CHAPTER XIV.

The Religion of the Prophet firmly established-The principal Countries subjected by him-The effects of the Poison make alarming Inroads upon his Constitution-Perceives his End approaching-Preaches for the last Time in Public-His last Illness and Death-The Moslems scarcely persuaded that their Prophet was dead-Tumult appeased by Abubeker-The Prophet buried at Medina-The Story of the hanging Coffin false.

We have now reached the period at which the religion of Mohammed may be considered to have become permanently established. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreish had been, in fact, the signal for the submission of the rest of Arabia; and though several of the petty tribes offered, for a time, the show of resistance to the prophet's arms, they were all eventually subdued. Between the

taking of Mecca and the period of his death, somewhat more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms; had tried his arms against the disciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta. His throne was now firmly established; and an impulse given to the Arabian nations, which induced them to invade, and enabled them to conquer, a large portion of the globe. India, Persia, the Greek empire, the whole of Asia

Minor, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, were eventually reduced by their victorious arms. Mohammed himself did not indeed live to see such mighty conquests achieved, but he commenced the train which resulted in this wide-spread dominion, and before his death had established over the whole of Arabia, and some parts of Asia, the religion which he had devised.

And now, having arrived at the sixty-third year of his age, and the tenth of the Hejira, A. D. 632, the fatal effects of the poison, which had been so long rankling in his veins, began to discover themselves more and more sensibly, and to operate with alarming virulence. Day by day he visibly declined, and it was evident that his life was hastening to a close. For some time previous to the event, he was conscious of its approach, and is said to have viewed and awaited it with characteristic firmness. The third day before his dissolution, he ordered himself to be carried to the mosque, that he might, for the last time, address his followers, and bestow upon them his parting prayers and benedictions. Being assisted to mount the pulpit, he edified his brethren by the pious tenor of his dying counsels, and in his own example taught a lesson of humility and penitence, such as we shall scarcely find inculcated in the precepts of the Koran. "If there be any man," said the apostle, "whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of any Mussulman? let him proclaim my faults in the face of the con

gregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.""Yes," replied a voice from the crowd, "thou owest me three drachms of silver." Mohammed heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor, that he had accused him in this world rather than at the day of judgment. He then set his slaves at liberty, seventeen men and eleven women; directed the order of his funeral; strove to allay the lamentations of his weeping friends, and waited the approach of death. He did not expressly nominate a successor, a step which would have prevented the altercations that afterward came so near to crushing in its infancy the religion and the empire of the Saracens ; but his appointment of Abubeker to supply his place in the function of public prayer and the other services of the mosque, seemed to intimate indirectly the choice of the prophet. This ancient and faithful friend, accordingly, after much contention, became the first Caliph of the Saracens,* though his reign was closed by his death at the end of two years. The death of Mohammed was hastened by the force of a burning fever, which deprived him at times of the use of reason. In one of these paroxysms of delirium, he demanded pen and paper, that he might compose or dictate a divine book. Omar, who was watching at his side, refused his

* Saracen is the name bestowed by the ancient foreign writers upon the Arabs. They may have tolerated the title, but it is not one of their own imposition or of their liking.

request, lest the expiring prophet might dictate something which should suspersede the Koran. Others, however, expressed a great desire that the book might be written; and so warm a dispute arose in the chamber of the apostle, that he was forced to reprove their unbecoming vehemence. The writing was not performed, and many of his followers have mourned the loss of the sublime revelations which his dying visions might have bequeathed to them. His favourite wife Ayesha hung over her husband in his last moments, sustaining his drooping head upon her knee, as he lay stretched upon the carpet, watching with trembling anxiety his changing countenance, and listening to the last broken sounds of his voice. His disease, as it drew towards its termination, was "attended at intervals with most excruciating pains, which he constantly ascribed to the fatal morsel taken at Chaibar; and as the mother of Bashar, the companion who had died upon the spot from the same cause, stood by his side, he exclaimed, "O mother of Bashar, the cords of my heart are now breaking of the food which I ate with your son at Chaibar." In his conversation with those around him, he mentioned it as a special prerogative granted to him, that the angel of death was not allowed to take his soul till he had respectfully asked of him his permission, and this permission he condescendingly granted. Recovering from a swoon into which the violence of his pains had thrown him, he raised his eyes towards the roof of the house, and with faltering accents ex

claimed, " O God! pardon my sins. Yes, I come among my fellow-labourers on high!" His face was then sprinkled with water, and that by his own feeble hand, when he shortly after expired.

The city, and more especially the house, of the prophet, became at once a scene of sorrowful, but confused, lamentation. Some of his followers could not believe that he was dead. "How can he be dead, our witness, our intercessor, our mediator with God? He is not dead. Like Moses and Jesus he is wrapped in a holy trance, and speedily will he return to his faithful people." The evidence of sense was disregarded, and Omar, brandishing his scimitar, threatened to strike off the heads of the infidels who should affirm that the prophet was no more. The tumult was at length appeased by the moderation of Abubeker. "Is it Mohammed," said he, "or the God of Mohammed, whom ye worship? The God of Mohammed liveth for ever, but the apostle was a mortal like ourselves, and, according to his own prediction, he hath experienced the common fate of mortality."* .

The prophet's remains were deposited at Medina, in the very room in which he breathed his last, the floor being removed to make way for his sepulchre, and a simple and unadorned monument some time after erected over them. The house

*"Mohammed is no more than an apostle: the other apostles have already deceased before him: if he die, therefore, or be slain, will ye turn back on your heels ?"-Koran, ch. iii.

"Verily, thou, O Mohammed, shalt die, and they shall die; and ye shall debate the matter [idolatry] with one another before your Lord at the day of resurrection."-Ibid. ch. xxxix.