A few days later Abdallah married Amina, daughter of Wahb, chief of the family of the Zohri, and from this marriage was born Mohammed, “the glorified,” about the month of August, 570.b
Mohammed’s Life
[570-595 A.D.]
Mohammed (properly Muhammad, “the much praised”; and not Mahomet), was born in Mecca five years after the death of Justinian. The small inheritance which his father left him consisted of five camels and a faithful female slave. The biographers inform us that according to the custom which prevailed among the upper classes in Mecca, his mother Amina put the child out to nurse in the country. Halima, the wife of a herdsman, was his foster-mother and nurse till his third year, and the sacred legend tells us of many wonders with which the divine favour surrounded Mohammed’s childhood. Halima’s flocks and herds increased tenfold; her fields bore a superabundant harvest; angels cleansed the child’s heart from all sins and filled it with faith, knowledge and prophetic gifts. As, however, the child suffered from fits of convulsions, at the end of two years Halima brought him back to his mother. With her he remained till his sixth year. She then went with him to Yathreb (Medina), to visit her relatives, but died on the way back in the town of Abwa.
Mohammed now entered the house of his grandfather, Abdul-Muttalib, and when two years later the latter also died, his uncle Abu Talib took him into his family and watched over him with paternal affection. The story that in his twelfth year he accompanied his foster-father on a caravan journey to Syria, and that on this occasion a Christian monk foretold the boy’s future greatness, appears, like many other details of his life, to be a later legend. As he grew older, after having spent some time in guarding the flocks, Mohammed took his share in the business and manner of life of his relatives. He accompanied several of his uncles on warlike and commercial expeditions, in which he learned to know his country and his nation, and beheld the desert with its terrors and its poetry, where he heard the legends and traditions of the wandering tribes and gathered information concerning the teachings of the beliefs of Jew and Christian. He did not himself understand the language of writing, but Mecca as the pilgrim city of the East was one of the world’s centres, a school of culture containing much instruction for a thoughtful youth. The Christian religion, indeed, appears to have been known to him only by a few legends and distorted doctrines; but on the other hand the Jewish sect of the Hanifs, who lived scattered over the oases of the desert, had preserved and handed down Judaism in its original purity and simplicity, together with the belief in divine revelations at the mouth of inspired prophets.
HIS MARRIAGE WITH KHADIJA
[595-612 A.D.]
In his twenty-fifth year Khadija, the wealthy widow of a merchant, who like himself was descended from Kussai, intrusted him with the conduct of some caravans going to Syria and southern Arabia. In the execution of these commissions Mohammed showed so much circumspection, skill, and honesty, that Khadija though already forty years old permitted him to make application for her hand. The wedding was solemnly performed and it founded Mohammed’s fortune. Khadija was an intelligent and virtuous woman, and a faithful companion to her husband in good and evil days. “She was his first convert, she comforted him when he was mocked, she encouraged him when he suffered under persecution, she strengthened him when he was wavering.” But for the love and faith of Khadija, Mohammed would never have become the prophet of his nation.
“Although poor in goods which are but transient possessions, inconstant shadows,” said Abu Talib at the marriage feast, “my nephew Mohammed exceeds all the men of the Koreish in nobility of soul, virtue, and understanding.”
The marriage was blessed with children, but the sons died at a tender age; and of the four daughters only the youngest, Fatima, continued the race. Mohammed recognised and valued Khadija’s superior qualities. In spite of his great fondness for the female sex he remained faithful to her so long as she lived, and after her death held her memory in high honour. Aisha, his beloved wife of later days, said she was never so jealous of any of his other wives as she was of the dead Khadija whom he always declared to be a model for all women.
For more than a decade after his marriage Mohammed continued his life as a merchant, but with little success and little content. He was often seen to be deep in thought; he withdrew more and more into solitude, spending many days and generally the whole of the month Ramadhan in a cave in Mount Hira, not far from Mecca. Sometimes he went into this retirement alone, sometimes with Khadija.
There in that gloomy neighbourhood, full of naked rocks, yawning precipices, and grim ravines where no shade affords protection from the blazing sunlight, where no grass, no vegetation, no sound of falling water refreshes the spirit, he gave himself up to religious contemplations and considered how he might save his nation from its degradation. In the city of Mecca, all alive as it was with people, as well as on his journeys, he had been brought much in contact with Jews and Christians; he had not only absorbed their teaching and traditions, but from the effects of their religion on life and character he had perceived the superiority of the belief in one God over the idolatrous heathenism of his own nation; and he had also learned that both religious fraternities still waited for the completion of their religion; the Jews looking for the advent of a messiah, the Christians for the return of Jesus or the appearance of the promised “comforter” (paraclete). Thus there gradually awoke in him the conviction that his people stood in need of a purer revealed religion, that the idols were but vain trifles, and that their worship excited the anger of God; that a new and divinely inspired prophet must come forward, who should overturn the kingdom of darkness and idolatry, and his fiery imagination filled him with the belief that the one God had sent him to convert mankind that they might become participators in the joys of heaven, and escape the fearful chastisements of hell. His nervous, hysterical nature, the violent convulsions and cataleptic fits which seized him from time to time, the vivid dreams and mental delusions produced by his feverish and excited fancy, might well engender in himself and others the belief that he had relations with angels and spirits, and was a sharer in divine visions and inspirations. Mohammed had already passed his fortieth year when he “began to feel the travail of new ideas.”
MOHAMMED AS A PROPHET (610 OR 612 A.D.)
[610-612 A.D.]
Once when he was dwelling in the gloomy cavern he had a vision, in which the angel Gabriel approached him and commanded him to publish abroad the revelations which the Lord and Creator had sent. Mohammed felt his spirit illuminated with a divine light; but doubting lest a demon should be playing him an evil trick, he came to Khadija, his face streaming with perspiration and utterly discomposed. She believed in the divine message, and in union with her learned cousin Waraka, who had already denied the pagan beliefs of the fathers, she laboured to dispel his doubt.