mecca and the auxiliaries of
Medina asserted their respective merits; and the rash
proposal of choosing two independent caliphs would have
crushed in their infancy the religion and empire of the
Saracens. The tumult was appeased by the disinterested
resolution of Omar, who, suddenly renouncing his own
pretensions, stretched forth his hand, and declared himself
the first subject of the mild and venerable Abubeker. (H) The
urgency of the moment, and the acquiescence of the people,
might excuse this illegal and precipitate measure; but Omar
himself confessed from the pulpit, that if any Mulsulman
should hereafter presume to anticipate the suffrage of his
brethren, both the elector and the elected would be worthy
of death. (168) After the simple inauguration of Abubeker, he
was obeyed in Medina, Mecca, and the provinces of Arabia:
the Hashemites alone declined the oath of fidelity; and
their chief, in his own house, maintained, above six months,
a sullen and independent reserve; without listening to the
threats of Omar, who attempted to consume with fire the
habitation of the daughter of the apostle. The death of
Fatima, and the decline of his party, subdued the indignant
spirit of Ali: he condescended to salute the commander of
the faithful, accepted his excuse of the necessity of
preventing their common enemies, and wisely rejected his
courteous offer of abdicating the government of the
Arabians. After a reign of two years, the aged caliph was
summoned by the angel of death. In his testament, with the
tacit approbation of his companions, he bequeathed the
sceptre to the firm and intrepid virtue of Omar. "I have no
occasion," said the modest candidate, "for the place." "But
the place has occasion for you," replied Abubeker; who
expired with a fervent prayer, that the God of Mahomet would
ratify his choice, and direct the Mussulmans in the way of
concord and obedience. The prayer was not ineffectual,
since Ali himself, in a life of privacy and prayer,
professed to revere the superior worth and dignity of his
rival; who comforted him for the loss of empire, by the most
flattering marks of confidence and esteem. In the twelfth
year of his reign, Omar received a mortal wound from the
hand of an assassin: he rejected with equal impartiality the
names of his son and of Ali, refused to load his conscience
with the sins of his successor, and devolved on six of the
most respectable companions the arduous task of electing a
commander of the faithful. On this occasion, Ali was again
blamed by his friends (169) for submitting his right to the
judgment of men, for recognizing their jurisdiction by
accepting a place among the six electors. He might have
obtained their suffrage, had he deigned to promise a strict
and servile conformity, not only to the Koran and tradition,
but likewise to the determinations of two seniors. (170) With
these limitations, Othman, the secretary of Mahomet,
accepted the government; nor was it till after the third
caliph, twenty-four years after the death of the prophet,
that Ali was invested, by the popular choice, with the regal
and sacerdotal office. The manners of the Arabians retained
their primitive simplicity, and the son of Abu Taleb
despised the pomp and vanity of this world. At the hour of
prayer, he repaired to the mosch of Medina, clothed in a
thin cotton gown, a coarse turban on his head, his slippers
in one hand, and his bow in the other, instead of a
walking-staff. The companions of the prophet, and the
chiefs of the tribes, saluted their new sovereign, and gave
him their right hands as a sign of fealty and allegiance.
