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CHAP. “he accuses our wise forefathers of ignorance and folly; si

“lence him quickly, lest he kindle tumult and discord in the “city. If he persevere, we shall draw our swords against “him and his adherents, and thou wilt be responsible for “ the blood of thy fellow-citizens.” The weight and moderation of Abu Taleb eluded the violence of religious fac

r r tion; the most helpless or timid of the disciples retired to Æthiopia, and the prophet withdrew himself to various places of strength in the town and country. As he was still supported by his family, the rest of the tribe of Koreish engaged themselves to renounce all intercourse with the children of Hashem, neither to buy nor sell, neither to marry nor to give in marriage, but to pursue them with implacable enmity, till they should deliver the person of Mahomet to the

tice of the gods. The decree was suspended in the Caaba before the eyes of the nation; the messengers of the Koreish pursued the Musulman exiles in the heart of Africa: they besieged the prophet and his most faithful followers, intercepted their water, and inflamed their mutual animosity by the retaliation of injuries and insults. A doubtful truce restored the appearances of concord; till the death of Abu Taleb abandoned Mahomet to the power of his enemies, at the moment when he was deprived of his domestic comforts by the loss of his faithful and generous Cadijah. Abu Sophian, the chief of the branch of Ommiyah, succeeded to the principality of the republic of Mecca. A zealous votary of the idols, a mortal foe of the line of Hashem, he convened an assembly of the Koreishites and their allies, to decide the fate of the apostle. . His imprisonment might provoke the despair of his enthusiasm; and the exile of an eloquent and popular fanatic would diffuse the mischief through the provinces of Arabia. His death was resolved; and they agreed that a sword from each tribe should

be buried in his heart, to divide the guilt of his blood and and driven baffle the vengeance of the Hashemites. An angel or a spy

revealed their conspiracy; and flight was the only resource Mecca, A. D. 662. of Mahomet.17 At the dead of night, accompanied by his

2 friend Abubeker, he silently escaped from his house: the

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117 D'Herbelot, Bibliot. Orient. p. 445. He quotes a particular history of the flight of Mahomet.

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assassins watched at the door; but they were deceived by CHAP. the figure of Ali, who reposed on the bed, and was covered with the green vestment of the apostle. The Koreish respected the piety of the heroic youth; but some verses of Ali, which are still extant, exhibit an interesting picture of his anxiety, his tenderness, and his religious confidence. Three days Mahomet and his companion were concealed in the cave of Thor, at the distance of a league from Mecca; and in the close of each evening, they received from the son and daughter of Abubeker, a secret supply of intelligence and food. The diligence of the Koreish explored every haunt in the neighbourhood of the city; they arrived at the entrance of the cavern; but the providential deceit of aspider's web and a pigeon's nest, is supposed to convince them that the place was solitary and inviolate. “We are only "two,” said the trembling Abubeker. “There is a third,” replied the prophet; “it is God himself." No sooner was the pursuit abated, than the two fugitives issued from the rock, and mounted their camels : on the road to Medina, they were overtaken by the emissaries of the Koreish; they redeemed themselves with prayers and promises from their hands. In this eventful moment, the lance of an Arab might have changed the history of the world. The flight of the prophet from Mecca to Medina has fixed the memorable æra of the Hegira, 118 which, at the end of twelve centuries, still discriminates the lunar years of the Mahometan nations.119

The religion of the Koran might have perished in its cra- Received dle, had not Medina embraced with faith and reverence the as prince

of 112, holy outcasts of Mecca. Medina, or the city, known un- A ;;? der the name of Yathreb, before it was sanctifi·d by the throne of the prophet, was divided between the tribes of the Charegites and the Awsites, whose hereditary feud was rekindled by the slightest provocations: two colonies of Jews,

118 The Hegira was instituted by Omar, the second cal:;h, in imitasirits of the æra of the inar yrs of the Christians (d'Herbelot, ļ' fii); ard P.;cry commenced sixty.eight days before the flight of Mahorin"; Biedrving M harren, or first day of that Arabian year, which cotains !} Friday J !y 16 h, A. D. 622 (Abulfeda, Vit. Mun. c. 22, 2? F...; and Greaves's edi'ion of Ullig Beir's Epochæ Arabum, &c. c. 1. p.8.1, c.

119 Mahomet's in, from his mission to the llegira, market in Abul. feria (p. 1.1 .45). a' 1 Gagnier (tom. i. p. 134...251. $12...385). 1. gind from p. 137...234, is vouched by Al Jannabi, and disdained by Abeleda.

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CHAP. who boasted a sacerdotal race, were their humble allies, and

