After his return from Mecca, IMohammed busih' ap- plied himself to the fitting-out of a new expedition against the Byzantines. In the very midst of his war- like preparations he was suddenly taken dangerously ill with fever. One night, while severely suffering, we are told by Mohammedan chroniclers, Mohammed went to the cemetery of Jledina, and prayed and wept upon the tombs, praising the dead, and wishing that he himself might soon be delivered from the storms of this world. For a few more days he went about ; at last, too weak further to visit his wives, he chose the house of Aye- sha, situated near a mosque, as his abode during his sickness. He continued to take part in the public pray- ers as long as he could ; until at last, feeling that his hour had come, he once more preached to the people, recommending Abu-Bekr and Usama, the son of Zaid, as the generals whom he had chosen for the army. He then asked, luce Samuel, whether he had wronged any
one, and read to them passages from the Koran, preparing the minds of his hearers for his death, and exhorting them to peace among themselves, and to strict obedience to the tenets of the faith. A few days afterwards he asked for writing materials, probably in order to fix a successor to his office as chief of the faithful ; but Omar, fearing he might choose Ali, while he himself inclined to Abu-Bekr, would not allow him to be furnished with them. In his last wanderings he only spoke of angels and heaven. He died in the lap of Ayesha, about noon of Monday, the 12th (11th) of the third month, in the year 11 of the Hegira (June 8, 632), Mohamme- dan biographers maintain that their prophet died of the consequences of eating roast mutton poisoned by a Jewess, who is said to have sought the revenge of a brother whom the Islamites killed in the campaign of Cheibar, But, as this campaign took place four years previous to Mohammed's death, it might have been a diflicult task to the contemporary Arabian physicians to prove it, even if the attempt at poisoning were verified. It is much more probable (what also occurred in the case of Abu-Bekr, the later caliph) that such a story was concocted to have him die a martyr's death ; for the Arabs regard as martyrs those who perish in a holy war, i, e. in a war carried on againsc infidels.
Many fictions were resorted to in the first century of the Mohammedan a^ra to glorify their deceased prophet. Fanatic Sloslems represent him to have enjoyed special favors from on high from the day of his birth, We re- cur to the exclamation he is said to have uttered as he made his ajijiearance in the world ; as a man, we are told the desert was covered with shade-trees as he wan- dered through the same, and even rocks saluted him as the apostle of the Lord, A man created before all cre- ated beings, as tradition has it (at whose birth there were supernatural manifestations), must not die of a common illness: he must perish at least as a martyr. It is difficult to decide how much Mohammed himself has contributed to these legends; certain it is that he frequently, in order to attain his ends, did not despise any means of imposture and delusion, and made the angel Gabriel play a part as bearer of divine revelations in which he did not himself believe. He probably feared the destruction of his whole work — a work which, after naive credulity and religious enthusiasm had been succeeded by sober sense, he cannot possibly have con- sidered salutary for his people, certainly not if his new doctrines were to be forced upon them by the sword and persecution. The inconsistency of his course is cer- tainly marvellous, for he introduced those verj' meas- ures against which he had himself declaimed so loudly until suddenly transformed from the subject to the ruler. It may be granted even that he frequently played the deceiver for the good of a cause which he believed just and worthy of his best strength, and for which he judged ' his people ill prepared unless he could claim the author- ity of a divine messenger; but it is to be regretted that if Mohammed actually strove to elevate his people, as we believe he did at first, he continued the deceiver after he had attained power suflScient to enforce his dicta, and that he not unfrequently did so to further his own personal purposes, often onlj' for a transient accom- modation, as, for instance, when he represented God as commanding that nobody should enter his house unless invited, and to retire immediately after taking a meah " The Prophet hesitates to dismiss you, even if you are tedious ; but God does not hesitate to tell you the truth."
As much as his public life and his appearance as prophet and legislator may be liable to censure, his pri- vate life, excepting his sensuality, if his biographers report the truth, was exemplarj-. He was affable, con- versed with everj'body, was plain in dress and diet, and so little pretentious as to forbid external reverence from his companions, and to refuse from his slaves a service which he could perform himself. He was often seen in the market buying provisions, and at home milking goats and mending clothes. He visited the sick, and