ND NOW WE SEE HIM seated at Medina. There he erects a prophetical monarchy, and entitling God and the angel Gabriel to his dictates, he imprinted a greater awe thereof in his followers and was more absolutely obeyed than force or terror could otherwise make him. He declares that after Moses, the Jewish state being corrupt and apostatized from the law given by Moses and grown wicked in their lives, that Isa was sent to reform them and all the world, by a spirit of meekness; that the Jews persecuted and would have crucified him, but that the divine providence substituted a phantasm in his stead, and so he was only put to death in effigy, being really translated into paradise that he should save all at the last day who believe in him and mortify themselves to the world, should observe his precepts. That God, finding that the mildness and gentleness of Isa had not proved effectual, had now sent him who was the comforter promised by him to protect his followers from further persecution, to propagate the doctrine of the prophets and of Isa: all which taught that there was only one God ruling the world by His providence, a rewarder of the just and punisher of evil doers, that God having patiently expected the issue of Isa’s preaching and of his apostles, and finding it fruitless, even the Christians being much <66> apostatized, and some lapsed into open image worship and idolatry, he was now sent to enforce all men to the truth (Islamism) and to make war upon them till they confessed one great God.1The Christians, who had been so persecuted by Chosroes, and finding their condition very uncertain among the Arabians according to the humors or interests of the governors, were very glad of his rise and magnified his undertaking. No less pleased were the Jews who were reduced to a mean condition by reason that the wars of Persia, and the animosities and jealousies of the Greek emperors, had abolished all grandeur and extinguished universities, patriarchs, and governments. They hoped, by fomenting Mahomet so, to embroil Arabia that they might draw advantage from thence to aggrandize themselves and either at last destroy Mahomet or see him reduced to such straits as that he should turn to them and become Jew. But Mahomet was too politic to be deceived by the Jews. However he cajoled them, he trusted them least of all.
He considered with himself that to pursue his designs an army was necessary and consequently money to raise and maintain them: to preserve an army in command and to render it serviceable discipline was requisite. And, that he might multiply his soldiers, he penned a surat or chapter exciting and obliging them all to promote Islamism with fire and sword and made it meritorious to die in such quarrels.
The security which he gave to the Jews and Christians that they might live under him without molestation brought a great deal of riches into the public treasury, and these securities were observed with so inviolate a faith that it was a great invitation to the next neighbors to come under his government and for those afar off to wish him prosperity and increase of empire. It was the excellency of the Arabians always to be the best and most active horsemen in the world. Though their horses were lean, they were bold and well managed; they were fed with small sustenance and could endure the want of water in extraordinary manner.2 Their exercises were on horseback to shoot an arrow and spurring their horses to catch it before it came to the ground; to see an arrow shot at them and to avoid it by stooping or hanging on either side of the horse as occasion required and immediately put themselves again in a posture of defense. They would ride a full career and yet gather up javelins or arrows, which lay on the ground; they would hit the least visible mark with sling, bow, or javelin.3
Water was their constant drink, their food coarse bread milk (new or sour), cheese, the flesh of goats or camels, pulse, and especially rice which he recommended to them as the most nourishing and venereal food in the world, saying that he himself did in one night <67> gratify forty women after a supper of rice.4 Their diet was without luxury, and the same at home and abroad, in field and in garrison, by which his forces were preserved more healthful and were sustained less burthensome and expensive wherever they marched or quartered. Whereas the forces of an enemy not so disciplined would exasperate the country to a revolt by oppressing them to support their riot and mutiny, or disband upon any straits such as his men would not be sensible of, he frequently preached to the people in the temple of Medina leaning upon a column made of the body of a palm tree. But afterwards he had a desk made of tamarisk wood with two steps to ascend into it.
In Medina he wrote at sundry times the greatest part of his Alcoran.5 Upon every occasion that his dictates might be more authentic, he published a surat or chapter of it, some whereof were at first very brief, not exceeding one period.6 He constituted for his emirs or generals four friends: Abubacr, Omar, Othman, and Ali. And here, he gave Ali his daughter Phatemia in marriage.7 Many resorted to him and became Muslemin, for I do not read that he armed and disciplined any others, not thinking it safe to put arms into the hands of new and unsettled friends.8 Besides that, the populace thought a happiness to be freed from so laborious a militia and other molestations upon paying a moderate tribute, having liberty to attend their employments and enjoy their own religion with security, provided it were not idolatrous. Many of the Christians even of the monks, perceiving with what reverence he spoke of Isa, now acknowledged him to be the word and spirit of God, though otherwise a mere man born miraculously of a virgin, and how much he preached up acts of mercy, justice, and did embrace Islamism. And so did sundry of the Jewish priests.
It had been always from the time of Ismael (if not before) the custom of the Arabians to circumcise their children, as Ismael was, at thirteen years old. Mahomet not only continued this custom among the Ismaelites, but extends it to all that would turn Muslemin. This was not done out of complacence to the Jews who circumcise on the eighth day, but to continue an inveterate use of the Arabians, the neglect whereof would have begot a great distaste in that people, and the imposing whereof upon foreigners, becoming Musulmen, was justified by the Mosaic precedent of circumcising proselytes.9 Mahomet’s thoughts being wholly bent upon the introduction of a new religion and empire, he had Mecca frequently in his memory. He considered that place as the center of Arabia and metropolis of Arabia the Desert. He knew of what importance it was for a prince to be master of the chief city in his dominions, and that the sovereignty of Arabia <68> were half gained, if could possess himself of that place. He had gained the esteem of the populace, who reverenced him as a prophet and were satisfied of the truth of the miracles related of him. They admired his poetry, perpetually sang them and thought it a great honor to their tribe and city to have so eminent a person reside among them. They were witnesses of this valor and piety and saw his deportment and the doctrine he spread to be such as they needed, not fear oppression from his cruelty, extortion from his avarice, nor tyranny from his government. Tyranny consists not in the unlimitedness of power, but in the extravagant use of it.
