71

BIOGRAPHIES OF MOHAMMED

After Abd Al Muttalib's death, the right to entertain the pilgrims passed aver to his son Abu Tâlib, who, however, soon became so poor, that he left it to his brother Abbas, who received also the political charge of the temple.

It was, in fact, Abu Tâlib's poverty which obliged him to suggest that his nephew should seek for a livelihood in Khadija's service. Thus Wâckidi:—

When Mohammed reached his five-and-twentieth year, Abu Tâlib thus addressed him:—"I am, as thou well knowest, a man without substance, and the times deal hardly with me. Now here is a caravan of thine own tribe about to set out for Syria, and Khadija, daughter of Khuweilid, needeth men from amongst our people to send forth with her merchandise. If thou wert to offer thyself in this capacity, she would readily accept thee."

On a previous occasion, when Mohammed was a boy of twelve, Abu Tâlib carried him- on a mercantile trip to Syria: but this was simply because the orphan lad clung to his paternal protector. So Wâckidi again:—

When Abu Tâlib was on the point of starting, Mohammed was overcome by affection and by grief, at the prospect of being separated from him: and Abu Tâlib's bowels were moved, and he said, "I will take him with me, and he shall not part from me, nor I from him, for ever."

These are the only two mercantile expeditions ever undertaken by Mohammed. What then becomes of the "training at a proper "age, to the business of a merchant traveller, and continuing in "the employ of his uncle till he was twenty-five years old"?

Equally wrong is the following passage, regarding the evidence for the miracles of Mohammed:—

By some of the more credulous of Mohammed's followers, there are, it is true, several miracles attributed to him, as that he clave the moon asunder; that trees went forth to meet him; that water flowed from between his fingers ; that the stones saluted him; that a beam groaned to him; that a camel complained to him; and that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its being poisoned; together with several others. But these miracles were never alleged by Mohammed himself, nor are they maintained by any respectable Moslem, writer.

On the contrary, these miracles are maintained by every Mohammedan writer of the present day, whether respectable or not. Even the honest Wâckidi, as Dr. Sprenger well styles him, gives the whole of the miracles (excepting the first) specified above, and very many more besides. Indeed, a Mohammedan