BEFORE we quit the seventh century we must consider the rise of one who, together with his successors, was allowed to become a scourge in Christendom, especially in the East.
Mahomet was born about August 12Th, 570. His father, Abdullah, had died a short time previously. When seven days old, his grandfather made a feast, and on the name of the child being asked, he replied it was Mahomet, the Praised One. The guests were astonished at the name, it not being known in the family, and asked the reason. His grandfather replied, "In the hope that my grandson will be praised by God in heaven, and by God's creatures on earth."
As was usual, the infant was committed to a nurse who took him into the desert. When two years old he was brought to his mother, but his nurse begged that she might keep him longer, as her household had prospered while he was there. But soon after, the child was reported to have had a fit. Its nurse was alarmed and thought the child was possessed of a demon, and, lest any calamity should happen to him, she returned with him to his mother. “No, no," exclaimed his mother; "nothing of the kind. The demon has no power over him: a high destiny awaits him."
It is thus remarkable that even from his birth he was regarded as destined for some great work.
When about twelve years of age he was taken by his uncle into Syria, and there, while visiting a Christian monastery, a monk is said to have fixed his eyes on the youth, and said to his uncle: "Convey your nephew home again, and guard him carefully, especially against the Jews; for if they discover certain signs upon him, which I have found out, they will make some attempt upon his life. Know, further, that a glorious future awaits the son of your brother." If true, this also is remarkable, especially as coming from a Christian monk.
At about twenty-five years of age, he tended sheep in the neighbourhood of Mecca. He said in after life, "Verily, there hath no prophet been raised up who did not perform the work of a shepherd."
About this time lie attracted the attention of a rich widow, named Khadijah, who employed him as her agent to travel on business into Syria. He managed these transactions so well, that she offered him her hand in marriage, though she was fifteen years older than himself. It is reported also that one of her servants declared that he had seen two angels shading Mahomet from the heat of the sun!
There can be little doubt that the visits he paid to Syria had great influence over him. He would there come in contact with numerous Christians, and would most likely hear of the subtle questions that still divided the Syrian portion of the church, as to the Person of our Lord, and would see for himself how far many who professed faith in Christ were practically like or unlike their divine Master.
Mahomet would also have met with many Jews, and an inquiring mind would doubtless have sought from them an explanation of Christ's mission, and why they refused Him as their promised Messiah.
For some years Mahomet had been, in the habit of retiring to a cave in Mount Hirâ, near Mecca, attended by his family. When he was forty-one years of age, one day his wife missed him, and, on returning, he declared to her that he had had a peculiar dream of an angel visiting him. This had disturbed him, and he had gone out to quiet his mind, when he heard a voice say: "O Mahomet, thou art the apostle of God, and I am Gabriel." He looked up and gazed on the angel until he disappeared.
His wife was his first disciple, then some of his household, and then a few acquaintances, some being men of note. He imposed on his followers that they should believe in one God; in future rewards and punishments; in his being the prophet of God; in practicing ablution and offering up prayers, and should promise obedience, He declared that this was not a new religion, but the religion of their ancestor Abraham, restored to its purity.
After three years he had forty adherents, whom he taught privately. He had frequent revelations, he said, from God: these eventually formed the Koran. He determined to make his mission more public, and invited a number of guests; but, except one, they laughed at his pretensions.
He, however, was not silenced, but began now to preach against the gods made of wood and stone. This enraged his countrymen, who would have attacked him but for the protection of his uncle; they caused his uncle to attempt to silence him, but Mahomet declared that could they set the sun and moon against him he should not abandon his mission.
Mahomet was urged to prove his mission by miracles, but he appealed to the internal truth of his doctrine, and declared that signs and wonders would lessen the merit of faith and aggravate the sin of unbelief. The only miraculous act he professed—if such it can be called—was a supposed journey by night from Mecca to Jerusalem. Some accounts say it was on an animal, but according to the Koran it may mean simply “in a vision."
Some of his followers being persecuted, they emigrated to Abyssinia, to save their lives. Repeated opposition to the prophet caused his flight in A.D. 622 to Yatreb, the name of which was altered to Medina, the city of the prophet. Some of his disciples had preceded him, and the citizens, among whom the prophet already had some advocates, were ready to receive the outcast. They sallied forth in procession to meet the despised prophet, invested him with the kingly and priestly office, and made his cause their own.
This was the beginning of his success, and the revelations he professed to receive sanctioned the use of the sword to put down idolatry. It is to be noted that the Koran is a long succession of revelations, which were made to suit and sanction anything that was thought to be to the interest of the prophet and his mission. For instance, war was prohibited in the sacred month Rajah, during which some of his followers were sent to spy out the enemies of the prophet near Mecca; but a caravan approached, guarded by four men only, and the temptation was too strong to be overcome. It was attacked, and two of the men were killed, and the other two taken prisoners, and the spoils taken to Medina. Mahomet was much disconcerted because of its being done in the sacred month, and in violation of the general truce. A new revelation, however, set it all right. It runs thus: "They will ask thee concerning war in the sacred month: say, To war therein is bad, but to turn aside from the cause of God, and to have no faith in Him, and the sacred temple, and to drive out its people, is worse in the sight of God." (Sur. 2. 214.) After this the booty was appropriated and a ransom accepted for the prisoners.