The military men or Scenites and nomads saw in his design all that might oblige them to him since his religion would involve them in a perpetual war which would furnish them with opportunities to gain honor and riches. And the other inhabitants, which were artisans and tradesmen, saw that under him they should find all encouragement and protection since they should neither be compelled to war nor exhausted with burdens. They saw the resort to the Caaba lessened and, if these divisions continued, the advantages they derived thence and the glory they retained thereupon would all vanish, and they saw the troubles and hazard of a nation broken into factions and each party wherein was weak and, which is worse, dissolute and insolent. They saw that though the rulers and prevailing party in Mecca were against Mahomet, yet the most upright, just, and popular were for him, that the prophet retired from Mecca out of tenderness to the people lest they should be embroiled in civil dissentions and the holy Caaba defiled with blood, that Abubacr, Omar, Othman, and Ali had relinquished all to adhere to him. And, at Mecca, they saw continual objects of their commiseration: their friends imprisoned and tortured for befriending and retaining a veneration for the prophet. Balal, Zohaib, Cabbab, Ammar, Abes, Abu Handen, and Sohail with many others were cast into prison and used outrageously.10
The resolution with which they underwent those torments wrought effectually upon the commonality who pitied those that suffered so gallantly and could not hear with astonishment these words echoed out by the martyrs: “God God, the great God, and Mahomet his Apostle.”
They saw that the Coreischites, which opposed Mahomet, were in profession absolute idolaters and, to support their grandeur and render their religion more mysterious and awful, find that God being all sufficient needed not any outward testimonies of their devotion, besides that they might be secure of His benignity by freely propitiating these associates. But they saw that in <69> reality those Coreischites were men of no religion, perfect Sadducees (and it is in vain to attempt to excite others to a cordial defense of a religion which they themselves appear not to believe heartily). Moreover, there had fallen out an accident since the birth of Mahomet which was fresh in their memories and I suppose contributed to his reception. One Gawius Abu Abdoluzza, a priest or sacristan to one of their principal idols, having one day by negligence not shut up the door, two foxes came in and pissed upon the statue. He coming in, and perceiving what had happened, thought that idol was unable to help others, who could not avenge himself of the paltry foxes, and broke out into this expression: “Is he the lord upon whose head the fox pissed? Surely, he is despicable upon whom foxes do piss. Oh ye tribe of Salem (those were they that worshiped that idol), assuredly this statue doth you neither good nor hurt. He neither procures nor hinders your happiness.” And, having said so, he broke the idol to pieces. Mahomet honored this man with a memorial in his Alcoran and changed his name, which signifies an erroneous person or son of a worshipper of Uzza (an Arabian deity) into Rashed Ebn Aba Rabehi—that is an orthodox person, the son of one that worshipped his Lord.11
Whilst affairs were in this posture at Mecca, and the Coreischites exceedingly distracted, Mahomet seemed to have a happy prospect of his designs, his only difficulty was to adjust the interest of Mecca and of the Caaba with his new religion. In order hereto, he declares that his journey to Medina was not a flight from, or desertion of, Mecca, but a religious pilgrimage to that place where Ismael first settled himself and whence the Coreischites were issued originally, and calls it the Hegira or journey taken out of devotion. And his four companions (together with the others that accompanied them) were entitled Almo Hajerin or the devout pilgrims.12 In this appellation he cunningly made use of a paranomasia in which he alludes to the nation of the Hagarenes, the Arab Elhagiar, a warlike and potent people living thereabouts, called by Strabo and Ptolemy Ἀγραῖοι, Agrei, and their chief city Agra.13 Of these there is mention made in the Chronicles that the Hagarenes were overcome by the Raabenites, 1 Chronicles 5:10.14 Such an artifice and anagrammatical allusion he made use of in styling his sect Aleslam which by transposing the letters becomes Ismael.15
These Hagarenes are mentioned in the Roman history for their valor.16 Trajan, having carried his conquests over all Persia as far as the Indies, was repulsed here with great damage, and neither he nor Severus could subdue them.17 Of this nation of the Arabians did Mahomet make particular account <70> and invite them to Muslemisme, for it was his mode only to send to princes to invite them thereto, and they commonly submitted. But I am apt to think arguments and motives were made use of by his emissaries, and in an affair of this importance which required so much address as was requisite in the nonage of the empire. That it might not be dissolved before it was settled, I imagine Ali to have been employed in the negotiation, who was most dexterous in such affairs, who best understood the sense of the prophet and knew when to explain and when to intrigue his speeches. Besides, his youthful courage and address in horsemanship made him most fit to excite this warlike nation to so great an enterprise as the advancing the glory of Ismael and his descendants under the conduct of Mahomet.
Let us then fancy the gallant Ali mounted upon as good a horse as that he used afterwards called Duldall (which carried the miller from Medina to Katchan in Persia in one night which is above two hundred leagues),18 with a small but brave troop of Moslemin, martial in their aspect, grave in their speech and carriage, exact in their discipline and obedience, armed not for show but service.19 And though they valued their tulipants as diadems, yet they more esteemed the goodness of their swords, by which they seemed to design for each man a royalty.20 Such was their reverence to their commander that one would have thought they had been all slaves and could not retain a bold spirit under so imperious a general. But the dexterity of the prophet showed that tyranny that the prudent may be absolute without tyranny and without regret or enfeebling the spirits of the most valiant; that the arts of government consist not in the show but use of authority, and the true use of it is to insinuate itself into, not impose upon, men’s reason.
