MOHAMMED
410
MOHAMMED
was in sympathy with sufferers; he was generous and forbearing, if policy did not dictate a contrary course. His benevolence and liberality were especially marked; and indeed they must have been great, for he left no riches, though the war-booty which he shared, and the presents which flowed to liim from all sides, must have placed large means at his command. Upon the whole, it cannot be denied that Mohammed improved and ele- vated the political and religious condition of Arabia, lie united the dispersed, mutually inimical, idolatrous Arabian tribes into a great nation, allied by a faith in God and a belief in a future life. In place of bloody vengeance for murder and of rude force, he instituted an inviolable code, which, in spite of deficiencies, still forms the fundamental law of the Islamitic kingdoms. On the women he bestowed, in spite of some restric- tions, many rights which they had not enjoyed before him. He "mitigated the lot of the slaves, as far as the spirit of his age permitted, and declared emancipation to be a work agreeable to the Deity. He cared like a fa- ther for the poor, the widows, and orphans; condemned the vices which degrade humanity and ha\'e a disturb- ing influence on social life, and exhorted to the virtues recommended in the Old and New Testaments.
This, in briefest outline, is the history of Mohammed's career. \Ve have not been able to dwell, as we could wish, at any length, either on the i)eculiar circum- stances of his inner life, which preceded and accompa- nied his •' prophetic" course, nor on the part which idol- atry, Judaism, Christianity, and his own reflection re- spectively, bore in the formation of his religion; nor have we been able to trace the process by which his " mission" grew upon him, as it were, and he, from a simple admonisher of his family, became the founder of a faith to wliich above 130,000^000 are said to adhere.
J^rxo/iid (_ 'h(inicteristics.—ln appearance, Mohammed was of middling size, had broad shoulders, a wide chest, and large bones ; and he was fleshy, but not stout. The immoderate size of his head was partly disguised by the long locks of hair, which in slight curls came nearly down to the lobe of his ears. His oval face, though tawny, was rather fair fur an Arab, but neither pale nor high-colored. The forehead was broad, and his fine and long but nar- row eyel^rows were separated b\' a vein, which you coidd sec throbbing if he was angrj-. Under long eyelashes sparkled'^loodshot black eyes through wide -slit eyelids. His nose was large, prominent, and slightly hooked, and the tip of it seemed to be turned up, but was not so in reality. The mouth was wide; he had a good set of teeth, and the fore-teeth were asunder. His beard rose from the cheek-bones, and came down to the collar- bone; he clipped his mustaches, but did not shave tliem. He stoojied, and was slightly hump -backed. His Kait was careless, and he walked fast but heavily, as if lie were ascending a liill; and if he looked back, he turned round his whole body. The mildness of his countenance gained him the confidence of every one; but he coidd not look straight into a man's face: he turned his eyes usually outwards. On his back he had a round fleshy tumor of the size of a pigeon's egg; its furrowed surface was covered with hair, and its base was surrouniled by black moles. This was considered as the seal of his prophetic mission, at least during the latter ])art of his career, by his followers, who were so devout that they found a cure for their ailings in drink- ing the waters in which he had bathed; and it must have been verj' refreshing, for he perspired profusely, and his skin exhaled a strong smell. He bestowed con- siderable care on his person, and more particularly on his teeth, which he rubl)ed so frc(iuontly witli a piece of wood that a Sliiah author was induced to consider it as one of the signs of his prophetic mission. He l)athed frequently, washed several times a day, and oiled his head profusely after washing it. At times he dyed liis hair and beard red with heinia, in imitation of his gran<l- fatlicr, who imported this hal)it from Yemen. Though he did not comb himself regularly, he did it now and
then. At first he wore his hair like the Jews and Chris- tians; for he said, "In all instances in which God has not given me an order to the contrary, I like to follow their example ;" but subsequently he divided it, like most of his countrymen. Every evening he ajjplied antimony to his eyes : and though he had not mai.y gray hairs even when he died, he concealed them by dyeing or oiling them, in order to please his wives, many of whom were young and inclined to be giddy, and whose numbers he increased in proportion as he became more decrepit. The prophet was usually dressed in a white cotton shirt, or blouse, with pockets, and sleeves which reached to his wrists. He had a skull-cap aird a turban on his head, the extremities hanging down the back ; and sandals, with two leather straps over the instep, on his feet. In the house he wore merely a piece of cloth tied round his temples, leaving the crown of the head inicovered. Sometimes he wore, instead of the shirt, a " suit of clothes," which consisted of an apron — that is to say, a piece of cloth tied round the waist and hanging in folds down to the legs, like a woman's petticoat — and a sheet, or square shawl, which was thrown over the left shoulder and wrapped round the body under the right arm. Sometimes he wrapped himself in a blanket. In temperament, Mohammed was melancholic, and in the highest degree nervous. He was generally low-spirit- ed, thinking, and restless; and he spoke little, and never without necessity. His eyes were mostly cast to the ground, and he seldom raised them towards heaven. The excitement under which he composed the more poetical Surahs of the Koran was so great that he said that they had caused him gray hair ; his lips were quiv- ering and his hands shaking while he received the in- spiration. Any offensive smell made him so uncomfort- able that he forbade persons who had eaten garlic or onions to come into his place of worship. In a man of semi-barbarous habits this is remarkable. He had a woollen garment, and was obliged to throw it away when it began to smell from perspiration, " on account of his delicate constitution." When he was taken ill, he sobbed like a woman in hysterics; or, as Ayesha says, he roared like a camel; and his friends reproached him for his unmanly bearing. During the battle of Badr his nervous excitement seems to have bordered on frenzy. Tlie faculties of his mind were extremely unequally developed ; he was unfit for the common du- ties of life, and even after his mission he was led in all practical questions by his friends. But he had a vivid imagination, the greatest elevation of mind, refined sen- timents, and a taste for the sublime.