Mohammed

“ Out of their unknown and bosky depths Mohammed invariably rose to the surface with the buoyancy of a life-belt, calm and unmoved, for his spiritual centre of gravity always held him up. He dreamt of man, but chiefly of God—of God’s goodness and greatness, of man’s impotence and frailty. ”

“ O Mohammed! of a truth thou art the Prophet of the living God. Thou hast declared the grandest truths ever uttered in Arabia; but see how powerless they are on the minds and hearts of thy countrymen, with all thy eloquence, sincerity, and fervor. By moral means thou hast effected comparatively nothing. Thou hast preached thirteen years, and only made a few converts. Thy truths are too elevated for a corrupt and wicked generation to accept. Even thine own life is in danger. ”

“ None, heretofore, save my own kin and friends, have been given aught of the great message; yet to you, Amzi, may I say that Abraham, Moses, Christ, have all been servants of the true God, yet for Mohammed has been reserved the honor of casting out the idolatry with which the worship of our people reeks. For him is destined the glory of purging our Caaba of its images, and of reinstating the true religion of our fathers in this fair land. Then shall men know that Allah is the one God, and Mohammed is his prophet! ”

“ I certainly believe that the Creator sees and knows all things. I believe, too, that even to Mohammed, at one time in his life, the Holy Spirit appealed, as he did to me, and, I hope, does now to you, Amzi,—for his pleadings come sometime to all men; but, I think that if in earnest at first, Mohammed—if, indeed, he be not a monomaniac on the subject of his divine calling—has given himself up to the wild indulgence of his ambition, forgetting Him whose power is able to direct us all aright. ”

“ Said he to my sire, “O rebel, O idolater, how long wilt thou take pride in worshipping idols and abandoning the service of the All-knowing King? Say:—I testify that there is no god but the God and that Mohammed is His servant and His messenger. And embrace Al-Islam, thou and thy tribe; and put away from you the worship of idols, for they neither suffice man’s need nor intercede. None is worshipful save Allah alone, who raised up the heavens without columns and spread out the earths like carpets in mercy to His creatures.” ”

“ When, therefore, the voice of Mohammed rang out upon the startled air, with the cry “There is one God, and Mohammed is his prophet,” it came as an omen of strife and bloodshed. Devotion to his tribe and to his gods being one of the strongest characteristics of the Arab, innovations were fought against, with all the fierceness of a vindictive race. A few followers gathered around the new prophet, and then began that series of conflicts, which, after years of fraternal strife, resulted in the triumphant rule of the new creed. ”

“ Mohammed drew men to him by promises of glory and honour on this earth, ease and luxury in the Beyond. Christianity bids you forgive your enemies; Mohammed led his followers to battle against the unbelievers, conquered their cities, and called those places holy when he had fixed the strongholds of his militant faith. Mohammed died in the possession of great power, spiritual and temporal, enjoining his descendants to maintain and increase it by the sword. ”

“ Before the time of Mohammed the Arabs had played no important part in the world's history. The scattered tribes were at war with one another, and each worshiped its own gods, when it worshiped at all. But when the peoples of the desert accepted Mohammed as their prophet and his religion as theirs, they became an irresistible force for the dissemination of the new teaching and for the subjugation of the world. ”

“ No Mohammedan can be expected to be any better than Mohammed himself; that he was a sensual, cruel and bloodthirsty man, and a relentless enemy to Christianity, Christians and the Jews, is manifest from the facts of history, his life and his teaching. “Christianity finds its ideal man in the Christ of the Gospels; the Moslem finds his in the Prophet of the Koran and the traditions.” ”

“ Courageous, sagacious, eloquent, polished, possessed in an eminent degree of the powers which both awe and delight mankind, Mohammed would have been a great man had he belonged to the most enlightened age—among an ignorant and fanatical people he became a prophet.
Until Mohammed arose among them, the Arab tribes, surrounded by Jews, Christians, and idolaters, had entertained a superstitious faith, compounded of the religious belief of their various neighbours and that of the ancient Sabaei. ”

“ We must take the ground that the religion of Mohammed has marvellous and powerful truths, which we have overlooked and do not understand, which appeal to the heart and conscience, and excite a great enthusiasm,—so great as to stimulate successive generations with an almost unexampled ardor, and to defend which they were ready to die; a religion which has bound diverse nations together for nearly fourteen hundred years. ”

“ Nothing in history is so remarkable as the sudden rise to power of the followers of Mohammed. An ill-taught, half-savage people, coming from an unknown part of Arabia, in a very few years they had become masters of Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and Egypt, and presently extended their religion all through North Africa, and even conquered the southern half of Spain, and today the Faith of Islam, as their religion is called, is the third largest in the world. ”

“ The generality of religions, which have made any progress in the world, make it indispensable to believe in its own tenets: Mohammed, although he naturally gives the preference to the religion of his own forming, yet he has the liberality to acknowledge, that those who have professed other religions may be saved, after suffering a degree of chastisement or damage in the life to come, as it is termed by him. ”

“ I witness that there is no God but God, and Mohammed is the Apostle of God! Come to prayer! Come to salvation! God is most great! There is no God but God!' At dawn is added the very human reminder, 'Prayer is better than sleep!'
Mohammed's Followers in Mecca.
Such were the religious observances of Islam, together with legal almsgiving, the duty of the jihad, or holy war, the reconsecrating of the old Arab fasting month of Ramadân, and a few solemn feasts. Mohammed added nothing in later years except that most meritorious of acts—a pilgrimage to Mecca. ”

