the beginnings, at least, of his religious activity
we have to do, not with outside influences so much as
with certain great ideas which lay already in the minds
of his contemporaries, but which he laid hold of, or
which laid hold of him, more intensely. What distinguished
him was not so much the originality of his ideas as
the intensity of his conviction. He is not the originator
of monotheism in Arabia. In a sense he is not even the
preacher of monotheism. For with him that there is only
one God is an axiom rather than a truth to be argued
for. Nor can we trace in the Qur'an any struggle by
which he passed from paganism to a new faith, though
we can discern some of the things which had specially
impressed his mind as evidences of God's Being and Power.
He brooded over religious problems all his life. We
see him adjusting his ideas on several points almost
to the end. But—except in the one particular of the
possible recognition of the heathen deities as intercessors
with God—from the doctrine of the one God, His power
over men, and the moral requirements of His service,
he never varied by a hair's-breadth. He was a religious
genius, yet not one of the intuitive strikingly original
sort. His political genius impresses me even more. It
enabled him to carry his cause ultimately to wonderful
success. In his policy he could be accommodating, and
on occasion unscrupulous. It is impossible to acquit
him of the charge of having sometimes allowed his personal
desires and even his passions to influence it in details.
But in essentials his policy was dictated by intense
personal convic- |