The mischiefs that flow from the contests of ambition are
usually confined to the times and countries in which they
have been agitated. But the religious discord of the
friends and enemies of Ali has been renewed in every age of
the Hegira, and is still maintained in the immortal hatred
of the Persians and Turks. (171) The former, who are branded
with the appellation of Shiites or sectaries, have enriched
the Mahometan creed with a new article of faith; and if
Mahomet be the apostle, his companion Ali is the vicar, of
God. In their private converse, in their public worship,
they bitterly execrate the three usurpers who intercepted
his indefeasible right to the dignity of Imam and Caliph;
and the name of Omar expresses in their tongue the perfect
accomplishment of wickedness and impiety. (172) The Sonnites,
who are supported by the general consent and orthodox
tradition of the Mussulmans, entertain a more impartial, or
at least a more decent, opinion. They respect the memory of
Abubeker, Omar, Othman, and Ali, the holy and legitimate
successors of the prophet. But they assign the last and
most humble place to the husband of Fatima, in the
persuasion that the order of succession was determined by
the decrees of sanctity. (173) An historian who balances the
four caliphs with a hand unshaken by superstition, will
calmly pronounce that their manners were alike pure and
exemplary; that their zeal was fervent, and probably
sincere; and that, in the midst of riches and power, their
lives were devoted to the practice of moral and religious
duties. But the public virtues of Abubeker and Omar, the
prudence of the first, the severity of the second,
maintained the peace and prosperity of their reigns. The
feeble temper and declining age of Othman were incapable of
sustaining the weight of conquest and empire. He chose, and
he was deceived; he trusted, and he was betrayed: the most
deserving of the faithful became useless or hostile to his
government, and his lavish bounty was productive only of
ingratitude and discontent. The spirit of discord went
forth in the provinces: their deputies assembled at Medina;
and the Charegites, the desperate fanatics who disclaimed
the yoke of subordination and reason, were confounded among
the free-born Arabs, who demanded the redress of their
wrongs and the punishment of their oppressors. From Cufa,
from Bassora, from Egypt, from the tribes of the desert,
they rose in arms, encamped about a league from Medina, and
despatched a haughty mandate to their sovereign, requiring
him to execute justice, or to descend from the throne. His
repentance began to disarm and disperse the insurgents; but
their fury was rekindled by the arts of his enemies; and the
forgery of a perfidious secretary was contrived to blast his
reputation and precipitate his fall. The caliph had lost
the only guard of his predecessors, the esteem and
confidence of the Moslems: during a siege of six weeks his
water and provisions were intercepted, and the feeble gates
of the palace were protected only by the scruples of the
more timorous rebels. Forsaken by those who had abused his
simplicity, the hopeless and venerable caliph expected the
approach of death: the brother of Ayesha marched at the head
of the assassins; and Othman, with the Koran in his lap, was
pierced with a multitude of wounds. (I) A tumultuous anarchy
of five days was appeased by the inauguration of Ali: his
refusal would have provoked a general massacre. In this
painful situation he supported the becoming pride of the
chief of the Hashemites; declared that he had rather serve
than reign; rebuked the presumption of the strangers; and
required the formal, if not the voluntary, assent of the
chiefs of the nation. He has never been accused of prompting
the assassin of Omar; though Persia indiscreetly celebrates
the festival of that holy martyr. The quarrel between Othman
and his subjects was assuaged by the early mediation of Ali;
and Hassan, the eldest of his sons, was insulted and wounded
in the defence of the caliph. Yet it is doubtful whether
the father of Hassan was strenuous and sincere in his
opposition to the rebels; and it is certain that he enjoyed
the benefit of their crime. The temptation was indeed of
such magnitude as might stagger and corrupt the most
obdurate virtue. The ambitious candidate no longer aspired
to the barren sceptre of Arabia; the Saracens had been
victorious in the East and West; and the wealthy kingdoms of
Persia, Syria, and Egypt were the patrimony of the commander
of the faithful.
A life of prayer and contemplation had not chilled the
martial activity of Ali; but in a mature age, after a long
experience of mankind, he still betrayed in his conduct the
rashness and indiscretion of youth. (J) In the first days of
his reign, he neglected to secure, either by gifts or
fetters, the doubtful allegiance of Telha and Zobeir, two of
the most powerful of the Arabian chiefs. They escaped from
Medina to Mecca, and from thence to Bassora; erected the
standard of revolt; and usurped the government of Irak, or
Assyria, which they had vainly solicited as the reward of
their services. The mask of patriotism is allowed to cover
the most glaring inconsistencies; and the enemies, perhaps
the assassins, of Othman now demanded vengeance for his
blood. They were accompanied in their flight by Ayesha, the
widow of the prophet, who cherished, to the last hour of her
life, an implacable hatred against the husband and the
posterity of Fatima. The most reasonable Moslems were
scandalized, that the mother of the faithful should expose
in a camp her person and character; but the superstitious
crowd was confident that her presence would sanctify the
justice, and assure the success, of their cause. At the head
of twenty thousand of his loyal Arabs, and nine thousand
valiant auxiliaries of Cufa, the caliph encountered and
defeated the superior numbers of the rebels under the walls
of Bassora. Their leaders, Telha and Zobeir, were slain in
the first battle that stained with civil blood the arms of
the Moslems. After passing through the ranks to animate the
troops, Ayesha had chosen her post amidst the dangers of the
field. In the heat of the action, seventy men, who held the
bridle of her camel, were successively killed or wounded;
and the cage or litter, in which she sat, was stuck with
javelins and darts like the quills of a porcupine. The
venerable captive sustained with firmness the reproaches of
the conqueror, and was speedily dismissed to her proper
station at the tomb of Mahomet, with the respect and
tenderness that was still due to the widow of the apostle.