His Coran acquainted those Hagarenes with the heavenly wisdom of their prophet and the spectacle convinced them of his sovereign prudence and conduct. The Hagarenes were astonished when they saw the motto of this incomparable leader to be “Dominion belongs to God alone”21 and observed their deportment when dismounted; and discerned that they equaled the most pious monks in their devotions and the most liberal princes in their alms; and that their affability, humility, with a detestation of all riot, luxury, and vainglory was such that the world was to receive examples from them since no age had produced any for the Muslemin to act by, and they were their precedents. But that which most endeared this people to them was that, at their first approach, they saluted the people of Agra with that exclamation so well known to the Arabians: “Allah Allah Howa Cobar Allah God, God the <71> great God,” and in their standard they observed the lunulet or half moon, the ancient arms of the Ismaelites which they had seen placed on the head of Astarte or Ashtareth, the great goddess of Arabia and Syria, to which these countries had been immemorially devoted;22 with which lunulets the Ismaelitish kings as Zebah and Zalmunna (Judges 8: 21. 24) did usually deck themselves and their camels. And thus the Jews expound the Shahoronim in that place.23
They were received with all the expressions of joy and welcome imaginable. But the Muslemin declared a greater satisfaction in the sense that they were welcome than in any empty or luxurious expressions of it. They exercised themselves upon this deportment that it was not any scorn of their entertainment, or that they did not think themselves happy to have given so good a beginning to their negotiations, but that the wisdom and felicity of man chiefly consisted in serving the great God; that joy of this world was but imposture; that a man was to consider there was a time when he was not in being, and there would be a time when he should die; that the interval between both was so short and so uncertain the only difference between men was their good actions in this life, and their rewards in the future; that he mistakes his course who places his confidence in any but God, and misplaces his delights who takes pleasure in anything but what is agreeable to his will.24
After these and suchlike discourses, the sun beginning to decline, they desired the opportunity of a retirement and water to wash themselves, wherein it was particularly observed with what care they washed their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and hands for which they gave this reason: that though our knowledge was bred in us by our senses which were as the windows to let in the light, and as those senses, if duly employed, were the instruments of the soul to discover the wonderful works of God, yet human nature was so inclined to misapply them and to be led by them into an excess of sensuality that men ought to have a diligent watch over them. And to remind the Muslemin hereof, the prophet had appointed them such washings always before their prayers, and undoubtedly such memorials are not only efficacious to restrain men from vice but very acceptable to God, being silent testimonies of an aversion from sin and of a resolution to be cautelous for the future. After this, they went to their sallah or prayers. They began with the solemn introduction of “Allah Allah Howa Cobar Allah,” then they proceeded thus in the words of the first chapter of the Alcoran: “Glory be to the Lord of all creatures, the king of the last judgment. We honor thee, we invoke thee: assist us in our necessities, lead us in thy ways, bring us into the path of those to whom thou hast done good, and not into the way of those upon whom thou hast poured out thy wrath, nor into that <72> of such as thou sufferest to go astray. Amen.”25
Those and other prayers made up of sentences out of the Alcoran, repeated with show of great zeal and inward sincerity, added much to the good opinion the people had of them and their prophet. The multitude either employed their eyes in observing each action of theirs or their tongues in inquiring after the discourses and deportments of these illustrious persons. At their prayers, they turned their faces toward Mecca and the Caaba as if they paid as much reverence to the temple of Mecca built by Abraham and Ismael as every Jew did to that of Jerusalem. This was interpreted by the Arabians as a novelty and liable to exception till they were assured by Ali that the Reblah was changed from Jerusalem to the Caaba and that it was the pleasure of heaven that all Muslemin should pray towards the temple of Ismael.26 This reason was satisfactory because it made for the glory of their progenitor, and every man readily believes pleasing news. The prayers the Muslemin went to again before bed time, and those which they renewed in the morning at break of day, administered fresh cause of admiration and discourse.
And the more for that: it was observed that the Muslemin did express some signs of reverence to Venus or the Morning Star, which had been an ancient deity of the Arabians,27 and that they did also in the subsequent week observe as a kind of Sabbath the Guimia or Friday which had been always a day of weekly adoration to the goddess Urania (portrayed as corniculate or with a crescent on her head) in Arabia. It is most certain that in the whole Alcoran there is not any precept for the observation of this Guimia, but that Mahomet, understanding the wonted superstition of the Arabians, continued the solemnity of the day but altered the object of their worship to that of the one great God.28 So he retained the lunulets upon the mosques and in their ensigns, suggesting new reasons for a custom grown sacred, inveterate, and not to be abolished without hazard to his main design. “Non institutum sed relatum a Mahummde ut festud Guimia quod Oraniæ corniculatæ sacrum; a corniculata ejus & vetustissima effigie lunularum apud eos honere manasse videtur.”29
It is agreed by the most knowing in the oriental transactions that Mahomet resolved to make no greater change in Arabia than was necessary to his purpose and did ingeniously accommodate to his ends those superstitious usages which were imprinted in the breasts of the Ismaelites.30 It was a saying of that great personage: “He that knows not how to get up the ladder shall never get to the top of the house; that many things might be wished for which a wise man cannot hope for or pursue; that great designs are often frustrated when the authors discover <73> their greatness. Let others cry this is good, this is gallant: the prudent consider what is possible, what is requisite, and how to turn to advantage the successes of each day.”
These circumstances having sufficiently prepared the minds of the Hagarenes, the principals among them resort to Ali and his companions to be informed concerning the desires and commands of the prophet. Ali first gives them an account of his original, the prodigies at his birth, the miracles done by him, his conversation with the angel Gabriel, the austerity of his life, the incredible prudence of his deportment, the quality, virtue, and numbers of those that adhered to him, and whatever else might endear the prophet to them, omitting nothing that might gain upon their reason or credulity. He added that the Coran which Mahomet brought was in general no other doctrine than all the prophets had taught, the sum of whose documents was that God alone was to be worshipped and idols exterminated; that this was the religion of Noah which he preached and for contempt whereof the world was drowned, seventy-two persons (so the Arabians say) only escaping in the ark; that this was the doctrine which Salehus came to preach long ago to the Arabians betwixt Hijaz and Syria in the country of Heir (one of the tribes held to be totally extinguished).31
The prophet Salehus came from God to the tribe of Thamud or Thomud, commanding them to desist from the worship of idols and associate gods and to worship only the true great God.32 Few believed the message; the rest demanded as a miracle that he would produce a camel out of such a rock, which Salehus did and that camel foaled another. Yet they persisted in their infidelity and hamstringed the camel, whereupon the almighty caused a thunder to arise and destroyed them all, the houses wherein they dwelt yet remaining, which the Hagarenes were not strangers to. That this was the doctrine Abraham taught when he was banished their country, and which Ismael afterwards settled there when he planted himself in Arabia, Ali doubted not but they had a traditional knowledge preserved in their songs of the time when idols were first brought into the Caaba; that it was an innovation in the true religion planted by Ismael who, together with Abraham, built that temple;33 that besides the introduction of a multitude of idols and associate gods they had by the mixture of lies and fables depraved, and in a manner, abolished the religion of Ismael; and that God had now at length been pleased to extend his mercy to the Arabians; that the Jews having lost their Coran which Moses gave them and made Ozair or Ezra an associate with God, receiving a Coran (this is the canon of the scripture and the Cabbala which the Jews derive from Ezra) of this as it were from the great God, and destroying the prophets, persecuting Isa when he was <74> sent to reform them.
