The Speeches & Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad by Muhammad ibn 'Abd Allah (classic english novels TXT) 📕

the truce by attacking an ally of the Muslims, and Mohammad forthwith marched upon Mekka with ten thousand men, and the city, despairing of defence, surrendered. The day of Mohammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the Koreysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn in which they had afflicted him, and gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mekka. Four criminals whom justice condemned made up Mohammad’s proscription list when he entered as a conqueror to the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered quietly and peaceably; no house was robbed, no women insulted. One thing alone suffered destruction. Going to the Kaaba, Mohammad stood before each of the three hundred and sixty idols, and pointed to it with his staff, saying, “Truth is come, and falsehood is fled away!” and at these words his attendants hewed them down, and all the idols and household gods of Mekka and round about were destroyed.

It was thus that Mohammad entered again his native city. Through all the annals of conquest there is no triumphant entry comparable to this one.

The taking of Mekka was soon followed by the adhesion of all Arabia. Every reader knows the story of the spread of Islām. The tribes of every part of the peninsula sent embassies to do homage to the prophet. Arabia was not enough: Mohammad had written in his bold uncompromising way to the great kings of the East—to the Persian Chosroes and the Greek Emperor; and these little knew how soon his invitation to the faith would be[Pg xlviii] repeated, and how quickly Islām would be knocking at their doors with no faltering hand.

The prophet’s career was near its end. In the tenth year of the flight, twenty-three years after he had first felt the spirit move him to preach to his people, he resolved once more to leave his adopted city and go to Mekka to perform a farewell pilgrimage. And when the rites were done in the valley of Minā, the prophet spake unto the multitude—the forty thousand pilgrims—with solemn last words:

Ye people, hearken to my words: for I know not whether after this year I shall ever be amongst you here again.

Your lives and your property are sacred and inviolable amongst one another until the end of time.

The Lord hath ordained to every man the share of his inheritance; a testament is not lawful to the prejudice of heirs.

The child belongeth to the parent, and the violater of wedlock shall be stoned.

Ye people, ye have rights demandable of your wives, and they have rights demandable of you. Treat your women well.

And your slaves, see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye are not willing to forgive, then sell them, for they are the servants of the Lord and are not to be tormented.

Ye people! hearken unto my speech and comprehend it. Know that every Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim. All of you are on the same equality: ye are one brotherhood.

Then looking up to heaven he cried, “O Lord, I have delivered my message and fulfilled my mission.” And all the multitude answered, “Yea, verily hast thou!”—“O Lord, I beseech thee, bear Thou witness to it!” and, like Moses, he lifted up his hands and blessed the people. Three months more and Mohammad was dead,—a.h. 11, a.d. 632.

And when it was noised abroad that the prophet was dead, Omar, the fiery-hearted, the Simon Peter of Islām, rushed among the people and fiercely told them they lied; it could not be true. And Abu-Bekr came and said, “Ye people! he that hath worshipped Mohammad, let him know that Mohammad is dead; but he that hath worshipped God, that the Lord liveth and doth not die.”

The altered circumstances of Mohammad’s life at Medina produced a corresponding change in his speeches. They are now not so much exhortations to unbelievers as directions and encouragements to the faithful; and instead of being one complete oration, as most of the early speeches are, they are a collection of isolated “rulings” on various points of conduct. The prophet’s house at Medina became a court of appeal for the whole body of Muslims. They came to him with all their difficulties,—domestic, social, political, religious,—and asked for direction. Then Mohammad said in few words what he thought right and just; and these decisions have been treated as laws binding upon the Mohammadan world for all time. It is fortunate that Mohammad was a man of sound common sense, or the law of Islām would be a preposterous medley. As it is, it seems clear that the prophet never wished to lay down a code of law, and, instead of volunteering rules of conduct and ritual, used to wait to have them extorted from him by questioning. “God wishes to make things easy for you,” he says, “for man was created weak.” He seems to have distrusted himself as a lawgiver, for there is a tradition which relates a speech of his in which he cautions the people against taking his decision on worldly affairs as infallible. When he speaks of the things of God he is to be obeyed; but when he deals with human affairs he is only a man like those about him. He was contented to leave the ordinary Arab customs in force except when they were manifestly unjust. The truth is that, as in the Mekka speeches so in those of Medina, the legal and dogmatic element is curiously small. The greater part of those long chapters uttered in fragments at Medina, and then pieced together haphazard by the prophet’s amanuenses, consists of diatribes against the Jews and hypocrites, reflections on the conduct of the allies in battle, encouragement after defeat, exhortations as to the future, besides a great deal of personal matter—regulations of the prophet’s harem, vindications of his own or his wives’ conduct,—and similar things of a temporary and local interest. Though the style is monotonous and longwinded, like the third Mekka period, there are still flashes of the old eloquence, though perhaps it is less spontaneous than of old, such as we hear in the chapter of Light—