SUCCESSORS OF MOHAMMED

B1ut Mohammed was scarcely dead (632) before the existence of his religion and his empire was again called in question. He had left no instructions as to how the government was to be carried on after his death. A ruler was indeed promptly set up to succeed him. Yathreb, now called Medinat an nabi (the city of the prophet), or merely Medina (the city), was the capital as before, but the simple-minded proposal of the Medinese that they should have one sovereign and the people of Mecca another was rejected with decision by the latter. Abu-Bekr, Mohammed’s most intimate friend, and the father of his favourite wife, became his successor or vicegerent (_khalifa_, caliph). This is another proof of the high esteem the Koreish enjoyed; for it was a matter of common knowledge that the Arabs would never submit to a non-Koreishite.

2For a while, however, most of them displayed but little inclination to remain subjects of the new ecclesiastical state. The utmost concession they would make was to profess their willingness to continue to perform the _salat_[19] five times a day, but they would henceforth no longer submit to pay an annual quota of their cattle or dates in taxes. Nearly all the old friends of the prophet, even Omar, who now wielded the greatest authority next to the caliph, despaired of subduing the Arabs again. And here we recognise once more the faith that moves mountains in fullest and most effective action.

3Abu-Bekr was not a man of lofty intellect, but he was firmly convinced that what Mohammed had preached was pure truth, that his orders must be obeyed absolutely, and that God would then give his religion the victory. And the event proved him right. He even insisted on weakening the army of which he had such sore need by despatching a body of troops for an expedition to the north which was by no means urgently necessary, merely because Mohammed had given orders for it, not foreseeing his own death. But otherwise the difficult task of once more subjugating the Arabs was prosecuted with the utmost vigour. Their inability to combine voluntarily for any great object was more patent than ever.

4Their scattered forces could not withstand a foe united under a single command and with a definite aim in view. The separate tribes were speedily subdued, in most cases without recourse to the strong arm. The inhabitants of the district of Yamama offered frantic resistance; they were tillers of the soil and followers of Maslama (called by the Mohammedans in scorn _Musailima_, or “little Maslama”), who had set himself up as an opposition prophet in Mohammed’s later years. They fought for their settled homes and their faith, and the battle against Maslama was far more sanguinary than any previous conflict.

5The second conquest of Arabia could scarcely have been achieved had not the Koreish stood by Abu-Bekr to a man. The leaders, who for years had striven against the prophet in the stricken field and lost their nearest kin in the struggle, had begun to realise (some of them before the taking of Mecca and the majority directly after) that they would gain enormously in power and consequence by the supremacy of a Koreishite. Mohammed’s marvellous success had made most of them to a certain extent believers. Several of those who had been his most zealous opponents afterwards fell or were severely wounded as champions of his religion. The commander who bore the brunt of the battle for the subjugation of the rebel Arabs, displaying an equal measure of sagacity and energy, was a Koreishite, Khalid ben al-Walid, the same who had been mainly responsible for the victory of the Koreish over the hosts of Mohammed at Mount Ohod, close by Medina, eight years before.