(K) After this victory, which was styled the Day of the
Camel, Ali marched against a more formidable adversary;
against Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, who had assumed
the title of caliph, and whose claim was supported by the
forces of Syria and the interest of the house of Ommiyah.
From the passage of Thapsacus, the plain of Siffin (174)
extends along the western bank of the Euphrates. On this
spacious and level theatre, the two competitors waged a
desultory war of one hundred and ten days. In the course of
ninety actions or skirmishes, the loss of Ali was estimated
at twenty-five, that of Moawiyah at forty-five, thousand
soldiers; and the list of the slain was dignified with the
names of five-and-twenty veterans who had fought at Beder
under the standard of Mahomet. In this sanguinary contest
the lawful caliph displayed a superior character of valor
and humanity. (L)!! His troops were strictly enjoined to
await the first onset of the enemy, to spare their flying
brethren, and to respect the bodies of the dead, and the
chastity of the female captives. He generously proposed to
save the blood of the Moslems by a single combat; but his
trembling rival declined the challenge as a sentence of
inevitable death. The ranks of the Syrians were broken by
the charge of a hero who was mounted on a piebald horse, and
wielded with irresistible force his ponderous and two-edged
sword. As often as he smote a rebel, he shouted the Allah
Acbar, "God is victorious!" and in the tumult of a nocturnal
battle, he was heard to repeat four hundred times that
tremendous exclamation. The prince of Damascus already
meditated his flight; but the certain victory was snatched
from the grasp of Ali by the disobedience and enthusiasm of
his troops. Their conscience was awed by the solemn appeal
to the books of the Koran which Moawiyah exposed on the
foremost lances; and Ali was compelled to yield to a
disgraceful truce and an insidious compromise. He retreated
with sorrow and indignation to Cufa; his party was
discouraged; the distant provinces of Persia, of Yemen, and
of Egypt, were subdued or seduced by his crafty rival; and
the stroke of fanaticism, which was aimed against the three
chiefs of the nation, was fatal only to the cousin of
Mahomet. In the temple of Mecca, three Charegites or
enthusiasts discoursed of the disorders of the church and
state: they soon agreed, that the deaths of Ali, of
Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the viceroy of Egypt,
would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the
assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his
life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their
resolution was equally desperate: but the first mistook the
person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his
seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the
second; the lawful caliph, in the mosch of Cufa, received a
mortal wound from the hand of the third. He expired in the
sixty-third year of his age, and mercifully recommended to
his children, that they would despatch the murderer by a
single stroke. (M) The sepulchre of Ali (175) was concealed
from the tyrants of the house of Ommiyah; (176) but in the
fourth age of the Hegira, a tomb, a temple, a city, arose
near the ruins of Cufa. (177) Many thousands of the Shiites
repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and
the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of
the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious
than the pilgrimage of Mecca.
The persecutors of Mahomet usurped the inheritance of his
children; and the champions of idolatry became the supreme
heads of his religion and empire. The opposition of Abu
Sophian had been fierce and obstinate; his conversion was
tardy and reluctant; his new faith was fortified by
necessity and interest; he served, he fought, perhaps he
believed; and the sins of the time of ignorance were
expiated by the recent merits of the family of Ommiyah.
Moawiyah, the son of Abu Sophian, and of the cruel Henda,
was dignified, in his early youth, with the office or title
of secretary of the prophet: the judgment of Omar intrusted
him with the government of Syria; and he administered that
important province above forty years, either in a
subordinate or supreme rank. Without renouncing the fame of
valor and liberality, he affected the reputation of humanity
and moderation: a grateful people was attached to their
benefactor; and the victorious Moslems were enriched with
the spoils of Cyprus and Rhodes. The sacred duty of
pursuing the assassins of Othman was the engine and pretence
of his ambition. The bloody shirt of the martyr was exposed
in the mosch of Damascus: the emir deplored the fate of his
injured kinsman; and sixty thousand Syrians were engaged in
his service by an oath of fidelity and revenge. Amrou, the
conqueror of Egypt, himself an army, was the first who
saluted the new monarch, and divulged the dangerous secret,
that the Arabian caliphs might be created elsewhere than in
the city of the prophet. (178) The policy of Moawiyah eluded
the valor of his rival; and, after the death of Ali, he
negotiated the abdication of his son Hassan, whose mind was
either above or below the government of the world, and who
retired without a sigh from the palace of Cufa to an humble
cell near the tomb of his grandfather. The aspiring wishes
of the caliph were finally crowned by the important change
of an elective to an hereditary kingdom. Some murmurs of
freedom or fanaticism attested the reluctance of the Arabs,
and four citizens of Medina refused the oath of fidelity;
but the designs of Moawiyah were conducted with vigor and
address; and his son Yezid, a feeble and dissolute youth,
was proclaimed as the commander of the faithful and the
successor on the apostle of God.
