Part 6 (1/2)
Arabia converted from Medina at the point of the sword.]
Having escaped from Mecca and found a new and congenial home in Medina, Mohammed was not long in changing his front. At Mecca, surrounded by enemies, he taught toleration. He was simply the preacher commissioned to deliver a message, and bidden to leave the responsibility with his Master and his hearers. He might argue with the disputants, but it must be ”in a way most mild and gracious;” for ”in religion” (such was his teaching before he reached Medina) ”there should be neither violence nor constraint.”[37] At Medina the precepts of toleration were quickly cast aside and his whole policy reversed. No sooner did Mohammed begin to be recognized and obeyed as the chief of Medina than he proceeded to attack the Jewish tribes settled in the neighborhood because they refused to acknowledge his claims and believe in him as a prophet foretold in their Scriptures; two of these tribes were exiled, and the third exterminated in cold blood. In the second year after the Hegira[a], or flight from Mecca (the period from which the Mohammedan era dates), he began to plunder the caravans of the Coreish, which pa.s.sed near to Medina on their mercantile journeys between Arabia and Syria. So popular did the cause of the now militant and marauding prophet speedily become among the citizens of Medina and the tribes around that, after many battles fought with varying success, he was able, in the eighth year of the Hegira[b] to re-enter his native city at the head of ten thousand armed followers.
Thenceforward success was a.s.sured. None dared to oppose his pretensions.
And before his death, in the eleventh year of the Hegira[c], all Arabia, from Bab-el-Mandeb and Oman to the confines of the Syrian desert, was forced to submit to the supreme authority of the now kingly prophet and to recognize the faith and obligations of Islam.[38]
[Sidenote: Religion of Mohammed described.]
This _Islam_, so called from its demanding the entire ”surrender” of the believer to the will and service of G.o.d, 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. Divine providence pervades the minutest concerns of life, and predestination is taught in its most naked form. Yet prayer is enjoined as both meritorious and effective; and at five stated times every day must it be specially performed. The duties generally of the moral law are enforced, though an evil laxity is given in the matter of polygamy and divorce. t.i.thes are demanded as alms for the poor. A fast during the month of Ramzan must be kept throughout the whole of every day; and the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca--an ancient inst.i.tution, the rites of which were now divested of their heathenish accompaniments--maintained. The existence of angels and devils is taught, and heaven and h.e.l.l are depicted in material colors--the one of sensuous pleasure, the other of bodily torment. Finally, the resurrection, judgment, and retribution of good and evil are set forth in great detail. Such was the creed--”_There is no G.o.d but the_ Lord, _and_ Mohammed _is his prophet_”--to which Arabia now became obedient.
[Sidenote: Arabia apostatizes; but is speedily reconquered and reclaimed, A.D. 633.]
But immediately on the death of Mohammed the entire peninsula relapsed into apostasy. Medina and Mecca remained faithful; but every-where else the land seethed with rebellion. Some tribes joined the ”false prophets,” of whom four had arisen in different parts of Arabia; some relapsed into their ancient heathenism; while others proposed a compromise--they would observe the stated times of prayer, but would be excused the t.i.the. Every-where was rampant anarchy. The apostate tribes attacked Medina, but were repulsed by the brave old Caliph Abu Bekr, who refused to abate one jot or t.i.ttle, as the successor of Mohammed, of the obligations of Islam. Eleven columns were sent forth under as many leaders, trained in the warlike school of Mohammed. These fought their way, step by step, successfully; and thus, mainly through the wisdom and firmness of Abu Bekr and the valor and genius of Khalid, ”the Sword of G.o.d,” the Arab tribes, one by one, were overcome and forced back into their allegiance and the profession of Islam. The reconquest of Arabia and re-imposition of Mohammedanism as the national faith, which it took a whole year to accomplish, is thus described by an Arabian author, who wrote at the close of the second century of the Mohammedan era:
After his decease there remained not one of the followers of the prophet that did not apostatize, saving only a small company of his ”Companions” and kinsfolk, who hoped thus to secure the government to themselves. Hereupon Abu Bekr displayed marvelous skill, energy, and address, so that the power pa.s.sed into his hands.... And thus he persevered until the apostate tribes were all brought back to their allegiance, some by kindly treatment, persuasion, and craft; some through terror and fear of the sword; and others by the prospect of power and wealth as well as by the l.u.s.ts and pleasures of this life. And so it came to pa.s.s that all the Bedouin tribes were in the end converted outwardly, but not from inward conviction.[39]
[Sidenote: The Arabs thus reclaimed were, at the first, sullen.]