Various encounters followed without being decisive. At one time the Jews were united with the enemies of Mahomet, and Medina was invested with a large army. But the prophet managed to sow discord among the various chiefs, who one after another left the place, and a truce for ten years was agreed on, but which did not include the Jews, and during that time Mahomet besieged several places inhabited by the Jews, and carried off their property, taking the women and children captives and putting most of the men to death.
At Chaibar, one of the captured places, the prophet nearly lost his life by poison being mixed with his food by a Jewess. He indeed escaped death, but felt the effects of the poison for the rest of his life.
As long, however, as Mecca did not acknowledge the prophet he could not be said to be secure. Its leaders having broken the truce, Mahomet determined to attack the place, and he was now enabled to take with him ten thousand warriors. From some cause the town surrendered after slight resistance, and its inhabitants yielded to the sway of the prophet whom they had previously driven out. He was not revengeful, but forgave his countrymen now converted to his faith. He proceeded at once to destroy their three hundred and sixty idols, and remove every vestige of idolatry. He adorned and consecrated their temple to the worship of God, and betook himself to prayer and devotion, as the pilgrims had formerly done, around the holy shrine, a black stone said to have been originally an altar to the true God.
This victory and another over the hostile fortress of Tayif, left Mahomet supreme ruler, both sacred and earthly, over the whole of Arabia. He then projected trying his strength against the Roman empire as it existed in his day. But his end was approaching, and it was his successors who had more to do with encountering Christianity than the prophet himself.
In the year 632 Mahomet determined to make another devotional pilgrimage to Mecca. After this he addressed his followers: "Listen to my words, and let them sink into your hearts. I leave you a law, to the which if you cleave it will preserve you always from error: a clear and positive law, a book dictated from on high ... ..O my God, have I fulfilled my mission?" A thousand voices answered, "Yes, thou hast fulfilled it." The prophet added, "O my God, hear this testimony."
He returned to his domestic circle, and died after a short illness, on June 8th, 632. A great commotion immediately followed. "How can our apostle be dead?" exclaimed one; "he was to be our witness on the day of judgment." "No," said Omar, one of his chief men; "he is not dead: he is gone to visit his Lord, as Moses aforetime did, when, after an absence of forty days, he re-appeared to his people." But another exclaimed, "Muslims, if ye adore Mahomet, know that Mahomet is dead. If you adore God, God is alive and cannot die. Do you forget that passage in the Koran, ‘Mahomet is no more than an apostle: other apostles have already passed away before him;' or that other verse, 'Thou shalt truly die, O Mahomet, and they also shall die'?" This quoting of the Koran quieted the people: it was clearly revealed that the prophet must die. The next question of moment was, who should succeed him? Abu-Bakr was chosen.
As to the personal character of Mahomet it does not stand high; and, as we have seen, he could always get a revelation, pretending that it came from God, to sanction his doings: more than once he sanctioned the assassination of his enemies, this and his having several wives and concubines, was not without shameless unfaithfulness, even to violating his oath.
As to his creed, if it can be said that he had any, it was copied partly from the Old and New Testaments and from various other sources. Of the Lord Jesus he says, "The Messiah Jesus, son of Mary, is only an apostle of God ... ..God is only one God. Far be it from His glory that He should have a son." "Infidels now are they who say, God is the Messiah, son of Mary." "God is one; God the eternal; he begetteth not, neither is He begotten; neither is there any One like Him." He may have learnt this from the Arianism of the professing Christians he had met with.
His followers claim for the Koran that it is the latest revelation of the mind of God, and that it had been penned under the immediate inspiration of God. The quotations above given settle at once and without dispute that it in no way came from God. It may have—as scholars declare it has—some sublime passages; but anything that denies the divinity of Christ, cannot be from God.
Another important question is as to God. It sounds reverent to say, “There is only one God," "God is one," "God the eternal," &c.; but is this God they speak of the only true God revealed to us in the scripture? It is not. God is LIGHT, and the Koran is thorough darkness, and in no way reveals the true God, nor the way that a guilty man can approach and be accepted by God. Again, God is LOVE, and the Koran breathes of hatred and vengeance. God is HOLY, but the Koran sanctions lust and impurity. And besides all this, it joins with the declaration of the oneness of God, that Mahomet is His prophet; and as we have seen, he could not possibly have been a prophet of God.
At first Mahomet advocated toleration, but when he was successful, he enforced his mission by the use of the sword, and that without mercy. His religion was an advance upon heathenism, since it turned the thoughts of man to an unseen God instead of serving idols; but the God he revealed, as we have seen, was not the true God. Mahometanism was a deadly enemy to Christianity, though it was doubtless used by God as a scourge of the Eastern church, then sunk in superstition, worldliness, and impurity.
The conquests of the successors of Mahomet were rapid. Palestine, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, the south of Spain, fell under their sway, and they threatened to stable their horses in St. Peter's at Rome, but their onward march was arrested by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours (732), and Europe was saved. But in the ninth century, Persia, Afghanistan, and a large part of India, were made to embrace Mahometanism. In the fifteenth century they conquered Constantinople, and put an end to the Byzantine or Eastern empire (1453).
The once flourishing church in the Eastern empire was now only tolerated by the victors. How humiliating to think that when the Mahometans had cleansed their own land of idolatry, they were met with images and image worship in that which professed to be pure Christianity! And also how sad to think that they should be witnesses of the shameful, immoral conduct of those who should have been examples to the flock. More than once they rebuked the Christian rulers for acts that shocked the moral sense of a Mahometan! What greater proof could we need that these things took place when men loved darkness, and won for the times in which they lived the title of "The Dark Ages"?