A familiar story is related of the benevolence of one of the
sons of Ali. In serving at table, a slave had inadvertently
dropped a dish of scalding broth on his master: the heedless
wretch fell prostrate, to deprecate his punishment, and
repeated a verse of the Koran: "Paradise is for those who
command their anger: " - "I am not angry: " - "and for those
who pardon offences: " - "I pardon your offence: " - "and
for those who return good for evil: " - "I give you your
liberty and four hundred pieces of silver." With an equal
measure of piety, Hosein, the younger brother of Hassan,
inherited a remnant of his father's spirit, and served with
honor against the Christians in the siege of Constantinople.
The primogeniture of the line of Hashem, and the holy
character of grandson of the apostle, had centred in his
person, and he was at liberty to prosecute his claim against
Yezid, the tyrant of Damascus, whose vices he despised, and
whose title he had never deigned to acknowledge. A list was
secretly transmitted from Cufa to Medina, of one hundred and
forty thousand Moslems, who professed their attachment to
his cause, and who were eager to draw their swords so soon
as he should appear on the banks of the Euphrates. Against
the advice of his wisest friends, he resolved to trust his
person and family in the hands of a perfidious people. He
traversed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue of
women and children; but as he approached the confines of
Irak he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the
country, and suspected either the defection or ruin of his
party. His fears were just: Obeidollah, the governor of
Cufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection;
and Hosein, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a
body of five thousand horse, who intercepted his
communication with the city and the river. He might still
have escaped to a fortress in the desert, that had defied
the power of Caesar and Chosroes, and confided in the
fidelity of the tribe of Tai, which would have armed ten
thousand warriors in his defence. In a conference with the
chief of the enemy, he proposed the option of three
honorable conditions: that he should be allowed to return to
Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the
Turks, or safely conducted to the presence of Yezid. But the
commands of the caliph, or his lieutenant, were stern and
absolute; and Hosein was informed that he must either submit
as a captive and a criminal to the commander of the
faithful, or expect the consequences of his rebellion. "Do
you think," replied he, "to terrify me with death?" And,
during the short respite of a night, (N) he prepared with
calm and solemn resignation to encounter his fate. He
checked the lamentations of his sister Fatima, who deplored
the impending ruin of his house. "Our trust," said Hosein,
"is in God alone. All things, both in heaven and earth,
must perish and return to their Creator. My brother, my
father, my mother, were better than me, and every Mussulman
has an example in the prophet." He pressed his friends to
consult their safety by a timely flight: they unanimously
refused to desert or survive their beloved master: and their
courage was fortified by a fervent prayer and the assurance
of paradise. On the morning of the fatal day, he mounted on
horseback, with his sword in one hand and the Koran in the
other: his generous band of martyrs consisted only of
thirty-two horse and forty foot; but their flanks and rear
were secured by the tent-ropes, and by a deep trench which
they had filled with lighted fagots, according to the
practice of the Arabs. The enemy advanced with reluctance,
and one of their chiefs deserted, with thirty followers, to
claim the partnership of inevitable death. In every close
onset, or single combat, the despair of the Fatimites was
invincible; but the surrounding multitudes galled them from
a distance with a cloud of arrows, and the horses and men
were successively slain; a truce was allowed on both sides
for the hour of prayer; and the battle at length expired by
the death of the last companions of Hosein. Alone, weary,
and wounded, he seated himself at the door of his tent. As
he tasted a drop of water, he was pierced in the mouth with
a dart; and his son and nephew, two beautiful youths, were
killed in his arms. He lifted his hands to heaven; they
were full of blood; and he uttered a funeral prayer for the
living and the dead. In a transport of despair his sister
issued from the tent, and adjured the general of the
