Asiatic Breezes; Or, Students on The Wing

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF ISLAMISM

  Captain Ringgold permitted the day, which was only the second of thevoyage, to pass away until half past three o'clock in the afternoonwithout again calling the conference together. The passengers appearedto be well occupied; for the boys had brought shuffle-board and thepotato game on the planks, and everybody was enjoying these plays,either by taking part or looking on. The commander had taught them theseamusements early in their sea experience, and they always became veryhilarious over them.

  Besides, he was prudent and judicious in the conduct of the studydepartment; for the adults were not in training as students, and he wassomewhat afraid of overworking them, and creating a dislike for theconferences. As he expressed it, he desired to make them hungry forlectures. The schoolroom, which had been made of the after cabin, andcontained the extensive library of the ship, had been deserted forseveral weeks so far as its regular use was concerned.

  Miss Blanche, Louis, Morris, and Scott formed a class, or rather severalof them, and pursued their studies systematically under the professor;but they had been interrupted by the visit to Egypt and the trip toCyprus, and their work was not resumed till the ship sailed from Suez.The recitations and the study were not confined to the classroom, butsome of them were given on deck and in the cabin to individuals as theconvenience of both permitted; and some of the hours of the first twodays had been used in this manner.

  "Now you can see Yembo," said the commander at half-past three in theafternoon, as he pointed out a town on the shore of Arabia. "The name isspelled in so many different ways it is hard to find it in the books.Sometimes it is Yembo, Yanba, and Yembu, and again it is Zembo, Zambu,and Zanba. It is Yembo on my charts, and for that reason I use it. It isof not much importance except as the port of Medina, the later home ofMohammed, where the professor will take you at the next conference thisafternoon.

  "But it is one hundred and thirty miles from its principal, and thereare no railroads or stages here, and it must be a journey of four orfive days by camel over the desert. A pilgrimage to Medina isrecommended to the faithful; but it is not required, as it is at leastonce in a lifetime to Mecca. Mohammed was buried there, and it standsnext to Mecca as the holiest city of the world to the followers ofIslam. But I will not purloin the professor's thunder. On the other sideof the Red Sea is Berenice, the seat of the Egyptian trade with Indiain the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus; but there is not much besidesruins there at the present time."

  The conference met at four o'clock, and the map of Arabia still hung onthe frame. The professor took his place, and pointed out Yembo on it,adding that Medina was two hundred and seventy miles north of Mecca.

  "When I suspended my remarks this morning, Mohammed had failed toimprove his fortunes by emigration, had returned to Mecca, and hadmarried again," the professor began. "At his death he left nine wives,and how many more he may have had I am not informed."

  "The wretch!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom.

  "The Prophet did not live in Von Blonk Park," suggested the instructor.

  "If he had, he would have been driven out of town by a mob," added thelady rather spitefully for her.

  "On this subject, if I should refer you to some of the patriarchs of theBible, you would be able to see how much Christianity has improved theworld in this respect. Among the wives of the Prophet was Ayeshah, thedaughter of Abu Bekr, one of Mohammed's most enthusiastic disciples, aman of great influence in Mecca, belonging to the Koreish tribe, thereligious aristocracy of the city.

  "Everything except matrimony, though he had not married all these wivesat this time, was in a bad way with Mohammed; for he had lost hisproperty, and had excited a violent opposition to himself among thepeople, though some of his proselytes remained faithful to him. Thepilgrimages to the Kaaba brought many people to Mecca from all quarters,including Medina. Among those from the latter he succeeded in convertingseveral; for he still preached, and still had remarkable visions.

  "At the next pilgrimage he obtained twelve more converts, and the onefollowing seventy. All these new disciples sowed the seed of histeachings; and Medina, from which all of them came, appeared to containthe richest soil for the growth of his doctrines. Cast out andpersecuted in his own city, the Prophet decided to emigrate to Medina;for he was in close alliance with the converts from that place. In 622he started on his flight from the city of his birth. This was theHegira, which means 'the going away;' and from it the Mohammedans reckontheir dates, as we do from the birth of Christ.

  "The Prophet was attended by Abu Bekr, and followed by about a hundredfamilies of his Meccan adherents; and his going away was not withoutdanger, for his enemies were many and vindictive. But with his multitudehe made his way over the desert, and reached his destination in safety.He was received for all he claimed to be by his converts there, and thecurrent of his fortunes as a religious leader was suddenly and entirelychanged. He was no longer a madman and an impostor. He had come out ofhis former obscurity, and now all the details of his daily life becamematters of record.

  "His modesty did not seem to stand in his way; and he now assumed thefunctions of the most powerful judge, lawgiver, and ruler of the twomost influential Arabic tribes. He devoted his time and study to theorganization of the worship of God according to Mohammed, his soleprophet. He was gathering in converts all the time, and his new home wasentirely favorable to this work.

  "There were many Jews there to whom he turned his attention, preachingto them, and proclaiming that he was the Messiah whose coming theyawaited; but they ridiculed his pretensions, and he became furiousagainst them, remaining their enemy till the last day of his life.Whatever good precepts Mohammed promulgated, there appears to have beenbut little of the 'meek and lowly' spirit of Him 'who spake as never manspake;' for in the first year of the Hegira he gave it out that it wasthe will of God, expressed by his chosen prophet, that the faithfulshould make war on the enemies of Islam; which was a sort of manifestodirected against the Meccans who had practically cast him out.

  "But he had not the means to carry on war at his command at first in theopen field: he assailed the caravans through his agents on their way toand from Syria, and succeeded in seriously disturbing the current oftrade. His employment of the sons of the desert enabled him to formalliances with them, and thus obtain the semblance of an army. His firstbattle was fought between 314 Moslems and about 600 Meccans, and theinspiration of his fanaticism gave him the victory in spite of hisinferior force.