Also, the followers of Isa had lost the Coran sent to them, and associated Isa and Mary his mother with God, and in most places introduced idols into their churches and houses—that now God had raised a prophet out of the lineage of Ismael to publish the truth and restore the doctrine of Ismael to its purity. The Caaba we reverence more than any Coreischite at Mecca, and since it hath pleased God by His prophet to remove the Reblah thither, towards that we direct our faces when we pray. The pool of Zamzam we hold no less sacred than they though not upon an idolatrous account, because we now know that when our mother Hagar was delivered of Ismael, he, dancing with his little feet, made way for a spring to break forth.34 But the water of the spring coming forth in such abundance as also with such violence that Hagar could make no use of it to quench her thirst, which was then very great, Abraham coming to the place commanded the spring to glide more gently and to suffer the water might be drawn out if it to drink. And having thereupon staid its course with a little bank of sand, he took of it to make Hagar and the child drink. The same spring is to this day called Zamzam from Abraham’s making use of that word to stay it. We honor those stones which they so idolatrously worship: they are neither Mars, Bacchus, nor Venus, though upon the one they can observe the portrait of Venus, the last within the cloisters or court of the Caaba. On the ground, enclosed in an iron grate called Makam Ibrahim, or the place of Abraham: upon that he stood when the Caaba was built. And there are the impressions of his feet in it, the print of the right foot being deeper than that of the left.35
That other, called the Black Stone, which is riveted to the wall in a corner of the Caaba on Basra side is no idol either, but one of the precious stones in paradise brought thence by Adam, carried up to heaven again at the deluge and brought to Mecca again by the angel Gabriel when Abraham built the Caaba. It was as white as milk at first, but the sins of men have caused its color to degenerate into black.36 We are so far from detesting the Caaba and from dehorting them from going on pilgrimage thither that it is a fundamental article of our religion to undertake it, <75> and none can be a Musulman who thinks himself not absolutely obliged to go thither to perform the usual rites and do his devotion at those stones, as now it is done but out of piety to the Great God only and reverence to our holy progenitors.37 The stones are blessed memorials of Abraham, Hagar, Ismael, not objects of our devotion, and we must worship not them. But there we doubt not but there is a benediction attends such as piously kiss the Black Stone and stepping do pass under it. There is a heap of stones near the way betwixt Medina and Mecca where the idolaters do now cast each three stones in their peregrination in honor of Merkolis or Mercury.38
“Behold,” said Ali, “to what a height of idolatry the true Muslemitical religion of our father Ismael is corrupted.39 After that the Caaba was built, and Ismael grown a stripling, the angel Gabriel appeared to Abraham and told him that God intended to make the highest trial of his affection and gratitude, and that he would have in acknowledgment of so many favors to sacrifice his son to him. Abraham immediately consented and being returned home bid Hagar call up her son and put on his best clothes that he might be better looked on at a wedding to which he intended to carry him. They departed the next day in the morning betimes and took their way towards mount Arafat, Abraham carrying along with him a good, sharp knife and some cords. But as soon as they were gone, Sceithan, that is to say, the devil represented himself to Hagar in the shape of a man, reproached her with the easiness wherewith she had consented that her son Ismael should go from her, and told her that what Abraham had related unto her concerning the wedding was to which he was to bring him was pure forgery, and that he was carrying him to the shambles. Hagar asked him why Abraham would use her so since he had always expressed a great tenderness to her son. The devil made answer that God had commanded it should be so, whereto Hagar replied since it was God’s good pleasure that it should be so to make that disposal of him, it was but fit he should comply therewith. Whereupon the devil, pressing harder upon her and treating her as an unnatural mother, endeavoring by those aggravations to bring into rebellion against God, she pelted him away with stones.40 <76>
The devil’s endeavor, proving unsuccessful that way, and too weak to overcome the obstinacy of a woman, he applied himself to Abraham, revived in him the tenderness and affection of a father, represented to him the horribleness of the murder he was going to commit and remonstrated unto him the little likelihood there was that God should be the author of so abominable an action. But Abraham, who was acquainted with the subtlety and artifices of that wicked spirit, sent him away and, to be the sooner rid of him, cast also a stone at him. The last attempt the devil had to make was to represent to Ismael the horror of death and the unnatural procedure of his father, but he found the same treatment from him as he had from the other two and had a good stone flung at his head. The father and son, being come up to the top of the mountain, Abraham said to his son: ‘Ismael, my son, I cannot imagine thou knowest the occasion of our journey and the reason why I have brought to this place. It is only this that God hath commanded me to sacrifice thee.’ Where to Ismael made answer that since it was God’s pleasure it should be so his will be done. ‘Only let me entreat thee father to grant me three things: the first is that thou have a care to bind me so fast that the pains of death may not engage me to attempt anything against thee. The second is that thou whet the knife well and after thou hast thrust into my throat that thou hold it very fast and shut thy eyes out of fear lest the cruelty of the action should dishearten thee from going through with it, and so leave me to languish a long time. And the third that when thou returnest home, thou remember my duty to my mother.’
Abraham, having promised to observe all those things, and whetted his knife, binds his son, directs his knife to his throat, and shutting his eyes holds it as fast as he could. But finding when he opened his eyes again that the knife had made no entrance, he is extremely troubled and tries the edge of it against a stone, which he cuts in two. He was so astonished thereat that he addressed himself to the knife, <77> and asking it why having so good an edge as to cut a stone it could not as well cut his son’s throat, the knife made answer that God would have it so. Whereupon the angel Gabriel took Abraham by the hand and said to him: ‘Hold a little. God would only make trial of thy faith. Unbind thy son and sacrifice this he-goat.’ And immediately, there came into the place a he-goat which Abraham offered to God for a burnt offering. The three stones which Hagar, Abraham, and Ismael threw at the devil are yet to be seen near the highway betwixt Arafat and Mecca, and these two great heaps of stones there have been made partly by our Muslemitical ancestors, partly by the deluded of the first. Of each of them brought three stones to be cast at the devil at the same place where these heaps are, to the end he may not distract them at their devotions at the Caaba or mount Arafat.”
