Laying aside these crude legends, and confining our attention to probable history, I can only hope, in the compass of a single lecture, to barely touch upon a series of prominent points without any very careful regard to logical order.  This will perhaps insure the greatest clearness as well as the best economy of time.  And first, we will glance at the personal history of Mohammed—­a history, it should be remembered, which was not committed to writing till two hundred years after the prophet’s death, and which depends wholly on the enthusiastic traditions of his followers.  Born in the year 561 A.D., of a recently widowed mother, he appears to have been from the first a victim of epilepsy, or some kindred affection whose paroxysms had much to do with his subsequent experiences and his success.  The various tribes of Arabia were mostly given to a form of polytheistic idolatry in which, however, the conception of a monotheistic supremacy was still recognized.  Most scholars, including Renan, insist on ascribing to the Arabians, in common with all other Shemitic races, a worship of one God as Supreme, though the Arabian Allah, like the Baal of Canaan and Phoenicia, was supposed to be attended by numerous inferior deities.  Though Islam undoubtedly borrowed the staple of its truths from the Old Testament, yet there was a short confession strikingly resembling the modern creed of to-day, which had been upon the lips of many generations of Arabians before Mohammed’s time.  Thus it ran:  “I dedicate myself to thy service, O Allah.  Thou hast no companion except the companion of whom thou art master and of whatever is his.”

A society known as the “Hanifs” existed at the time of Mohammed’s early manhood, and we know not how long before, whose aim was to bring back their countrymen from the degrading worship and cruel practices of heathenism to the purity of monotheistic worship.  The old faith had been reinforced in the minds of the more intelligent Arabs by the truths learned from Jewish exiles, who, as early as the Babylonish captivity, had found refuge in Arabia; and it is a striking fact that the four Hanif leaders whom the young Mohammed found on joining their society, were pleading for the restoration of the faith of Abraham.  All these leaders refused to follow his standard when he began to claim supremacy as a prophet; three of them were finally led to Christianity, and the fourth died in a sort of quandary between the Christian faith and Islam.  The first two, Waraka and Othman, were cousins of Mohammed’s wife, and the third, Obadulla, was his own cousin.  Zaid, the last of the four, presents to us a very pathetic picture.  He lived and died in perplexity.  Banished from Mecca by those who feared his conscientious censorship, he lived by himself on a neighboring hillside, an earnest seeker after truth to the last; and he died with the prayer on his lips, “O God, if I knew what form of worship is most pleasing to thee, so would I serve thee, but I know it not.”  It is to the credit of Mohammed that he cherished a profound respect for this man.  “I will pray for him,” he said; “in the Resurrection he also will gather a church around him."[97]