ace no less than his
humility, and steadfastness under discouragement.

But beneath the weight of the marvellous the real man is almost buried.
He has stood for so long with the mists of obscure imaginings about him
that his true lineaments are almost impossible to reproduce. The Western
world has alternated between the conception of him as a devil, almost
Antichrist himself, and a negligible impostor whose power is transient.
It has seldom troubled to look for the human energy that wrought out his
successes, the faith that upheld them, and the enthusiasm that burned in
the Prophet himself with a sombre flame, lighting his followers to prayer
and conquest.

And indeed it is difficult, if not impossible, to re-create effectively
the world in which he lived. It is so remote from the seas of the
world's progression, an eddy in the tide of belief which loses itself in
the larger surging, that it makes no appeal of familiarity. But that a
study of the period and Mahomet's own personality operating no less
through his deeds, faith, and institutions than in the one doubtfully
reliable record of his teachings, will result in the perception of the
Prophet of Islam as a man among men, has been the central belief during
the writing of this biography. Mahomet's personality is revealed in his
dealing with his fellows, in the belief and ritual that he imposed upon
Arabia, in the mighty achievement of a political unity and military
discipline, and therein he shows himself inexorable, cruel, passionate,
treacherous, bad, subject to depression and overwhelming doubt, but
never weak or purposeless, continually the master of his circumstances,
whom no emergency found unprepared, whose confidence in himself nothing
could shake, and who by virtue of enthusiasm and resistless activity
wrested his triumphs from the hands of his enemies, and bequeathed to
his followers his own unconquerable faith and the means wherewith they
might attain wealth and sovereignty.

CHAPTER I

MAHOMET'S BIRTHPLACE

"And how many cities were mightier in strength than thy city that
hath cast thee forth?"--_The Kuran_.

In Arabia nature cannot be ignored. Pastures and cornland, mountain
slopes and quiet rivers may be admired, even reverenced; but they are
things external to the gaze, and make no insistent demand upon the spirit
for penetration of their mystery. Arabia, and Mecca as typical of Arabia,
is a country governed by earth's primal forces.