The temper of the tribes thus reclaimed by force of arms was at the first strained and sullen. But the scene soon changed. Suddenly the whole peninsula was shaken, and the people, seized with a burning zeal, issued forth to plant the new faith in other lands. It happened on this wise:
[Sidenote: Roused by war-cry, they issue from the peninsula, A.D. 634, _et. seq._ The opposing forces.
Arab enthusiasm.]
The columns sent from Medina to reduce the rebellious tribes to the north-west on the Gulf of Ayla, and to the north-east on the Persian Gulf, came at once into collision with the Christian Bedouins of Syria on the one hand and with those of Mesopotamia on the other. These again were immediately supported by the neighboring forces of the Roman and Persian empires, whose va.s.sals respectively they were. And so, before many months, Abu Bekr found his generals opposed by great and imposing armies on either side. He was, in fact, waging mortal combat at one and the same moment with the Kaiser and the Chosroes, the Byzantine emperor and the great king of Persia. The risk was imminent, and an appeal went forth for help to meet the danger. The battle-cry resounded from one end of Arabia to the other, and electrified the land. Levy after levy, _en ma.s.se_, started up at the call from every quarter of the peninsula, and the Bedouin tribes, as bees from their hive, streamed forth in swarms, animated by the prospect of conquest, plunder, and captive damsels, or, if slain in battle, by the still more coveted prize of the ”martyr” in the material paradise of Mohammed. With a military ardor and new-born zeal in which carnal and spiritual aspirations were strangely blended, the Arabs rushed forth to the field, like the war-horse of Job, ”that smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.” Sullen constraint was in a moment transformed into an absolute devotion and fiery resolve to spread the faith. The Arab warrior became the missionary of Islam.
[Sidenote: Arabs, a military body, subsidized and mobilized by Omar.]
It was now the care of Omar, the second caliph or ruler of the new-born empire, to establish a system whereby the spirit militant, called into existence with such force and fervor, might be rendered permanent. The entire Arabian people was subsidized. The surplus revenues which in rapidly increasing volume began to flow from the conquered lands into the Moslem treasuries were to the last farthing distributed among the soldiers of Arabian descent. The whole nation was enrolled, and the name of every warrior entered upon the roster of Islam. Forbidden to settle anywhere, and relieved from all other work, the Arab hordes became, in fact, a standing army threatening the world. Great bodies of armed men were kept thus ever mobilized, separate and in readiness for new enterprise.
[Sidenote: Mission of Islam described by Fairbairn.]
The change which came over the policy of the Founder of the Faith at Medina, and paved the way for this marvelous system of world-wide rapine and conversion to Islam, is thus described by a thoughtful and sagacious writer:
Medina was fatal to the higher capabilities of Islam. Mohammed became then a king; his religion was incorporated in a State that had to struggle for its life in the fas.h.i.+on familiar to the rough-handed sons of the desert. The prophet was turned into the legislator and commander; his revelations were now laws, and now military orders and manifestoes. The mission of Islam became one that only the sword could accomplish, robbery of the infidel became meritorious, and conquest the supreme duty it owed to the world....
The religion which lived an unprospering and precarious life, so long as it depended on the prophetic word alone, became an aggressive and victorious power so soon as it was embodied in a State.[40]
[Sidenote: And by von Kremer.]
Another learned and impartial authority tells us:
The Mussulman power under the first four caliphs was nothing but a grand religio-political a.s.sociation of Arab tribes for universal plunder and conquest under the holy banner of Islam, and the watch-word, ”There is no G.o.d but the Lord, and Mohammed is his apostle.” On pretext of spreading the only true religion the Arabs swallowed up fair provinces lying all around, and, driving a profitable business, enriched themselves simultaneously in a worldly sense.[41]
[Sidenote: Religious merit of ”fighting in the ways of the Lord.”]
