THE LIFE OF MOHAMMED
Mohammed, or Mahomet (properly Muhammad, 'the praised' or 'the desired'), also Mohammad (c. 571-632), the founder of Mohammedanism, or the faith of Islam. He named his religious system Islam or Hanif, apparently ‘devoted.'
Mohammed himself was of the Banu Hashim, who are said to have claimed the position actually enjoyed by the Bami Ommaya, but this assertion seems to have originated in the claims to the caliphate which the Hashimites (the house of Ali and the Abbasids) subsequently opposed to those of the Ommayads.
His father, Abdallah, came of good Arab stock, and was a member of the tribe of Koreish. Mohammed was a posthumous child, and his mother, Amina, lived only till his seyenth year; on her death his grandfather, Abd-al-Muttalib, took charge of him, and on his death at the end of only one year, Mohammed was adopted by his uncle, Abu Talib.
The child was an epileptic, and was of a melancholy, thoughtful disposition. Most of his early life was passed in tending flocks of sheep and herds of camels; he had little or no education, and as a lad could neither write nor read. His grand-father had been a man of considerable standing, and had taken charge of the Temple and the Holy Well in Mecca, so that the boy must have seen and known many pilgrims and holy people. His uncle was a poor man, and until twenty-six years of age Mohammed worked hard for his living like any other young Arab. In his twenty-sixth year a wealthy widow, named Khadija, fell in love with him and married him; she was fifteen years older than Mohammed, and appears to have been a woman of great good sense and patience, with a whole-hearted belief in her young husband that materially helped him in his subsequent career.
As a young man he naturally worshipped at the Kaaba, the great sanctuary of Mecca, originally a local sanctuary of the Koreish tribe. The Kaaba contained the image of Hobal, their tribal god, also several other deities belonging to other tribes, and, more sacred than all, it held the famous 'black stone' of Mecca (q.v.), 6 to 7 in. square, built into the walls of the Kaaba, traditionally held to be a stone from ‘Paradise ' brought down by the angel Gabriel.
Mohammed’s first battle took place when he was quite a young man, in a blood-feud between his tribe and the tribe of Ha-wazin, in which he did not distinguish himself or show any of his later military spirit. After his marriage with Khadija he seems to have been a partner in a produce-shop.
During his thirty-fifth year the Kaaba was wrecked by a great storm. No person could be found who would venture to replace the sacred stone in the wrecked shrine, and it was finally decided that the first man who entered the court by chance should be the chosen one. To Mohammed fell the honour. All his life the prophet had been interested in theology, and he had been slowly forming his new belief in one God, but as yet he had not proclaimed himself a prophet. His first revelations came to him in a cave in Mt. Hira, where he had retired with his wife for meditation. Here he appears to have had visions and religious ecstasies. Khadija, at first alarmed about his health, later, when he declared the angel Gabriel had appeared and spoken with him, at once believed him to be a prophet. He now put his new doctrine into the famous formula, “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God.”
Among the people of Arabia the early Semitic religion had survived with little change save deterioration. It had many deities, of whom Allah was chief, but scarcely worshipped. The worship of natural objects, of stones, like the Kaabah, and of images, was practised. Debased forms of Judaism and Christianity also flourished. Many Arabs, known as Hanitites, rejected these, as well as the native faith, held a simple monotheism and absolute submission to Allah, and practised asceticism and meditation. Mohammed came in contact with all these faiths, and his doctrine developed out of them, particularly from Hanifism. His originality lay in his putting monotheism on a firm foundation, proclaiming it as an absolute revelation, and making it the centre of a definite creed and worship.
For the first few years his faithful wife, his friend Abu Bekr, and his adopted slave Zaid worked in secret, converting only a few. Meanwhile the revelations became more frequent, and during his trances he uttered messages which were carefully remembered and written down. They varied in subject, from history and magic to religious teaching, and formed the beginning of the Koran (q.v.). His friends were aware that as a boy he was subject to fits, but they believed these later seizures to be inspirations from God.
His attitude to Jews and Christians at this period was friendly and conciliatory. The first religious meetings were held on Mt. Safa, where Mohammed boldly proclaimed himself to be the prophet of Arabia. From here he preached his doctrine to the people of Mecca, denouncing idolatry, preaching heaven and hell, and declaring Allah to be the only God. His followers were named Muslim (Moslems), which, as apparently meaning 'traitor,' 'surrenderors,' remains difficult to understand. The fury of the tribe of Koreish, who had charge of the holy shrine, merely added energy and fervour to his preachings, and he threatened the non-believers with awful tortures in hell, and petrified Mecca with his furious eloquence. He established himself in the house of a rich convert in the centre of the town and held frequent meetings. The Moslems now began to be cruelly persecuted by the Meccans, and the prophet was blockaded in his own house, for though persons might be starved to death, no blood must be shed in the sacred city.