Cufians, that he would not suffer Hosein to be murdered
before his eyes: a tear trickled down his venerable beard;
and the boldest of his soldiers fell back on every side as
the dying hero threw himself among them. The remorseless
Shamer, a name detested by the faithful, reproached their
cowardice; and the grandson of Mahomet was slain with
three-and-thirty strokes of lances and swords. After they
had trampled on his body, they carried his head to the
castle of Cufa, and the inhuman Obeidollah struck him on the
mouth with a cane: "Alas," exclaimed an aged Mussulman, "on
these lips have I seen the lips of the apostle of God!" In a
distant age and climate, the tragic scene of the death of
Hosein will awaken the sympathy of the coldest reader. (179)
(O) On the annual festival of his martyrdom, in the devout
pilgrimage to his sepulchre, his Persian votaries abandon
their souls to the religious frenzy of sorrow and
indignation. (180)
When the sisters and children of Ali were brought in chains
to the throne of Damascus, the caliph was advised to
extirpate the enmity of a popular and hostile race, whom he
had injured beyond the hope of reconciliation. But Yezid
preferred the councils of mercy; and the mourning family was
honorably dismissed to mingle their tears with their kindred
at Medina. The glory of martyrdom superseded the right of
primogeniture; and the twelve imams, (181) or pontiffs, of
the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal
descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without
arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed
the veneration of the people, and provoked the jealousy of
the reigning caliphs: their tombs, at Mecca or Medina, on
the banks of the Euphrates, or in the province of Chorasan,
are still visited by the devotion of their sect. Their
names were often the pretence of sedition and civil war; but
these royal saints despised the pomp of the world: submitted
to the will of God and the injustice of man; and devoted
their innocent lives to the study and practice of religion.
The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title
of Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity
of his predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near
Bagdad: the time and place of his death are unknown; and his
votaries pretend that he still lives, and will appear before
the day of judgment to overthrow the tyranny of Dejal, or
the Antichrist. (182) In the lapse of two or three centuries,
the posterity of Abbas, the uncle of Mahomet, had multiplied
to the number of thirty-three thousand: (183) the race of Ali
might be equally prolific: the meanest individual was above
the first and greatest of princes; and the most eminent were
supposed to excel the perfection of angels. But their
adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman
empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful
imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed: the
sceptre of the Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the
Fatimites, in Egypt and Syria; (184) of the Sultans of Yemen;
and of the Sophis of Persia; (185) has been consecrated by
this vague and ambiguous title. Under their reigns it might
be dangerous to dispute the legitimacy of their birth; and
one of the Fatimite caliphs silenced an indiscreet question
by drawing his cimeter: "This," said Moez, "is my pedigree;
and these," casting a handful of gold to his soldiers, -
"and these are my kindred and my children." In the various
conditions of princes, or doctors, or nobles, or merchants,
or beggars, a swarm of the genuine or fictitious descendants
of Mahomet and Ali is honored with the appellation of
sheiks, or sherifs, or emirs. In the Ottoman empire they
are distinguished by a green turban; receive a stipend from
the treasury; are judged only by their chief; and, however
debased by fortune or character, still assert the proud
preeminence of their birth. A family of three hundred
persons, the pure and orthodox branch of the caliph Hassan,
is preserved without taint or suspicion in the holy cities
of Mecca and Medina, and still retains, after the
revolutions of twelve centuries, the custody of the temple,
and the sovereignty of their native land. The fame and
merit of Mahomet would ennoble a plebeian race, and the
ancient blood of the Koreish transcends the recent majesty
of the kings of the earth. (186)
The talents of Mahomet are entitled to our applause; but his
success has, perhaps, too strongly attracted our admiration.
