But, as has already been said, Mohammed met with small success in his native town, although he was joined by some of the best and most earnest-minded men, like Saad ben Abi Wakkas and Omar. It was not until he took a step unprecedented among the Arabs, and, abandoning his own tribe, migrated with his handful of Meccan followers to dwell among the inhabitants of Yathreb, that he gained a firm footing. The latter, palm-dressers and husbandmen, were a vigorous race, but not intellectually equal to the Koreish. They had given proof of their valour chiefly by perpetual civil broils between the two clans of which they consisted. Through their Jewish neighbours they were at least superficially acquainted with many of the religious ideas with which Mohammed was occupied. The prophet soon gained a large following among them. He established peace within their borders, they recognised him (though not without some exceptions) as their leader, and together with the companions of his wanderings constituted at first the bulk and afterwards the flower of his army.
Mohammed conquered the Meccans mainly by paralysing their caravan trade. When, in the eighth year after his departure from his native town, he made his triumphal entry into it once more, it needed only one great encounter with certain Bedouin tribes to bring the whole of Arabia to his feet and to his faith. If the Bedouins had concluded binding alliances against him in defence of the religious usages of their forefathers and (what was still more important to them) their own independence, he would have laboured in vain; but the inability of the pure Arab to unite for common action and act under discipline, even for the attainment of great ends, made it possible for him to bring one tribe after another over to his side by force or friendly means. He even contrived to turn to practical account the old connection between his family and the tent-dwelling Choza’a in the neighbourhood of Mecca. He retained old customs wherever it was possible so to do, instinctively rather than by deliberate intention. Thus even the greater part of the heathen worship of Mecca was adapted in externals to monotheism and incorporated bona fide into Islam. The first important successes, especially the battle of Bedr (a great battle according to Arab notions), in which the men of Mecca lost about seventy dead and seventy wounded, made a deep and immediate impression: success is the test of proselytisers. The costly presents which Mohammed gave out of his spoils to such distinguished men as had not at once become converts at heart also wrought effectively; in most cases a genuine conversion followed in time. One fact (among others), by which we can estimate the striking impression the prophet produced upon the Arabs, is that as each tribe submitted or adopted his religion it renounced the right of retaliation for the blood shed in the struggle. Under other circumstances this renunciation of blood-revenge, or of wergild at least, would have seemed to the Arab the lowest depth of humiliation. But hard as it might be for the Arabs in general to acknowledge the prophet as their lord, there was at that time no pagan who would have fought in earnest for his religion. At the utmost, an old woman here and there raised a clamour when Mohammed destroyed her idols. Compare this with the fashion in which other Semites fought for their faith, in which the Arabs themselves afterwards fought for Islam. Hence, it is evident that, as has been said, the Arabs of that period had outgrown their religion.
SUCCESSORS OF MOHAMMED
But Mohammed was scarcely dead (632) before the existence of his religion and his empire was again called in question. He had left no instructions as to how the government was to be carried on after his death. A ruler was indeed promptly set up to succeed him. Yathreb, now called Medinat an nabi (the city of the prophet), or merely Medina (the city), was the capital as before, but the simple-minded proposal of the Medinese that they should have one sovereign and the people of Mecca another was rejected with decision by the latter. Abu-Bekr, Mohammed’s most intimate friend, and the father of his favourite wife, became his successor or vicegerent (khalifa, caliph). This is another proof of the high esteem the Koreish enjoyed; for it was a matter of common knowledge that the Arabs would never submit to a non-Koreishite.
For a while, however, most of them displayed but little inclination to remain subjects of the new ecclesiastical state. The utmost concession they would make was to profess their willingness to continue to perform the salat[19] five times a day, but they would henceforth no longer submit to pay an annual quota of their cattle or dates in taxes. Nearly all the old friends of the prophet, even Omar, who now wielded the greatest authority next to the caliph, despaired of subduing the Arabs again. And here we recognise once more the faith that moves mountains in fullest and most effective action. Abu-Bekr was not a man of lofty intellect, but he was firmly convinced that what Mohammed had preached was pure truth, that his orders must be obeyed absolutely, and that God would then give his religion the victory. And the event proved him right. He even insisted on weakening the army of which he had such sore need by despatching a body of troops for an expedition to the north which was by no means urgently necessary, merely because Mohammed had given orders for it, not foreseeing his own death. But otherwise the difficult task of once more subjugating the Arabs was prosecuted with the utmost vigour. Their inability to combine voluntarily for any great object was more patent than ever. Their scattered forces could not withstand a foe united under a single command and with a definite aim in view. The separate tribes were speedily subdued, in most cases without recourse to the strong arm. The inhabitants of the district of Yamama offered frantic resistance; they were tillers of the soil and followers of Maslama (called by the Mohammedans in scorn Musailima, or “little Maslama”), who had set himself up as an opposition prophet in Mohammed’s later years. They fought for their settled homes and their faith, and the battle against Maslama was far more sanguinary than any previous conflict.
The second conquest of Arabia could scarcely have been achieved had not the Koreish stood by Abu-Bekr to a man. The leaders, who for years had striven against the prophet in the stricken field and lost their nearest kin in the struggle, had begun to realise (some of them before the taking of Mecca and the majority directly after) that they would gain enormously in power and consequence by the supremacy of a Koreishite. Mohammed’s marvellous success had made most of them to a certain extent believers. Several of those who had been his most zealous opponents afterwards fell or were severely wounded as champions of his religion. The commander who bore the brunt of the battle for the subjugation of the rebel Arabs, displaying an equal measure of sagacity and energy, was a Koreishite, Khalid ben al-Walid, the same who had been mainly responsible for the victory of the Koreish over the hosts of Mohammed at Mount Ohod, close by Medina, eight years before.