“I know,” added Ali, “that the Jews and the pretended followers of Isa do say that it was not Ismael but Isaac that was to be sacrificed. But this is one of the corruptions of their Coran, for the intendments of God were greater towards Ismael than Isaac. Therefore, Sarah was made to be barren till our father was born. This Sarah foresaw and therefore hated him. This Abraham understood and therefore took such care (as also did the Angel Gabriel) of him. In Ismael was circumcision first celebrated.41 It was concerning Ismael that the promise was made to Hagar: ‘I will multiply thy seed exceedingly; it shall not be numbered for multitudes.’42 The generation of Hagar was greater than the generation of Sarah: it shall reign unto the east and to the west, and God shall let them to rule over all the nations of the earth.43 Behold renowned Hagarenes your illustrious ancestors; view the country that you are possessed of: the three Arabia and the rich appanage in Mesopotamia and Syria, and compare them with the narrow and barren land of promise designed for the promise of Sarah. Inquire how often they have been totally conquered and carried away captive into foreign countries and their temple destroyed whilst you retain the ancient habitations. Nor can any monarch boast of an entire conquest by the most valiant <78> Hagarenes. Your Caaba hath been profaned with idols but never destroyed, nor totally alienated from the worship of the great God.”
These discourses raised in the Hagarenes not only a great attention but in one instant seemed to have gained them to the party of the prophet. They heard with a great deal of pleasure the glories of their extraction, the share that their progenitors had in the love of the great God that so high promises were made to their tribes and that was so mindful of the deserts of Arabia as to design it to be the seat of the most potent and renowned empire in the world. These fellows that understood no other delicacies than sour milk and parched peas or beans, no better array than what the hair of their goats or camels, and that coarsely spun and coarse woven did yield them no other beds or pallets than the ground, no other riches almost than a few camels, a lean horse or two, a bow and arrows, no other deity than a few mistaken stones which at a pilgrimage to the Caaba they or their ignorant ancestors had brought home and devoutly worshipped; or if any had been more illuminated, their religion mounted no further than to make some ill-favored cringes to the moon and mumble an orison to the Morning Star, crying: “Allah, Allah, Howa Cabar.”44 For this was their old form of prayer or doxology, which Mahomet most subtly turned into Cobar.
These fellows, I say, now began to imagine themselves the darlings of heaven, the heirs of paradise, and monarchs of the universe. And since they now comprehended the true original of the present religion and what it was whence they had degenerated, they resolved to be as good Muslemin as their father Ismael, and to own that worship (especially it being more facile and easy than their idolatry and present superstition) which all the prophets had preached and adhered unto. It is one of the most difficult parts of a prince to adjust employments unto <79> their ministers and to make choice of suitable instruments for carrying on each affair.
The youth, the spirit, the fire of Ali did not a little contribute to the happy success of his negotiation. His success was the less suspected because he was not arrived at the years of dissimulation. His good mien, his prudence, and other virtues made the greater impression upon them because they were set off by an age in which they were extraordinary. His courtesy was able to compel his enemies to quell their passion and rendered his friends his slaves; his eloquence and his reason, which he could form according to the persons he dealt with, and he was of opinion that true eloquence and solid reason were but relative names and did not depend upon select words, numerous periods, apt cadence or arguments concluding in modes and figures, but in being operative and efficacious upon the persons he was to deal with; that there were times when the greatest artifices was to abandon all art, the greatest prudence to neglect its severe rules and where a wise … might have drawn the greatest advantages from untruths and fables without endamaging his reputation.45
Such, I say, was his eloquence and reason that he seemed to have charmed their senses and possessed himself of all the affections of their souls. He prepared their courages as he pleased, infused boldness into the most fearful ambition, into spirits incapable of it, and which even then did not apprehend what they were instigated by, and persuaded the most impetuous and undisciplined to such a moderation and regularity of military discipline as might be subservient to their great ends. The example of his small and well-trained retinue did conduce not a little to this last point, and if the prophet had only commanded it from God and not introduced the practice of it in his domestics, the Coran would have been ineffectual and the design become abortive.
The Hagarenes were all eyes and all ears and their souls distracted between what they saw and what they heard. But the approach of noon gave Ali and his companions <80> occasion to withdraw from their presence to prayer and so they had the greater liberty to recollect themselves. Dinner being brought in, which was served with more plenty and neatness than is usual amongst the Arabians, the illustrious pilgrim and his associates declined to taste of anything that appeared to be more delicate than ordinary, and the viands which were there added nothing to the entertainment of the Muslemin but as they testified their welcome and the kindness of their friends. They said that it was the command of their prophet that the Muslemin should not indulge themselves in such sensual pleasures in this life, that God had reserved them for the divertisements of paradise and the future world, that here our bodies are frail, our senses easily glutted so that such momentary delights were not worth our serious thoughts and regards, that they did but effeminate and intenerate the body and beset the soul, that courage and luxury were inconsistent, that since the great God did by the prophet call forth the Muslemin to extirpate idolatry and propagate Ismaelisme or Islamism by arms, they ought to prepare themselves for that holy but laborious militia, and that nothing did more conduce thereto than that a man should live at home as he did abroad, in the town as in the field, in the court as in the camp, that this was most healthy and withal would preserve their minds (which sympathized with their bodies) in an equality of temper and uniformity of disposition, and would render them more firm in their religion, fixed in their friendships, equal in their humors and tractable in their passions; that luxury was the seminary of all mischief, that even the first approaches thereto were dangerous, that if a man once indulged himself therein, the evil would become remediless, that our desires are apt to grow boundless when they transcend the limits of what is absolutely necessary, that inordinate desires were a perpetual torment never satisfied but always spurring <81> men onto new projects, that content was the greatest felicity which was only attained by extinguishing our desires, and a Musulman was happy enough if he did not want.46
The Hagarenes astonished at their parsimony and abstinence, inviting them to drink some Persian wine, adding that persons who fed so would stand in need of some refreshment by a draught thereof, which would recruit their strength and renew their vigor impaired by a laborious discipline and slender diet. But Ali declined their offer saying that their prophet had severely interdicted the Muslemin to taste any wine, that there was more pleasure in obeying the commandments of God than in the flavor of that generous liquor; that he who made man best understood his fabric and would not prohibit him anything without which he could not subsist; that Adam, Seth, Edris, lived to the greatest age without it; that it was but in imagination of our weakness which put us upon the pursuit of such cordials the sense whereof is only in opinion. It was true that the God of wine, Bacchus, was worshipped in Arabia and that foreigners held he was fostered there, but this was a corruption of the true Ismaelism:47 that both the idol and the liquor entitled to him were now to be banished and the Arabians to know that Baccha signified no more than great and renowned, and however depraved now, was only a religious exclamation in praise of the great God; that whatever pleasure there was in wine, those sensual pleasures are inconsiderate in this life and therefore God had reserved the entire satisfaction of our senses till we come to paradise where all such delights will have their perfect relish and gusto, our immortal bodies being qualified with senses never to be dulled with satiety.
