but saw it all. That all these Idols and Formulas were nothing, miserable

bits of wood; that there was One God in and over all; and we must leave all
Idols, and look to Him. That God is great; and that there is nothing else

great! He is the Reality. Wooden Idols are not real; He is real. He made
us at first, sustains us yet; we and all things are but the shadow of Him;

a transitory garment veiling the Eternal Splendor. "_Allah akbar_, God is
great;"--and then also "_Islam_," That we must submit to God. That our

whole strength lies in resigned mission" target="_blank" title="n.屈服；谦恭">submission to Him, whatsoever He do to us.
For this world, and for the other! The thing He sends to us, were it death

and worse than death, shall be good, shall be best; we resign ourselves to
God.--"If this be _Islam_," says Goethe, "do we not all live in _Islam_?"

Yes, all of us that have any moral life; we all live so. It has ever been
held the highest wisdom for a man not merely to submit to

Necessity,--Necessity will make him submit,--but to know and believe well
that the stern thing which Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best,

the thing wanted there. To cease his frantic pretension of scanning this
great God's-World in his small fraction of a brain; to know that it _had_

verily, though deep beyond his soundings, a Just Law, that the soul of it
was Good;--that his part in it was to conform to the Law of the Whole, and

in devout silence follow that; not questioning it, obeying it as
unquestionable.

I say, this is yet the only true morality known. A man is right and
invincible, virtuous and on the road towards sure conquest, precisely while

he joins himself to the great deep Law of the World, in spite of all
superficial laws, temporary appearances, profit-and-loss calculations; he

is victorious while he co-operates with that great central Law, not
victorious otherwise:--and surely his first chance of co-operating with it,

or getting into the course of it, is to know with his whole soul that it
is; that it is good, and alone good! This is the soul of Islam; it is

properly the soul of Christianity;--for Islam is definable as a confused
form of Christianity; had Christianity not been, neither had it been.

Christianity also commands us, before all, to be resigned to God. We are
to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain cavils, vain

sorrows and wishes: to know that we know nothing; that the worst and
cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems; that we have to receive

whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above, and say, It is good and wise,
God is great! "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Islam means

in its way Denial of Self, Annihilation of Self. This is yet the highest
Wisdom that Heaven has revealed to our Earth.

Such light had come, as it could, to illuminate the darkness of this wild
Arab soul. A confused dazzling splendor as of life and Heaven, in the

great darkness which threatened to be death: he called it revelation and
the angel Gabriel;--who of us yet can know what to call it? It is the

"inspiration of the Almighty" that giveth us understanding. To _know_; to
get into the truth of anything, is ever a mystic act,--of which the best

Logics can but babble on the surface. "Is not Belief the true
god-announcing Miracle?" says Novalis.--That Mahomet's whole soul, set in

flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed him, should feel as if it were
important and the only important thing, was very natural. That Providence

had unspeakably honored him by revealing it, saving him from death and
darkness; that he therefore was bound to make known the same to all

creatures: this is what was meant by "Mahomet is the Prophet of God;" this
too is not without its true meaning.--

The good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with wonder, with doubt:
at length she answered: Yes, it was true this that he said. One can fancy

too the boundlessgratitude of Mahomet; and how of all the kindnesses she
had done him, this of believing the earnest struggling word he now spoke

was the greatest. "It is certain," says Novalis, "my Conviction gains
infinitely, the moment another soul will believe in it." It is a boundless

favor.--He never forgot this good Kadijah. Long afterwards, Ayesha his
young favorite wife, a woman who indeed distinguished herself among the

Moslem, by all manner of qualities, through her whole long life; this young
brilliant Ayesha was, one day, questioning him: "Now am not I better than

Kadijah? She was a widow; old, and had lost her looks: you love me better
than you did her?"--" No, by Allah!" answered Mahomet: "No, by Allah! She

believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but
one friend, and she was that!"--Seid, his Slave, also believed in him;

these with his young Cousin Ali, Abu Thaleb's son, were his first converts.
He spoke of his Doctrine to this man and that; but the most treated it with

ridicule, with indifference; in three years, I think, he had gained but
thirteen followers. His progress was slow enough. His encouragement to go

on, was altogether the usual encouragement that such a man in such a case
meets. After some three years of small success, he invited forty of his

chief kindred to an entertainment; and there stood up and told them what
his pretension was: that he had this thing to promulgate abroad to all

men; that it was the highest thing, the one thing: which of them would
second him in that? Amid the doubt and silence of all, young Ali, as yet a

lad of sixteen, impatient of the silence, started up, and exclaimed in
passionate fierce language, That he would! The assembly, among whom was

