A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Jihád'/Introduction/29

[Sidenote: The wholesale conversion of the remaining tribes in A.H., 9 & 10.]

29. Now it was more than twenty years that the Koran had been constantly preached to the surrounding tribes of Arabs at Mecca at the time of fairs and at the annual pilgrimage gatherings, by Mohammad, and by special missionaries of Islam from Medina, and through the reports of the travellers and merchants coming and going from Mecca and Medina to all parts of Arabia. The numbers of different distant tribes, clans and branches had spread the tidings of Islam. There were individual converts in most of the tribes. Those tribes already not brought over to Islam were ready to embrace it under the foregoing circumstances. Idolatry, simple and loathsome, had no power against the attacks of reason displayed in the doctrines of the Koran. But the idolatrous Koreish opposed and attacked Islam with persecution and the sword, and strengthened idolatry with earthly weapons. The distant pagan tribes on the side of the Koreish, geographically or genealogically, were prevented by them from embracing the new faith. As soon as the hostilities of the Koreish were suspended at the truce of Hodeibia, the Arabs commenced to embrace Islam as already described, and no sooner they surrendered and Kaaba Sir W. Muir thinks: "The possession of Mecca now imparted a colour of right to his pretensions; for Mecca was the spiritual centre of the country, to which the tribes from every quarter yielded a reverential homage. The conduct of the annual pilgrimage, the custody of the holy house, the intercalation of the year, the commutation at will of the sacred months,&mdash;institutions which affected all Arabia,&mdash;belonged by ancient privilege to the Coreish and were now in the hands of Mahomet.... Moreover, it had been the special care of Mahomet artfully to interweave with the reformed faith all essential parts of the ancient ceremonial. The one was made an inseparable portion of the other."&mdash;The Life of Mahomet, Vol. IV, p. 169. But the remaining tribes who had not hitherto embraced Islam, and the chiefs of the Southern and Eastern Arabia, did not adopt Islam, because Mohammad possessed Mecca, a position of no political supremacy. No paramount authority throughout the Peninsula had ever been vested in the chief who possessed Mecca. Mohammad on the surrender of Mecca had abolished all the idolatrous institutions which might have served as political or social inducements to the Pagan Arabs to embrace Islam. The intercalation of the year and commutation of the sacred months were cancelled for ever in the plain words of the Koran: "Verily, twelve months is the number of months with God, according to God's book, since the day when He created the Heavens and the earth, of these, four are sacred; this is the right usage." ... "To carry over a sacred month to another is an increase of unbelief only. They who do not believe are led into error by it. They allow it one year and forbid it another, that they may make good the number of months which God hath hallowed, and they allow that which God hath prohibited. The evil of their deeds hath been prepared for them by Satan; for God guideth not the people who do not believe."&mdash;Sura IX, verses 36, 37. The custody of the house was no more an office of honour or privilege. The ancient ceremonial of pilgrimage was not interwoven with the reformed faith. The rites of Kaaba were stripped of every idolatrous tendency. And the remaining and essential part of the pilgrimage was depreciated. "By no means can their flesh reach unto God, neither their blood; but piety on your part reacheth Him."&mdash;Sura XXII, verse 38. And after all the idolaters were not allowed to enter it. "It is not for the votaries of other gods with God, witnesses against themselves of infidelity, to visit the temples of God."&mdash;Sura IX, verse 28. Sir W. Muir himself says regarding Mohammad: "The rites of Kaaba were retained, but stripped by him of every idolatrous tendency; and they still hang, a strange unmeaning shroud, around the living theism of Islam."&mdash;Vol. I, Intro., p. ccxviii. stripped of its idols&mdash;and the struggle of spiritual supremacy between idolatry and Islam was practically decided&mdash;all the remaining tribes on the south and east who had not hitherto adhered to Islam hastened to embrace it hosts after hosts during the 9th and 10th year of the Hegira.