Hereupon he related the dialogue in the Alcoran between Mahomet and Abdias, a Jew. Abdias demanded of him what use there would be of wine in paradise.48 The prophet answered: “Your question is so subtle, that I must return a double answer to one interrogatory. I shall therefore satisfy why it may be drunk there and why not here. There were two angels, Azot and Marot, sent down from heaven by God into this world to instruct and govern mankind with this caution: that they should never judge unrighteously or <82> drink wine. This being known, many repaired to them for justice, which they impartially administered amongst others. Appeared before them a very beautiful woman to complain against her husband. To incline them to favor her case, she invited them to dinner and treated them magnificently, charging her servants to ply them with wine to the drinking whereof she also frequently urged them. In short, they were made exceeding drunk and their feeling those impressions from her beauty which before they were not satisfied of, they importuned her to that compliance which the most amorous sigh after. She promised to consent provided that one of them should acquaint her with the way whereby they came down from heaven and the other with the passage up thither. They did so and she having disengaged herself, mounted straightways to heaven which when God perceived and inferring Himself of the manner of her arrival, He turned her into the Morning Star that she might there shine with as great luster as ever she did on earth. The two angels, being called to an account, were commanded to choose whether they would suffer torments in this world or in the world to come. They elected the first and remain hung to this day in iron chains with their heads downwards in the abyss of Babilli. What say you now, Abdias? Is it not reasonable that wine should be prohibited here on earth and yet allowed hereafter?”49
The Hagarenes hereupon fell into admiration of the Coran and did not doubt but he who published such divine things must be the apostle of God and an intimate of heaven. They were convinced that it was not fitting for men on earth to drink wine since it had so evil effects upon those pure and angelical bodies. They then perceived the reason why their first progenitors paid a reverence to the Morning Star: that they did not worship the star as the idolaters did since but uttered an “Allah Allah howa Cabar” to the honor of God who had placed that bright star in the firmament to put them in mind of the inconveniencies of drinking wine on earth where our life is an errand to serve and glorify God (not pamper our selves). And, to acquaint them of the future pleasures of the celestial paradise, all the topics that rhetoric itself yields should not have persuaded them so powerfully as this single apologue.50
But the abstinence from wine being of such importance to the preserving of civil and military discipline, mutual friendship, obedience, dispatch, secrecy without which the Arabian <83> monarchy could not be achieved, Ali thought fit to enforce that point by a second relation: that their prophet, being invited by a friend to an entertainment at his house, chanced in his way thither to be detained at a nuptial where he admired to see the innocent cheerfulness and mirth of each guest, how friendly they embraced and kissed each other and rendered mutual testimonies of unfeigned love.51 And, inquiring of the master of the house what it was that created in them so debonair and complacent a humor, he was told that this was the usual effect of wine and that they had drunk some, whereupon he pronounced a blessing upon that liquor which did produce so amicable a disposition in the breasts of mortals.52 The prophet departed thereupon, and as he returned the next day called there again, but he found things in another condition than he left them. Here lay a scattered leg, and there lay an arm cut off in one place: he saw a cripple lie in the other, some bereaved of one or both eyes. Hereupon he demanded whence that passion and mutual animosity betwixt friends, what occasioned the fray. The landlord told him that this was the usual consequence of drinking wine: that after they had drunk hard, they became mad and, from misunderstanding one another, proceeded to blows and so had killed some and maimed others. Upon this, Mahomet changed his benediction into a curse and prohibited his followers that they should never drink wine here.
Ali put a period to those kinds of discourses. And dinner being concluded, now that he found the Hagarenes sufficiently at the devotion of Mahomet, he determined to accomplish the utmost ends of his negotiation by an additional harangue to their purpose.
“Valiant Sons of Hagar and Ismael: If I thought I needed to speak any more to you, either to convince you of the truth of the religion our prophet teacheth, of the divine authority of the Coran each line whereof is a durable miracle and will always appear to be so as long as the language of Ismael doth continue upon earth, since no human wit or learning can produce anything equal to the least surat or chapter thereof. If this were necessary, I would insist upon further arguments and add new motives to persuade you to Islamism, the sum whereof is avowed to be this by <84> the testimony of the angel Gabriel himself: that a man confess there is no god besides the great God, and that Mahomet is the apostle of God, that a man observe strictly the five times of prayer daily, that he give alms, that he fast during the month of Ramadan, and that, if he can possibly, he make a religious pilgrimage unto Mecca and the Caaba.53
I proceed to another point which makes as much for all your interest as it doth for the glory of God: that life, which heaven hath given you and which God may at any moment deprive you of, he is pleased to give an occasion particularly now to serve Him. And if you lose that upon this occasion, which a fever, a fall, the least casualty might otherwise bereave you of, the supreme joys of paradise are ascertained unto you. It is the divine pleasure that idolatry should be destroyed out of the earth and the progeny of Ismael are these whom God designs this high favor for, to compel all men to the true worship. But such is the divine goodness that besides the future rewards allotted for Muslemin, he hath annexed to this difficult and laborious employment empire and glory on earth! It is hereby that the promise concerning Ismael must take place, and it is by this means that the valiant Hagarenes must give laws to the utmost ends of the earth and extend the dominions as far as there is any habitable region.