The motives which nerved the armies of Islam were a strange combination of the lower instincts of nature with the higher aspirations of the spirit. To engage in the Holy War was the rarest and most blessed of all religious virtues, and conferred on the combatant a special merit; and side by side with it lay the bright prospect of spoil and female slaves, conquest and glory. ”Mount thy horse,” said Osama ibn Zeid to Abu Bekr as he accompanied the Syrian army a little way on its march, out of Medina. ”Nay,” replied the caliph, ”I will not ride, but I will walk and soil my feet a little s.p.a.ce in the ways of the Lord. Verily, every footstep in the ways of the Lord is equal in merit to manifold good works, and wipeth away a mult.i.tude of sins.”[42] And of the ”martyrs,”
those who fell in these crusading campaigns, Mohammed thus described the blessed state:
Think not, in any wise, of those killed in the ways of the Lord, as if they were dead. Yea, they are alive, and are nourished with their Lord, exulting in that which G.o.d hath given them of his favor, and rejoicing in behalf of those who have not yet joined them, but are following after. No terror afflicteth them, neither are they grieved.--Sura iii.
[Sidenote: Material fruits of Moslem crusade.]
The material fruits of their victories raised the Arabs at once from being the needy inhabitants of a stony, sterile soil, where, with difficulty, they eked out a hardy subsistence, to be the masters of rich and luxuriant lands flowing with milk and honey. After one of his great victories on the plains of Chaldea, Khalid called together his troops, flushed with conquest, and lost in wonder at the exuberance around them, and thus addressed them: ”Ye see the riches of the land. Its paths drop fatness and plenty, so that the fruits of the earth are scattered abroad even as stones are in Arabia. If but as a provision for this present life, it were worth our while to fight for these fair fields and banish care and penury forever from us.” Such were the aspirations dear to the heart of every Arab warrior. Again, after the battle of Jalola, a few years later, the treasure and spoil of the Persian monarch, captured by the victors, was valued at thirty million of dirhems (about a million sterling). The royal fifth (the crown share of the booty) was sent as usual to Medina under charge of Ziad, who, in the presence of the Caliph Omar, harangued the citizens in a glowing description of what had been won in Persia, fertile lands, rich cities, and endless spoil, besides captive maids and princesses.
[Sidenote: Rich booty taken in the capital of Persia, A.D. 637.]
In relating the capture of Medain (the ancient Ctesiphon) tradition revels in the untold wealth which fell into the hands of Sad, the conqueror, and his followers. Besides millions of treasure, there was endless store of gold and silver vessels, rich vestments, and rare and precious things. The Arabs gazed bewildered at the tiara, brocaded vestments, jeweled armor, and splendid surroundings of the throne. They tell of a camel of silver, life-size, with a rider of gold, and of a golden horse with emeralds for teeth, the neck set with rubies, the trappings of gold. And we may read in Gibbon of the marvelous banqueting carpet, representing a garden, the ground of wrought gold, the walks of silver, the meadows of emeralds, rivulets of pearls, and flowers and fruits of diamonds, rubies, and rare gems. The precious metals lost their conventional value, gold was parted with for its weight in silver; and so on.[43]
[Sidenote: Success in battle ascribed to divine aid.]
It is the virtue of Islam that it recognizes a special providence, seeing the hand of G.o.d, as in every thing, so pre-eminently also in victory. When Sad, therefore, had established himself in the palace of the Chosroes he was not forgetful to render thanks in a service of praise. One of the princely mansions was turned for the moment into a temple, and there, followed by his troops, he ascribed the victory to the Lord of Hosts. The lesson accompanying the prayers was taken from a Sura (or chapter of the Koran) which speaks of Pharaoh and his riders being overwhelmed in the Red Sea, and contains this pa.s.sage, held to be peculiarly appropriate to the occasion:
”How many gardens and fountains did they leave behind, And fields of corn, and fair dwelling-places, And pleasant things which they enjoyed!
Even thus have We made another people to inherit the same.”[44]