  "This event gave him a degree of prestige, and many adventurers flockedto his standard. With an increased force he continued to send outexpeditions against both of his old enemies, the Meccans and the Jews,exiling the latter. He was generally successful; and after one battle hecaused 700 prisoners to be beheaded, and their women and children to besold into slavery. But in 625 the Meccans defeated him; and he wasdangerously wounded in the face by a javelin, some of his teeth havingbeen knocked out. The enemy then besieged Medina; but Mohammed defeatedthem with the aid of earthworks and a ditch. In the sixth year of theHegira, he proclaimed a pilgrimage to Mecca; and though the Meccansprevented it from being carried out, it led to a treaty of peace withthem for ten years.

  "This event enabled him to send out missionaries all over Arabia; andthe next year he conducted a pilgrimage to Mecca with 2,000 followers,remaining there undisturbed for three days. After this he carried on warvigorously against more potent powers, whose rulers he summoned tobecome converts. Some yielded, and others scorned him, one of thembeheading the Prophet's messengers. This brought on battles of greatermagnitude, and in one he was badly beaten.

  "He accused the Meccans of taking part against him, and marched againsttheir city at the head of 10,000 men. It surrendered, and Mohammed waspublicly recognized as ruler, and prophet of God. I will read one of hissayings, that you may better understand the man and his religion: 'Thesword is the key of heaven and hell: a drop of blood shed in the causeof God, or a night spent in arms, is of mor
e avail than two months offasting and prayer. Whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven him,and at the day of judgment the loss of his limbs shall be supplied bythe wings of cherubim.'

  "In one of his expeditions against the Jews, a Jewess who had lost arelative in a fight against him placed a piece of poisoned roast meatbefore him. He barely tasted it, but he carried the effects of thepoison to his grave.

  "His religion seemed to be firmly established, not only in Arabia, butit had been carried to foreign lands by the sword or by missionaries. Hehad it in his mind to conquer Syria; but the want of a sufficient armydeterred him, and he was forced to content himself with the homage of afew inferior princes. In the tenth year of the new calendar he made hislast solemn pilgrimage to Mecca, and then fixed for all future time theordinance of the pilgrimage with its ceremonial, which is still observedin all Moslem countries.

  "On his return from this visit he busied himself again with the projectof conquering Syria; for some great scheme seemed to be necessary tokeep his followers in alliance, and extend his religion. While soengaged he was taken dangerously sick. He selected the abode of Ayeshahas his home. The house was close to the mosque, and afterwards became apart of it. He continued to attend the public prayers as long as he wasable. When he felt that his end was near, he preached once more to thepeople, recommending Abu Bekr and Osama as the generals of the army whomhe had chosen. In the last wanderings of his mind he spoke of angels andheaven only, and died in the arms of Ayeshah. He was buried in the nightin the house of his faithful wife, which was for that reason taken intothe mosque.

  "His death produced great distress and an immense excitement among hisfollowers. Even before he was dead the struggle began, and aninfluential official had prevented him from naming his successor bypreventing him from obtaining the use of writing materials; but Abu Bekrwas preferred, and received the homage of the chief men of Medina.Undoubtedly Mohammed was a man of great ability, and the possessor ofsome extraordinary gifts. There was much that was good in the person andhis religion; much that Christianity preaches as the true faith to-day.He believed in the one God, however much he failed to comprehend hisattributes.

  "He claimed to be the Prophet of God, and preached piety andrighteousness, and recommended chiefly that his followers should protectthe weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury. In hisprivate character he was an amiable man, faithful to his friends, andtender in his family. In spite of the power he finally obtained, henever appeared in any state, with pomp and parade; for he lived in theutmost simplicity, and when at the height of his power he dwelt like theArabs in general in a miserable hut. He mended his own clothes, andfreed his slaves when he had them.

  "He was a man of strong passions, of a nervous temperament, and hisecstatic visions were perhaps the result of his inherited malady. He isnot to be judged by our standard any more than King Solomon is; butthere was a great deal of good in him, with a vast deal that wasemphatically bad; for he was cunning and deceitful when it suited hispurpose, extremely revengeful, as shown in his dealings with the Meccansand the Jews, and a wholesale murderer in the spirit of retaliation.

  "He had read the Christian Bible, and not a little of his religion wasborrowed from that. Glancing over the world, we cannot help seeing thatChristian nations have been the most progressive, while those of theMohammedan faith have been far behind them, and have borrowed theirprincipal improvements from those whose emblem is the Cross. To the endof time the Crescent will be overshadowed by the Cross."

  The passengers had been much interested in the story of the Prophet, andthe professor was warmly applauded as he gathered up his papers andretired from the stand.

  "Unless we slow down I am afraid you will see nothing of Jiddah, whichis the port of Mecca, and our nearest point to it," said the commander."Though thousands of pilgrims are landed there every year on their wayto obey the injunction of Mohammed, there is nothing there to see; andit is not a case of sour grapes."

  "I wanted to ask the professor about the coffin of the Prophet beingsuspended in the air," interposed Mrs. Belgrave.

  "That is pure fiction, madam," replied the professor. "The body ofMohammed is believed to rest within the mausoleum in the mosque; andthere is no reason to doubt that it is on the spot occupied by Ayeshah'shouse, added to the sacred building. His body is supposed to lieundecayed at full length, on the right side, the right hand supportingthe head, with the face directed towards Mecca."

  The professor had to answer many other questions of no greatimportance.