Abu Thaleb, Ali's Father, could not be unfriendly to Mahomet; yet the sight
there, of one unlettered elderly man, with a lad of sixteen, deciding on

such an enterprise against all mankind, appeared ridiculous to them; the
assembly broke up in laughter. Nevertheless it proved not a laughable

thing; it was a very serious thing! As for this young Ali, one cannot but
like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always

afterwards; full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in
him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affectionworthy of

Christian knighthood. He died by assassination" target="_blank" title="n.暗杀；暗杀事件">assassination in the Mosque at Bagdad; a
death occasioned by his own generousfairness, confidence in the fairness

of others: he said, If the wound proved not unto death, they must pardon
the Assassin; but if it did, then they must slay him straightway, that so

they two in the same hour might appear before God, and see which side of
that quarrel was the just one!

Mahomet naturally gave offence to the Koreish, Keepers of the Caabah,
superintendents of the Idols. One or two men of influence had joined him:

the thing spread slowly, but it was spreading. Naturally he gave offence
to everybody: Who is this that pretends to be wiser than we all; that

rebukes us all, as mere fools and worshippers of wood! Abu Thaleb the good
Uncle spoke with him: Could he not be silent about all that; believe it

all for himself, and not trouble others, anger the chief men, endanger
himself and them all, talking of it? Mahomet answered: If the Sun stood

on his right hand and the Moon on his left, ordering him to hold his peace,
he could not obey! No: there was something in this Truth he had got which

was of Nature herself; equal in rank to Sun, or Moon, or whatsoever thing
Nature had made. It would speak itself there, so long as the Almighty

allowed it, in spite of Sun and Moon, and all Koreish and all men and
things. It must do that, and could do no other. Mahomet answered so; and,

they say, "burst into tears." Burst into tears: he felt that Abu Thaleb
was good to him; that the task he had got was no soft, but a stern and

great one.
He went on speaking to who would listen to him; publishing his Doctrine

among the pilgrims as they came to Mecca; gaining adherents in this place
and that. Continual contradiction, hatred, open or secret danger attended

him. His powerful relations protected Mahomet himself; but by and by, on
his own advice, all his adherents had to quit Mecca, and seek refuge in

Abyssinia over the sea. The Koreish grew ever angrier; laid plots, and
swore oaths among them, to put Mahomet to death with their own hands. Abu

Thaleb was dead, the good Kadijah was dead. Mahomet is not solicitous of
sympathy from us; but his outlook at this time was one of the dismalest.

He had to hide in caverns, escape in disguise; fly hither and thither;
homeless, in continual peril of his life. More than once it seemed all

over with him; more than once it turned on a straw, some rider's horse
taking fright or the like, whether Mahomet and his Doctrine had not ended

there, and not been heard of at all. But it was not to end so.
In the thirteenth year of his mission, finding his enemies all banded

against him, forty sworn men, one out of every tribe, waiting to take his
life, and no continuance possible at Mecca for him any longer, Mahomet fled

to the place then called Yathreb, where he had gained some adherents; the
place they now call Medina, or "_Medinat al Nabi_, the City of the

Prophet," from that circumstance. It lay some two hundred miles off,
through rocks and deserts; not without great difficulty, in such mood as we

may fancy, he escaped thither, and found welcome. The whole East dates its
era from this Flight, _hegira_ as they name it: the Year 1 of this Hegira

is 622 of our Era, the fifty-third of Mahomet's life. He was now becoming
an old man; his friends sinking round him one by one; his path desolate,

encompassed with danger: unless he could find hope in his own heart, the
outward face of things was but hopeless for him. It is so with all men in

the like case. Hitherto Mahomet had professed to publish his Religion by
the way of preaching" target="_blank" title="n.说教 a.说教的">preaching and persuasion alone. But now, driven foully out of