Are we surprised that a multitude of proselytes should
embrace the doctrine and the passions of an eloquent
fanatic? In the heresies of the church, the same seduction
has been tried and repeated from the time of the apostles to
that of the reformers. Does it seem incredible that a
private citizen should grasp the sword and the sceptre,
subdue his native country, and erect a monarchy by his
victorious arms? In the moving picture of the dynasties of
the East, a hundred fortunate usurpers have arisen from a
baser origin, surmounted more formidable obstacles, and
filled a larger scope of empire and conquest. Mahomet was
alike instructed to preach and to fight; and the union of
these opposite qualities, while it enhanced his merit,
contributed to his success: the operation of force and
persuasion, of enthusiasm and fear, continually acted on
each other, till every barrier yielded to their irresistible
power. His voice invited the Arabs to freedom and victory,
to arms and rapine, to the indulgence of their darling
passions in this world and the other: the restraints which
he imposed were requisite to establish the credit of the
prophet, and to exercise the obedience of the people; and
the only objection to his success was his rational creed of
the unity and perfections of God. It is not the
propagation, but the permanency, of his religion, that
deserves our wonder: the same pure and perfect impression
which he engraved at Mecca and Medina, is preserved, after
the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the Indian, the
African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. If the
Christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to
the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of the
Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that
magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would
experience less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on
them to peruse the catechism of the church, and to study the
orthodox commentators on their own writings and the words of
their Master. But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an
increase of splendor and size, represents the humble
tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet. The
Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of
reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level
with the senses and imagination of man. "I believe in one
God, and Mahomet the apostle of God," is the simple and
invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of
the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the
honors of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of
human virtue; and his living precepts have restrained the
gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and
religion. The votaries of Ali have, indeed, consecrated the
memory of their hero, his wife, and his children; and some
of the Persian doctors pretend that the divine essence was
incarnate in the person of the Imams; but their superstition
is universally condemned by the Sonnites; and their impiety
has afforded a seasonable warning against the worship of
saints and martyrs. The metaphysical questions on the
attributes of God, and the liberty of man, have been
agitated in the schools of the Mahometans, as well as in
those of the Christians; but among the former they have
never engaged the passions of the people, or disturbed the
tranquillity of the state. The cause of this important
difference may be found in the separation or union of the
regal and sacerdotal characters. It was the interest of the
caliphs, the successors of the prophet and commanders of the
faithful, to repress and discourage all religious
innovations: the order, the discipline, the temporal and
spiritual ambition of the clergy, are unknown to the
Moslems; and the sages of the law are the guides of their
conscience and the oracles of their faith. From the
Atlantic to the Ganges, the Koran is acknowledged as the
fundamental code, not only of theology, but of civil and
criminal jurisprudence; and the laws which regulate the
actions and the property of mankind are guarded by the
infallible and immutable sanction of the will of God. This
religious servitude is attended with some practical
disadvantage; the illiterate legislator had been often
misled by his own prejudices and those of his country; and
the institutions of the Arabian desert may be ill adapted to
the wealth and numbers of Ispahan and Constantinople. On
these occasions, the Cadhi respectfully places on his head
the holy volume, and substitutes a dexterous interpretation
more apposite to the principles of equity, and the manners
and policy of the times. His beneficial or pernicious
influence on the public happiness is the last consideration
in the character of Mahomet. The most bitter or most bigoted
of his Christian or Jewish foes will surely allow that he
assumed a false commission to inculcate a salutary doctrine,
less perfect only than their own. He piously supposed, as
the basis of his religion, the truth and sanctity of their
prior revolutions, the virtues and miracles of their
founders. The idols of Arabia were broken before the throne
of God; the blood of human victims was expiated by prayer,
and fasting, and alms, the laudable or innocent arts of
devotion; and his rewards and punishments of a future life
were painted by the images most congenial to an ignorant and
carnal generation. Mahomet was, perhaps, incapable of
dictating a moral and political system for the use of his
countrymen: but he breathed among the faithful a spirit of
charity and friendship; recommended the practice of the
social virtues; and checked, by his laws and precepts, the
thirst of revenge, and the oppression of widows and orphans.
The hostile tribes were united in faith and obedience, and
the valor which had been idly spent in domestic quarrels was
vigorously directed against a foreign enemy. Had the
impulse been less powerful, Arabia, free at home and
formidable abroad, might have flourished under a succession
of her native monarchs. Her sovereignty was lost by the
extent and rapidity of conquest. The colonies of the nation
were scattered over the East and West, and their blood was
mingled with the blood of their converts and captives.
After the reign of three caliphs, the throne was transported
from Medina to the valley of Damascus and the banks of the
Tigris; the holy cities were violated by impious war; Arabia
was ruled by the rod of a subject, perhaps of a stranger;
and the Bedoweens of the desert, awakening from their dream
of dominion, resumed their old and solitary independence.
(187)