The work is happily begun. The great God hath sent you a prophet to conduct you such as the sun never beheld. Edris, Noah, Abraham, Ismael, Moses, Isa had these characters imprinted on them that we reverence their memories and esteem each of them truly great. But none ever equaled Mahomet the last and chiefest apostle of God, nor was there enjoined to the world this double testimony viz. that God is the great God, and Mahomet the apostle of God.54 No Coran ever equaled his for subject or eloquence, and, to make way for him, you see that the Coran of Musay or Moses and the Coran of Isa are perished or so corrupted by the wickedness or negligence of their followers that there is no affiance to be placed therein. It is by a belief herein that Muslemin shall obtain the highest glory in heaven and on earth. No monarchy was ever parallel to what God by His prophet doth summon you.
If you behold the condition of the Greek monarchy and Christendom, all things <85> will appear facile unto you. The subjects are so exasperated by oppression, so debauched in their manners, so indifferent in their religion, and after so many quick revelations by the death of the Emperors Mauritius and Phocas and the usurpation of Heraclius, so unconcerned for their prince who governs them, that you need no more than attempt their conquest to effect. There is no unity in their councils, no duty, no obedience in the soldiery so defrauded of their pay during the reigns of Mauritius and Phocas. There is no conduct or prudence in their generals or commanders, no union in their church. You shall no sooner advance your standard but the Arians will become your friends. Nay Muslemin, the numerous Jacobites (and the historians will enlarge their divisions) and rather live peaceably under your protection than anathematized, scorned, hated, persecuted, and depressed under the Melkites.55 It is natural for mankind to endure more patiently and willingly the rule of a foreigner and of one differing in profession from them than to be tyrannized over and trampled upon by one of their fellows of the same religion and of no better extraction than themselves. And those potent sects will bear with some content a yoke under which the domineering Melkites shall groan.
They are not unacquainted with the Arabian force. Your armies have lately carried terror over all Syria, Palestine, and Egypt: this a parcel of you heretofore did under Queen Maria in the reign of Queen Mavia, in the reign of Gratian and Valence.56 You vanquished their armies and enforced them to sue for peace by their solemn embassy to you in the time of the Emperor Justinus who preceded Justinian.57 King Almonder made the like conquest and enforced the emperor to send an embassy to him for peace.58 And, lately, did not a party of the Saracens under Chosroes, in the time of Phocas and Heraclius, overrun Egypt and added to the victories of the Persian King? I must tell you, renowned Hagarenes, though others know your puissance, you never understood it yourselves. You have always been the stipendaries and appendage to the Roman and Persian Empires; you have fought to make them great, not yourselves; you have, as it were, been subjects to the one sometimes, to the other sometimes.59 We find that Arabia has been divided betwixt both, and Aretas hath fought in favor of <86> Justinian while Almondar hath fought against him, and Chosroes hath appointed princes to be one party and the Greek emperor to the other.60
And what have you acquired by all the victories you have gained and the services you have rendered? Lo the Greeks: have they continued unto any of you the usual pay? Are they not indebted unto you by long arrearages, and what answer have they made to your just demands? And is it not that they have no money to spare for Hagarene dogs? Certainly you deserved a more civil and obliging a return, and you need not that heaven should excite you by a prophet to revenge this indignity, make them to feel your power once more, convince them how necessary your friendship is to them by letting them see you can be their masters? Bostra or Vostra gave birth and original to Marcus Julius Philippus, and an Arabian swayed over the Roman Empire but deprived him of the empire.61 To effect this, let us not live divided under more petty princes than we have tribes; let us all unite into one monarchy as we are all of one language and one parentage. We are all Hagarenes, all Ismaelites. The same Hegira will suit with all, the same crescents is our common standard. It is a pitiful thing to see into what necessity the petty princes are reduced to maintain themselves and to how many real evils they are exposed to, to conserve that vain image of liberty and that sweet delusion of sovereign authority that doth bewitch them. In expenses they consume themselves for their defense and almost give all that may be taken from them. That nothing may be taken from them, they are obliged to observe all the fancies and notions of the enemies and friends, and if they subsist it is not by their strength, for they have none but by their weakness. And because their countries are of so little concernment that they beget not a desire in ambitious persons, or their justice should be violated in the conquest of them, or they are under shelter from the enterprises of the one by the jealousy of the other, and conserve their liberty by this only reason. Let the ambitious hinder one another to seize upon them and to become their <87> masters.
Consider with yourselves how often your divisions and subdivisions have made you a prey to the invading Persian or Roman. Have you not seen the Roman armies and been almost reduced to desolation under Trojan, Severus, and others? Has there ever been a war betwixt these two potent empires under which Arabia has not been harassed and the blood of Ishmaelites shed on one or both sides? Think of the calamities you have endured and examine from whence they have sprung; inquire what renown Arabia was arrived unto under Odenatus and Zenobia, but that some of you were inveigled and brought of to combat the others.62 They confess it: they confess they owe more unto your petty princes that could be mercenary than to their forces which you singly baffled. Independency is an empty name if poverty, weakness, and contempt are the consequences of it, and a commodious subjection is to be preferred before a shadow of sovereignty and a precarious insignificant power. The liberty is greater, the repute greater, the riches greater, and all are more secure if a small principality become the accessional of a puissant monarchy than if it subsist of itself.
I speak not this that our prophet demands or that God enjoins that you should lay down your power at the feet and submit it to the disposal of Mahomet. No, he is designed our prophet, not our emperor, and brings us no laws but what are to guide us to heaven or which God enjoins to be observed here when a nearer view shall have convinced your eyes. As fame no doubt hath filled your ears that he is altogether averse to the concerns of this world, that he is so far from depriving any Ishmaelite of his liberty, that he would set even a bird free if he saw him encaged and so remote from ambition and avarice that the greatest pleasure he takes in having anything is that he may give it away to some more indigent Muslemin. You will then lay aside all suspicions should the Coreischites of Mecca instill any into you now.
No, no, it is unity amongst the Ishmaelites; it is Islamism amongst all that our prophet is sent to promote. Learn but from him to worship one God, to reverence and pray towards one Caaba, to advance one pure religion and leading your forces. And whilst you yourselves dispose for the happy success of affairs, we pilgrims beg the honor of a precedency <88> in the most laborious, perilous, and troublesome.”
This speech being ended, Ali found the Hagarenes wholly bent to adhere to Mahomet and resolute to adventure their lives for the propagation and defense of the religion of Islamism. Nothing was to be heard but the Allah Ekbar or exclamation of God the God and Mahomet His apostle.