“ Unless we are going to deny the iniquity and wickedness of modern Islam, we shall have to believe that somebody is to blame; and, if it is not Mohammed, I [65] suppose it must be either the mullas or the Mussulman laity. I do not know why we should expend all our breadth on the big people: I myself have some sympathy with the little ones: and I firmly believe that the difficulties in the Islam of to-day are due rather to the essential wrongness of the system than to its corruption by the masses.
Mohammed was born in Mecca towards the end of the sixth century. ”

“ The successors of Mohammed, the Caliphs, in less than a century conquered Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Turkestan, Spain, Northern Africa, Sicily, and Southern France. Today, 160,000,000 are followers of Mohammed,—a man who began as a humble religious leader, and ended as an adroit politician and powerful general; a man who hid during battles, who often broke faith with friend and foe alike, a charlatan and demagogue of general intellectual incompetency, and a victim of mental disease. ”

“ Ridicule and contempt can more easily be borne where some hundred persons are involved. Mohammed made his public début not in the rôle of an eccentric sage but as the leader of a party, a force to be reckoned with; and soon his fame spread along every caravan route of Arabia.
A CAMEL MERCHANT.
'Mohammed's fame spread along every caravan route of Arabia.'
Mohammed now set up with some state and dignity in a central position in the 'House of Al Arkam,' still famous throughout the Moslem world as 'The House of Islam.' The house was put at his disposal by one of his richer early converts. ”

“ CHAPTER XI MOHAMMED Despite the fact that the followers of Mohammed, the prophet, are among the most fanatical and prejudiced of all religious sects, Mohammed himself was unquestionably among the Illumined Ones of earth, and had attained and retained a high degree of cosmic consciousness.
The wars; the persecutions; the horrors that have been committed in the name of Islam, are perhaps a little more atrocious than any in history although the unspeakable cruelties of the Inquisition would seem to have no parallel. ”

“ Hebrewism and Christianity, together with the result of his own thought and prayers, led him to the belief in one God, the Almighty, the Compassionate, the Merciful, who as he believed would win all men to His knowledge through the teachings of Mohammed himself. Thus inspired, Mohammed became a teacher or prophet, and by the end of his life he had won his people to his faith and inaugurated one of the greatest eras of conquest the world has seen. ”

“ First, we must conclude that the external triumph of a religion, especially among ignorant or wicked people, is not so much owing to the purity and loftiness of its truths, as to its harmony with prevailing errors and corruptions. When Mohammed preached his sublimest doctrines, and appealed to reason and conscience, he converted about a score of people in thirteen years. When he invoked demoralizing passions, he converted all Arabia in eleven years. ”

“ As the personal life of Mohammed, from the time of his claim to be the prophet of a new religion, was in this respect infamous, so is his religion. All that the Christian faith and Church, by the sufferings of unnumbered martyrs, and the wisdom of great pastors, [pg 210] who are the honour of human nature, had done in 600 years for the restoration of marriage, the creation of woman's worth and dignity, the whole fabric of the Christian home, the whole offspring of Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Calvary, Mohammed, by word and example, strove to overthrow. ”

“ Mohammed was by no means without consideration for his followers. The persecution and violence, which befell especially the slave portion of his adherents, pressed upon him heavily. In the fifth year of his teaching he advised a large party of them to seek refuge with the Christian King of Abyssinia: 'Yonder,' pointing to the west, 'lieth a country wherein no one is wronged—a land of righteousness. ”

“ This Islam, so called from its demanding the entire Religion of Mohammed described."surrender" of the believer to the will and service of God, is based on the recognition of Mohammed as a prophet foretold in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures—the last and greatest of the prophets. On him descended the Koran from time to time, an immediate revelation from the Almighty. Idolatry and polytheism are with iconoclastic zeal denounced as sins of the deepest dye; while the unity of the Deity is proclaimed as the grand and cardinal doctrine of the faith. ”

“ He established himself as a merchant after his marriage; and he continued in the business, though he spent most of his time in meditation by himself. Up to the age of forty Mohammed was a strict devotee in the religion of his fathers, which was a species of idolatry. When he was about thirty years old Christianity had made its way into Arabia through Syria on one side, and Abyssinia on the other, and there were Jewish colonies in the peninsula. Though the missionaries of the new faith pervaded Mecca and Medina, the future Prophet was not converted, more is the pity! ”

“ I am from the city of Cairo and am come forth wandering in quest of Mohammed, whom Allah bless and preserve!' Quoth Affan, 'Come with me to my lodging that I may entertain thee.' 'To hear is to obey,' replied Bulukiya So the devotee took him by the hand and carried him to his house where he entreated him with the utmost honour and presentry said to him, 'Tell me thy history, O my brother, and how thou camest by the knowledge of Mohammed (whom Allah assain and save!) that thy heart hath been taken with love of him and compelled thee to fare forth and seek him ”

“ The use that the leaders made of the occasion commands our admiration; although their plan was formed in the course and under the influence of generally unforeseen events. Circumstances had changed Mohammed the Prophet into Mohammed the Conqueror; and the leaders, who continued the conqueror's work, though not driven by fanaticism or religious zeal, still prepared the conversion of millions of men to Islâm. ”

“ God favoured him above all creatures. He dwells in the highest heaven, and is several degrees above Jesus in honour and station. His name is never uttered or written without the addition of a prayer. "Ya Mohammed" is the open sesame to every door of difficulty—temporal or spiritual. One hears that name in the bazaar and in the street, in the mosque and from the minaret. Sailors sing it while hoisting their sails; hammals groan it to raise a burden; the beggar howls it to obtain alms; it is the Bedouin's cry in attacking a caravan; it hushes babes to sleep, as a cradle-song ”

“ These prophets and apostles are in the sacred succession of those who have been honored and chosen by God to communicate his guidance to mankind down the centuries. Mohammed is the last and the best of them. He will never have a successor, and it is firmly believed that ultimately the whole world will accept Islam. ”