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. It has not yet emerged
from the shadow of that early world, bare and chaotic, where a blinding
sun pours down upon dusty mountain ridges, and nothing is temperate or
subdued. It fosters a race of men, whose gods are relentless and
inscrutable, revealing themselves seldom, and dwelling in a fierce
splendour beyond earthly knowledge. To the spirit of a seeker for truth
with senses alert to the outer world, this country speaks of boundless
force, and impels into activity under the spur of conviction; by its very
desolation it sets its ineradicable mark upon the creed built up within
it.

Mahomet spent forty years in the city of Mecca, watching its temple
services with his grandfather, taking part in its mercantile life,
learning something of Christian and Jewish doctrine through the varied
multitudes that thronged its public places. In the desert beyond the city
boundaries he wandered, searching for inspiration, waiting dumbly in the
darkness until the angel Gabriel descended with rush of wings through the