Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/390

 868 THE DECLINE AND FALL have wronged ? " "We confide in the generosity of our kins- man." " And you shall not confide in vain: Begone ! you are safe, you are free." The people of Mecca deserved their pardon by the profession of Islam ; and, after an exile of seven years, the fugitive missionary was enthroned as the prince and prophet of his native country. ^^^ But the three hundred and sixty idols of the Caaba were ignominiously broken ; ^^^ the house of God was purified and adorned ; as an example to future times, the apostle again fulfilled the duties of a pilgrim ; and a perpetual law was enacted that no unbeliever should dare to set his foot on the territory of the holy city.^^^ Conquest of Tile conqucst of Mecca determined the faith and obedience of 629-632' the Arabian tribes ; ^^^ who, according to the vicissitudes of for- tune, had obeyed or disregarded the eloquence or the arms of the prophet. Indifference for rites and opinions still marks the character of the Bedoweens ; and they might accept, as loosely as they hold, the doctrine of the Koran. Yet an obstinate rem- nant still adhered to the religion and liberty of their ancestors, and the war of Honain derived a proper appellation from the idoln, whom Mahomet had vowed to destroy, and whom the con- federates of Tayef had sworn to defend. ^^^ Four thousand Pagans I'^i The Mahometan doctors still dispute whether Mecca was reduced by force or consent (Abulfeda, p. 107, at Gagnier ad locum) ; and this verbal controversy is of as much moment as our own about William the Conqueror. '^■''^ [The rites, however, of the old cult were retained.] ^^^ In excluding the Christians from the peninsula of Arabia, the province of Hejaz, or the navigation of the Red Sea, Chardin (Voyages on Perses, torn. iv. p. 166) and Reland (Dissert. Miscell. torn. iii. p. 51) are more rigid than the Musul- mans themselves. The Christians are received without scruple into the ports of Mocha, and even of Gedda, and it is only the city and precincts of Mecca that are inaccessible to the profane (Niebuhr, Description de I'Arabie, p. 308, 309. Voyage en Arabie, tom. i. p. 205, 248, &c.). 1'^ Abulfeda, p. 112-115. Gagnier, tom. iii. p. 67-88. D'Herbelot, MoHAMMED. [The results of the conquest of .Mecca, and the policy of Mohammad towards the Kor- aish, have been excellently summed up by Wellhausen : "The fall of Mecca reacted powerfully on the future of Islam. Again the saying came true : victa viciores cepit ; the victory of the Moslems over the Koraish shaped itself into a domination of the Koraish over the Moslems. For this the Prophet himself was to blame. In making Mecca the Jerusalem of Islam, he was ostensibly moved by religious motives, but in real- ity Mohammed's religion had nothing to do with the heathenish usages at the Kaaba and the Great Feast. To represent Abraham as the founder of the ritual was merely a pious fraud. What Mohammed actually sought was to recommend Islam to Arabic prejudices by incorporating this fragment of heathenism, and at the same time he was influenced by local patriotism. Henceforth these local feelings became quite the mainspring of his conduct ; his attitude to the Koraish was determined entirely by the spirit of clannishness " (Encycl. Britann. , art. Mohanmiedanism).] i-'^The siege of Tayef, division of the spoil, &c. are related by Abulfeda (p. 117-123) and Gagnier (tom. iii. p. 88-111). It is Al Jannabi who mentions the