He left two of his companions to instruct them in the sallah or prayers and otherwise to form them into a convenient discipline that they might be ready upon any urgency, it being the determination of the prophet not to draw any greater forces together as yet, partly because the country about Medina was so very barren that even the Scenites or most wild and hardy Arabians could not be accommodated thereabouts. So excessive were the heats, so scorching the sands, so sterile the soil, and so great the scarcity of fresh and wholesome water, partly also because that his were Muslemin being as yet novices in their religion might be drawn into faction and mutiny or otherwise relinquish him. And it was prudential for him not to embody others than such as were firm to him than to be deserted by any that had been his follower. He knew the nature of the Arabians: how prone they were to listen to novelties, and how obstinate to maintain even with their lives whatsoever they were prepossessed with. Nor did he doubt by his emissaries to inveigle as many as should most resolutely support him against any that should come to attack him there. And it was not his intention to take Mecca by force, but by surrender, since he could not choose but profane or violate the respect which he had for the sacred Caaba by assaulting and storming the city.
Ali now prepares to depart from Agra and on the morrow hastens to Saraka which was the chief city of the Saracens. I find St. Jerome and Sozomen and many of the ancients to have believed that the Saracens were denominated from Sarah the wife of Abraham and that they took that name to conceal their descent from the handmaid Hagar.63 But this is so ridiculous a conceit that Scaliger, Fuller, Hottinger, Pococke, and all the intelligent moderns laugh at it.64 Nor did the Saracens ever claim kindred with Sarah or renounce Ismael and Hagar, but vowed that the majesty and greatness of Hagar was to transcend that of Sarah. <89> I could willingly assent to Fuller (that since Saracens, usually in writers, is taken for all the Scenites and inhabitants of Arabia the Desert) that they were so called from sarak, which in the Syriac tongue signifies empty and barren, their country being such. But since Hottinger thinks it strange that the Arabians should give themselves a Syriac name and not Arabic, I shall decline that.65
But withal, I can as little think they would admit of a name from the Arabic sarak, to shark, to steal privately, which yet is the opinion of Scaliger, Hottinger, and Valesius, though Dr. Pococke dislike it (since they were public robbers, not private). He thinks therefore they were called Saracens from sharkion which signifies the East because they lived eastward of Judæa, which reason had been better if the name had been of Jewish extraction. But in that or the Syriac language it signifies no such thing, nor could the Saracens call themselves so, there being others more easterly than they; nor could they do it in reference to the western Arabians—they being thus termed in history before any Arabians were settled in the western world contradistinct from them. I believe they were one province only of Arabia which was called Saraka and lies beyond the Nabatheans or Arabia Petræ, the inhabitants of which are called Saracens. Ptolemy calls the country Σαρακηνοί. I am persuaded of the truth hereof because the geographers, in distinguishing the Arabians, denominate them from their particular region as the Cedrei, Agareni, Saraceni, et cetera.
And therefore I suppose Ali to have gone to the city (I have authors who style it so) of Saraka, and that in his journey and reception there happened nothing that need relation after what I have said of the Hagarenes, the Saracens being no less prepossessed by emissaries with the fame of Mahomet and his apostleship than those of Agra, and their customs and manners being the same. The most remarkable accident in the journey, and which contributed much to the veneration of Ali, was that toward the dawning of the day when the morning sallah or prayer was to be said by the Muslemin, and they had begun their devotions, an unexpected fire consumed the cabin wherein two of the followers of Ali were lodged. The one of them chose rather to be burnt than to preserve his life by discontinuing his prayers, upon which he was so intent that neither the sight of the fire nor the noise and concourse of people, nor the importunities of such as called to and plucked him could any way divert his thoughts or make him express any sign <90> that he heard or regarded them. The other escaped by a timely flight.
The news hereof coming to Ali, he immediately pronounced with extraordinary zeal the Allah Ekber or Mahometan exclamation: “God, God, the great God.”66 And, calling for the Musulman who had escaped, he told him that the man was happy who trusted in God; that the world was not constant or perpetual to anyone, but that our wisdom and felicity here consisted in resigning ourselves to the will of God and devoting our hearts entirely to him; that to serve God was our duty as his creatures and subjects to whom it was enjoined, our glory as Musulman and the way to eternal happiness. He declared the deceased to be a martyr and prayed that God’s peace might be upon him, and his memory glorious who had expressed so great a devotion to God and so great a contempt of life that he would not interrupt his prayer to save himself: that prayer was the pillar of religion and key of paradise; that nothing ought to detain or divert a Musulman from his devotion;67 that he who could at such times think upon or mind anything else did not entirely resign his thoughts to the worship of God and did not merit the name of Musulman or true believer; that the value of life and of this world was inconsistent with a true faith concerning the felicity of the future; that this world was no other than a dead carcass or carrion; and they were dogs which pursued it.68
This said, he commanded that he who had escaped should be severely bastinadoed, which chastisement he endured with a great deal of fortitude and cheerfulness, kissing afterwards the hands of him that chastised him and making him a present thereupon. The Saracens were astonished at this affair and to understand the patience with which the Muslemin underwent their punishments, though they received one hundred stripes and these so cruel that several pounds of flesh were to be cut afterwards from the bruised parts to effect their recovery;69 that they hold the first batons (such as were used to these purposes) to have been sent from heaven and that all of them were sacred, and those which were bruised or touched with that instrument of justice were exempt from torments after death; and that the party punished ought to kiss the hands of the lector <91> and give him thanks and a present for every blow given.70
The impressions which this spectacle made in the Saracens are not easily conjectured. Ali, who understood to derive advantages from any emergency without seeming to do so, omitted nothing that might engage that valiant nation to the service of the prophet. He instructed them in Islamism, made use of all those arguments which had prevailed on the Hagarenes: whatever might work upon their passion or reason, he urged unto them and drew motives as well from honor and interest as from piety. He desired they would do more for the great God than they had done in the behalf of the associate gods and show themselves as valiant under the apostle of God as under Odenatus and Zenobia, Almondar or Alhareth, Justinian, Heraclius, or Chosroes; that the Arabians were the same they always were, but that Persia and Christendom were so degenerated that they needed not to apprehend any difficulties in the conquest of either.