After a revelation that the goddesses of Mecca existed as well as Allah, the siege was raised, but once free Mohammed asserted that the revelation came from the devil; and the trouble was renewed. Khadija died about this time, and also Abu Talib, and his strongest influence for good and his protectors were thus removed. The prophet was forced to flee from the wrath of the Meccans to Yathrib, afterwards called Medina. This is the Hijra (Hegira), Sept. 22, A.D. 622, from which Moslem chronology dates as A.H. 1.
From the hour of the Hijra Islam began its career of conquest, and Mohammed his role of statesman, lawgiver, soldier, and king. With success came the weaknesses which stained his career, and the revelations by which he excused them. The divine sanction claimed by Mohammed for wholesale slaughter, and his love of women, cannot be excused. Mohammed in trying to realise a great idea, came into contact with the world, and had to place himself on a level with it, and thus rendered himself liable to deterioration. In this respect he compares unfavourably with Buddha; and his weaknesses reacted on his religion, and became its most dominant notes.
Mohammed bound his followers to himself by the strongest ties, and caused both helpers and followers to intermarry. He contracted several marriages himself, one wife being Ayesha, aged nine, the infant daughter of Abu Bekr.
The first Moslem mosque was built at Medina, and an arranged code of laws established, dealing with ceremonial washing, praying five times a day with the face turned towards Mecca, abstinence from the drinking of wine, and the abolition of infanticide. Prayers were formerly directed to Jerusalem, until the prophet found that no compromise could be made with the Jews. He also established the call to prayers, muezzin, and Friday as the sacred day of the week. He enforced the 'fast of Ramadan,' a period when no food may be eaten from sunrise to sunset.
The prophet next began his series of campaigns, the first successfully directed against the Meccan caravans. The second resulted in the victory of Badr (Bedr) (A.D. 629). The prophet's plundering expeditions added great wealth to Medina, while his army
rapidly grew strong, and in A.H. 8 (A.D. 630) he marched on Mecca with 10,000 well-disciplined men, easily conquering the most sacred city of Arabia. The next year the great pilgrimage was managed by the Moslems, and very quickly Mecca itself was a Moslem town.
Mohammed no longer showed mercy; all unbelievers were to be slain, his soldiers became fierce religious zealots, who died cheerfully for the faith and the promise of Paradise held out by the prophet. The conquest of Mecca brought thousands of converts to the white standard of the prophet, and in one year his army grew from 10,000 to 30,000 men. The subjugation of Arabia was assured.
The last years of Mohammed’s life were spent in a succession of victories, especially that of the 'Day of Honain' against a confederacy of tribes. He died of some fever at the age of sixty-three or sixty-five. The date of his death was 12 Rabia, A.H. 11. the A.D. equivalent of which is June 7, 632. His beloved wife Ayesha was with him, and he was buried on the spot where he died in Medina. The traditional appearance of Mohammed seems to have been that of a middle-sized, heavily built man with a large head and big, thick hands and feet, with long hair and dense beard; his eyes were said to be tinged with red. He left no son to succeed him.
After his death the sayings of his revelations were collected, and being bound together formed the Koran. These sayings were scratched on bones, written on palm leaves, and some on parchment, and there could at the time be no proof that some were not spurious.
Mohammed's revelations during twenty-three years form the contents of the Koran, but their final arrangement, arbitrary, and inconsecutive, was made long after his death. Mohammed had given his world a new religion, and a new code of laws, many of which he was the first to violate, though always excused by a special revelation.
For the effect of his teaching and its far-reaching influence see Mohammedanism, and for the succession after his death see CALIPHATE; see also ISLAM; SHI'ITES and STJNNITES.
See W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, 1849;
Sir W. Muir, Life of Mahomet, 1856-61 (4 vols. and abridgment, 1
vol.);
Sprenger, DOS Leben und die. Lehre des Mohammads, 1861-65;
Syed Ameer Ali, The Spirit of Islam, 1896;
T. Arnold, The Legacy of Islam, 1896;
D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammad, and, the Rise
of IslaMohammed 1905:
A. Muhammad, Muhammad, 1924, 1948;
H. Pirenne, Mohammed et Charlemagne, 1937;
and R. V. C. Bodley, The Messenger, 1948.
Source: “Everyman’s Encyclopaedia” published J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1913-14
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