without converting the Arabs, they introduced the taste of
science and religion, which distinguished Medina as the city
of the book. Some of her noblest citizens, in a pilgrimage
to the Caaba, were converted by the preaching of Mahomet;
on their return they diffused the belief of God and his pro-
phet, and the new alliance was ratified by their deputies in
two secret and nocturnal interviews on a hill in the suburbs
of Mecca. In the first, ten Charegites and two Awsites
united in faith and love, protested in the name of their wives,
their children, and their absent brethren, that they would for
ever profess the creed, and observe the precepts of the Ko-
ran. The second was a political association, the first vital
spark of the empire of the Saracens.120 Seventy-three men
and two women of Medina held a solemn conference with
Mahomet, his kinsmen, and his disciples; and pledged them-
selves to each other by a mutual oath of fidelity. They pro-
mised in the name of the city, that if he should be banished,
they would receive him as a confederate, obey him as a lead-
er, and defend him to the last extremity, like their wives
and children. “But if you are recalled by your country,”
they asked with a flattering anxiety, “will you not abandon
“your new allies?” “ All things," replied Mahomet with
a smile, are now common between us; your blood is as
“my blood, your ruin as my ruin. We are bound to each
“other by the ties of honour and interest. I am your friend,
" and the enemy of your foes.” “But if we are killed in
“your service, what," exclaimed the deputies of Medina,
"will be our reward ?” “PARADISE,” replied the prophet.
“Stretch forth thy hand." He stretched it forth, and thev
reiterated the oath of allegiance and fidelity. Their treaty
was ratified by the people, who unanimously embraced the
profession of Islam; they rejoiced in the exile of the apos.
tle, but they trembled for his safety, and impatiently expect-
ed his arrival. After a perilous and rapid journey along
the sea-coast, he halted at Koba, two miles from the city,
and made his public entry into Medina, sixteen days after
his flight from Mecca. Five hundred of the citizens ad-
vanced to meet him: he was hailed with acclamations of loy-

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120 The triple inauguration of Mahomet is described by Abulfeda (p. 30. 33. 40. 86), and Gagnier (tom. i. p. 342, &c. 349, &c. tom.ii. p. 223, &c.).

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alty and devotion; Mahomet was mounted on a she-camel, CHAP. an umbrella shaded his head, and a turban was unfurled before him to supply the deficiency of a standard. His bravest disciples, who had been scattered by the storm, assembled round his person: and the equal, though various, merit of the Moslems was distinguished by the names of Mohajerians and Ansars, the fugitives of Mecca, and the auxiliaries of Medina. To eradicate the seeds of jealousy, Mahomet judiciously coupled his principal followers with the rights and obligations of brethren, and when Ali found himself without a peer, the prophet tenderly declared, that he would be the companion and brother of the noble youth. The expedient was crowned with success; the holy fraternity was respected in peace and war, and the two parties vied with each other in a generous emulation of courage and fidelity. Once only the concord was slightly ruffled by an accidental quarrel; a patriot of Medina arraigned the insolence of the strangers, but the hint of their expulsion was heard with abhorrence, and his own son most eagerly offered to lay at the apostle's feet the head of his father.

From his establishment at Medina, Mahomet assumed His regal the exercise of the regal and sacerdotal office; and it was

dignity, impious to appeal from a judge whose decrees were inspired 622...632. by the divine wisdom. A small portion of ground, the patrimony of two orphans, was acquired by gift or purchase;121 on that chosen spot, he built an house and a mosch more venerable in their rude simplicity than the palaces and temples of the Assyrian caliphs. His seal of gold, or silver, was inscribed with the apostolic title; when he prayed and preached in the weekly assembly, he leaned against the trunk of a palm-tree; and it was long before he indulged himself in the use of a chair or pulpit of rough timber.'99

A. D.

121 Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44), reviles the wickedness of the im. sostor, who despoiied two poor orphans, the sons of a carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio contra Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130 ; but the honest Gagnier (ad Abulfed p. 53.) has shewn that they were deceived by the word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place, not an obscire trade, but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate state of the ground is described by Abulfeda ; and his worthy interpreter has proved, from Al Bochari, the otter of a price ; from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase ; and from Ahmed Ben Joseph, the payment of the money by the generous Abuweker. On these grounds the prophet must be honourably acquitted.

122 Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. i. p. 246. 324.) describes the sealand ulpit, as two venerable relics of the apostle of God; and the portrait of his ourt is taken from Abulfeda (c. 44. p. 85).

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CHAP. After a reign of six years, fifteen hundred Moslems, in

arms and in the field, renewed their oath of allegiance; and
their chief repeated the assurance of protection till the death
of the last member, or the final dissolution of the party. It
was in the same camp that the deputy of Mecca was asto-
nished by the attention of the faithful to the words and looks
of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected
his spittle, an hair that dropt on the ground, the refuse
water of his lustrations, as if they participated in some de-
gree of the prophetic virtue. “I have seen,” said he," the
“ Chosroes of Persia and the Cæsar of Rome, but never did
“ I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet among
“his companions.” The devout fervour of enthusiasm acts
with more energy and truth than the cold and formal ser-

vility of courts.
He de. In the state of nature every man has a right to defend, by
clares war

force of arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or
aruinst the
inicis.

even to prevent, the violence of his enemies, and to extend
his hostilities to a reasonable measure of satisfaction and re-
taliation. In the free society of the Arabs, the duties of
subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and Maho-
met, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission,
had been despoiled and banished by the injustice of his
countrymen. The choice of an independent people had ex-
alted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of a sovereign ; and
he was invested with the just prerogative of forming allian-
ces, and of waging offensive or defensive war. The imper-
fection of human rights was supplied and armed by the ple.
nitude of divine power: the prophet of Medina assumed,
in his new revelations, a fiercer and more sanguinary tone,
which proves that his former moderation was the effect of
weakness:123 the means of persuasion had been tried, the
season of forbearance was elapsed, and he was now com-
manded to propagate his religion by the sword, to destroy
the monuments of idolatry, and, without regarding the sanc-
tity of days or months, to pursue the unbelieving nations of
the earth. The same bloody precepts, so repeatedly incul.
cated in the Koran, are ascribed by the author to the Penta-

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123 The vijith and ix! chapters of the Koran are the loudest and most vehement; and Maracci (Prodrimus, part iv. p. 59...64.) nas inveished with mure justice tha: discretion agzinst the double dealing of the impostor.

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