which had embraced the religion of the prophet, and had bound themselves to him secretly by an oath the year before. Mahomet had ordered his partizans to retire to this city. He was received as a sovereign with transports of joy, and built a house and a mosque. It is from this epoch that the Mahometans date their era; it is called the Hegira, from an Arabic word, which means flight, and corresponds with the year 622 of the christian era. Mahomet, now become a sovereign, declared war against all those who denied the truth of his mission. The Koreïshites were particularly the objects of his hatred; he overcame them the following year at Bedra, but afterwards he was beaten at Ohud, where he was wounded, and near losing his life, and obliged to retire to Medina, and even to surround that city with a ditch for its defence. The divisions which took place among his enemies saved him; they raised the siege, retired with precipitation, and offered to make a truce with the prophet, who employed the succeeding years in reducing the Jewish tribes, which were very powerful and numerous in Arabia. The sixth year of the Hegira Mahomet undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca. The Koreishites marched to meet him, to prevent him from entering the city. The prophet had recourse to negociation, and concluded a truce with them for ten years, which confirmed to him the liberty of visiting the Caaba, the following year, for three days; he availed himself of this, and after having performed the usual sacrifices, he departed from the city the fourth day, leaving the people edified by his devotion, At length, in the year 630, the eighth year of the Hegira, Amrou, who afterwards conquered Egypt, and Khaled, who possessed himself of Syria, having been both converted, Mahomet accused the Koreïshites of having broken the truce, marched against Mecca, invested it, and took it without almost any resistance. He pardoned the Koreïshites, destroyed the idols with which the Caaba was filled, and forbad any infidel ever to enter the territory of the Holy City. This conquest was followed by the submission of all Arabia; and 140,000 mussulmen accompanied him two years afterwards, when he returned to Mecca on his last pilgrimage, which the Mahometans call the pilgrimage of the Adieu. It is in remembrance of this, that every mussulman, whose health and means permit, ought at least once in his life go to Mecca, and perform all the ceremonies which were then performed by the prophet. Mahomet returned to Medina, and his health soon after began to decline. He had always felt the effects of the poison which had been given him by a Jew, about three years before, but they were then renewed with more violence. The prophet beheld with firmness his last moments draw near; and died at the age of sixty-three, in the year 632, having supported his character to the last. He was buried at Medina, on the very spot where he died; and this city is reputed holy, because it contains the tomb of the prophet. Almost all his sectaries perform the pilgrimage to Medina, and consider it as a completion necessary to that of Mecca. Mahomet had no other wife but Khadija, during her life time; after her death, he had as many as eleven legitimate ones: Aiesha, daughter of Abubekir, was the one he most loved, and for a long time after the death of her husband, she was styled the mother of the believers. Mahomet had no children by his eleven wives; he had had eight by Khadija, but Fatima, whom he had given in marriage to Ali, was the only one who survived him. Mahomet is, perhaps, the most extraordinary man that ever appeared on earth: without any tincture of literature, and even, according to some authors, without ever being able to read or write, he founded a religion which has rapidly extended itself, and prevails over a great part of the globe; and on which he has laid the foundation of a powerful empire. Without attempting to draw his character-" a difficult enterprize," (says Gibbon) "the success of which would be uncertain even to a man who had lived in intimacy with the prophet," we may assert, that ambition was the main-spring of all his actions, that his plans experienced variations according to circumstances, and became more extensive in proportion as those became more favourable. We may imagine that he at first only proposed to himself to regain the authority which his grandfather Hashem had enjoyed in his tribe, and in Mecca; but as all those who boasted of the same origin, might have set up the same claims, Mahomet thought himself obliged to assume a title which set him above them, and that of a messenger from God, appeared to him the easiest to support. He, therefore, loudly proclaimed, that God had chosen him to bring back his countrymen to the true worship, as professed by Abraham and his son Ishmael, from whom the Arabs boast their descent; and he attacked idolatry without reserve, probably because it was already brought into discredit in Arabia, by the example and intercourse with the Jews and Christians; to conciliate these as much as possible, he acknowledged Moses and Jesus Christ as two prophets; but pretended that they were only his forerunners, that as for him, he was the last of those whom God was to send on earth to re-establish religion in its primitive purity, which had been disfigured by the superstitions which had crept into Judaism and Christianity. He reduced his profession of faith to these two points. There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet; to these he added ceremonies and precepts borrowed from the Jews, Christians, and even from the heathens. Such as the five daily prayers and the purifications which precede them; alms of the tenth part of their revenue, the fast of Ramadan, abstinence from certain meats, the pilgrimage to Mecca. With respect to circumcision it was so universally practised in Arabia from time immemorial, that the prophet thought it unnecessary to make it an express commandment in the Koran, a book which contains at once the religious dogmas, rules of discipline, and the civil and criminal laws of his followers. Although Mahomet had pretended that the angel Gabriel had brought him from heaven a copy of this sacred book, he was too prudent to publish it entire as a work; the chapters and verses of which it is composed appeared only in succession in fragments, and according to the inclination of the prophet. Circumstances produced revelations and precepts. Thus the prohibition of wine and of games of chance was made in the first year of the Hegira, on account of some disputes which had arisen among the chiefs and the soldiery; that the doctrine of predestination was established, in order to raise the spirits of his followers, which were cast down by his defeat at Ohud; that the pilgrimage to Mecca was ordained, as likewise the obligation of turning the face, whilst at prayer towards that part of the horizon in the direction of which the Caaba is situated. Mahomet had at first settled it, that they should turn towards the side of Jerusalem; but he changed this custom after the conquest of Mecca, whether to conciliate the minds of his countrymen, or that he had given up all hopes of converting the Jews to his religion. To avoid the contradictions inevitable in a work composed in the manner above-mentioned, it was settled that every passage already known, was capable of being modified, and even annulled by those which should be afterwards published; and yet, in spite of this precaution, Mahomet was obliged to bring in the angel Gabriel to declare, that God had set him above the law, which prescribed to mussulmen to be content with four legitimate wives. The dogmas of the resurrection, of paradise, and hell, are also contained in the Koran. We find in many books, the description of delights destined for the reception of mussulmen after death, and of the pleasures which await them. Some Mahometan doctors pretend that these pleasures are but allegorical and figurative; they say also, that the famous journey of the prophet to Jerusalem, and from thence to the throne of God, was only the effect of an extasy; but the entire mass of believers, and most of the doctors are persuaded, that Mahomet performed this journey |