$ 42. LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED. 167
me to thy companionship on high! Eternity in paradise! Pardon! Yes, the blessed companionship on high!"1
Omar would not believe that Mohammed was dead, and pro claimed in the mos<pie of Medina : " The prophet has only swooned away; he shall not die until he have rooted out every hypocrite and unbeliever." But Abu Bakr silenced him and said: "Whosoever worships Mohammed, let him know that Mohammed is dead ; but whosoever worships God, let him know that the Lord liveth, and will never die." Abu Bakr, whom he had loved most, was chosen Calif, or Successor of Mohammed.
Later tradition, and even the earliest biography, ascribe to the prophet of Mecca strange miracles, and surround his name with a mythical halo of glory. He was sainted by walking trees and stones; he often made by a simple touch the udders of dry goats distend witli milk; he caused floods of water to well up from the parched ground, or gush forth from empty vessels, or issue from betwixt the fingers; he raised the dead; he made a night journey on his steed Borak through the air from Mecca to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to paradise and the mansions of the prophets and angels, and back again to Mecca.2 But he himself, in several passages of the Koran, expressly disclaims the power of miracles; he appeals to the internal proofs of his doctrine, and shields himself behind the providence of God, who refuses those signs which might diminish the merit of faith and aggra vate the guilt of unbelief.3
1 See Sprenger, III. 552 sqq., Muir, IV. 270 sqq.
2 This absurd story, circumstantially described by Abulfeda, is probably based on a dream which Mohammed himself relates in the Koran, Sura 17, entitled The Night Journey: "Glory be to Him who carried his servant by night from the sacred temple of Mecca to the temple that is remote" [i. e. in Jerusalem]. In the Dome of the Rock on Mount Moriah, the hand-prints of the angel Ga briel are shown in the mysterious rock which attempted to follow Mohammed to its native quarry in Paradise, but was kept back by the angel !
3 See an interesting essay on the "Miracles of Mohammed" in Tholuck's Miscellaneous Essays (1839), Vol. L, pp. 1-27. Also Muir, I., pp. 65 sqq.; Spreuger, II. 413 sqq.
168 FOUETH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
Character of Mohammed.
The Koran, if chronologically arranged, must be regarded as the best commentary on his character. While his followers re gard him to this day as the greatest prophet of God, he was long abhorred in Christendom as a wicked impostor, as the antichrist, or the false prophet, predicted in the Bible, and inspired by the father of lies.
The calmer judgment of recent historians inclines to the be lief that he combined the good and bad qualities of an Oriental chief, and that in the earlier part of his life he was a sincere reformer and enthusiast, but after the establishment of his king dom a slave of ambition for conquest. He was a better man in the period of his adversity and persecution at Mecca, than during his prosperity and triumph at Medina. History records many examples of characters rising from poverty and obscurity to greatness, and then decaying under the sunshine of wealth and power. He degenerated, like Solomon, but did not repent, like the preacher of "vanity of vanities." He had a melancholic and nervous temperament, liable to fantastic hallucinations and alternations of high excitement and deep depression, bordering at times on despair and suicide. The story of his early and fre quent epileptic fits throws some light on his revelations, during which he sometimes growled like a camel, foamed at his mouth, and streamed with perspiration. He believed in evil spirits, omens, charms, and dreams. His mind was neither clear nor sharp, but strong and fervent, and under the influence of an exu berant imagination. He was a poet of high order, and the Koran is the first classic in Arabic literature. He believed himself to be a prophet, irresistibly impelled by supernatural influence to teach and warn his fellow-men. He started with the over powering conviction of the unity of God and a horror of idola try, and wished to rescue his countrymen from this sin of sins and from the terrors of the judgment to come ; but gradually he rose above the office of a national reformer to that of the founder