MOHAMMED 



245 



and was the son of Abdallah, of the family of the 

 Hashim, and of Amina, of the family of Zuhra, 

 both of the powerful tribe of the Koreish, but of 

 a side-branch only, and therefore of little or 

 no influence. His father, a poor merchant, died 

 either before or shortly after Mohammed's birth, 

 whom his mother is then supposed to have handed 

 over to a Bedouin woman, to be brought up in the 

 healthy air of the desert ; but in consequence of 

 the repeated fits of the child, which were ascribed 

 to demons, the nurse sent him back in his third 

 year. When six years old he lost his motlier also. 

 His grandfather, Abd-Al-Mnttalib, adopted the 

 boy ; and when, two years later, be too died, 

 Mohammed's uncle, Abu Talib, though poor him- 

 self, took him into his house, and remained bis best 

 friend and protector throughout his whole life. It 

 seems that he at first gained a scanty livelihood by 

 tending the (locks of the Meccans. In his twenty- 

 fifth year he entered the service of a rich widow, 

 named Khadija, likewise descended from the 

 Koreish, and accompanied her caravans in an 

 inferior rapacity, perhaps as a camel-driver thus 

 visiting Syria. Up to that time his circumstances 

 were very poor. Suddenly his fortune changed. 

 The wealthv, but fifteen years older, and twice 

 widowed Khadija ottered him her hand, which he 

 accepted. She bore him a son, A I -Kftsim whence 

 Mohammed adopted the name Abul-Kftsim and 

 four dangliters : Zainab, Rukaija, I 'mm Kulthum, 

 and Fatima ; and afterwards a second son, whom 

 lie called AM Manaf, after an idol worshipped 

 among his trilie. Hot h his sons died early. Moham- 

 med continued his merchant's trade at Mecca, but 

 spent most of his time in solitary contemplations. 



Mohammed was of middle height, rather lean, 

 but broad-shouldered, altogether of strong build, 

 ami fair-skinned for an Arab ; slightly curled black 

 hair flowed round his strongly developed hend ; his 

 eyes, overhung with thick eyelashes, were large 

 and coal-black ; his nose, large and slightly bent, 

 was well formed. A long beard added to the 

 dignity of his appearance. A black mole between 

 his shoulders became afterwards among the faith- 

 ful 'the seal of prophecy.' In his walk he moved 

 his whole body violently, ' as if descending a moun- 

 tain.' 



About the year 600 A.D. Christianity had pene- 

 trated into the heart of Arabia, through Syria on the 

 one hand, and Abyssinia on the other. Judaism no 

 less played a prominent part in the peninsula, chiefly 

 in its northern parts, wliich were dotted over with 

 Jewish colonies, founded by emigrants after the 

 destruction of Jerusalem ; and round aliout Yath- 

 rib (Medina) remnants of the numerous ancient 

 sects, dating from the first Christian centuries, 

 such as Sabians and Maiidtt-ans, heightened the 

 religious ferment wliich, shortly before the time of 

 Moliamnied, had begun to move the minds of the 

 thoughtful. At that time there arose several men 

 in the Iledjaz who preached the futility of the 

 ancient pagan creed, with its star-worship, its 

 pilgrimages and festive ceremonies, its temples 

 and its fetiches. It had in reality long ceased 

 to bo a. living faith ; but the great mass of the 

 people clung to it as to a sacred inheritance. 

 The unity of God the 'ancient religion of 

 Abraham' human responsibility, and judgment 

 to . ome were the doctrines promulgated by 

 these Hanifs ('converts'), forerunners of Moham- 

 med ; and many, roused by tlu-ir words, turned 

 either to Judaism or to Christianity. The principal 

 scenes of these missionary labours were Molina, 

 Taif, and Mecca ; this last was then the centre 

 nf pilgrimage to most of the Arabian trilres, and 

 Irom Mm' - immemorial, the Kaaba, Mount 

 Arafat, the Valley of Mina, &c. were held sacred 

 the Kureish, Mohammed's tribe, having hod the 



care of these sanctuaries ever since the 5th century. 

 It was under these circumstances that Mohammed 

 felt moved to teach a new faith, which should dis- 

 pense with idolatry on the one hand, as with 

 narrow Judaism and corrupt Christianity on the 

 other. He was forty years of age when he received 

 the first 'divine ' communication in the solitude of 

 the mountain Hira, near Mecca. Gabriel appeared 

 to him, and in the name of God commanded him 

 to preach the true religion. That he was no vulgar 

 impostor is now generally recognised. What part 

 his epilepsy, or rather hysteria, had in his visions 

 we are not able to determine. Certain it is that, 

 after long and painful solitary broodings, some- 

 thing at times moved him with such fearfully 

 rapturous vehemence that, during his revelations, 

 he is said to have roared like a camel, and to have 

 streamed with perspiration ; his eyes turned red, 

 and the foam stood on his lips. The voices he 

 heard were sometimes those of a bell, sometimes 

 of a man, sometimes they came in his dreams, or 

 they were laid in his heart. Waraka, one of his 

 wife's relatives, who had embraced Judaism, spoke 

 to him of the Jewish doctrine, and told him the 

 story of the patriarchs and Israel, not so much 

 according to the Bible as to the Midrash ; and the 

 gorgeous hues of the legendary poetry of the latter 

 seem to have made as deep an impression on 

 Mohammed's poetical mind as the doctrine of the 

 unity of God and the morale of the Old Testa- 

 ment, together with its civil and religious laws. 

 Christianity exercised a minor influence upon him. 

 All his knowledge of the New Testament was con, 

 fined to a few apocryphal books, and with all his 

 deep reverence for Jesus, whom be calls the greatest 

 prophet next to himself, his notions of the Christian 

 religion and its founder were excessively vague (see 

 KonAN). 



His first revelation he communicated to no 

 one, it would appear, except to Khadija, to his 

 daughters, bis stepson Ali, his favourite slave 

 Zaid, and his friend the prudent and honest Abu 

 Hekr. His other relatives rejected his teachings 

 with scorn. Abu Lahab, his uncle, called him a 

 fool ; and Abu Talib, his adoptive father, although 

 be never ceased, for the honour of his family, to 

 protect him, yet never professed any belief in 

 Mohammed's words. In the fourth year of his 

 mission, however, he had made forty proselytes, 

 chiefly slaves and people from the lower ranks ; 

 and now first some verses were revealed to him, 

 commanding him to come forward publicly as a 

 preacher, and to defy the scorn of the unbelievers. 

 He now inveighed against the primeval supersti- 

 tion of the Meccans, and exhorted them to a pious 

 and moral life, and to the belief in an all-mighty, 

 all- wise, everlasting, indivisible, all- just, but 

 merciful God, who had chosen him as he had 

 chosen the prophets of the Bible before him, so 

 to teach mankind that they should escape the 

 punishments of hell, and inherit everlasting life. 

 God's mercy was principally to be obtained by 

 prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The belief in the 

 sacredness of the Kaaha and the ceremonies of the 

 pilgrimage was too firmly rooted in his and the 

 people's minds not to lie received into the new 

 creed ; but certain barbarous habits of the Bedouins, 

 such as the killing of their new-born daughters, 

 were unsparingly condemned by Mohammed. The 

 prohibition of certain kinds of food also belongs 

 to this first period, when he as yet entirely stood 

 under the influence of Judaism ; the prohibition 

 of gambling, usury, and wine coming after the 

 Hegira. Whether he did or did not understand 

 the art of writing and reading at the commence- 

 ment of his career is not quite clear ; certain it is 

 that he pretended not to know it, and employed 

 the services of amanuenses for his Koranic dicta, 



