A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Introduction/19

[Sidenote: A brief sketch of the propagation of Islam at Mecca.]

[Sidenote: Conversion at Nakhla.]

19. Mohammad propagated his religion both at Mecca and Medina before, as well as after, the Hegira, by persuasion and preaching sustained by reasonable evidence. It prevailed against all persecution and opposition of the Koreish and Jews. In fact, it flourished and prospered under the severe persecutions and crushing oppositions by the mere dint of its own truth. Sometimes the persecution of the Koreish itself was the cause of conversion to the Moslem faith. The number of converts during the first three years after the assumption by Mohammad of his prophetical office is estimated at fifty. Then commenced the general persecution and the overwhelming opposition. Mohammad had, in order to prosecute his endeavours peaceably and without interruption, occupied the house of Arqam, one of his early converts, and there preached and recited the Koran to those who used to be conducted to him. A great multitude believed therein; but the brunt of the jealousy and enmity of the Koreish fell upon the converted slaves, as well as upon strangers and believers among the lower classes, who had no patron nor protector. Some believers, sixteen in number, had already left for Abyssinia. Some came back and brought tidings of their kind reception there. At this time about a hundred Moslems emigrated to Abyssinia. This shows the increasing number of the converts, who represented for the most part fugitives of Mecca. There were some Christian converts to Islam at Abyssinia also. The Koreish being disquieted by the hospitable reception of the refugees at Abyssinia, and enraged by the refusal of Najashee to surrender them, sought to stay the progress of secession from their ranks by utterly severing the party of the Prophet from social and friendly communication with them. In the seventh year of the Prophet's mission the ban commenced, and lasted for full three years. There could be very few conversions during the period of this weary seclusion. The efforts of the Prophet were chiefly confined to the conversions of the members of his own noble clan, the Bani Hàshim, who, though unbelievers in his mission, had resolved to defend his person, and were with him in their confinement. The time of pilgrimage alone afforded Mohammad a wider field. He preached against idolatry at the fairs and assemblages of the pilgrims. After his release from imprisonment in the tenth year of his mission, he went to preach at Tàyif, but was ignominiously expelled the city. On his return to Mecca he converted a party of the tribe of Jinn (not Genii according to the vulgar notion) Sura XLVI, verses 28, 29. These people were from Nisibin and Nineveh in Mesopotamia. They were Chaldeans, soothsayers, and cabalists. In the book of Daniel the Chaldeans are classed with magicians and astronomers, and evidently form a sort of the priest class who have a peculiar "tongue" and "learning" (Dan. I. 4). In Arabic, persons of similar professions were called Kahins. Some of this class of people pretended to receive intelligence of what was to come to pass from certain satans or demons, whom they alleged to hear what passed in the heavens. Others pretended to control the stars by enchanting them. They produced eclipses of the sun and moon by their alleged efficiency in their own enchantments. They practised astrology as well as astronomy and fortune-telling.

It appears that the Chaldeans (Kaldai or Kaldi) were in the earliest times merely one out of the many Cushite tribes inhabiting the great alluvial plain known afterwards as Chaldea or Babylonia. In process of time as the Kaldi grew in power, their name prevailed over that of the other tribes inhabiting the country; and by the era of the Jewish captivity it had begun to be used generally for all the inhabitants of Babylonia. It had thus come by this time to have two senses, both ethnic: in the one, it was the special appellative of a particular race to whom it had belonged from the remotest times; in the other, it designated the nation at large in which the race was predominant. Afterwards it was transferred from an ethnic to a mere restricted sense, from the name of a people to that of a priest caste or sect of philosophers. The Kaldi proper belonged to the Cushite race. While both in Assyria and in Babylonia, the sernitic type of speech prevailed for special purposes, the ancient Cushite dialect was purely reserved for scientific and religious literature. This is no doubt the "learning" and the "tongue" to which reference is made in the Bible (Dan. I. 4). It became gradually inaccessible to the great mass of people who had emigrated by means, chiefly, of Assyrian influence. But it was the Chaldean learning in the old Chaldean or Cushite language. Hence all who studied it, whatever their origin or race, were, on account of their knowledge, termed Chaldeans. In this sense Daniel himself, "the master of Chaldeans" (Dan. V. 11.), would, no doubt, have been reckoned among them, and so we find Seleucas, a Greek, called a Chaldean by Strabo (XVI. 1, § 6). The Chaldeans were really a learned class, who by their acquaintance with the language of science became its depositaries. They were priests, magicians or astronomers, as their preference for one or other of those occupations inclined them; and in the last of these three capacities they probably effected discoveries of great importance. The Chaldeans, it would appear, congregated into bodies forming what we may perhaps call universities, and they all engaged together in it for their progress. They probably mixed up to some extent astrology with their astronomy, even in the earlier times, but they certainly made great advance in astronomical science to which their serene sky and transparent atmosphere specially invited them. In later times they seem certainly to have degenerated into mere fortune-tellers (vide Smith's Dict. of the Bible, Art. Chaldeans).

In their practice of astromancy or enchanting the stars, and in pretending to overhear what passed in the heavens, they, the Jinns, used to sit on the tops of lofty mansions at night-time for hours offering sacrifices to the stars and enchanting them. In their peculiar tongue and learning they called this practice "stealing a hearing" and "sitting for listening" (Suras XV, verse 17, and LXXII, verses 8, 9).

