Such was the state of religion among the native Arabians. Among the foreign settlers in the towns there were a few followers of the Greek and Roman philosophy; the Christians were never numerous. These latter were divided into a variety of sects, and those belonging to the Greek church, advocated monasteries, and were addicted to the worship of images, martyrs and relics. Some of these, even elevated the Virgin Mary into a deity, and addressed her as the third person in the Trinity.
Mohammed, while he no doubt looked with horror upon this state of things, having studied the Bible, and clearly comprehended its sublime revelation of one God, conceived the idea of uniting the people of his native land under a religion of which this fundamental principle should constitute the basis. His purpose was to crush idolatry, and restore the lost worship of the true God. How far he was sincere, and how far he was an impostor, we cannot venture to affirm. It is probable that he was a religious enthusiast, deceived by his own fancies, and, perhaps, really believing his own visions. At the outset of his career, it is likely that he acted in good faith, while he was himself deluded. When he had advanced so far as to see power and dominion offered to his grasp, it is probable that his integrity gave way, and that thenceforward we are to consider him as under the alternate guidance of craft and fanaticism.
Several of the nobles citizens of Mecca were finally converted by Mohammed. Khadijah was now dead, and the prophet had married Ayesha, the daughter of Abubeker, a man of great influence, and who exercised it in favor of his son-in-law. Yet the new faith made little progress, and a persecution of its votaries arose, which drove them to Abyssinia, and caused Mohammed himself to fly for safety to Medina. This flight is called the Hegira, and, taking place in the year 622, is the epoch from which Mohammedan chronology is computed, as is ours from the birth of Christ.
At Medina, whither his tenets had been carried by pilgrims, Mohammed was received with open arms. He was met by an imposing procession, and invested at once with the regal and sacerdotal office. The people also offered him assistance in propagating his faith, even by force, if it should be required. From this moment, a vast field seems to have been opened to the mind of Mohammed. Hitherto, he may have been but a self-deceived enthusiast; but now, ambition appears to have taken at least partial possession of his bosom. His revelations at once assumed a higher tone. Hitherto he had chiefly inculcated the doctrine of one God, eternal, omnipotent, most powerful and most merciful, together with the practical duties of piety, prayer, charity, and pilgrimages. He now revealed, as a part of his new faith, the duty of making war, even with the sword, to propagate Islamism, and promised a sensual paradise to those who should fall in doing battle in its behalf. At the same time he announced that a settled fate or destiny hung over every individual, which he could not by possibility alter, evade, or avert.
He now raised men, and proceeded, sword in hand, to force the acknowledgment of his pretensions. With alternate victory and defeat, he continued to prosecute his schemes, and at last fell upon the towns and castles of the peaceful and unwarlike Jews. These were soon taken and plundered. But the prophet paid dearly for his triumph. A Jewish female, at the town of Chaibar, gave him poison in some drink, and, though he survived, he never fully recovered from the effects of the dose.
Thus advancing with the tribes settled in his own country, the power of the ambitious apostle increased like the avalanche in its overwhelming descent. Mecca was conquered, and yielded as well to his faith as to his arms. He now made expeditions to Palestine and Syria, while his officers were making conquests in all directions. His power was soon so great, that he sent messages to the kings of Egypt, Persia, and Ethiopia, and the emperor of Constantinople, commanding them to acknowledge the divine law revealed through him.
At last, in the tenth year of the Hegira, he proceeded on a farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. The scene was imposing beyond description. He was attended by more than a hundred thousand of his followers, who paid him the greatest reverence. Everything in dress, equipage and imposing ceremony that could enhance the splendor of the pageant, and give it sanctity in the eyes of the people, was adopted. This was the last great event of his life.
Mohammed had now become too powerful to be resisted by force, but not too exalted to be troubled by competition. His own example in assuming the sacred character of an apostle and prophet, and the brilliant success which had attended him, gave a hint to others of the probable means of advancing themselves to a similar pitch of dignity and dominion. The spirit of emulation, therefore, raised up a fellow-prophet in the person of Moseilama, called to this day by the followers of Islam "the lying Moseilama," a descendant of the tribe of Honeifa, and a principal person in the province of Yemen.
This man headed an embassy sent by his tribe to Mohammed, in the ninth year of the Hegira, and then professed himself a Moslem; but on his return home, pondering on the nature of the new religion and the character and fortunes of its founder, the sacrilegious suggestion occurred to him, that by skilful management he might share with his countryman in the glory of a divine mission; and, accordingly, in the ensuing year he began to put his project in execution. He gave out that he, also, was a prophet sent of Heaven, having a joint commission with Mohammed to recall mankind from idolatry to the worship of the true God. He, moreover, aped his model so closely as to publish written revelations resembling the Koran, pretended to have been derived from the same source.
Having succeeded in gaining a considerable party, from the tribe of Honeifa, he at length began to put himself still more nearly upon a level with the prophet of Medina, and even went so far as to propose to Mohammed a partnership in his spiritual supremacy. His letter commenced thus: "From Moseilama, the apostle of God, to Mohammed, the apostle of God. Now let the earth be half mine and half thine." But the latter, feeling himself too firmly established to stand in need of an associate, deigned to return him only the following reply: "From Mohammed, the apostle of God, to Moseilama, the liar. The earth is God's: he giveth the same for inheritance unto such of his servants as he pleaseth; and the happy issue shall attend those who fear him."
During the few months that Mohammed lived after this, Moseilama continued, on the whole, to gain ground, and became at length so formidable, as to occasion extreme anxiety to the prophet, now rapidly sinking under the effects of disease. An expedition, under the command of Caled, the "Sword of God," was ordered out to suppress the rival sect headed by the spurious apostle, and the bewildered imagination of Mohammed, in the moments of delirium, which now afflicted him, was frequently picturing to itself the results of the engagement between his faithful Moslems and these daring apostates.
The army of Caled returned victorious. Moseilama himself, and ten thousand of his followers, were left dead on the field; while the rest, convinced by the shining evidence of truth that gleamed from the swords of the conquerors, renounced their errors, and fell quietly back into the bosom of the Mohammedan church. Several other insurgents of similar pretences, but of minor consequence, were crushed in like manner in the early stages of their defection.
We have now reached the period at which the religion of Mohammed may be considered as having become permanently established. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreishites had been, in fact, the signal for the submission of the rest of Arabia; and though several of the petty tribes offered, for a time, the show of resistance to the prophet's arms, they were all eventually subdued. Between the taking of Mecca and the period of Mohammed's death, somewhat more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms; had tried his arms against the disciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta.
His throne was now firmly established; and an impulse given to the Arabian nation, which induced them to invade, and enabled them to conquer, a large portion of the globe. India,