Now at the time of Mohammad's assuming the Prophet's office there had been an unusually grand display of numerous falling stars, which at certain periods are known to be specially abundant. At the same time there were good many comets visible in different parts of heavens, which certainly might have smitten with terror these Jinns, i.e., the astromancers and soothsayers. There was one comet visible in 602 A.D., and other two appeared in 605 A.D. In 607 A.D. two more comets were visible; another one appeared in 608 A.D. Each of the years 614 and 615 had one comet. There were also comets visible in 617 A.D. (vide Chambers's Descriptive Astronomy). These comets are most probably noticed in the contemporary record (i.e. the Koran). A comet is called Tariq, or "night comer," in Sura LXXXVI, verse 1; and described as the star of piercing radiance. (Annajmus Saqib. Ibid 3.)

The Kahins were very much alarmed at the stupendous phenomena of the falling stars and the comets; and had stopped their soothsaying and divinations. Whenever they used to sit on their places of listening, enchanting, and divination during night-time, looking at the heavens, their eyes met with showers of shooting stars and brilliant comets which bewildered them very much. It is said that the first whose attention was attracted to the unusual shooting stars was a clan of the Sakeefites of Us-Tayif (Ibn Hisham, page 131). These Jinns, when they were converted to Islam at Nakhla near Tayif, expressed their bewilderment from the unusual shower of falling stars and the appearance of numerous comets in their peculiar language:&mdash;

"The heaven did we essay but found it filled with mighty garrison and of darting flames."

"We sat on some of the seats to listen, but whoever now listeneth findeth a darting flame in ambush for him."

"We know not whether evil be meant for them that are on earth, or whether their Lord meaneth true guidance for them."&mdash;Sura LXXII, verses 8-10.

So the pretenders of hearing the discourses of heavenly bodies being quite harassed by the extraordinary showers of the falling stars, and the appearances of numerous comets, had stopped their divination. This was taken notice of in the Koran:&mdash;

"They overhear not exalted chiefs, and they are darted from every side."

"Driven off and consigned to a lasting torment; while if one steal by stealth then a glistering flame pursueth him."&mdash;Sura XXXVII, verses 8-10.

"Save such as steal a hearing, and him do visible flames pursue."&mdash;Sura XV, verse 18.

"The satans were not sent down with this Koran. It beseemed them not, and they had not the power. For they are far removed from the hearing."&mdash;Sura XXVI, verses 210-212.

As an instance of terror and bewilderment caused by meteors and shooting stars among credulous people, I will quote the following anecdote:

About the middle of the tenth century an epidemic terror of the end of the world had spread over Christendom. The scene of the last judgment was expected to be in Jerusalem.

In the year 999 the number of pilgrims proceeding eastwards, to await the coming of the Lord in that city, was so great that they were compared to a desolating army. During the thousandth year the number of pilgrims increased. Every phenomenon of nature filled them with terror. A thunderstorm sent them all upon their knees. Every meteor in the sky seen at Jerusalem brought the whole Christian population into the streets to weep and pray. The pilgrims on the road were in the same alarm. Every shooting star furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the sublimity of the approaching judgment was the principal topic (vide Extraordinary Popular Delusions by Charles Mackay, LL.D., London, pp. 222 and 223).

It was a conceit or imposture of the Kahins to pretend that their demons had access to the outskirts of the heavens, and by assiduous eavesdropping secured some of the secrets of the upper world and communicated the same to the soothsayers or diviners upon earth. The Jews had a similar notion of the demons (schedim), learning the secrets of the future by listening behind the veil (pargôd). The Koran falsified them in their assertions. It says that the heavens (or the stars) are safe and protected against the eavesdropping (or enchantments) of the soothsayers.

"We have set the signs of Zodiac in the heavens, and we have decked them forth for the bewilders."

"And we guard them from every stoned satan."&mdash;Sura XV, verses 16, 17.

"Verily we have adorned the lower heaven with the adornment of the stars;"

"And we have guarded them against every rebellious satan."&mdash;Sura XXXVII, verses 6, 7.

"... And we have furnished the lower heaven with lights and have protected it...."&mdash;Sura XLI, verse 11.

The Koran further says that the soothsayers impart to their votaries or to those who go to consult them what they have heard from other people and are liars:&mdash;

"They impart what they have heard, but most of them are liars."&mdash;Sura XXVI, verse 223.

It is nowhere said in the Koran that the stars are darted or hurled at the Satans. Sura LXVII, verse 5, literally means, "of a surety we have decked the lower heaven with lights and have made them to be (means of) 'Rojúm ' conjectures to the (or for the) devils, i.e. the astrologer." The primary meaning of Rajm is a thing that is thrown or cast like a stone: pl. 'Rojúm,' but it generally means speaking of that which is hidden, or conjecturing or speaking by conjecture, as in Sura XVIII, verse 21. In Sura XIX, verse 47, the word "La-arjomannaka" has been explained both ways, meaning (1) "I will assuredly cast stones at thee," and (2) "I will assuredly say of thee, (though) speaking of that which is hidden (from me) or unknown (by me), what thou dislikest or hatest." Vide Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, page 1048. at Nakhla. After his return from Tàyif he preached to an audience of six or seven persons from Medina, who believed and spread Islam there.